Playing With the dSLR

Wonderful Guy and I headed up to Estes Park and Rocky Mountain over New Years to try out some tips and tricks with the camera Eldest Daughter showed me during her visit.

This camera has lots of tricks. And I need lots of tips.

I have only begun to scratch the surface using the lens I purchased originally, that came in the kit.

But for Christmas, I put a zoom on my list, which the Guy bought for me.

And we wanted to try it out. We wanted to get some Wild! Life! Shots!

So up the mountain we went. Before Christmas, when we took Eldest and ManFriend up to Rocky, we took this shot. It is an exposure (technical term!) of a bachelor party of bull elk. How many do you see?

There are five in this photo.  Really.

This past week end (and this may be the same group, actually), we were able to zoom in on these guys. From further away, I do believe.

Sweet, huh?

In town we found these folks lounging…

And the snow blowing around this deer.

But as we headed home, at dusk, and after I had changed out lens, the lights on the Stanley (remember The Shining, or Dumb and Dumber?) came on. Wonderful Guy turned up the road saying ‘this might be worth a shot’.

(lighter than it really was)

I was full of excuses…too dark, no tripod, zoom put away…blah blah blah…but I would try. I put to work the tips on exposure that Eldest had fed me.

(mostly realistic of actual light)

I tried a couple of different aperture stops, setting the shutter speed accordingly, with the camera on Manual.

Then I adjusted the ISO setting.

I had a few shots that were worthless, but I got some really good shots, too, I think. (No photoshopping here, except for sizing.)

The Stanley Hotel, Estes Park, January 2,2010, at dusk.

Also, on Tuesday, this week, I had my old co-worker knitting peeps over. And it was suh-weet!