I love my new Nikon D7000

Santa brought me a Nikon D7000 with an AF-S DX Nikkor 18-105mm lens. I have been reading the manual for the last week and felt brave enough to go out and try to take a few photos. I headed out to the Folsom Railroad Museum this morning around 10:00 am only to find it closed. While looking through the wrought iron gate I saw it's shadow on the cement and thought it would be a fun shot.

Since that idea was a bust, with the railroad in mind I remembered an area off of Sibley Rd. that I had wanted to stop and take a photo of when the trees were in full color a few months ago.

I love this camera and lens and it is awesome that I can use all of my lenses with it (it is compatible with the lenses purchased for my Nikon D5100). It is going to be so nice not having to change lenses all the time. Now I just have to figure out what lens to have on what camera.

When I set my mind to something.....

Last month Bill and I went out to Folsom Lake for a walk. I brought my camera and only one lens. I happened on a pine tree where an Acorn Woodpecker was busy doing what woodpeckers do. Unfortunately two things were against me that day... it was a cloudy day and I had the wrong lens. When I downloaded the photo below, I saw something I couldn't see from where I was standing to take the photo. I didn't know that woodpeckers placed acorns from the oak trees into the holes they pecked to open up the acorns.

November 25, 2012, 3:30pm

Since there were so many holes pecked in the tree I knew I could go back to this tree another day to try to get a better photo. Today (a month later) I went to the same tree at the same time of day. This time it was a sunny day and I brought my Sigma 150 mm x 500 mm so I could zoom in to get a closer shot.  I really like the picture I was able to get of the two woodpeckers, one with an acorn in it's beak.

December 24, 2012 3:45pm

Long time no post

It has been a month since my last post. I have been out a few times to shoot pictures, but as the season changes the weather and lack of light has been a struggle for me.. I have been taking this time to read my photo books (got a couple great ones as early Christmas presents) and am hoping Santa brings me an external flash. Below I am sharing my first try at editing a picture I took in RAW and  also saved as a JPG file. I really wanted to do some fancy editing in Photoshop but I am soooo overwhelmed when I open the program I revert back to Picasa for editing. I will take the time this winter to master (yeah right) Photoshop.

RAW (edited then saved to JPG)

Edited in JPG