Missed Opportunity

There I was minding my own business looking over some images in Lightroom when Mindy hollered from upstairs, "Deer in back".  Ever hoping to capture something of interest from these frequent visitors I grabbed the camera and headed for the sun room.  The deer were on the move and not lingering as they usually do when, suddenly, two of them went up on hind legs and started sparring.  I quickly lowered one of the upper windows, placed the 300mm on top of it and fired.  Click...nothing.  The thoughts were racing through my head at warp speed.  Mirror went up...then... nothing.  Why?  What the heck?  Almost as fast, I realized I had the camera set to mirror up and on Manual Mode.  As fast as I could, I set the drive dial to CH and Aperture Priority and fired again.  The photo above is a result of the adjustment.

So what of the missed opportunity?  Well, I was able to capture this one deer still on her hind legs but missed the both of them going at it hoof to hoof.  That photo was completely blown out.  Total white frame.  

The lesson here?  Remember to adjust your camera settings to y-o-u-r defaults after using it for other purposes so your ready to grab and shoot with confidence when time is of the essence. 

How to Photograph Steam

The other afternoon when I was heating some water for tea and went to the kitchen to check on it there was strong sunlight coming in the window streaming across the stove top.  The background was sufficiently dark that the steam from the tea pot was accentuated quite well.  This prompted me to grab the camera to see how it would photograph because I'd not specifically shot for steam before now.

Our State Bird

Just a quick post showing the Ohio state bird that came to our feeder the other morning.  I was fortunate to see them when I did because they tend to not stay for long.  There were five males and three females when I first saw them but by the time I grabbed the camera and got back to the window they had all flown away.  So, I opened the window despite the 3 degrees outside and waited.  Soon, this male and female returned and I was able to get a few shots off.  I had hoped to get them together but that didn't happen.