Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Spot the Cardinal

My friend Kate posted this great photo today on her blog of a cardinal she saw during a recent walk in Sabino Canyon, in Tucson, Arizona:

I love how the red bird is the only bit of bold colour in the photo and how he stands out from the green and gray of the canyon foliage.

Seeing her photo reminded me that I was taking pictures of an elusive cardinal a couple of weeks ago while staying at my friend Heather's house in Virginia.  Here's how my photo turned out:

Can you see the cardinal? Just barely, right? As in, you probably wouldn't know it was there if I hadn't told you.  I was so disappointed, until I realized that my wonderful new camera (the Nikon D3100) had actually taken a reasonably clear shot of the cardinal, all I had to do was crop/enlarge it, like so:

Or even:

The same thing happened when I was trying to get a picture of the rabbit in her back yard on Easter Sunday (no kidding, a real rabbit in the yard on Easter Sunday morning! I went out later looking for eggs but to no avail).  Here's what the first shot looked like:

A not very exciting shot of the side of the neighbour's house and a small brown spot in the grass that could be just about anything, until you crop it down and suddenly, it's a rabbit with a bonus robin in the frame!

Imagine if I had a telephoto lens??  Yes, I am loving my new camera!

1 comment:

Laura Twiford said...

Isn't it fun? I love mine too and like you I am surpised when i look at the uploaded photos and see something that i didn't originally see through the lens, a spider, an ant, a line from a web, incredble stuff! Get the lens next, you won't believe what you can find!