Month: May 2015

It was a rather wet weekend here, but Saturday morning it was just overcast so we headed to Lilacia Park to see the tulips and lilacs. It was actually a more comfortable visit than last year because it was only in the 60’s. On top of that, the previous day’s storms left pretty water drops all over the tulips and the lack of harsh sunlight made the photos more evenly lit.

Afterward we visited Cosley Zoo so I could test out my new Canon EF-S 55-250mm F4-5.6 IS STM lens I had ordered earlier in the week. I really wanted the 70-300mm lens but the price has been holding steady at $650 for nearly a year now, so I decided to compromise with 50mm less range for half the price. The lens I got sells for $300 pretty much everywhere, but I ordered it from Buydig.com because they threw in some accessories, including a protective filter for the lens, for free.

I like the reach this lens affords me now. The bobcats are always in the back of their enclosure so I could never get a decent shot of them until buying this lens.

On top of that, the auto-focus on the lens is very quick and the image stabilization works even better than I was anticipating. All my shots came out very sharp even with the added zoom. I’m very excited to use it at other zoos!

We always have the best weekends and this one was no exception. The weather was beautiful until Sunday late afternoon and we definitely took advantage of that. We had breakfast at the arboretum and then drove around and stopped to take photos. I brought my binoculars to help spot birds. We lucked upon these pretty blue Tree Swallows which I’ve never seen before. Joe actually spotted them first and I was lucky enough to be able to get close enough to them to get a decent shot.

I’m so glad I had my zoom lens with me even though it’s only 135mm. Today’s experience pushed me to just buy a new zoom lens. While ideally I’d like the 70-300mm I just can’t justify spending $650 so I’m going to get the 55-250mm instead which will be either $200 or $300 (depending on which model I choose). That I can stomach. Maybe when I win the lotto I’ll buy the crazy expensive lenses.

I also got some shots of the arboretum’s daffodils. They bloom and then die so quickly that if you blink you’ll miss them.

After the arboretum we went to Herrick Lake to walk around, then ran some errands which included a trip to Home Depot to get flowers for the new planter Joe built last weekend.

I love it!

We also moved our creeping phlox into a new planter which looks way better than the crappy one it was in (we inherited it when we moved in and were too lazy to do anything with it until the plastic started cracking and breaking off).

It was a fantastic spring day; I wish we were wealthy so we could just hit up nature areas every morning and then relax in the afternoons.