One of the unexpected side benefits of my recent roadtrip is that I roused myself to upload my photos to Flickr again. I used to upload photos to the site every day. In fact, I was a member of several “photo a day” posting groups. I’m here to tell you, posting every day and having group members comment on your photos is the fastest way to improve your photography. I’m not sure exactly why I stopped, but it had something to do with my camera malfunctioning, then buying another one that I never did master. Finally, I’m on my third camera body and this one seems to be the best yet. But, of course, Nikon has changed the controls and menus enough that I’m still struggling with the learning curve. And let’s be honest: in the interim, I’ve pretty much forgotten everything I once knew about photography. Or maybe I just got lazy.
Enter my early New Year’s Resolution: master this camera and get back to and exceed whatever technical proficiency I once had. For me, photographing native plants up in Sonoma has always been a good master class. Well, they do hold still and let you fiddle around with you camera controls much better than terriers will. So let’s see if I can fill up this blog, Flickr and Instagram with better photography than I’ve been churning out lately. And I have an upcoming benchmark. November 14 a Super Moon will rise that is larger (closer to the Earth) than it has been since 1948. I’m packing up Buffalo Soldier, my teeny tiny RV, and heading down to Joshua Tree National Park to photograph it. That means I have about two weeks to figure out night photography, star trails and other fancy stuff.
But, in the meantime, here are some Sonoma plants.
Did I mention that the last three weeks have seen a lot of rain? Around here, that means time for erosion control.
After a long, hot summer, the plants are loving it.
I love how succulents just plump right up after some good rains.
Ranch Manager Louis’s little mini-gardens are looking especially good.
It all ended with a glorious sunset and sliver of a moon. Both of which would take a lot more study and practice on my part before I can capture them expertly.
With you on the camera thingy…I have a Lumox still in the box I’d like to be rid of, and rejected the Nikon 6 for the 5 based on online reviews. Trying to take photos of my niece on horseback (at her request so she could post them back to friends in Singapore) was a night -mare. And a day one too. I thought I’d be smart and just use autofocus or “sports” functions because of all the movement involved, and I’m out of practice with my follow focus…let’s just say that Hudson, Ulysses, Riffraff, and Clyde were all in beautiful focus…you could practically count each hair in their manes and tails. The niece? Not so much. Argh! I used to develop b/w film in my bathroom after spooling it onto a wire reel in a dark bag. Oy. I wonder if an old dog can relearn old and some new tricks? Good luck with your project. And capturing the super moon! Every time we have a gorgeous moon here, I shoot it and it looks like it was shot from the bottom of a coke bottle. Much smaller than real life. Argh again. Ok. Gotta fix this. Let us now if you find an easy to follow resource. Love your blog posts!!
Half the problem is not you. It’s camera companies’ penchant for completely changing all their controls between camera versions. Face it, once you get all the auxiliary lenses, you are stuck in Nikon or Canon or Whatever World. I was fine with my old Nikon D80, which I passed to my husband and got a D90, still the same controls and menus. Then the D90 got temperamental and I went with the next latest — well, it might as well have been a completely different manufacturer’s camera for all the changes they made in every single control. I swallowed my pride and went a step down to the Nikon D3300. It’s billed as “My Very First DSLR”. But it has the same control systems and operating pattern that the old D80/90 used to have. So it feels much more intuitive to me. If I were a better photographer, I might notice a slight difference in the quality of photos I’m able to get between this and a higher-end model for the more accomplished photographer, but I find what really matters is the ability to react quickly and not have to scroll through a million new menus to set up a shot. And this is much lighter than the more “professional” models, so I’m more likely to carry it around. That’s the other end of the equation. So far, I’m pretty happy with it. Although I do need to work through some of the fine controls. Metering on manual and using a tripod are probably the two single most important factors. Neither of which has to do with the camera.