The big discovery

In a moment I found lurking between jobs, I thought I'd have another play with the camera... and in so doing made a BIG discovery. The sheer enormity of it will make a huge difference to my photography (I can tell!)... something which I might have learned had I actually stopped to read through the manual... but you know how it is.

Let me recap a little. Yesterday I was out with a friend, photographing an old tumbledown orchid greenhouse (not made of glass, but old stone)... an absolute dream of a place, I can't tell you how beautiful it looked despite there being no orchids, but a whole host of plants, moss and weed material growing out of and obscuring all the walls. I had decided to take photos with both my cameras, the Canon EOS 400D and my Sony Ericsson W995, for comparison ~ since my phone camera does take nice pictures in the right conditions. I'd never used a proper camera before so was completely in the dark as to what I could achieve with it. So, there I stood, firing off shots of this gorgeous orchid house on the posh camera. Every time I peered into the screen something wasn't quite right, but I couldn't quite put my finger on what... and even if I had, didn't know how to do anything about it regarding the settings.

After 20 or so shots I took some with my phone camera, something I'm much more familiar with. Peering at the read out screen I felt satisfied that I'd managed to capture something of its beauty, feeling slightly disappointed that the posh camera hadn't really achieved what I'd wanted it to. But never mind, there were plenty of other shots yesterday on the Canon I was more than happy with.

Back to today... there I was, pointing it at anything and everything I saw and liked in my yard. After maybe 60 shots I sat on the steps (you can just see them in this photo) and started taking some of the lovely white washed wall, with the bike leaning up against it, the sunflowers growing in a pot beside it, the bamboo wind chime. And then my hand did it again.... brushed against the lens bit at the end and rotated it a bit. Something that kept happening yesterday too. So I thought I'd try and work out why it did that, what is was for.

Now I sense at this point the more experienced amongst you (maybe even the total beginners??!) grinning at my (what shall we call it? Stupidity? Foolishness?) naivety... but if you've never used a proper camera before, you wouldn't necessarily know! I adjusted the lens to the 55mm setting and watched as the yard got a whole lot closer. I rotated it round to 18mm and suddenly it dawned on me why the shots of the orchid house weren't right yesterday. I'd been accidentally getting macro shots when I'd needed to zoom out.

So now I know what that bit's for. Please, go ahead and laugh.... I did!!