New Camera

I got a new camera, part of my 10 year plan to leave the DSLR world and simplify my photography equipment set.

Many years ago I sold off all but one of my Canon lenses, keeping just the 70-200mm EF 2.8 lens. This was my all-time favorite lens and worked great for portraits and action shots for subjects not too far away. But it was not a great wildlife lens; for that you’ve got to be at least 400mm (600mm is better) telephoto. I’ll give away my remaining gear to my photographer nephew, because now I have a Sony DSC-RX10 Cyber-shot IV. This is a sealed body (no interchangeable lenses) mirror-less camera. Though it feels like a DSLR.

Garden geranium

This flower shot shows the depth-of-field power at wide open aperture (f2.8 in this case). Colors are great too, and of course I can shoot in RAW for later processing in Adobe Lightroom.

Common loon, non-breeding

This is a shot of a surprising late-spring loon on our lake. Surprising because they usually all flee north as soon as it warms up, but this one lingered behind. This isn’t a great photo; I wish it was sharper and the sunlight colors didn’t highlight the loon. Still, not too bad and shows the range flexibility of the long lens. Loons are skittish and I had to hide in our tree line to get this shot, with the bird probably 50 yards off-shore.