Day 226: Skippy

I was so happy about having my Camera to use again that I took a bit of a drive down to Tharwa via Point Hut Crossing this afternoon in the hope of taking a decent photo. I stopped off for a look around at the Tharwa bridge and as I was heading back to the road from the little car park at the bridge I spotted these 3 and pulled over for a few happy snaps.

They were only about 10 meters away and the big one looking directly at me was huge. I reckon he would have been at least 6 feet tall when standing up, probably even taller. His eyes never left me the whole time I was there taking photos either.

The picture is a little grainy because the light wasn't great, it was a little after 5:30 when I took this photo and the sun was well on its way behind the hills. Still better than what it would have looked like on the old Canon I was using until I got the Nikon and I won't even mention the iPhone...

Day 145: May Task - Something New

I've been threatening to upgrade from the old hand me down Canon since a blog entry in January, I even mentioned it again a few days later in another post about my planned upgrade path.

About a week ago my gorgeous wife became so frustrated with my constant complaining about 'really needing to get a better camera' that she offered me a solution: I'd had Birthday and Christmas presents that were never 'cashed in' so lieu of these she would buy me a new camera. I of course accepted this proposition very quickly and we ordered my new Nikon J1 twin lens kit online. The J1 doesn't have a built in flash so I also ordered the Speed Light flash as well.

Today's photo was obviously not taken with my new Nikon, instead I used Belinda's point & shoot Sony. Now all I need to do is get used to the new camera and take more photos. I've already discovered the flash is amazing and that I can shoot in rapid fire mode at 60 shots per second... it doesn't take long to accidentally take 200 photos.

Day 18: The Upgrade Path - Part 1

You'll never guess who didn't take a photo for today's entry... but it's ok, being the resourceful fellow that I am I decided that tonight I'd show what has become a nightly event for me and share my thoughts on what's involved and what's required.

This blogging thing has taken over my evenings. The time is spent between stringing sentences together in a loosely coherent fashion and editing the photo of the day. The photo is usually played with using the Snapseed app on the iPad and I also use some of the effects in iPhoto on the MacBook I inherited from Belinda. Usually the photos are taken on the Camera that was handed down to me by Belinda's mum. So of the tools used for my nightly activities it's only the iPad that is truly mine.

This brings me to the 'Part 1' in today's post title: My plan is to make certain upgrades throughout the year. Part 2 will probably involve an upgrade to photo taking implement, I'm undecided as to what form the upgrade will take as yet but whatever it is it will need to be more responsive and take better indoor photos wile still being compact. Part 2 might take a while with such vague requirements and so many cameras to choose from.

By the way today's photo was taken with my phone.

Day 11: Prancing Puppies

After comparing the excitement of Jenna and Henry seeing each other to that of the dogs when they're let inside for the evening in yesterday's blog entry, I decided I'd try to capture the dogs going nuts tonight... I knew it wasn't going to be easy with the old hand me down Canon donated by Daphne and I was right, the first photo was of the stairs sans dogs, they were just too fast.

Luckily Rex goes a bit more nutso than Milly does and he usually heads back up our 3 steps to bound down them again. On his second run I managed to grab the photo above as he's leaping from the second step.

My best laid plans of capturing both Prancing Puppies in full lunatic mode were dashed when I found that all the photos with both of them were either out of focus or just didn't capture the movement and excitement that happens every night. In hindsight I should have borrowed Belinda's Nikon, it's so much faster than the little point & shoot Canon.

I may end up borrowing the Nikon a little more often throughout the course of the year... Belinda is yet to hear about my cunning plan of SLR snaffling...