I use a point-and-shoot camera, so it automatically focuses for me. My efforts to try to get something in focus and out of focus at the same time didn’t work. That’s why I use a camera that already knows what it is doing.

Instead, here are two photos taken of the exact same spot: the top of the utility pole in our front yard (about a month apart, time-wise). The first photo, the Crested Caracara, was taken with a my old camera, a Panasonic Lumix DMC-FH20 with 8x optical zoom. The second photo, the Harris Hawk, was taken with my new camera, a Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZS25 with 20x optical zoom.

Crested Caracara

Harris Hawk

Weekly Photo Challenge: Focus

A group of vultures is called a wake (when they are feeding), kettle (while in flight), or when resting in trees: committee, volt, venue.

If I’m real still, maybe they won’t notice me.

A vulture venue

Weekly Photo Challenge: Foreshadow

Certainly lots of images came to mind when this week’s weekly photo challenge, Masterpiece, showed up in my inbox. Art works from over the centuries could provide thousands of examples. However, as I respect the signs in galleries and museums that prohibit picture taking, I don’t have any photographs of them.

Mother Nature has the advantage in this category, anyway. (And the Houston Museum of Natural Science allows photographs in this exhibit.)

Conch shell at the Houston Museum of Natural Science

Weekly Photo Challenge: Masterpiece