More practice

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My mum flew down for a visit over the weekend, so I spent a lot of time with camera in hand, taking photos of family and various flora and fauna that she identified for me. Mum and her partner are both Super Bird-y Garden-y Experts Extraordinaire - I go to them with all my random horticultural and wildlife questions. “What is that bird? What is that tree? What animal is making that strange scratching sound in the chimney?” They’re better than Google, they are. Oh, and they think it’s a sugar glider up the chimney. (Awwww!)

So I put my big zoom lens on the camera and clicked away all weekend. The day we went walking in Lamington National Park I got irritated by the grinding noise of the lens as it focussed on the dimly lit rainforest, and switched it over to manual focus. I regretted that after I spent quite some time deleting about half the blurry photos I took. I am crap at manual focus, especially when I’m using a lens extended out to 200mm.

I also need to get better at framing my photographs and taking them in appropriate light - I spend a ridiculous amount of time post-processing in Photoshop with every batch of photos I download onto the computer. Part of that is my preference for the rich saturated colours I can get with a little adjustment in Photoshop, but part of it is poor framing in the first place, or taking photos in bad light. It’s a good reminder, I think, that before I start saving up for a new lens I need to get better with what I have - practice, practice, practice.

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