In Your Belly You Hold the Treasure
I dragged my camera out earlier this week while I was still miserable with flu and figured out how to move the tripod plate from my camera body to the zoom lens. Due to rain, I set up the camera in the garage and took a few bad photos out the open garage door. I also set up in the dining room, opened the back door and took photos. All I succeeded in doing was taking a lot of shaky craptastic photos and getting water spots on my lens.
I complained about it to glod with the result that he and I both confessed to wanting to dust off our camera equipment and start getting back into photography again more seriously.
We decided to start meeting regularly via Skype in order to provide each other with some structure, motivation and accountability. Our assignment for this week was just to get out and take a photo of something. Anything. To try to get one decent photo. I didn't manage to do anything until yesterday evening. I tried a few handheld shots with my zoom, but the light was too low so I dragged out the tripod. This time, dealing with the tripod and large lens made more sense to me. Glod had given me a few tips to cut down on shake: (1) turn off the image stabilization on the lens when using the tripod and (2) be sure to lock the lens after moving the telephoto in or out.
I spent a lot of time taking various shots combining the rising moon with various twigs, branches and bamboo leaves. My luck came when a Black Phoebe dropped into the tree I was using as foreground and started chirping at me. I somehow managed to orient my equipment and snap a handful of shots, including this one, which was my "shot of the week:"
Glod and I met this morning and shared our "homework" and the challenges met along the way. He showed me how to update my firmware on my camera. I'd completely forgotten that I could even DO that. We reacquainted ourselves with some embarrassingly basic features of our camera models and set our assignment for our next meeting: take a photo at a location within fifteen minutes of home.
I complained about it to glod with the result that he and I both confessed to wanting to dust off our camera equipment and start getting back into photography again more seriously.
We decided to start meeting regularly via Skype in order to provide each other with some structure, motivation and accountability. Our assignment for this week was just to get out and take a photo of something. Anything. To try to get one decent photo. I didn't manage to do anything until yesterday evening. I tried a few handheld shots with my zoom, but the light was too low so I dragged out the tripod. This time, dealing with the tripod and large lens made more sense to me. Glod had given me a few tips to cut down on shake: (1) turn off the image stabilization on the lens when using the tripod and (2) be sure to lock the lens after moving the telephoto in or out.
I spent a lot of time taking various shots combining the rising moon with various twigs, branches and bamboo leaves. My luck came when a Black Phoebe dropped into the tree I was using as foreground and started chirping at me. I somehow managed to orient my equipment and snap a handful of shots, including this one, which was my "shot of the week:"
Glod and I met this morning and shared our "homework" and the challenges met along the way. He showed me how to update my firmware on my camera. I'd completely forgotten that I could even DO that. We reacquainted ourselves with some embarrassingly basic features of our camera models and set our assignment for our next meeting: take a photo at a location within fifteen minutes of home.