I bought a new lens a few weeks ago. It’s a largish (for me) zoom lens (Sigma 70-300mm).  As soon as I opened the box, I ran out to play with it.

and was very disappointed.

Not in the lens so much as the fact that I couldn’t seem to hold it steady enough to get a decent shot. It’s been a few years since I had a largish zoom and apparently, my ability to hold a steady grip has diminished as my years have advanced.

*sigh*

After much discussion and reading and research, I’ve been trying to play with the ISO, shutter speed and other settings in hopes to compensate for my pitiful hands.

two things that i used to be proud of was my exceptionally sharp eyesight and my steady hands. both are in decline and it makes me sad.
but anyway…

So today I spent the whole day working on this and I think I’m making some progress. I don’t like using a high ISO because I hate noisy photos, but I may have to learn to live with that in order to get reasonably good shots without hauling a tripod all over.

Here’s the best of the bunch from today and a few using smaller lenses from last week.

These three are of a cardinal who was very busy with his mouth full of seeds or bugs or something. I think he was trying to impress the little female who was flitting all over the yard.

This last one is my favorite.

This hanging basket is over on my neighbors deck. I shot it through a little gap in the bushes and trees that are between our yards.

This is from the other day/same lens. This is also the iron hook that fell off the deck and smacked me good. Luckily, I turned away and just got a nasty bruise on the side of my body and not a cracked skull.

And the rest of these are of flowers in the front yard, shot the other week using a smaller zoom, which apparently I’m also having trouble holding steady. <insert frowny face here>