So for my birthday, one of the presents I got from Molly was a new lens for my camera. It is an Opteka 650-1300 telephoto lens.

One of the bonuses to this is it is 100% manual. I’m still most definitely honing my skill. This will help me do that.

That being said, today is an absolutely beautiful day and we decided to take the dogs to the Iams Dog Park in Fayetteville and I took my camera to start learning the ins and outs of taking pictures with such a fabulously huge lens.

The dog park is located out Wedington Drive. Greta, Trinket, and Kelly had an absolutely wonderful time!! I got to practice with my new lens and am excited to get better with it.

These pictures are not stellar by any means, but it gave me an idea of what I can do with this lens. This picture is with my standard lens just to give some context to the pictures the Opteka lens. This will give you an idea of where I was standing taking all of these pictures.

Then I put on the Beast!! I stayed in the same spot and took pictures of the trees that are outside the dog park area. I attempted some action shots, but did not master those yet for sure.

This set of trees was outside the dog park towards the side where there is a pond.

This flag was at an apartment complex quite a way from the dog park.

Trinket and Kelly were getting used to the idea of running around and checking out all the new smells.

Greta and Kelly made a new poodle friend. This is all the way across the dog park in the farthest corner from where I was standing.

This is their new poodle friend checking out the smells.

Could Greta have a future in agility?? She was slightly interested in the jump located at the far end of the park.

These trees are outside the dog park on the other side of the fence at the far end. There really isn’t anything to see in them, I was just learning the focusing and focusing on different levels of branches.

Then I found this little guy – the fattest little Red Breasted Robin I’ve seen in awhile!!

Then Greta found a friend who actually knew what to do with the dog jump!!

He was a cute little guy. They ran and chased each other all over the place.

Kelly was winding down after running her little legs off.

The dogs all had a blast and I had fun getting familiar with my new lens. I haven’t figured out yet what causes it, but some of the pictures I took have a very “soft” look to them. I haven’t edited any of these pictures at all other than to reduce the dpi to 72 from 300.

Monday is supposed to be a full moon. I hope that I am able to get out and find a spot where I can attempt some moon pictures!