birds, birds, and more birds.

yesterday i mentioned i bought a new camera.  since it rained saturday, i didn't get a chance to play around with it too much.  during one of the breaks in the rain i thought i could take it out back and test out it's zoom.  i'm no stranger with mega zoom cameras.  my kodak Z981 provided decent pictures at a long range.  i loved taking it to the zoo because it normally, didn't disappoint.  however, i could never get the hang of working the settings to get an overall crisp picture.  probably my lack of patience had something to do with it also - but after a very disappointing outcome of the pictures from one of the demon's christmas programs i retired the kodak. 

anywho.. after doing some research i found that this was the best choice and after debating long and hard about getting yet another camera... i did!   my canon is still a fantastic super compact camera that i will always try to have with me on hand but the lumix is the camera i will be taking places when i want a more detailed picture or want to capture something from a distance.

okay, back to the point of this post - birds.  this is how far away i was from my grannie's bird feeder...

you can barely see the birds...right?

my first shot was to see how well i could zoom in on the birds eating on the ground.

not too bad!  i know it's not as crisp as a picture could/should be but it's not disappointing.  

next up was the bird feeder - that's where i was impressed the most...

i mean, seriously!  look at that bird going in for a landing!

 

this big guy came swooping in and scared off all the little guys.

after i took, what i thought was more than enough, pictures of the birds i turned to my left and saw some flowers.  usually, they are covered with bees so i thought i could get a close up of one of them - hoping to not get stung.  but, for some reason, there were no bumble bees around.  this is the only guy on the flowers so this is the best i could get...

definitely not the best but far from my worst.  if i had more time and light i may have practiced more with the camera.  all the pictures taken in this blog were taken with my camera in full auto.  i can't wait until i have a nice sunny day and better subjects to practice with more manual controls.  

i'm thinking a zoo visit is in our near future, i need to practice!