300mm F2.8 IS L - 10/26/19

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

Biting the bullet - 10/20/19

A decision had been weighing on me for quite some time. I wasn’t happy with work, it didn’t fulfill any kind of purpose. It was just day to day more or less the same thing over and over.

I finally found something fulfilling, but in order to pursue that I have to put in the time, effort and money. One of those I’m more than willing to do. The time is hard because the majority of my time is spent working. And money, hell money is always troublesome. I watched my dad fall into a depression after my mom left and he racked up literally tens of thousands of dollars in debt buying stuff on eBay.

So I’ve tried to be somewhat cautious with money. Not going all out extravagant on things I don’t need. I fail this many times, especially with smaller purchases that I make a lot of. Like collecting comics, or funko pops. Or Star Wars figures.

So the thought of dropping serious cash I always have reservations about. I’ve talked about it quite a bit on here before. It’s always on the other side pushing against this hobby. Can I really afford to spend that much? Shouldn’t it be more responsible to save it, or pay off debt with that money. Or not put more debt on.

Eventually I work myself up so much with it that’s it is just easier to buy the thing and damn the consequences. It puts my mind at ease at that point. And I don’t regret the purchases, I’m happy with the results and glad I did.

For this purchase the majority of it came from savings. I had been putting aside every bonus I received at work and extra money out of each check. Slowly crawling towards some goal I was realizing I didn’t care about. I’m not ready to buy a house, I don’t know where I want to live for a longer period of time. And they are so fucking expensive.

So I pulled 2 grand out of savings and bought the Canon 300mm 2.8 IS L.

And it is amazing, but it wouldn’t come in the mail for a while yet, I had been watching the Amazon used listings for a while looking for a good deal. Most of them were crap and overpriced, or the really old version without the IS. Which isn’t what I wanted. I knew I really couldn’t afford the mark II, that was and still is over 4 grand for a used lens.

To go along with that, a new lens is great but I knew that 7D I got was just a placeholder. And to be fair since that point both the 7D and the Tamron lens I’ve been shooting with all of this summer I’ve now sold off to recoup some of my cost. That is a bit of the cornerstone that puts me at ease for spending. I can typically get back most of my purchase cost.

So to go with the new lens, a faster body. The Canon 7D Mark II. Which is a beast of a camera body. Many significant upgrades from the mark one. More FPS is really useful for wildlife, fast moving objects are a tough subject.

It also handles low light and ISO much better. I had a tough time with that before with the mark one, really just want nice clean crisp profiles of wildlife. But of course that’s not within my control most of the time as you’re not in a studio with lights and the time to change settings to get it just right. So the better technology is welcome for sure. Also two memory card slots makes me feel better about the eventuality of an failure.

But enough about the camera itself. Onto what I pointed it at. Outside the window on this particular day I saw another woodpecker.

Canon 7D Mark II w/70-200 - 1/320 Sec - F2.8 - ISO 400

Canon 7D Mark II w/70-200 - 1/320 Sec - F2.8 - ISO 400

Even though I missed the focus and only had a brief few seconds, I’m still pleased with what came out of it.

And just for fun I was playing around with the reach of the 70-200 with a 2x tele-converter. Managed to get this great moment of a Blue Jay being a bit greedy.

Canon 7D Mark II w/70-200 and 2x tele-converter - 1/320 Sec - F5.6 - ISO 1250

How are you going to crack those open to eat both of them at the same time? Hmm?

NC birds - 10/15/19

I was in need of a new area to view wildlife. There are just too many people around where I live in the metro Atlanta area. Every place I go there are always people out, which is the opposite of what I am looking for. People are rude and loud, scare off wildlife. And as much as it’s cool to meet new people who ask me about photography, it’s not why I’m out there.

So, from the heavily populated Atlanta, to the practically empty town in NC my dad lives in. I’ve been up there to shoot before, but not to this particular place. I found a nature trail on google maps and decided to go up the next Friday night so I could be outside at sunrise.

I also picked up my sister on the way, since she lives north of me. And we both hadn’t seen our dad in a while. I didn’t expect her to be willing to go on the nature walk, but she was awake and up for it at 6am. So out we went.

Canon 5D Mark II w/70-200 - 1/800 Sec - F2.8 - ISO 400

I got to play around with the 70-200 2.8, and boy it easily became my favorite lens. I didn’t even get a version with image stabilization for price reasons. But the low light capabilities from such a wide aperture was a world of difference. And the auto focus! I didn’t know a lens could be that fast and accurate. You really do get what you pay for.

We didn’t spot too many birds I could get a good shot of, but we did watch a squirrel run out on some branches of a tree. Grab a nut and bring it back for snacking.

Canon 7D w/Tamron 150-600 - 1/400 Sec - F6.3 - ISO 3200

We also found an abandoned Frisbee, there was a disc golf goal somewhere along the trail. Which obviously had to lead to us goofing around and capturing this magnificent picture.

Canon 5D Mark II w/70-200 - 1/1000 Sec - F2.8 - ISO 400

It was out where the disc golf was that the woods had opened up and we had big open fields around us. I managed to take a shot of a blue jay in flight up in the sky.

It’s better than I have gotten with pointing the camera up in the sky, much much faster shutter speed than I’ve done before.

Canon 7D w/Tamron 150-600 - 1/4000 Sec - F8 - ISO 1600

That was it for the nature walk. Unfortunately we saw most of the wildlife early in the morning, and although the 70-200 would have handled the low light better, it didn’t have the reach I was going for. So trading off between the two I really didn’t get that good of results. I wanted more reach with that wide aperture… hmm..

Back at the house I turned to the bird feeder, I’ve taken a good amount of pictures of it before. But not with this kind of setup. And I was pleasantly surprised to capture images of two new birds for me. The Carolina Chickadee and the Tufted Titmouse.

Canon 7D w/Tamron 150-600 - 1/2000 Sec - F8 - ISO 3200

Canon 7D w/Tamron 150-600 - 1/800 Sec - F8 - ISO 2500

Canon 7D w/Tamron 150-600 - 1/800 Sec - F8 - ISO 2500

Canon 7D w/Tamron 150-600 - 1/1000 Sec - F8 - ISO 2000

Canon 7D w/Tamron 150-600 - 1/1000 Sec - F8 - ISO 2000

Canon 7D w/Tamron 150-600 - 1/1000 Sec - F8 - ISO 2500

Canon 7D w/Tamron 150-600 - 1/1000 Sec - F8 - ISO 2500

Then it was on to an afternoon of yard work and being taken out for lunch before heading home. A short trip, but that’s about all I could afford with needing to be back on Sunday for groceries and meal prep for the work week.