A few days, and literally I mean 2, passed from getting the new lens and I was ready to see more birds. But finding places around here is difficult. Too many people. I needed a less populated area. Just like the one I was living at a few years before and my dad still lived in. Small town in North Carolina.
Packed up the photography stuff and woke up really early on a Saturday morning. It was about a 2 hour drive to get there and I knew I wanted to be ready to go when the sun came up. As this was a last minute decision, I had only called the night before to let them know I’d be up sometime in the morning. But sunrise was a bit much, as my dad doesn’t usually get up before say, 11am.
As it turned out, I didn’t wake up as early as I wanted anyway and was still just getting out of the house by the time the sun came up. So 2 hours later and the sunlight is fairly harsh. But that wasn’t going to deter me, as it still wouldn’t. One of the few good pieces of advice I’ve read on the internet is that the best time of day to shoot in the time that you’re out shooting. Goes for the best camera/lens you can use is the one you bring with you. Make the best out of what you can.
I arrived and realized I didn’t actually know where to go. I drove around for a bit but didn’t really find anywhere good to park and walk around. I eventually wound up at a school parking lot, Saturday and all so no one was there. I noticed several birds that were flitting about the parking lot, and as luck would have it, around a birdhouse. I managed to get fairly close to them and take some pictures.
Canon 5D Mark II w/ Tamron 150-600mm @600 - 1/640 Sec - F9 - ISO 500
Canon 5D Mark II w/ Tamron 150-600mm @600 - 1/640 Sec - F9 - ISO 250
Now at the time I thought “what pretty teal birds.” Now that I have more experience I’ve gone back and identified them as Tree Swallows, and uploaded these pictures to the portion of my site where I catalog the birds I photograph.
I moved on from the parking lot to some grassy areas nearby and then just went walking. Lots of bird activity in this area, and I did my best to capture everything that I could.
Canon 5D Mark II w/ Tamron 150-600mm @600 - 1/500 Sec - F9 - ISO 200
Canon 5D Mark II w/ Tamron 150-600mm @600 1/640 Sec - F9 - ISO 500
Canon 5D Mark II w/ Tamron 150-600mm @600 - 1/500 Sec - F9 - ISO 200
Eventually I moved on to just walking around looking at the scenery. Taking pictures of whatever sparked my interest. I actually walked a good bit through some fields and along fences. Turned the corner at one point and came upon an animal I don’t have a lot of experience with, living in the city.
Canon 5D Mark II w/ Tamron 150-600mm @600 - 1/500 Sec - F9 - ISO 400
There was also a hawk I caught eye of and ran to try and get a good picture. But as I didn’t want to trespass and go through people’s yards I stuck to the side of the road and just wasn’t quite close enough to get a good shot. Ah well.
That wraps up the highlights from the wildlife walkabout, I did get a lot of pictures that day but nothing spectacular. I like the tree swallow ones the best, as I could actually get close enough to see some nice detail. As I was coming to learn, the lens had some reach. But it didn’t really give me the detail that I wanted at that full extended range.
Part two of the trip was also completely unexpected. Usually going to my dads involves doing some chores for him, generally helping out things that he’d rather not do or needs another pair of hands for. Or a younger pair of hands. Thankfully I am more than willing to help out. But this trip turned into an actual trip outside for him as well. We went on a long mountain drive until the road ended, then probably hiked more than a mile. Now this was okay for me, not great for him. He does not go on hikes ever and is not conditioned for that. After retirement he tried to get a part time job as something to do, but the standing all day and constantly moving hurt him too much. So him hiking was extremely surprising. But absolutely worth it by the time we got to…
Canon 5D Mark II w/28-135mm @28 - 1/5 Sec - F22 - ISO 100
The waterfalls.
Canon 5D Mark II w/ Tamron 150-600mm @150 - 1/2 Sec - F32 - ISO 100
We had both brought our cameras, as I mentioned in a previous post my dad had taken a photography class and one of his assignments had been moving water. Although that class had been the year before and this was now just for fun. He knew what he was trying to accomplish and the settings to get the right image. We swapped some lenses too so he could try the bigger lens I had carried all the way on this hike. I do not think I absolutely needed to bring that, but the close up on the water is pretty cool.
As he had mentioned doing long exposures of the flowing water, that’s what I tried as well. See the above two images lol.
Canon 5D Mark II w/28-135mm @135 - 1/640 - F5.6 - ISO 400
I also enjoy seeing the water frozen still. As you see from the last image.
A fantastic trip overall. Learned a lot, got to see cool sights and birds. Surprise hiking with my dad which I thought was going to end at any of the points we stopped for him to catch his breath. We kept finding spots where the water would drop a bit, but nothing like the image we had seen online. Finally he said he couldn’t go any further and I ran on ahead to see if there was a nicer spot. Which is what you saw in the pictures, right at the end of the trail is that area with multiple drop points that create a lovely little water display. Couldn’t ask for much better.