I was out with my new camera and encountered a pretty brave squirrel. Not a really brave one, just a bit on the brave side. With a 16-50mm lens I thought that I was still doomed and that there was no way for me to get a proper close up of the squirrel. But as I am what I am (an entrepreneur, in Finnish a trier) I tried.
It's there. The squirrel. Can't you see? Well, I won't blame you if you can't.
Looks like the first things I'm trying to photograph with my new camera are those things and situations that might not get the best results even if there was a professional photographer behind the camera.
Pigeons named 1, two, III, Bob and Jack. Fortunately for me they have their white winter coats on and there's no snow on the ground so I could spot them easier. Or perhaps I'm a twat when it comes to recognizing any kind of pigeons and this is a completely different species than the common pigeon that normally is gray and has occasional rainbow coloring here and there. Okay so this is a dinosaur. A winter colored dinosaur in snowless surroundings. There. Happy now. It's five dinosaurs. If not, at least their ancestors are.
See the Great Tit there on the background? You can't? Are you kidding me, tits are all you are supposed to notice and it's the only yellow thing there. Jeez!
I would have preferred if the sun had shown itself so that I could have gotten better photos with stronger light from the left, but what can I do. It was what it was. Sun was shining just half an hour before I got to this place and no more after that. Never again after that.
The squirrel is checking me out. Am I dangerous? It is safe to go and fetch more seeds and nuts or whatever there is on the bird feeder. Or squirrel feeder. I want a pet squirrel. I WANT MY OWN SQUIRREL! And a raccoon. And an otter. That would be forever goodbye to closed cupboards, no more lost and found things, only lost and lost stuff, all the blankets dragged to tiny corners in the house, food scattered everywhere, all kinds of hair in my eyes.
Sounds nice.
"Yes. It's safe to go."
"Oh wait no it isn't."
"Yes it is."
Back and forth, back and forth goes the squirrel as I on the other hand was slowly moving towards it.
At this point, when I already had hundred million thousand photos (yes, my memory card is huuuuuge), it would have been a good idea to look at the camera settings and adjust the ISO from 100 to 400 or perhaps 800 so that I could have gotten smaller aperture size than f/5.6 and therefore a deeper depth of field and slightly faster shutter speed than 1/40 seconds. To get a sharper squirrel.
But I was counting on the fact that the sun would come out as it was just ever so slightly behind some evil clouds. And I knew that if I would start to adjust the settings and that would not be a quick thing to do because my muscle memory is still on Canon time, not Sony time, the squirrel would go away.
We all know what that means. What happens then. The sun didn't come out, the squirrel stayed.
Would I dare to think of changing the ISO? There's the button, but can I try to change it with my gloves on or do I have to take them of? And after adjusting the ISO, it's time to adjust the shutter speed. Can my slightly frozen fingers handle that or do I mess everything up and manage to activate my Sony's self destruct mode?
And as I was still thinking about that, one of the pigeons must have thought that I was too close, spooked and in a blink of an eye everyone was gone.
