New games

 I went out yesterday afternoon for a while to -- let's face it -- challenge myself with the new camera. It was a windy, gusty, cloudy day (although nothing like what I hear they got north of us), so I knew that I didn't have a hope of getting much worth using. However, since the photography on this blog is meant to be pointless anyway, I figured that it would give me a good excuse to practice without worrying too much about the results.

Man, do I love digital photography for that. Can you imagine going out on a windy day with a film camera just to muck around a bit? You'd be broke in no  time after all of the processing fees. And not only that, you'd end up with nothing much to show for it, either. I like taking pictures, but I don't think I'd ever like it enough to sink that much money into wasting time.

Aaanyway.

Surprisingly enough, I did get a couple of shots that, while they definitely won't win me any prizes, are decent enough to post. You'll be seeing them over the next few days, no doubt.

There are a fair number of shots of the crocuses like the one above, naturally, since they're the only flowers out there at the moment (don't say it too loudly because I don't want to scare it, but spring may actually be thinking of starting, finally), but there are also a couple of leaf buds and things around the yard that aren't snow.

Finally, did I mention?

One of the highlights for me for a couple of reasons is the picture you see above. Doesn't look like much, I know, but not only is this my first spider photo of the season, it's the first spider photo for this camera. Yes, the Nikon is no longer a spider virgin, folks.

This particular spider is a long-jawed orb weaver, and it was tiny. And not only was it tiny, it was in the middle of its web on a windy day. And yet I was able to get a picture of it. Not the greatest picture, true, but I was able to focus in on it as it was wiggling away in the wind and get an identifiable shot.

I never would have been able to do that with my autofocus camera. It wouldn't have seen it.

Now, I imagine that there's a large part of my two fans who are saying well, duh, Dee to themselves right about now and wondering why I'm even bothering to play Captain Obvious about focus versus autofocus. You need to understand, though. For the last few years (as a matter of fact, ever since I put my Minolta SLR away in favour of playing digital), a huge part of my picture-taking has been trying to fool the sensors on autofocus cameras into seeing things that they didn't think were there. It was kind of a game, really. There's a spider; let's see if I can get a recognisable photo of it with a camera that's not built to do that.

It's amazing that I succeeded so often, really.

Imagine taking that mindset now and applying it to a fully functional DSLR. Not only do I not have to fool anything since I can focus things myself, but I can choose a faster shutter speed if I need to. Or zoom in a bit without a pretend digital zoom. Or change my depth of field even, dammit.

That's going to completely change how I approach things, and I'm looking forward to playing the new game.

And not only that. I don't have to give up the original game at all if I don't want to since I can just turn everything back to automatic on the days when I'm feeling lazy and go back to taking snapshots.

Hey, I know that I'm probably sounding like a dinosaur here, talking about cameras. I know taking pictures with a cameraphone is a lot more convenient than having to haul around an actual camera, but I can't imagine that it's nearly as fun. And I know that the end product doesn't even compare.

There's a different place for that anyway, and I expect that sometime in the next couple of months you'll start seeing that side of me as well. Yes, boys and girls, I will eventually get around to joining this decade and getting a smartphone. I just haven't decided on a provider yet, and since I'm not on contract with my current provider at the moment there's not really any hurry in it. It'll happen soon enough, though.

Anyway. Again. First picture of spider taken, first pictures of flowers taken, (FINALLY, did I mention???), and I'm well on my way to both learning how my camera works and making my father's new neighbour think I'm completely insane.

That last is an, erm, hazard of pointless photography. You tend to prowl around the yard looking generally mad and taking pictures of apparently nothing.



Lunch now. Probably no blogging from me tomorrow, but I may get one or two chances over the week to blather a bit. Assuming that this week's meetings don't take over my life the way that last week's meetings did, of course. Different meetings this time, at least.

Laaater...