Danielle Blog

Squirrel sighting

Guess who discovered the bird feeder today?

Yup! Mr. Chubby Squirrel.

This is the first that I’ve seen any squirrels at it.

And I might’ve been disappointed, except that this gave me the perfect chance to try out the zoom lens my dad sent me that arrived late yesterday. He has a Nikon film camera that he doesn’t really use anymore and a zoom lens that he was willing to send me. One of the cool thing about Nikon is that they’ve kept all of the lens threads the same over the years so that any Nikon lens, or Nikon-compatible lens, will fit onto the new camera models too. (Note: I believe Canon has done this too so that older Canon lenses will fit onto new Canon cameras.) Anyway, the lens is a Vivitar 70-210mm zoom lens.

Now, I’ve barely gotten to experiment with it, and since it is an entirely manual lens, I’m learning how to change settings to get the exposure the way I want it. But this will give you an idea of where I am today with it, and then as I (hopefully) get better, you can see my progress.

Now, that photo above was taken with the ‘kit’ lens that comes in the camera kit (if you choose to buy the D70 in that kind of package). The kit lens is an AF-S Nikkor 18-70mm. And in the photo above, I have stood inside the patio window and zoomed as close as possible with the kit lens.

Here is another example.

What I’ve often done in my bird pictures in the past, is cropped the photo so that you can see the birds (or in this case, the squirrel better).

Now, after taking those photos, I switched lenses. Lucky for me, Mr. Chubby Squirrel was happy to continue eating while I did this. And I started attempting to get the exposure right with the zoom lens.

Well, what you’ll see is that it isn’t quite where I wanted it, but you’ll get the idea of how different the zoom is with this one. I zoomed in as far as possible for these shots.

In this next one, the wood and screws are in great focus, but the squirrel is not.

I could’ve sworn I was looking at the squirrel’s face and feet to get the focus right. But the feeder kept spinning, he was wiggling, and I have/had a migraine, so it could be that I’m goofing up the focus. I also think I’d better double check the viewfinder, because it is possible something has gotten bumped on it and that also changes the focus-ing some.

I also kept changing some of the settings to try to get everything optimal, but I kinda knew I was working against time, because he’d already run away once. Finally, he’d had enough of that crazy lady inside the house with the beeg skeery black thing.

And off he went.

As he scampered along the railing, he paused for a second…

… and I got this one.

The fact that his front feet are in focus makes me think that some of the focusing issue may be that he was sniffing/moving slightly. Changing the film speed or exposure would probably help with that. But I’ve still got to figure out how to do all of that.

and off he went

I have lots to learn about how to get the kind of image I’m looking for, but now you can see where I am today. And then when I manage to get a shot with the squirrel’s eyes in focus, it will be all the more exciting.