The official name for New Mexico is “Land of Enchantment”. It’s even on our license plates. That name is probably due to the ancient civilizations that lived, and still live, here. In addition there’s that incredible light, dramatic always-new skies and craggy-spiney landscape. So I had some fun with interpreting that here. The last photo of Pegasus, is typical of what you might find on any rural road in this state. Well, truth be told, most of the roads are rural. But people here like to make their own art and then proudly display it. That’s great for me because I like to proudly view it and photograph it.
A couple of days ago, we packed up the Winnebago van and headed up to Bandelier National Monument. I’m still getting used to the Nikon P950, and in a place like this, it was a great choice. This is big country with distances that seem to stretch out to eternity. This was once a thriving community. As one of the visitors noted, at the time that Chaucer was writing The Canterbury Tales, this culture was at its peak; and they were trading with other cultures many hundreds of miles away. In case it isn’t obvious, I couldn’t get enough of this place. It is calm, ethereal and inspiring. Words can’t quite describe it, but maybe some of these photos will, at least a bit. The light was flat with lots of glare, but still, I think for a small sensor camera, the P950 made a good showing of what it’s capable of….especially when trying to take some photos of the mule-eared deer, which were clearly used to visitors.
This camera has been tempting me for quite some time. I realize that it’s only a small sensor, but that zoom has been enticing. I finally got a chance to try it out and I am impressed. These are the first shots.
It’s the size of a large DSLR, but because it’s mostly composite, I found it to be rather lightweight. I could easily carry it all day. I had tried the Lumix version of this, not nearly the same focal length, but still in the same category of SuperZoom. What can I say? I just didn’t like the User Interface of the Lumix. It felt clumsy and I always ended up distracted and annoyed by it. It did take great pictures though. This P950, however, operates like a dream. Everything seems to be in the right place and well thought out.
I haven’t tried any JPEGs because I’m rarely satisfied with those results. Plus, I enjoy “Post” too much. So these two images were RAW at 100 ISO. That equals an optimum setup for this camera, or any small sensor. Of course what you see here has been crushed and re-purposed to fit on the web. But in the original, I could easily get a gorgeous 8×10 print out of it and you’d be hard pressed to guess what camera, or what sensor size, produced it.
I like the snap-back feature which will quickly give me a wider view when I’m at extreme telephoto range. I can reframe, let go of that button, and presto, I’m focused exactly on the spot I wanted.
This crow photo was amazing to me. I could hardly see a black dot in the top of a pine tree that turned out to be this bird. This shot is at maximum zoom or very close to. Stabilization is rated at 5+ stops. I don’t think that’s an exaggeration although a monopod would be helpful.
Living out here in the land of petroglyphs and rock formations, I think I’ll have a great time using this camera. There is a place for it. Will it replace the Nikon Z50? Of course not.
santafeandme.photos 
Leave a comment