Taking stock

I have recently acquired a new toy in the shape of a Canon Powershot S1 IS which has occupied much of my time over the last few days. I am hopeful that I may be able to control the picture output better with this camera as my old Finepix allowed only very limited choice beyond the automatic settings. I do find however that I am now having to relearn a lot of the photography basics that I have not had to bother about for a good many years now. My last SLR was pretty well fully automatic and so I am finding it a steep learning curve. But it does keep me out of mischief.
The weather has not been very good recently and so I have not been able to get much inspiration outdoors. We did take a trip to Hartshill Hayes Country Park where I had hopes of some good distance views as some of the walks are quite high up. However the day turned very grey, and what I did shoot was not very successful. I did find a rather lovely group of snowdrops, one of which is below.


Snowdrop

Last Sunday was Mother's Day and so we (or rather, my wife) was presented with, among other things, the obligatory potted plant, on which I had to try out a few close ups.


Hyacinth

Keeping on the floral theme I found that there are beginning to be plenty of spring flowers coming into bloom in the garden.


Daffodils

These violas have actually been flowering for much of the winter, but seem pleased at a bit of warmer weather.


Viola