TRYING OUT MY NEW NIKON 18-300mm LENS:))

TESTING OUT MY NEW LENS THIS AFTERNOON….FLOWERS ABOVE ARE COSMOS

We were able to knock off two birds with one stone this morning so to speak.  Kelly had to return something to the ‘WINNERS’ store in London and I was wanting to stop in at HENRY'S CAMERA STORE and pick up my new Nikon 18-300mm lens.  Both these stores were within a mile or so of each other.

SPOTTED A FEW MORE ‘BARN QUILTS’ ON OUR WAY TO LONDON

SAW THIS GANG OF WORKERS IN A FIELD….ENLARGING THE PHOTO IN MY EDITING PROGRAM I COULD SEE IT WAS STONES AND ROCKS THEY WERE PICKING UP

We knew it was going to be a hot and humid day so decided it was best that Pheebs stay home in the cool house.  Under sunny blue skies Kelly and I headed off to London around 8:30.  Twenty minutes later we had to kick on the Jeep’s A/C and it wasn’t even 9 a.m. yet.  Miserable #@*!!!%%#% humidity!!!!!

AFTER UNPACKING MY NEW LENS AND AFFIXING IT TO MY CAMERA THIS AFTERNOON I LIFTED IT UP AND THIS WAS THE FIRST PHOTO WITH THE NEW CAMARA/LENS COMBO….ALL  PHOTOS BEYOND THIS POINT WERE TAKEN IN OUR FRONT YARD WITH MY NIKON D7200 CAMERA AND THIS MORNING’S NEW NIKKOR 18-300mm LENS….ALL PHOTOS ARE HAND HELD….I’M JUST TOO DARNED IMPATIENT TO USE A TRI-POD IT SEEMS

<<< GOLDEN JAPANESE FOREST GRASS

Our first stop was at ‘Winners’ in the Hyde Park Mall.  From there it was east along Fanshaw Road to Henry’s Camera Store.  Had been in email contact with a fellow there by the name of Fiore for about a week in regards to trading in some recently acquired camera gear on a new Nikon lens.  Luckily Kelly came in the store with me which made the transaction a little less confusing for me.  It was decided I would purchase the lens and try it out for a week or two.  If satisfied we would then proceed with the trade-in camera gear.  I appreciated Fiore’s down to earth personality.  I have found some if not most younger sales people in camera store’s to be a bit on the uppity hoity-toity side sometimes.  Fiore was closer to my age and didn’t talk down to me like I didn’t know which end of a camera to look through.  We were a good 40 minutes in the store.  That is probably the longest I have ever spent in a camera store ever.

PURPLE CLEMATIS AND THE PHOTO BEFORE THE BLACK GRACKLE BIRD ABOVE IS A WHITE CLEMATIS

SWEET WILLIAM

HONEYSUCKLE

COSMOS

With a McDonald’s across the road from Henry’s we grabbed ourselves a couple coffees and lit out for home.  I don’t mind London as a city but I’m always glad to see any city quickly disappearing in my rear view mirror.  An hour after leaving London we were back home in our quiet like country setting.

GRACKLE

THIS FELLOW’S NAME IS WALLY AND HE’S CUTTING NEIGHBOR MONICAS LAWN

OUR FRONT YARD JUNGLE GROWS THICKER AND I’M HOPING KELLY DOESN’T GET LOST IN THERE SOMEWHERE

ORANGE HISBISCUS AND WHITE COSMOS

Didn’t take me long to attach the new Nikon (Nikkor) lens to my Nikon D7200 and head out the door into the yard looking for things to try the new lens out on.  Lots of subjects around of course so I started clicking away.  I haven’t had the D7200 camera a week yet and with the lens being brand new I wasn’t exactly sure what I was going to end up with.  Scurried back into the house and unloaded the pics into my Picasa photo editing program.  Well, lots of room for improvement on my part of course but in my technically challenged little world I thought both the camera and lens worked well together and did a good job.  It’s up to me now to blend myself in with those two technical wonders and see if between the three of us we can put ourselves together some fine photos now and again.  Pheebs and I will be taking the new camera set-up for a road test in the morning.  So far so good though and all photos in tonight’s post were taken with the D7200 and 18-300mm lens this afternoon.

COSMOS

CALA LILY

HAD I USED A TRI-POD ON THESE FLOWER PHOTOS LIKE THE ONE ABOVE AND THE ONE BELOW I’M SURE I COULD HAVE GOT THEM MUCH SHARPER….BUT YOU KNOW WHAT OLD IMPATIENT ME IS LIKE…………….

SUNBURST LOCUST LEAVES

FLOWERS ABOVE ARE DIPLADENIA

A very close call for Merikay and Craig when their Class A Motorhome ran off the road way up there in that Alaska place recently.  Be sure to check out what happened and see their accident photos at Merikay's Dream.  Merikay and Craig dropped into see us a couple summer’s ago here at our place just outside of Bayfield Ontario.  Nice folks………..

DAHLIA

And speaking of Alaska it seems that Wily Coyote Ivan fella slipped the surly bonds of Alberta a few weeks ago and has turned himself and Hailey up in the very wilds of wooly Alaska itself.  Grab onto his coat tails if you can and he’ll take ya places where tourists usually don’t go.  You can catch up with him somewhere Down The Alaska Highway.  We last saw Ivan just south of Patagonia Arizona a few months ago.  He led us to a cemetery.  What a guy eh:))

I’M STANDING IN FRONT OF OUR HOUSE LOOKING WEST

CLIMBING RED ROSE

And hey Wandering Willy way over there near Agassiz British Columbia we hear you have some new neighbors headed your way from Vancouver Island.  Treat em good now, they are special friends of ours.  Well, your too…………….:))

GROANER’S CORNER:((  Poodle: “My life is a mess.  My owner is mean, my girlfriend is leaving me for a German shepherd, and I’m as nervous as a cat.”  Collie: “Why don’t you go see a psychiatrist?”  Poodle: “I can’t. I’m not allowed on the couch.”

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Have you heard about the elephant with diarrhea? It's all over town!

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Someone mistakenly leaves the cages open in the reptile house at the Bronx Zoo and there are snakes slithering all over the place.   Frantically, the keeper tries everything, but he can't get them back in their cages. Finally he says, "Quick, call a lawyer!"  "A lawyer? Why??  "We need someone who speaks their language!"