I have loved photography ever since being stationed in Germany during the 1990’s. In recent years, since moving to Vermont, my favorite photography subject has been wildlife. I’m surrounded by great wildlife sightings at my home in Pomfret at all times of the year.
I didn’t join the digital age, however, until somewhat recently when I bought a Panasonic Lumix about six or seven years ago. It was an excellent pocket camera, even for photographing wildlife, but unfortunately the camera broke and it wasn’t worth spending the money to get it fixed.
Fast forward to this past weekend. It was my birthday this past Saturday, February 23rd, and my partner Meg bought me a Pentax K2000 to quench my photography thirst. Since the weekend, I’ve been getting to know the camera, experimenting with different settings and lenses. I’m psyched to continue the learning process.
Today, I made a helpful discovery for wildlife photography – that I can eliminate a lot of “digital noise” on the front end of the process by adjusting the ISO level. I started with the default ISO of 3200, but that setting produced a lot of noise and made the photos look grainy (a few of the photos below were taken at 3200 ISO). I ratcheted the ISO down to 400 which made a big improvement in clarity and the feel I wanted for wildlife photography – a sharp image of the subject and less sharpness for the surrounding context of the photo. See below for a few of the shots I took earlier today.