Thank you.

OK -- I'll be good and sit down with this little manual and try to swallow it one bit at a time. Ugh. I don't like veggies, either. MR

Okay, so don't eat veggies while you are reading the manual. Just pick one topic in the manual, like the settings on the dial? Learn what those mean, practice using them and go from there.

Just don't practice on veggies, either!

Sheez. Now she wants me to practice!!! From Chopsticks to a Bach Fuge in one easy lesson! This, too, shall pass.

There is going to be a pop quiz tomorrow ...

Xeramtheum said:There is going to be a pop quiz tomorrow ...

*** Just a heads up ... I'm going to be absent.

At least she didn't say 'TEST'.

Lynn, wash your mouth out. Didn't your mother tell you about 4-letter words? You must have had a deprived childhood!

(The only worse one starts with S and ends with W and it had better take its time getting here this year!)

I went outside with the big black camera turned to SCN. It took a ravishing picture of my Maidenhair fern, even with the sun shining (you can see it posted under its Latin name which I do not now remember). However when I went to photograph my semps, the picture in the viewer would be absolutely in focus until I started to push down the button and then everything went blurry. 12 times. I had that leaf in the upper right hand corner... Shucks! I was hoping to get some really close close-ups! Obviously I didn't listen carefully. I'll re-read everything and try again. MR

This one, I think.

Northern Maidenhair Fern (Adiantum pedatum)

That is beautiful. Nice photo MR. Would love to see another photo of it without the sun.

You may be getting your camera to close to the semps. Back away a bit and zoom in with the lens. If you keep the camera very still it should crop and enlarge the semp and still look clear. You might need to get a remote for triggering the camera to take the photo. I sometimes have trouble with camera movement even with the tripod.

A major thank you to Anne for the advice about BACK UP!

I was out practicing today and finally got a good shot of the dahlia, Kasasagi!


Then I got one of the dahlia, Bodacious...and it is!

Nice going!!!! I have been busy with a bunch of medical stuff so have had no time to practice photography. Perhaps this weekend although the cool and rain is moving back in.

Beautiful photos Arlene.
This new forum is already paying off.

In regard to the manuals that come with the cameras... I have a Canon Rebel EOS and the manual is in pretty darn close to microscopic print ... I did find a book for the Canon EOS by David Busch that is at least slightly less cryptic (and far more user friendly as far as not needing a large magnifying glass to decipher); just wanted to mention this, because this author seems to have a book for nearly every brand out there, and I'm sure others do, as well.

One thing in particular that I'm wondering is, how much advantage is there to getting a macro lens as opposed to using the macro setting on the camera, or using a zoom lens.

Arlene, WOW ... really beautiful shots!

Arlene those are awesome! WTG!

Sandy, I don't know why some manuals require a microscope to read them .. find yours on the internet which usually comes as a pdf file so you can make the print as large as you need to. As to a macro lens, it all depends on what you want to shoot. Most digital cameras I've run into actually do a pretty good job in my opinion. This was taken by my Sony Cybershot DSC-H5 on the macro setting with the normal lens.

Anne, that is fabulous. (I'm running out of adjectives to describe some of these photos.)

Thanks for the sweet words!

Anne - how would the rule of thirds apply to this photo?

Arlene the Rule of Thirds is not a hard and fast rule. It usually applies to photos with lots of different points of interest. Yours looks like a cropped photo. Do you have the original?