Teeter-totter

When Fern and I were at Cattle point last week we noticed this crow. Fern said, "Look, he's got a teeter-totter" and as we watched he walked from the low side of that board to the center and then when it began to dip he continued down until it rested in the puddle and then he took a drink. I don't know what kind of advantage he gained by this but for whatever reason it seemed like he knew perfectly well what he was doing.

The Loner

I took so many pictures of idyllic summer scenes yesterday and yet, this is the one I find most interesting somehow. - Fern

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 They are now much reduced in price because the cameras for which they were originally made are no longer in use.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.