Robert and I have greatly enjoyed taking pictures with our high zoom point and shoot camera on our many nature outings. We seemed to continuously run into the same frustrations with our camera : soft focus on high zoom photos; slow saves and awkward multiple shots. Robert proposed we investigate moving up to a digital single reflex lens (dsrl) camera. Robert dove into dslr camera research, reading countless reviews. The camera that seemed to fit our needs for sharp high zoom photos was the Sony A55 with a 70-400 lens. We discussed our camera options with professional photographer daughter Daria, who agreed the Sony A55 seemed to be the bee’s knees for us.

Along with our new camera, we felt we needed some photography lessons. If we were to maximize our shots, we needed to move beyond “auto”. Too many times I thought I had a wonderful shot only to find it horribly exposed because I didn’t know how to compensate for conditions. Happily, daughter Daria was in her off season and had time to fly to Florida for some hands-on photo shoots. Not only is Daria an extremely experienced, award-winning photographer, she is tremendous fun. During our four days of photo outings, we took turns pushing the button to snap the picture. All of the pictures below were shot with our new Sony A55, using the 70-400 lens. We learned a lot and were thrilled with the sharpness of our photos. We also had a fabulous time and shared a lot of laughs.

The first day of Daria’s visit, we took a two mile walk around Eagle Lakes Community Park. Besides playing fields and a playground, the park has several retention ponds that have been allowed to become marshy wetlands. The variety of birds is wonderful.

Robert got this fantastic shot of a great blue heron

Daria shot this great blue heron surveying its domain
Daria zoomed in on this singing mockingbird who is looking for love in all the high places
I snapped these tree swallows. They were extremely enthused about something in a group of trees
Tree swallows flying
Daria captured a red bellied woodpecker a loooooooooooooong way up a tree
Daria shot this immature woodstork. We cropped it close so you can see its remaining white baby feathers on the head. It’s so good to see young woodstorks, as they are very endangered
The second day of our lessons, we drove out to the middle of Florida to Ochaloacoochee State Park. This is a favorite haunt because there are so few people out there and we never know what we’ll see. We have a favorite dirt road for most of our exploring.
With a bit of work, we were able to get these kingfisher pictures. Kingfishers are wary of people and tend to fly the minute we stop the car.
Robert spied four sandhill cranes in a field. We walked crosscountry to locate them. We found them, only to have them fly off. Back in the car, we spotted this pair in another field close to the road. What a wonderful experience to capture these huge, magnificent birds
At the end of the dirt road, Robert caught a glimpse of a bird. We were thrilled when it flew in a tree right next to us. We were even more excited to see it was a limpkin
Daria got set up to shoot a red shouldered hawk sitting in a tree. Just as she clicked the button, it flew. I was very excited about the resulting shot
Our third day we went out to Marco Island to investigate the burrowing owls. We were able to find several pairs of nesting owls. We also found an eagles’ nest, but to protect the  baby eagles, it wasn’t possible to get a photo. Daria has wonderful memories of seeing one of the baby eagles take it’s fledgling flight.
I got this shot of a nesting pair of burrowing owls
I shot this father burrowing owl guarding the nest ground hole. If I were a predator, his fierce glare would scare me away
On our last day of photo lessons, we took the long drive to Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge. We had severe doubts about our photographic chances when a huge storm rolled in over us, but we continued to the refuge. We were rewarded with these photos of the lovely roseate spoonbills. Since it was still misting, we covered Daria and our precious new camera in jackets.
Daria captured these roseate spoonbills preening
In a shot of the roseate spoonbills, I spotted a willet coming in to land with its pals. I thought it was a very striking picture with the white wing bars on the willet
Roseate spoonbills stretching
Besides the photo shoot lessons, Daria also spent each evening giving me tips on photo picks and editing. We had a fabulous time. Thank you so much, DW Bob for sharing your knowledge, experience, enthusiasm and tips. It was a blast!!!

If you have read one of Team Finnegan’s previous posts, you may notice a new look to our blog with much bigger pictures. We hope you enjoy our new blog look. We’d love to hear from you. Feel free to leave us a comment!!!