Playing with new cameras (Pics enclosed) About This Page:

[Pax]

Well; my DGF and I both resolved to get new cameras, what with our impending trip to Disney. (Woo! ONLY THREE MONTHS! Woo! ) Well, a visit to the Southwick Zoo in Mendon, Massachusetts this past weekend seemed like a good opportunity to practise, and get to know our cameras better, in a sort of "touring in a park setting" environment. We took far fewer pictures than we will at Disney, I think - Southwick is miniscule in comparison to anything Disney has on offer - but we still got a few nice photos.

Which, yes, I am about to inflict on you all. BWA HA HA!

DGF's pictures were taken with her brand-new Nikon Coolpix L18, a point-and-shoot with 8 megapixels, 3x optical zoom (and 4x digital zoom), no viewfinder but a gloriously-crisp-image, 3" LCD screen (honestly, I'm envious of that screen). She has very little direct control of the camera's settings, but it's designed for people who, as she put it, wants to TAKE pictures, not think about HOW to take them ... and it does pretty darned good at just that. (Native size of her images is 3264x2448)

My pictures were taken with my now-three-month-old Fujifilm Finepix S5700, a point-and-shoot that looks like a little DSLR, but has a fixed lense. 7.1 megapixels, 10x optical zoom (and no digital zoom), and electronic viewfinder and 2.5" LCD screen, and a good mix of automation and manual control. Mostly, I stick to the automated stuff for now; this camera was picked for me to "grow into", and I haven't done much growing yet. Heh. (Native size of my images is 3072x2304)

Everythign was resized from their native sizes (see above) to 800x600, so as not to break the forum (and, to avoid Photobucket's horrible, malicious, image-mangling forced resizing ...!)

Anyway ... on to the pictures! (Just a few, I promise ...)

DGF's pics

This image is, IMO, the best she took that day; I for one am impressed with how well it came out ... and it's half luck that she got anythign decent at all. It's a kookaburra, and the fence of it's enclosure was playing merry heck with both of us, due to autofocus issues. However, the Nikon's lense is narrow enough to fit through the chain-link fence's openings, and with a bit of "best guesstimate" aiming, she managed this beauty:



This is somethign called a "Cavy" ... some kind of rodent:


Given the sunlight on very light-colored dirt, and the slight back=lighting ... I'm frankly surprised this came out so well. None of mine did ...

We both got nearly identical shots of this alligator; it's difficult to tell her shot apart from mine, to be honest, other than which memory card the image is on:


She also can claim the only usable image of the Giraffes; at that point, the sun was shining very fiercely on HALF of their area, and not at all on the other half ... so everything came out with horribly over-exposed areas, for both of us. Still, this isn't half-bad, IMO:


And lastly, just because it's not a halfway-bad pic of me, here's ... me! (I swear, the cat-hair didn't show up this bad in REAL life ... I think her camera hates me ... heh!)

(The T-shirt is from Schlock Mercenary, a webcomic I read daily. Great, funny stuff, IMO.)

My pictures

Okay, now it's my turn!

Between the two of us, we must have taken some twenty pictures of this Leopard - a gorgeous fellow sunning himself on a large rock - and this one is the only remotely-decent one; the darned fence was more than a slight problem:


I'm especially happy with how well this close-up of the zoo's lioness came out - this is maximum zoom, and through another of those darn fences - I had to aim at th ground behind me ad guesstimate distances, to lock the focus ... but she still came out great:

(I can't wait for Animal Kingdom ... and the total, glorious LACK OF FENCES on the Kilimanjaro Safari ...!)

Another one I think came out great is this close-up of a giant Tortoise; slow as he was, he actually turned his head to focus one eye on me while I took this. A very photogenic critter!


This is the same animal, but a full-body shot:


Just to put this in perspective, you remember that pic f me? Yeah, teh fat guy with the webcomic T-shirt? This sucker's bigger than I am, around the middle. TWICE as big, at least. He's also at least five feet from the front edge of his shell, to the back edge. In a word: big.

And finally (for this thread), I managed a nice shot of a monkey ... I forget the specific species ... which, unlike all the OTHER shots, is actually family-friendly. (He was a very naughty monkey ... who felt the need to make dominance displays to all passers-by. We, of course, laughed ... which turned out to be a one-up on his displays, and he walked away hooting back at us ...! Silly monkey!)


Anyway, that's all I'll inflict on you here. If you want to see more, you can check out the whole album. That's not ALL of our pictures, just the ones I think are "keepers" ... about 1/10 of what we shot that day.

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Well, thanks for letting me show off. ^_^ I can't wait to get to Disney, and take thousands of pictures. Per day, if I can manage it!

[Colexis Mom]

Great pictures!!

[LizardCop]

Great shots Sean, especially with new cameras!!!

Both cameras are great cameras, versitile and each has it's place. She hit the nail on the head for hers, it's for someone that wants to take pictures...

The fence issue can be resolved by setting the focus point to center focusing. This will make the camera focus on whatever is in the middle spot on the screen, which helps you ignore the fence in the photo. All of my cameras are set for center focus only as I have to shoot through fences and bushes/trees a lot...

The mixed lighting presents it's own problems. If my subject is in the bright area, I focus with the majority of my screen in the bright area and let the camera set it's adjustments, then once focus/aperture-shutter is set, reposition the camera and shoot. I almost always take pics with the camera set in both the light and dark areas, and sort them out later on the computer...

You've got the right idea, get out there and practice, practice, practice...

[RobDVC]

nice shots!

[TMWIlson7196]

Great pics.

[Pax]

First off, thanks to everyone so far who likes the pictures.

Second off:

Originally Posted by LizardCop

The fence issue can be resolved by setting the focus point to center focusing. This will make the camera focus on whatever is in the middle spot on the screen, which helps you ignore the fence in the photo. All of my cameras are set for center focus only as I have to shoot through fences and bushes/trees a lot...

Hmm, I'll have to see if either/both cameras can do that.

I know hers specifically looks for human faces, and tries to focus on them if it finds any (a neat feature for taking portrait-style snapshots - "here's us in front of ___, and then in front of ___, and then [...]" stuff). It's really nifty to see it in action.

Thanks for the advice!

[stretch2864]

Nice pics! Thanks for sharing with us!

[chezp]

What stunning images!

[Cam22]

Excellent work with your new cameras! Practice is definitely working for you two! Love the photos!

[carters_mom]

Those are great! I think both cameras and photographers did a great job