Newbie from Windsor, Ontario.

[britishbandit]

Hello everyone!

Just wanted to introduce myself. My name is Karen, and just signed up here after lurking now and again checking the place out. I grew up in England (note the "british" in my username), but moved to Canada when I was 10. I'm a wildlife and animal lover and just got really into photography about 2 years ago. Self taught, I've basically spent the past 2 years learning my camera and fiddling around with settings figuring out what they all do and what works best in specific situations.

I am an animal lover (wildlife too) and have 4 pets at the moment. A female Rottweiler named Tysa (who'll be 7 in May), an 8 year old cat (my heart pet) named Bandit, a 1 1/2 year old cat named Abby and my 11 month old foster cat named Hunter. I did have a 5 year old male Rottie too (he's in my avatar), PJ, but sadly he had to be put down (due to a brain tumor/seizures) on my 30th birthday this past January. By far the worst and saddest birthday ever.

I've spent the past year photographing all kinds of wildlife, and have had a blast doing it! I love the challenge of it, first having to find where certain species live and then trying to capture them without making them uncomfortable (as much as possible anyway). My favorite subjects to date are owls, and luckily have been able to find a fair number of species out in the wild. Over the past year I've found Great Horned Owls (a nest actually last March and lucky for me, the mama owl chose the same nest again this year and is currently on the eggs), Eastern Screech Owls, Short Eared Owls and Long Eared Owls. Great thing about owls is even those that migrate, they seem to come back to the same location year after year.

I currently shoot with a Canon EOS Rebel XSi, and to be honest, for my first SLR (bought it almost 3 years ago), it has served me well and has been a great entry level camera. I am hoping however to upgrade in the near future to the Canon 7d. While the pro cameras look awesome, the prices for me do not. LOL On a single income and this being a hobby and not a profession, I feel the 7D makes the most sense.

I'll quite boring you all now and end this here, but I look forward to checking the forum out and sharing some of my photos with you all. Hoping to get some feedback/critiques too. Negative or positive, I'm all for it if it helps me improve my techniques.

 

[altitude604]

Welcome to the Forum!

I've got an XSi as well and it's still serving me quite well, although an upgrade is probably in the future. hehe

Enjoy the forums, there's a lot of pretty knowledgeable folks around.

 

[atech]

"there's a lot of pretty knowledgeable folks around." - fully agree with that - Hello Karen!