"I see you, little guy!"
Yesterday we visited the Clinton Community Nature Center for a demonstration on reptiles. We got there a bit early, so we looked around at the aquariums that lined the walls of the demonstration room, and I felt comfortable enough with my new E-P1 to use it for an actual outing. This is the first official outing and real workout for the E-P1, so I was looking forward to seeing how well it (and I) would perform.
"Get on with it already."
Mr. Jerry, our instructor for the day, started out with a lesson on reptiles and the similarities and differences between snakes, lizards, crocodilians, etc. Sofia wasn’t particularly impressed, not because it wasn’t a good presentation–Denise and I both learned new things about reptiles–but because she’s not quite 3 years old and was promised animals, not some random dude talking. The goggle face is her attempt at entertaining herself while Mr. Jerry explains how crocodiles can live in salty-ish water because of their lingual salt glands.
Then we got to the good stuff! First up was this tortoise.
"Nice to meet you, Mr. Tortoise."
Then there was a corn snake.
Corn snake
And those were all the show and tell animals Mr. Jerry brought out. There was also a live alligator in one of the aquariums (as seen in the 1st picture), but for obvious reasons he didn’t get trotted out like the tortoise and snake.
Best buds
This blonde boy had stepped and fallen on top of Sofia earlier in the throng of kids that gathered to see the tortoise when Mr. Jerry set it loose. She cried then, but they were best buds afterward. One great thing about her: she doesn’t hold grudges.
Messing around
On to the camera nerdery details. These were all shot at ISO 1600 and 3200–1600 for the 1st 2, and 3200 for the rest. I set the in-camera noise reduction to “low” and was pleased with the out-of-camera JPEGs. I’ve confirmed that for me 1600 is usable without hesitation, and although 3200 is a tad noisier than I’m used to I’m still comfortable using it when necessary. I’m not even going to bother with 6400 because I’ve seen samples online and know it’s a blurry, noisy mess.
So I’m still happy with the E-P1. I have some reservations about various aspects of its operation and performance, which I’ll address in a separate post about the E-P1, but even with those concerns I’m quite pleased with it. Denise commented that I was very inconspicuous using it vs. the 5D that I usually wield, and that in a big way is one of the reasons I got it.