Sunday was dull and cool for most of the day but then during the evening things took on rather a strange twist.
As you can see it was rather cool all day but the temperature started to lift in the early evening and peaked at 11.2°C at 23:00. At the same time it became very windy and poured down with rain but the rain and wind disappeared as quickly as they had arrived.
I’d been thinking about upgrading my DSLR camera with a macro lens for a good number of months and thought Christmas would be the time to make the purchase. I’d previously done some research on the Internet and decided then that a Sigma 105mm f/2.8 EX DG OS HSM Macro would be a good addition for my Nikon D3200. Just before the holidays I had another look on the Internet, a sort of final check that I’d made the right decision and a final chance to look at some close up images taken using this lens and uploaded to the Web.
Then suddenly I had some doubts about whether or not I was doing the right thing. The talk of a macro lens stirred Sue into taking some pictures with her Panasonic Bridge camera. A couple of those shots are shown below.
Seeing these pictures I had to question whether or not I was going to do any better with a macro lens. I couldn't really convince myself I could and it wasn't as though the lens was cheap coming in at around £400.
I was sort of back to square one so to speak except that, since Sue has had her Panasonic DMC FZ72 with its 60x zoom (1200mm DSLR equivalent) and wide angle lens, I've been very reluctant to carry around my Nikon camera with its long and very heavy zoom lens especially as even then its zoom power is 500mm.
If you follow our blogs you will be aware that Sue and I can visit the same place yet take quite different sets of photographs. I started to like the idea of having such a powerful camera with me on our visits out, rather than Sue taking all the stills shots and me just taking video, and that such a camera might be a far better long term option than adding yet another lens for my DSLR camera which I've become reluctant to carry around.
So I decided on a bridge camera with a massive optical zoom which surprisingly was a cheaper option than my Sigma macro lens. Now when it comes to really massive zooms there aren't then many alternatives to choose from. Initially I thought the choice was easy go for the same Panasonic as Sue has as I knew just what it was capable of doing but after much Internet browsing I eventually decided not to put all our pictures in one basket and opted for a Sony DSC HX 300 which has a 50x optical zoom and wide angle lens.
So my new camera got its real first test at RSPB Old Moor this week. I was pleased with the results for the first time out. Its amazing having such a light camera packing such an amazing zoom after my DSLR. It will take a little bit of getting used to to switch on things like burst mode and getting the focusing spot on but I think it will be well worth the effort. The Canada goose above was one of my first shots as it very obligingly kept its pose whilst I fiddled with the camera settings. It didn't take long before I felt confident enough to have a go at taking a few shots of birds in flight.
After outing one I'm rather chuffed that I went for the Bridge camera rather than another lens for my DSLR camera. I did manage a photo of that owl nesting box that can be seen from one of the hides at Old Moor.
Back in November I blogged about using our telescope with a camera and took some shots of this nest box which can be found here. The above picture was a hand held shot and wasn't set up on a tripod which I think makes the sharpness of the picture pretty good.
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Laughing a lot here. You lost me after the first paragraph of this post, reminding me that Derek very kindly gave me a book about digital photography and I promised him I would tackle a chapter a week and I am still using my phone to take all my pictures. The second picture of the Gerbera is amazing.
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