Monday, January 24, 2022

Distant pintails

Just discovered something. A couple or three years ago, I bought myself a new pocket camera, something to put in the glove compartment of the car for emergencies. I took a few photos and was disappointed: they turned out flocculent; enlarging to anything beyond the mini-screen showed a flaky texture, something like the detritus at the bottom of a goldfish pond. Oh, well; it was for emergencies only; it would do.

This week, someone I follow on Twitter was showing how well her camera zoomed, and I was envious; none of my lenses are near as good at seeing an eagle on the far side of the bay, where my eye sees only a small black dot. She must have spent a fortune on equipment, I thought. And then someone asked her about it, and it turns out she's using another of those little point-and-shoot pocket cameras. With great zoom.

So I tried mine. A different camera: this one's a Lumix. And it zooms nicely! I had never bothered trying; if it wouldn't do close shots well, I didn't expect it to see far away.

It's better than my "real" camera. Still flocculent, but look: these were just dark dots on a distant shore.

Pintails, Oyster Bay.

Live and learn.

So today, I took the Lumix for a walk. With the Nikon as back-up. Photos tomorrow.

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Acabo de descubrir algo. Hace unos tres años, me compré una cámara nueva, algo para el bolsillo, algo para tener en el coche por si se me presentara una oportunidad fotográfica cuando no llevaba la cámara "verdadera". Y no me quedé tan contenta: las fotos salían lanudas; viendo las fotos en cualquier tamaño más grande que la pantallita de la cámara descubría una textura como la de la basura que queda en el fondo de un estanque de peces dorados. Bueno, serviría para emergencias, pero nada más.

Esta semana, una persona que sigo en Twitter estaba mostrando como hacía zoom su cámara, y sentí envidia: ninguna de las lentes de mi cámara se acerca a su capacidad de ver un águila en un árbol allá lejos donde el ojo no ve más que un puntito negro. Ella debe haber gastado una fortuna en su equipo, pensé. Y luego alguién preguntó, y ella respondió que solo usa otra de esas camaritas baratas, de bolsillo. Pero sí que hace zoom muy bien.

Así que hice la prueba con la mía. Es otra marca; una Lumix. ¡Y hace zoom igual que la de ella! Nunca había hecho el intento, creyendo que si no servía para las cercanías, menos iba a servir para lejos.

¡Es mejor que mi cámara Nikon! Las fotos siguen lanudas, pero, ¡mira! Estos patos rabilargos eran apenas unos puntos oscuros al otro lado de la bahía.

Foto: patos rabilargos, Anas acuta, en Oyster Bay.

Siempre hay algo para aprender.

Así que hoy saqué a la Lumix a pasear. Con la Nikon por si las moscas. Fotos mañana.

4 comments:

  1. Anonymous7:41 am

    I have a Lumix and love the zoom. It's getting old now, though, and I'm thinking about buying a new camera. I'm looking forward to your next post.
    Love the pintail pic!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Fun to learn new stuff every day!

    ReplyDelete
  3. I also have a Lumix point and shoot (12 yrs old). The lens and zoom are great...but it's the sensor that isn't great, and the cropped images can reveal compression artifacts (it can't shoot RAW, unfortunately).

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Luckily, mine does RAW, so I can fix some problems. Not all.

      Delete

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