I went for a quick drive this evening, through the Bearspaw region/community just a couple minutes from my house at the far northwest corner of Calgary. I think this was the first actual dedicated photography expedition I've taken - certainly in the last couple of years, anyway. I wound up taking 46 shots in about 45 minutes, from a few locations spread over the Bearspaw community. After throwing out the shots that sucked, were uninteresting, or really badly exposed, I was left with 9 shots that didn't make me cringe .
I was hoping to get some shots of the mountains and foothills, but some impending weather got in the way of that. So, I explored a bit, hoping to find something interesting to shoot, with the green scenery as a backdrop.
I found a great old wagon left on the side of a hill overlooking the Bow River valley, so parked nearby and took some shots. I'm actually quite happy with the shot below - with the cows in sharp focus, and the wagon slightly blurred.
I have to say - I'm so totally happy with the new Canon XT. I've got lots of room to grow with it. I wound up exchanging the XT I got last weekend for a new one, due to the noisy sensor. The new one seems much cleaner - a few spots on the test exposure, but nothing worth worrying about. I also opted for the black body this time, and am really happy that I did. It just feels like more of a "high end" or "professional" rig. Of course, neither term applies to me, so it's mostly just to help me pretend to be a real photographer :-)
Evan was helping a neighbour assemble a wheelbarrow this afternoon, and I was messing around with the autofocus servo mode and the rapidfire mode (fires off 14 shots in about 3 seconds) to try to catch some action. I think that combo is pretty impressive - the AF Servo keeps moving subjects in sharp focus, and the rapidfire makes it easier to capture the right shot (and then delete the extra 13 shots...)