Rock Pigeon (Columba livia)

"Familiarity breeds contempt" goes the old saying but even if not contempt, familiarity often blinds one to commonplace beauties such as this Rock Pigeon (Columba livia). While not native to North America they have naturalized themselves here and over most of the globe and come in a wide variety of colors. Though they are often considered pests they are very attractive birds and the one above posed so nicely for me I felt quite grateful. Photographed at Esquimalt Lagoon on 19th October.

Old Town - New Lens

I've been neglecting Victoria's downtown lately because my daily rambles have been taking me down the Westsong Walkway more often. However yesterday was such a beautiful clear, sunny day that I decided to try out a new (used) lens on Johnson Street. Above is lower Johnson Street, part of what is called "Old Town" because it is the area near Fort Victoria that was earliest settled. Most of this area was built in the 1860s.

One of the advantages of a Digital Single Lens Reflex camera that will accept legacy lenses is that one can try out many different types of lenses without spending a great deal of money. Today's three photos were taken with a lens that cost $23 and I am quite pleased with it. What I look for is how sharp the lens is - I love nice crisp images; how well it reproduces color and contrast, and how well it operates mechanically. This lens performs well in all these categories and is a nice mid-range zoom (28-70 mm f3.5) that will probably become a favorite in my camera bag.

Legacy Lenses: When I refer to "Legacy lenses" I mean lenses that were produced for older style cameras - film cameras or early digital cameras. My current camera is a Sony Alpha 550digital single lens reflex. It uses any of the Sony lenses and, since Sony bought Minolta, it will also accept any of the Minolta AF lenses or third party manufacturer lenses made for Minoltas. I also have an adapter that enables my camera to accept any lenses with M42 mounts - widely used, especially for Pentax film cameras. There are several advantages to using legacy lenses. They are often very well made lenses using high quality glass. They are now much reduced in price because the cameras for which they were originally made are no longer in use. An added advantage of Sony DSLR cameras is that the image stabilization mechanism is in the camera body rather than in the lenses as with Nikon and Canon cameras. This means one can use older lenses and still have the benefits of modern image stabilization (anti-shake) technology.

Pigeons

I often remark on seagulls and post their pictures here but above is another city-dwelling bird. In this city, however, they are far outnumbered by seagulls. These are Rock Pigeons (Columba livia). This group was scrabbling for bread crumbs some kind soul had scattered in front of the Salvation Army building at the bottom of Johnson Street.