Photos from My Yard in Sterling IL

I have a lot of new photos but getting time to sort and edit them is challenging since I take photos faster than I can edit. I finally got close enough to a Hummingbird to get a couple photos and I have some better photos of a Woodpecker with my new Canon XS DSLR camera.

Bird Photos, Sterling IL

Bluejay

Bluejay

Eastern Kingbird

Goldfinch on a Thistle Bush

Goldfinch on a Thistle Bush

Goldfinch on a Thistle Bush Monarch Butterfly

Goldfinch on a Thistle Bush

Goldfinch on a Thistle Bush Monarch Butterfly

New DSLR Camera

I’m just not happy with my new kodac point and shoot z981, it’s just too slow to start up, shuts off after 3 minutes and I can’t turn that off and the quality is not what I need for landscape, low light conditions and zoom so I finally bought a SLR professional camera. Some things are shocking and some things are great. Taking pictures is not easy, the camera has to be reconfigured every time the light situation changes and these aren’t easy to learn quickly but I am happy with how it’s going. The quality is as good as I expected in some situations but other times it is a let down and I must learn more on how to get better quality. Like with a lot of zoom, the quality doesn’t seem any better than the kodac other than they are raw files that can be edited much more and they are larger and no compression. Hopefully I will be able to start showing a big improvement with quality. The hard part is with longer exposures a tripod is required and since I take most photos from a boat that rocks it will be hard.

The camera I finally decided on is a Canon Rebel XS. I did buy a larger zoom lens for it too, a Canon 55-250mm IS. It is an entry level camera, but that’s all I could afford right now. I will keep my kodac point and shoot, I’m sure it will be used as much or more than the new one.

One thing I am learning is to not take a bunch of photos and try to get a good one out of them, but rather to take one shot and try to get it right because these images are very large and will fill up a computer in no time, and my external hard-drives, and editing the photos is very complex and takes a lot of time. I will be posting on how it’s going with this. I do have some decent photos of the river I will post soon, but so far I really don’t have a lot to show that’s any better then the point and shoot photos.

7/11/10 Bird Photos

Photos taken from my window in Sterling IL with Kodac z981

Downy Woodpecker

Woodpecker

Woodpecker

Woodpecker

Chickadee

Chickadee

Nuthatcher

Nuthatcher

New Bird Photos 7/10/10

Photos taken with a Kodac z981

House Finch

Female House Sparrow

Male House Sparrow

Squirrel and House Wren

House Finch, male

House Sparrow female

Female House Finch and Chickadee

Chickadee

Female House Finch (male is red)

Chipping Sparrow