Scattered Thoughts . . .

I'm taking it easy again today after another rather miserable night of poor health last night so I'm looking for things to do which won't worsen my health.  As I was looking at the photography gear on the shelves, I remembered that I wanted to try to use some extension tubes the next time I head outside with my camera... so, I evaluated the situation... I no longer felt miserable... the weather is nice although still slightly too warm for me for extended periods... and the camera gear was just sitting there doing nothing too. It was a good time to attempt to do some photography.  I grabbed a Sony camera body... a 70-200mm lens which wasn't long enough without the use of extension tubes the last time I attempted to shoot flowers with this lens... and I grabbed my extension tubes.  Every lens has a minimum distance you need to be from your subject in order for your lens to focus. If you get too close, it won't focus on your subject. I think the minimum distance

I ended up getting sidetracked away from painting a bedroom this morning (Lukey would tell me I got "derailed"... his new word of the day) and, by the time I had a chance to get back on schedule, it was really too late to get anything significant accomplished before lunch. And, after lunch, I must nap or my health will crash. So, to kill some time, I grabbed a different camera than I grabbed a few days ago and, again, headed out to our wildflower gardens. It is the end of the season now so there isn't much to shoot out there. This was more of an exercise in using a different type of camera... This camera I chose today is my old digital SLR camera which sports a beautiful and unique Kodak sensor. I'm not a fan of Kodak in the digital age, in general (they really shot themselves in the foot and wasted away an historic and tremendous corporation) , but this imaging sensor is stunning. It is my oldest camera but it has one of my favorite imaging sensors. The clarit

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