It was time.
The lens had arrived and I was ready. Packed a lunch and went out on the first available Saturday. I was headed up to the mountains, farther north than I had been before. Well, in Georgia. As we know a place in North Carolina is frequently visited.
I had found a highway that would take me into the forest, and one park on the way that I figured would be a good place to stop and make a further plan from there. That didn’t exactly work out however. I must have left the house before 5am, since at 6 I was at the park looking around in the dark. Like still very much dark.
And cell service wasn’t great up there, so I was kind of going in blind. I knew I would get to a town if I continued on that road long enough.
However what I did wind up finding was nowhere I could park for free. All the parks or docks for the water were paid only. There were state parks I wasn’t going to try at this point. And because it was just this windy trail alongside a mountain that I was entirely unfamiliar with, I was constantly pulling over to let people pass. But there were a lot of jerks riding my bumper that just frustrated me. I’m not sure what they expected, should I just drive my car entirely off the cliff to let them pass? There are only so many spots to pull over. Why get so uncomfortably close when there isn’t a spot?
So that’s how the morning went. For hours I was just driving trying to find a place I could actually get out and walk around. Mostly by sight because the GPS was spotty. Overall it was a learning experience, to plan the trip beforehand and have a backup in case it didn’t work out. Also to figure out how to download a map offline so you could still just use GPS when the signal isn’t good.
Eventually, I gave up for one day. But I wasn’t done yet, I was determined to use the new lens. I was avoiding local spots because I already get stopped by random people every time I go out. And that was just with my other equipment, imagine what this giant white beacon of a lens would bring.
Thankfully on this particular day, no one approached me at least. Many watched at a distance and spoke too loudly about what I was doing. But I was in a very populated area so I knew what to expect. This isn’t what I wanted to do but it was better than just going home without using my new lens.
It was around 1 in the afternoon by the time I had arrived, and it had been cloudy overcast and scattered rain throughout the day. But I sat down by the waterside and started taking pictures.
Canon 7D Mark II w/300mm - 1/500 Sec - F2.8 - ISO 100
Needless to say I am thrilled with the result. Even in such poor lighting conditions I got a great moment of this Mallard doing a quick splash.
Canon 7D Mark II w/300mm - 1/500 Sec - F2.8 - ISO 100
These last two were cropped in quite a bit to just get the single subject, what I was actually getting out of the camera was a good bit more of the scene.
Canon 7D Mark II w/300mm - 1/500 Sec - F2.8 - ISO 100
Canon 7D Mark II w/300mm - 1/500 Sec - F2.8 - ISO 160
Canon 7D Mark II w/300mm - 1/500 Sec - F2.8 - ISO 160
Canon 7D Mark II w/300mm - 1/1250 Sec - F2.8 - ISO 800
This next one is one of my absolute favorites.
Canon 7D Mark II w/300mm - 1/500 Sec - F2.8 - ISO 320
The ducks weren’t the only visitors to the river that day, soon another guest would come gliding in. And I was there with the camera to capture it.
Canon 7D Mark II w/300mm - 1/500 Sec - F2.8 - ISO 320
Unfortunately they landed on the far side, and facing away from me. So I wouldn’t get any spectacular landing shot today. Back to the ducks, which I was trying my damnedest to get an interestingly composed shot.
Canon 7D Mark II w/300mm - 1/500 Sec - F2.8 - ISO 640
It didn’t happen in the end. They were both never looking outward at the same time, and then they moved along. As did I.
I’ll also put these two next photos in this post, they were actually from 2 days before when I first received the new lens. But it was just out the window from my home and didn’t have much of a story to make it into a separate post.
Canon 7D Mark II w/300mm - 1/400 Sec - F2.8 - ISO 1000
Canon 7D Mark II w/300mm - 1/400 Sec - F2.8 - ISO 250