Crumbs

Today I went with our photography club to take wildlife photos on a farm near McIntosh and the Paynes Prairie Preserve just south of Gainsesville. ,FL. Our guide was Sean Dowie, a photographer from McIntosh. (Yes, Sean uses a Mac.)His website is www.smdphotography.com. So 25 of us met in The villages and drove up I 75 to McIntosh and Sean’s studio. We went to the Richardson farm. There wasn’t much activity as the duck hunters nearby scared off the birds. The palm trees and water was pretty, but not too exciting. We then went by tractor and trailer (like a hayride) to Inviness. There was a general store and post office. The building was weathered and made interesting photos. We then proceeeding to the Styx River on some county road. There I captured some good reflections of trees in the water. We had lunch in Micanopy. We’ll have to go back to visit this town, Then off to the Paynes Prairie Preserve. This is the area that can be seen on both sides of I 75 traveling south of Gainesville.  This preserve had numerous birds, turtles, and over 200 gators. Some were 14 feet in length. I thought I would see more varieties of birds.

I brought both the Nikon D40 with a 200 mm lens and the Coolpix L90. I think the D 40 photos came out better. They were much sharper with better color. Even though I can zoom closer with the 24X zoom on the Coolpix, the D40 is the better camera. Of course this was my first test in the field with this camera.

Tomorrow we are going to a bird sanctuary near Zellwood.  Hopefully the rain will hold off until later in the day.

I think this might be the last new camera for awhile. I have a Nikon D40 DSLR (now discontinued) which takes great photos. This is a 6.1 megapixel camera. I don’t print posters. The problem was a lack of zoom with the lens. It comes with an 18-55 mm lense. So last year I added a 70 -300 mm lens. From what I can tell that is equal to a 6 or 7X optical zoom. It focuses great. But I wanted to get in closer for nature photography. At the Photography Club in The Villages a meeting pertained to cameras. I learned lots. Since I already had a Nikon I thought not jumping to a Canon would be smart.So I found a good deal on the Nikon P90. It is a CoolPix camera and feels great. It has less features than the P90. For example, the D40 does camera raw while the p90 doesn’t. The lense is equivalent to 624 mm. Wow! I haven’t shot much yet, but hope to make up for that when back in Florida. I know I’ll have to rely more on a tripod. I also need to get better at night shots.One thing I need to get used to is turning it on by accident. So I’ll report back next month.