Testing the New Camera

Tuesday April 1, 2014
St. George Island State Park
Eastpoint, Florida

 

 

My new camera came while we were out enjoying the pitcher plants on Monday so today I walk down to the Gulf for a little R&R and to test it out. 

I’m giving a test run to the Canon SX50.  Due to my budget, it was a choice between it and the Nikon 3200 with a 55-200 lens.   The canon won the first pass because I don’t want to carry either two lenses or two cameras.  The zoom on this is advertised as the world’s first 50X zoom (24-1200mm).  That’s hard to believe but if it works and there aren’t any other deal breakers, I’ll only have to carry one camera

I stop first at the ponds to see what sort of pictures I can get of the ducks on the other side.  This little grebe is out in the middle of this pond.  Definitely not bad.  All of my test pictures are un retouched.  They were also taken in bright sun, in the middle of the day on automatic setting.

 

 

 

 

 

I am particularly impressed with what the camera can do in the reeds at the far end of the pond where it is able to focus on this little green heron and even get the wing markings.

 

 

 

Across the road at this pond, on the far side is this little bufflehead.

 

 

 

I walk on down to the gulf shore. 

Nobody else in sight.  Just the way I like it.

 

 

 

Well the laughing gulls are here and making a racket off and on.

 

 

 

 

 

Ok that’s enough Arty, it’s time to go home.

 

Not a cloud in the sky but the wind is ruffling the pages of my book and it’s cool enough that I put on my sweatshirt.    These folks come out in bikini and swim trunks and lay in the sun.   Are they from the Yukon??   It’s 68 degrees and windy

 

 

 

 

I try some shots of the usual suspects.

 

 

 

I try serious zoom.   First I look down the beach at the public beach area which is about a half mile away.  I’m pretty surprised at how well it does at this distance.

 

 

 

 

Then I look up the beach to the other public beach area which is about a mile and half away.  Nothing I could use but still amazing that it will focus at all.

 

 

 

 

Back in the middle, my friend the Great Blue Heron comes to pose.  I guess he wants to be in the blog post.

 

 

 

 

 

 

He flies off so I try some shell shots.   They are more difficult to do with this camera.  The  macro feature will take some investigating.  At first use it isn’t very affective.

 

 

 

 

Other than the birds, this is the only action shot of the day.

 

 

The Great Blue comes back for a wade in the water.  The wind is picking up and it’s time for me to go back.

 

 

 

 

 

After the first day with the Canon SX 50 I am very impressed with its zoom.  Not so much with its macro.   I think I’ve lost my ability to do panorama shots with this camera which is a shame since I really enjoyed them.  I’ll also have to figure out how do sunrises and sunsets.  My previous camera had a lot of special settings for sunrise, sunset, fireworks, night shots, beach and tons of other things.  This one does not.   It may be more of a learning curve than I was imagining.  But I’ll have to get busy since I don’t want to keep it for more than a week unless I plan to keep it permanently.

So that’s about it folks.

I’m outta here!