Camera Update

Christmas gifts have come, and I now have a Sigma 70-300mm zoom lens for my camera. I've tried to photograph the moon with it, but it's amazing how difficult a subject it is. It took 16 shots before I even got something remotely better that a white blob in a black sky. The best I could do in 24 shots is in my photostream, but believe me, I'll be trying that again once I get my cable release!

I also tried to shoot the constellation of Orion - a nice easy constellation to recognise in our northern night sky. Last time I tried, I accidentally left my camera in noise reduction mode, which gave photos that consist of a dozen seriously blurred stars. This time I tried without NR... and instead got a dozen faint blobs with trails that indicated the camera had moved somehow during the 6-8 second exposures. Not quite sure how this happened, but all I can put it down to is that a) my house is old and I was on the top floor, where the floor-boards are not the smoothest and most solid in the world, b) I was manually pressing the button, and c) maybe I breathed on the camera on it's tripod just a little too loudly? So, next time, I'll go to our back yard, so the tripod will be on brick, and I'll use my new cable release... expected from Amazon any day now.

Learning, learning, learning...