Scattered Thoughts . . .

About a week ago, I posted some photos of birds after my first 'practice session' in capturing photos of these fast little creatures with some new gear. That previous session was the first part of a series of tests of different parts of my gear used in different combinations.  (You can read that blog post here.) I'm testing some new Micro Four Thirds format photography gear to use for wildlife photography. I decided to give this format a shot after getting snagged in a few different obstacles in using other formats. So far, I have to say that this Micro Four Thirds gear is hitting a sweet spot for use in wildlife photography. This morning I happened to see a few more birds visiting my neighbor's back yard not far from one of our kitchen windows so I figured this would be a good time to test a different lens... today would be for the used lens I picked up a couple of weeks ago... the Panasonic Lumix 45-200mm Vario f4 -5.6 OIS lens.  Again, as I mentioned in my prev

I decided to write this little tip guide as a way for me to fully understand everything I've learned about bird photography thus far.  Hopefully this little self-imposed homework assignment will help me with my own bird photography as well as help others.  As I thought about all of these tips and how each of these tips manages to play upon and affect other aspects of bird photography while, at the same time, are transferable to wildlife photography in general, I knew that putting all this knowledge in writing would help to sort and organize everything in my head.  Hopefully, others whom have been struggling to capture some nice bird photos (like I had been for years) may find at least some of this information useful enough to help improve their bird and wildlife photography. First and foremost, let me point out that I am not a professional wildlife photographer.  Photography is definitely a hobby for me.  Photography is also a form of art therapy for me as a struggle with ser

Panasonic G3 camera, Olympus Zuiko 70-300mm lens As I was writing my previous blog post this morning, I could hear all sorts of birds and squirrels outside  for the first time in quite a long time . It was as though they all moved into the area at the same moment! It has been unusually quiet here for months... no small wildlife at all... no birds, no squirrels... just an odd silence outdoors. All of a sudden, this morning, this all changed. I grabbed my newest camera purchase... my Panasonic G3 with my old Olympus 70-300mm lens mounted on it. This combo gives me a very long telephoto reach equivalent to a 600mm field of view on a full frame camera. This is a loonnnggg telephoto reach in a rather small package! When I stepped outdoors, I headed toward the deeper part of the backyard with old, tall trees where I figured most wildlife would be located. As I walked back that way, I listened to hear where the birds were located... "hmmm..." all the noise seemed to be c