I’ve got a new lens.

Just a quick post because I am excited by my new present, a telephoto lens.  I bought the lens primarily because I wanted to take some shots for this blog, and so I finally bit the bullet and spent some money.  As I finished early for Christmas today, I thought I would try it out, although the light is apalling and there were no birds in the garden (whenever I get a camera out they all do a bunk).

Imagine my surprise when, camera in hand, a jay flew into the garden (I had the camera, not the jay).  I feel doubly lucky because I have never seen a jay in the garden before.  The pictures aren’t great (a bit blurred), but, I was hand holding the camera and for some reason, I hadn’t turned the image stabiliser on!

Jay

I then had the opportunity to photograph a greenfinch (it looks a bit stripy so I think it may be one of this year’s).  The results are shown below, OK, not perfect, but as you can see, it was quite dark, and I had to zoom in quite a bit. (This time the image stabiliser was turned on.)

Greenfinch    Greenfinch close up

There is a long way to go, but I am quite pleased with my new lens (although it is a little noisy – no chance of sneaking up on any unsuspecting birds with this lens), I am just hoping for some better light over the Christmas period.