Photographing Our BEAUTIFUL Goldfinches with New Telephoto Lens

     During the 2008-2009 school year, I, for some unknown reason agreed to sponsor our middle school yearbook at the ripe old age of 69-70.  Sadly, I had not a clue what I was getting myself in for...the reality being that at the middle school level there are so many other extra curricular appealing options conflicting with yearbook that the idiotic sponsor actually ends up putting the thing together.  No one told me that, but it only took a few short months for me to figure it out.  It was a killer....those are the kindest terms I can use to express what happened to my life....I LOST IT...I became the pawn of a bunch of pages of color photos of lots and lots of children.  Two good things came out of the endeavor: the yearbook was a great success, and I was able to talk Taylor Publishing to give me a Canon Rebel EOS Digital XSi camera.  Wow! What a camera!  I fell in love with it, and once the year was over and we had a “young and talented” new sponsor for me to turn over the reigns to, I went through immediate camera withdrawal of the worst kind.  No point and shoot Canons could replace it.  Then to make things worse, within the year, both my 39 year old son and 47 year old daughter bought themselves that same camera.  That was a real bummer.  Finally, about a month ago, I bit the bullet and bought one for myself.  It came with an18-55 mm lens, bit I went ahead and got a 50 mm one, too.  Both of those are great, but I could not get the super close ups of flowers and birds without a telephoto lens.  Well, I looked and looked, but they were way way out of my price bracket...and then I hit on the idea of a refurbished Canon lens with a full warranty...I went for it, and two days ago it arrived.  Since then it has been in constant use.  Buddy and I are in camera heaven though it is heavy and a bit bulky.  What the heck....it does what we want it to do, and we will just have to adjust.  My “Hector Rednesday” photos were taken with it as were these of our goldfinches.  They were just too beautiful not to post....hope you enjoy them.  In time maybe I will learn how to REALLY use all of the lens properly and the manual setting on the camera, but until then I am happy as a clam with what I am able to come up with knowing very, very little about cameras.

“Be as a bird perched on a frail branch that she feels bending beneath her, still she sings away all the same, knowing she has wings.
~Victor Hugo - 1802-1885