Closing Out May With Pretty Pictures

At least, I hope they're pretty! Some of them have been double posted over at my photography blog for Rain's Thursday Art Date and my online photography course. Here they are, in random order, just for fun.

First red raspberries

Muscadines on pergola

Does and kids

California poppy in the garden swale berm

Snowpeas and strawberries

Asparagus flowers

Sky

Onion and turnip flowers

Sam

Peedee

Frog and water lily

Closing Out May With Pretty Pictures © May 2022

by Leigh at http://www.5acresandadream.com

March Photos

Closing out March with a few random photos from my March photo folder.

I have to comment on the above photo. I've put a lot of "cat in front of the wood stove" photos on my blog over the years, and about 99% of them have been with Sam in the kitty bed. One day, Meowy helped herself to the kitty bed, and big scaredy-cat Sam is too intimidated by feisty little Meowy to take it back! So, he's found himself a new spot to sleep. 

All remains well in Sam's world.

March Photos © March 2022 by Leigh

at http://www.5acresandadream.com

February Photos

 Closing out February with some miscellaneous photos I took this month.

February Photos © February 2022 

by Leigh at http://www.5acresandadream.com

My New Camera

 Thank you to everyone who commented on my Recommendations Wanted: What Is Your Dream Camera? blog post. Here's what I decided!

Canon EOS M50

There were too many things I liked about the mirrorless camera to not go with one. The Canon M50 received consistently positive reviews from consumers, camera websites, and serious photographers. The negatives were either inconsequential to me or not confirmed by other reviewers. In fact, it was interesting to me how many professional and serious photographers own and regularly use an M50 for personal use. YouTube comparison reviews for this class of camera usually used the M50 for their standard of comparison. Another plus is that it shoots in both JPG and RAW formats. RAW is the format used by professional photographers for the best quality photos. It's something I'm interested in exploring in the future.

Because it's such a popular digital camera, pricing for it is very competitive. Another plus! I was able to get the camera plus a used Canon mirrorless telephoto lens and two extra batteries and stay within my budget. I'll be looking into a macro lens in the future.

The camera does have an auto mode, which I'll use to learn all the buttons, menus, and icons. I found an excellent YouTube tutorial by Michael The Maven for my specific camera, which takes you through all those things. To practice, I'm going to do an activity I found called "Make 30 Photos."  I'll put these on my photography blog. You can follow that link to see how it's going. 

Once I'm comfortable with my M50, I plan to take a free online photography course to learn the manual mode - A Year With My Camera. I also found some free short classes over at Udemy (where I took Bill Mollison's permaculture design course). That might be a way to sample various teachers in case I want to take a paid course (which are very affordable at Udemy, even for me!) Then, there's always YouTube, of course.

So, there's my winter learning project. One that I'm really looking forward to!

My New Camera © December 2021

by Leigh at http://www.5acresandadream.com

Recommendations Wanted: What Is Your Dream Camera?

That is a question for all you photography buffs out there. I'm asking because I received an unexpected gift of money that I want to put toward a better quality camera. My cameras have always been low-end, mostly point-and-shoot types that 1) never give the kind of photos I'm hoping for and 2) seem to have a short lifespan. Since this is a rare opportunity for me, I want to spend that money wisely. What I'm hoping for is a professional quality camera for under $1000 (if there is such a thing!) 

The function of this camera will be for documenting our homestead projects and progress. So, I'm not interested in all the bells and whistles, nor in having a large collection of lenses. Besides general purpose, I like to take close-ups and zoom shots, so I've approached my research with that in mind. 

One thing  I was surprised to learn, is about mirrorless cameras. These are different from the single-lens reflex (SLR) cameras because their viewfinder doesn't use a mirror. So, the first leg of my research wasn't comparing brands and models, but the differences between DSLR (digital single-lens reflex) and mirrorless cameras. Then I organized what I learned into pros and cons relevant to my personal goals and needs. Here's what I've learned so far:

DSLR

PROS

• better battery life
• less expensive
• more lenses available
• optical viewfinder can be used when the camera is off

CONS

• larger
• heavier
• noisier
• slower burst speed
• optical viewfinder
• doesn't show exposure as it is
• doesn't show accurate depth of field
• little to no current development of DSLR technology (camera manufacturers still make DSLR cameras, but have pretty much switched their emphasis and development to mirrorless cameras)

Mirrorless

PROS

• smaller
• lighter weight
• quieter
• faster
• improved autofocus now rivals DSLR
• electronic viewfinder
• real time image preview (WYSIWYG)
• shows exposure as it is
• shows depth of field
• better quality video
• more mirrorless lenses available than previously

CONS

• shorter battery life
• more expensive
• electronic VF
• lower refresh rate (on lower end cameras)
• can't use it when the camera is off

There are also a few things which I'm basically neutral about:

• GPS - I know where I am
• WIFI or bluetooth - everything goes through a photo editor before uploading to the internet
• lens options
• I'm only interested in 3 basic lenses
• plus there lens adapters to use DSLR lenses on mirrorless cameras

At this point, I'm strongly leaning toward a mirrorless camera, but I'm open and ready for recommendations. If you're interested in photography and could buy your dream camera, what would it be and why? Opinions welcome!

Recommendations Wanted: What Is Your Dream Camera? 

© Dec. 2021 by Leigh at http://www.5acresandadream.com

Random Photos from 2019

I'm closing out the calendar year with photos that never made it to a blog post. Some of them were published elsewhere, croppings of a few made it to my blog header, but others not at all.

January

February

March

April

May

June

July

August

September

October

November

December

Onward.

Random Photos from 2019 © December 2019

by Leigh at http://www.5acresandadream.com