Monday, January 11, 2010

Becoming a Real Photographer



I have been taking pictures of animals since I was a kid in college but I hate to say all were done with point and shoot cameras. I finally got a film SLR Canon AE1 but I put it on auto and off I went. I have taken lots of good pictures of animals acting like animals in the wild. I never captured the depth of field or exposure other than what the camera took on auto. I recently passed the Canon AE1 on to my daughter for her use in college biology classes and I moved up to one of the new Canon SLR digital cameras. I placed it on automatic and off I went into the woods. You have seen many of those pictures on this blog and it does a real good job of turning out good pictures.


Last week I took my first Photography class at the Dougherty Arts School and placed my camera on manual. I also put on a 150-500 telephoto lens and went into the wilds of a park near here to get some wildlife pictures. I finally found a Great Blue Heron right at sunset. He was sitting on the entrance pond of a major subdivision in my area and I stalked to where I could get a shot before he flew off. I was not able to set up a tripod and handheld the telephoto which I should not do for clear pictures. I only got four shots before the heron flew for parts unknown and only one with his head held high. It may not be an award winning shot but I took it with my camera, my new lens and did it all manually. I hope to take many more. Wild Ed

3 comments:

Tim Covington said...

I will give you the same advice my photography professor in college gave his classes. Take lots of pictures. The more pictures you take, the more likely you are to get that spectacular shot. The advantage we have today is, as long as your camera is digital, it casts almost the same to take 1 picture as it does to take 1000.

Z@X said...

Have always admired your eye for photography. Looking forward to more!

Rob said...

Nice picture! Can't wait to see what other images you capture.