Photos from Easter- The Birds and The Bees and a Cat Named Oliver

Yesterday we went to my mom and dads house for the afternoon.  I took my trusty Canon sx50 and played around again.  A perfect spring day.

My parents have recently started urban beekeeping. My youngest son thought it was cool and has really gotten into it. I thought if he can do it I can do it too.  Although I appreciate bees (from a distance!), I am not anxious to go stick my person in their area and start meddling. But I did.

lets suit up!

Me and my dad checking the frames

the smoker

The hive.

Then Finn suited up and helped.

It was really actually pretty cool. I thought I would be terrified, but once I got up there I realized they werent interested in attacking and stinging. They pretty much ignored us.

After we were done with the bees we sat out on the back patio and enjoyed the weather.  Their cat Oliver was outside with us roaming around.  This boy is my buddy.

Towards later afternoon the bluebirds and chickadees started showing off.

Love this camera.

Super Moon September 2014

"The term “super moon” describes a moon that is closer to Earth than usual.

Because of how close the supermoon is, it can appear as much as 14 percent larger in the sky and 30 percent brighter to our eyes than normal moons, according to NASA."  ...The Epoch Times (theepochtimes.com)

So this morning I was up early and realized the clouds had dissipated, the sky was clearer and I had perfect viewing of this beautiful moon. It was so bright and round and full and big.

(NOW, Technically this was not the ultra-PEAK time of the supermoon , but it seemed pretty darn amazing to me.)

This is the last Super Moon of 2014, so  I grabbed my trusty canon sx50 and headed out.

I did all these photos with my regular camera.(canon powershot sx50)  No extra lenses or anything special. This was just the  power shot and up to 200x zoom. i used the manual mode and did all the settings myself. I used 1/400 to 1/800 (depending on the shot) and between F 5.0 and F 8.0  depending on what it was looking like.  I wanted to really capture the brightness, so I let the lens add in more light, but didn't want the shutter speed to be wrong and make it look further away.  i have found that by just playing around you will find what works best for you.  Don't be scared to take pictures and mess up. Then you can go back, delete and tweak as needed.  i have found my photography has improved 100 fold since I started just experimenting.

I used to be an "auto only" girl, but have since realized manual is really much better to get exactly what you want.

about 50x - 75x zoom

normal right before high zoom kicks in.

love the craters and impact sites

zoomed about 100x and sharpened to see the details a little better.

love this photo. I didn't have to do much to it, other than crop.

zoomed 200x

zoomed about 150x

zoomed about 150x or 175x

did this shot on AUTO settings instead of  my manual settings. you can see a difference in the color and the crispness.

zoomed about 150 or 175x.

Random Post- a fire pit

The other night was one of those absolutely perfect evenings. Sitting outside around the fire pit, roasting marshmallows, enjoying the mild climate with the boys. I decided to grab my camera and mess around with some of the settings. You know, the ones I dont know anything about or how to use. Aperture, ISO, F-stop. All that good stuff.  I have the amazing camera and no idea how it works.  So I decided to sit back and play while gazing into the embers and flame. The first two photos here are on Automatic. I just let the camera do what it thought it should do.  Not too bad. but  i wanted to see what I could do with a manual adjustment, where I picked what aperture and what F I put it on and what ISO I chose.

Looks like a horse

another horse

As it got darker I had to start doing a trial and error type thing, to see what each one did.Some of these photos look pretty cool (in my opinion). I snapped a BUNCH, but only a few made the cut.

i THINK i've got it...boy george I think ive got it.  (Sort of. A little more practice)