Diario de clightowler

My kids say I'm a geek, and I'm not in a position to disagree with them.

I love my phone and my magnifying clip for getting close-up photos, like the Six-spotted Orbweaver on a Common Milkweed leaf. It means I can get up really close and from a couple of different angles. But I've been wanting to get pictures of birds for a long time, and the phone just wasn't good enough. I got a Canon Powershot SX40 through Marketplace for $100 (CDN). I have no idea if it's considered a 'good' camera by people who know about these things, but I LOVE it. I got the Tribe Oidaematophorini (Plume Moth) from about 3 meters away, just from a quick point-and-click that I didn't expect to work out, and the Teasel, which took a while to get it to focus on the right thing. I'm watching videos on YouTube to learn more, and I'm gradually getting better.

I was standing on a bridge for the Common Comfrey, thinking it was too far away to get a good photo, but by chance I saw the Two-spotted Bumble Bee and managed to get a recognizable photo from at least 10 meters away! I could see some sort of moving spot with the naked eye, but that was it.

As for getting photos of birds, the camera is great, when I can see them. I was very excited to get an awesome picture of an American Goldfinch high up in a tree. Unfortunately, my big difficulty is spotting birds. My Merlin app tells me what's there, and I can hear that something is really close, but I look around for ten minutes and just can't find it. Often, I get a glimpse of something flying away, and I realize it must have been right above my head. Well, I suppose that takes practice, too.

I've also downloaded an app called Geo Tracker on my phone, and used it with a program I found called Geo Setter, to tag my photos with the location, even though I don't have GPS on my camera. Surprisingly, my family were considerably less excited about this than I was, which is where the 'Geek' comment came from. It's not the first (or the 100th) time they've called me a geek, and I'm okay with that!

I love macro photography, and I get really good results with my phone plus the magnifying clip, but I've been trying to learn to do it with my new Canon.

I found a beetle in a glass candle holder, so I decided to use it to practice before releasing it.

I've figured out how to get it into macro mode automatically (basically making sure the lens is all the way in and pointing it at something close), but I find getting the photo awkward and difficult. I don't know why it seems to cast a much bigger shadow than the phone, because it's not much bigger. I angled the glass into the bright sun and tried to get good light on it, but it was difficult.

After getting about 20 photos (the best of which I've attached to the observation - they're the ones where you can see more of the glass), I eventually switched to my phone. Using the phone I got lots of clear photos without having to mess about with tilting the glass , although there were some where the focus was on the bottom of the glass, rather than the beetle.

One aspect is that the screen on the phone is bigger and brighter, so I can see what I'm doing more clearly in bright sunlight, but there's definitely more to it than that.

I guess I'll have to find more videos on YouTube, practice, and try to learn how to use the manual camera settings instead of just relying on automatic. For now, I'll keep using my phone and the point-and-click capabilities for the photographically-challenged!