A New Language-Day Two

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So today I started seriously looking at the manual for the Canon 7D.

Who writes these things anyway? Apparently, the same people who want to keep the photography language a mystery from dimwitted folks like me. It seems that you need at least two (if not more) copies of the manual, since there is hardly a page that doesn't refer to at least one other page.

And what a lack or organization!

Example: The first time you turn on the camera, it asks you to set the date and time. In spite of the fact that I'm fairly tech savvy, it wasn't obvious to me which ones of the twelve buttons (and several wheels) I should push in order to set the correct time and date. And you know where that information is in the manual? Page 42!

Oh wellI read a bit and decided that I would set the camera to TV (which for some unknown reason refers to shutter priority) and took it out for a few shots.

Now, I know that ISO and aperture and shutter speed all interact. I'm just not sure of how they interact. So for now I'm just playing with shutter speed.

It's a fairly bright day and I'm after birds, so hopefully the photography gods will smile on my feeble efforts. And remember, I no longer have that 18x zoom of the Panasonic, so I'm on a steep learning curve here.

OOPS, not a bird shot,
but I thought this was pretty funny.
I guess they have a lot of trucks
weighing more than
139,562 pounds
around here
so they felt the need to post this warning.

OK, here we go. We were quite a ways away from this guy, and remember that I don't have a zoom lens yet (my camera came with a 28-135 lens, a 300 should be here next week).

And please remember that I still don't know how to work this camera.

Anyhow, we saw this guy (I believe it's a Harrier Hawk, but feel free to correct me) sitting up in a tree, so I focused in and waited. In a few minutes he took off and I was able to get a few good shots (out of the many I took).

These really aren't as sharp
as they should be.
And there's some noise.
But I'm sure that when I learn
the magic formula between
aperture,
shutter speed
and
ISO,
I'll get better.

I hope.

For now,
I was just happy
to get a few shots
that showed the bird in flight.

Then we were done,
so we drove down this beautiful lane

And came home and made dinner.