A new toy for my camera

I've wanted a telephoto lens for a very very long time - ever since I replaced my old Kodak retinette A with a pentax me super slr about 30 years ago! A few months ago I deliberated for a long time as to whether it was worth buying a 70 - 300 mm telephoto lens for my olympus e420 digital slr when I wouldn't have image stabilisation. I did consider buying either a Panasonic Lumix FZ45 or Fujifilm Finepix HS10 which have good zoom and macro facilities but decided the whole point of having a digital slr was so I could add different lens so I've shelved that idea until the family digital camera needs replacing.

I had more or less decided on an olympus macro lens when my husband persuaded me to go for the telephoto lens as a combined Christmas and birthday present. Its been a long wait but I finally got that lens!

Here's a few photos I managed to take of garden birds yesterday. They are not very good - some are under-exposed and not very sharp and I had to bump up the ISO due to low light levels but as a first attempt I was quite pleased. The photos look slightly better if you click on them to enlarge. Hopefully, I will get better photos with more practice and better light conditions and more reading of camera books to improve my basic skills! If not, at least I will get better record shots than I would with the 14-42 mm lens. The lens is massive (I now need a new bigger camera bag) and I see I am going to have fun trying to take hand-held camera shots!! so I took these using a tripod. They have been slightly cropped.

Feral Pigeon



Two goldfinch photos





Great Tit



Flock of wood pigeons



Garden Update

I saw a lone redwing perched in the whitebeam in the garden on Christmas Eve - but again (like the flock of fieldfares the previous day) it didn't linger and ignored the apples on the lawn! Saw a wren today - my first garden sighting for months - good to see it had survived the cold weather so far and a pair of collared doves (another rare visitor these days) fed yesterday.

Still dreaming of a waxwing sighting though :D