Florida 2007 part 2

Continued from part 1

We drove from Miami down to the Florida Keys on the 16th November, getting to our hotel on Marathon at dusk.  The next few days were to spend some time exploring the Keys and spend most time with just a digital point-and-shoot camera...although I did get the DSLRs out on occasion.

...

Next day, we got up late for a leisurely morning, when I looked out of the window to see a Manatee swimming alongside the dock behind our room!  The people staying on one of the boats dropped a freshwater hose in the water and the Manatee started to drink from the hose - one way to get fresh water I guess!  This is only my second encounter with this large marine mammal, having glimpsed the back of one a couple of years ago, I was amazed how confiding this one was.

We spent the rest of the day touring the more Northern Keys, seeing another Manatee with calf, before finishing up at Marathon for Sunset.

We spent the morning of the 18th November at Key West botanical gardens and managed to find 8 species of warbler.

After that, we headed into Key West proper for an afternoon of tourist hell joy.

We spent the 19th November on the keys between Marathon and Key West...mainly searching for White-crowned Pigeons and Scissor-tailed Flycatchers.

Finally caught up with 2 White-crowned Pigeons on a dead-end road in the middle of some mangrove...somewhere...

We spent the 20th November driving to Sanibel Island, via Flamingo in the Everglades NP.  Short-tailed Hawk, Snail Kite and Scissor-tailed Flycatcher were the birding highlights...to be continued.

 

92 species (108 trip total)

Pied-billed Grebe
Brown Pelican
Northern Gannet
Double-crested Cormorant
Anhinga
Magnificent Frigatebird
Great Blue Heron
Great Egret
Tricolored Heron
Little Blue Heron
Snowy Egret
Cattle Egret
Green Heron
Black-crowned Night-heron
Yellow-crowned Night-heron
Wood Stork
White Ibis
Glossy Ibis
Roseate Spoonbill
Black-bellied Whistling-duck
Mottled Duck
Blue-winged Teal
Northern Shoveler
Ring-necked Duck
Black Vulture
Turkey Vulture
Osprey
Snail Kite
Northern Harrier
Sharp-shinned Hawk
Red-shouldered Hawk
Broad-winged Hawk
Short-tailed Hawk
American Kestrel
Peregrine Falcon
Limpkin
Common Moorhen
American Coot
Black-bellied Plover
Semipalmated Plover
Wilson's Plover
Piping Plover
Short-billed Dowitcher
Greater Yellowlegs
Spotted Sandpiper
Willet
Ruddy Turnstone
Red Knot
Western Sandpiper
Ring-billed Gull
Great Black-backed Gull
American Herring Gull
Laughing Gull
Sandwich Tern
Royal Tern
Rock Pigeon
Rock (Feral) Pigeon
White-crowned Pigeon
Eurasian Collared-dove
Mourning Dove
White-winged Dove
Ruby-throated Hummingbird
Belted Kingfisher
Red-bellied Woodpecker
Pileated Woodpecker
Eastern Phoebe
Western Kingbird
Scissor-tailed Flycatcher
Tree Swallow
Northern Rough-winged Swallow
Gray Catbird
Northern Mockingbird
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher
Loggerhead Shrike
Common Myna
European Starling
White-eyed Vireo
Northern Parula
Magnolia Warbler
Black-throated Blue Warbler
Myrtle Warbler
Black-throated Green Warbler
Yellow-throated Warbler
Prairie Warbler
Palm Warbler
American Redstart
Ovenbird
Common Yellowthroat
Northern Cardinal
Red-winged Blackbird
Boat-tailed Grackle
Common Grackle

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More interesting stuff from Sigma

There have been a plethora of press releases and announcements over the past week...which is what PMA does for you.

Catching my attention so far has been Canon's big lenses, new entry-level DSLR, the huge, behemoth of a lens from Sigma...and a new compact camera from Sigma. I almost missed it in the superfluity of other announcements.

...

The Sigma DP1 has the 14 megapixel foveon APS-C sized sensor from the Sigma SD14 inside its small body (113.3 x 59.5 x 50.3mm / 4.5 x 2.3 x 2.0in).

Sigma say that this "is a completely new type of camera offering the full spec. and high image quality of a DSLR in the body of a compact camera", with five exposure modes the camera can be used from full auto point-and-shoot mode through to completely manual. The camera has three metering modes - Evaluative, Center Weighted Average and Spot and Exposure can be compensated in 1/3 stop increments to +/- 3 stops.

The built in flash is a pop-up design with a guide number of 6, but more interesting is the inclusion of a hot-shoe and that the camera allows flash exposure compensation in 1/3 stop increments.

The camera has a 16.6mm fixed focal length lens with a maximum aperture of f4 which is the equivalent of a 28mm f4 lens on a traditional 35mm camera. The auto focus system has 9 points and you can even record a 30 fps movie in QVGA (320x240) format onto an SD or SDHC card.

Like the new 200-500/2.8 lens, there is no indication of price yet.

All-in-all it sounds like a very attractive little package - ideal for a DSLR user looking for a point-and-shoot style camera with hot-shoe for creative lighting. The lack of zoom may be off-putting to some but I think the fixed focal length adds to the appeal. The lack of optical viewfinder is disappointing, although no more disappointing than the poor viewfinders often found on other cameras of this size.

I really like the fact that it doesn't appear to have the multitude of automatic shooting modes (that I have never used on any of my cameras) and am intrigued to see how image quality from the APS-C sensor works out on this small camera...

Full information from Sigma can be found here.

All images on this post are courtesy of Sigma

 -!-

Pimp your G9

Santa (read the lovely Mrs W) was very kind at Christmas and left a Canon G9 digital point-and-shoot camera under the tree with my name on it.

And it is one fine piece of kit, has a flash shoe, shoots RAW and now goes everywhere with me.

Although I can't praise the camera enough, I still don't have a case for it nor any filters...so a Google search lead me to this site that praises Richard Franiec's components for the G9.

Most interesting to me was the custom mechanical release adapter and link to the Lensmate.

The Lensmate screws on to the G9 lens adaptor ring and covers/protects the camera's lens. You can get a lens cap to fit the Lensmate and it has a 58mm thread to allow you to attach filters...which means I just have to buy an adaptor ring and can use my existing cokin filter system.

Genius. Not exactly what I was looking for, but genius!

Update: browsing some more links, I ended up at Luminous Landscape and Nick Devlin's recent piece on using a G9 travelling in Japan...and guess what? He was using a Lensmate and Richard Franiec's grip.

I actually subscribe to the Luminous Landscape RSS feed - I really should read my feeds more, it could save me time going through Google results!