Happy New Year and welcome to some street art and a stunning close-up.

Today I am looking at pictures of crazy bugs and butterflies taken with my new DSLR. They are a lot of fun.

We hope you will join us for the Pet Parade of wonderful wordy and wordless posts and tweets that our blogging and social media friends conjure each week!

Learning about Camera Settings

I hope to share my discoveries with Pet Parade visitors as I learn about the settings on my DSLR camera dial. There is a lot to learn so I will be haunting YouTube a lot this year for helpful videos.

THE SETTINGS ARE:

• Automatic (very easy)
• Manual (very hard)
• P mode – the 3 ‘modes’ HELP you to learn about settings.
• AV mode
• Tv mode

Finding Bugs to Photograph

On a visit to the Wairarapa farming and wine growing area just north of the city of Wellington, New Zealand we stopped in Carterton. The town is the home of one of New Zealand’s most helpful bookshops. Almo’s as well as this photo opportunity – a crazy bug for kids.

This a fun piece of street art opposite the council’s offices. It catches the eye, first as a bright smudge on the ground, then as you walk closer as a painted bug squished under a bright blue spade.

From Bugs to Butterflies

The crazy creature and this Monarch butterfly are an experiment with P mode. One of the things it does seem to do is help you give a close-up item sharper focus against a diffuse background. The butterfly is resting on a cluster of Valerian blossom. Yes, the same Valerian that drives cats crazier than ‘nip.

This looks better than my last butterfly I think.

What is P mode on a Camera?

When you set the Program (P) mode on your dial ….. you hand over control of both shutter speed and aperture to the camera. This can be good. It lets you concentrate on the subject. But shutter speed and aperture are the creative forces behind photography.

Shooting modes – CPN

So this means that I will need to explore shutter speed and aperture controls. With more hunting on YouTube for helpful videos.

Join us for 2019 and the most fun blog hop!

Help us to launch 2019 with an explosion of social media fun and colour with Pet Parade co-hosts Bionic Basil and the B Team and new Texans Barking from the Bayou.

Marjorie and the
Dash Kitten Crew