The Little Merganser was at Duck Harbor again...Robin's taking a bath too...and Grey Squirrels hiding nuts....I dont see any acorns yet on the Oaks...need to study that out(for goodness sake...the Kellog's (Deer House) Oaks grow acorns in alternate years!!...hmmph...I was looking forward to them 'raining' into the Creek again!)...the Dogwood Bracts are ripe and the Robins and Grey Squirrels eating them up....near the Footbridge, Mama Doe and One Fawn showed up...got a blurry pic with the new camera...
a tech note: with the new camera in auto mode..the green rectangle on the dial...the flash will pop up when taking shaded pics....so one goes to P on the dial...Program...and uses the menu selection to shut the flash off..so it wont pop up!...and go off...I wont use flash as the light wipes out the natural highlight in the critters' eyes...I'm really kinda proud of the highlights I got in Owl's eyes...the lighting that evening was right out of art school!...one of the photo mags just went over the importance of these highlights...and they are really really important...just ask any portrait painter!...anyway...the flash on the 12x doesn't pop up in auto....it's manual...one has to lift it up...now....another thing I tried to do in P was set the iso to 100...the lowest isos have the finest grain...just like the old asi in film....high isos are grainier...or what is now called noisier!...this can all be very confusing!...but anyway...when I took a pic in the shade of Mama Doe and One Fawn it went off at one fifth of a second at f stop five point six and at the iso I had set...one hundred...and of course it was blurry...and in one Mama Doe is completely blurred out by her movement...I could have taken the pic with the 12x in auto without any problem...so it's a bit of a puzzle the trouble I'm having with the new camera...a big part of it is the lens...zoomed out to 300mm it goes to minimum f stop 5.4...I think I have it right...so it is 'slow'...and with the set 100 iso it's having a hard time picking any kind of quick shutter speed!....to use the new camera with any kind of effectiveness in shade I may have to go to manual everything (which is way to slow to the 'draw')...even focus...and use live view to gauge what I'm seeing...the view finder has a display of exposure settings...but it doesn't have the lcd feature...a mini live view...that the 12x has!!...and seeing the scene darken and lighten in live view has been giving me a good idea of what exposure to use...in the old days it was always a guess...and bracketing exposure the way to deal with the mystery of just what light one is seeing...the lcd..and the live view...I'm finding..are very close to what the camera sees! ...dont know but someone could make a buck with a handheld independent light meter...that's an lcd screen...a live view!...(Oh...a remote control!...I acquired the remote shutter release... a remote lcd screen with all the menu tools...that would be kinda neat!...maybe even a toggle stick for the camera on a powered tripod!!) (addenda: here's a link to a prototype digiscope...with a remote control!!...dont know if it does video!...but it's the future of things....http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6J5Io4lvko)
to pick up a pinpoint I passed!....in P I can use all the auto features...and the camera will choose..like it does in auto..the iso it 'thinks' is best....I've been kinda wary of this...when I took the Owl pic the iso was like over a thousand!!...which has led me to 'lock' the iso...at a lower setting!...but clearly I went too low!!
I'm trying to work out a Gear blog annex to all this...and the first thing I'll post up is a comparison of the settings the 12x and new camera used when I took the Owl pics...
It may well be that the 12x is a more versatile and capable camera...and a big reason for this is that it was entirely designed with digital technology in mind..the dslrs and their lenses are a kinda cobbled together hodgepodge of things new and things from the days of film...
When I was taking the Deer pics a Pileated Woodpecker flew over...chattering...and flying way too fast to track...I've heard a couple reports of them in the Backyard...saw a pair once from Last Chance over Breakfast...hurried outside..but no luck...
cloudy a bit today...warm...tomorrow I'll go check the Sugar Maple...last year it was spectacular...Oct. 3 ...
Oh...lost a great pic of Coyote crossing the Merced at the Twig (midway along Lodgepole Point)...too fumbly...even with the 12x already perched on the tripod!...did get one blurry pic...all in all a kinda blurry day!
The pic of the Little Merganser is a still from a clip...and at a small size...here or as a print...it has merits equal to the challenge of any camera!..even a Holga!...which is a kinda really neat thing of the 12x clips...some of the new point and shoots have even higher resolution video...and tout how one can extract stills from them....dont know but the cameras are approaching a resolution that will make taking a 'still' almost obsolete!...a time will come when one will film a scene and adjust the exposure and focus while fiming...I do this now by panning and letting the auto focus and auto exposure pick a different part of the scene to regester!...oh...I have to post up the Two Top Pine Deer clips!...
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