Lettuce Lake Park and USF Botanical Gardens

The photo club I shoot with had an outing at Lettuce Lake Park in Tampa Sunday. I was late so I missed some of the best light, as well as the company of my fellow shooters.

I didn't see a lot at the park so I ventured over to the USF Botanical Gardens where I had a little better luck, though by then I was battling the midday sun. The second of the caterpillar shots I took with flash — yes, even in bright sunlight! — to get rid of shadows.

Lowry Park Zoo Photos

Sunday I braved the throngs that converge on Lowry Park Zoo every time it has a $5 admission day. Regular price is $20.95. I shot 785 photos and it took until now to find enough to make a slide show.

I'm not blaming the new camera, a Sony A550, for this. I need to read the directions to see if I'm doing something to cause too many of the images to appear washed out. I do like that whenever you press a button on the camera, the LCD screen shows a description of its function.

One thing I stumbled across was something called the smart teleconverter. A teleconverter is an attachment that increases how far your lens can zoom. Most come in magnifications of 1.4 or 2X. The A550 has an electronic one built in. I thought it might work like a digital zoom you find on many point-and-shoot cameras. Instead, it simply crops the image in the camera and you end up with a smaller image.

I took the shots of the eagle with the in-camera teleconverter.