2018 Festival of the Cranes
Nov. 19th, 2018 12:20 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thewayneIt's an annual event at the Bosque del Apache Wildlife Preserve, about 90 minutes south of Albuquerque, held the week before Thanksgiving. I went Thursday as my wife theoretically had jury duty Friday and I thought it might be less crowded than Saturday. It was, a bit. Chatted with the Panasonic Lumix guy and he took my picture with my ZS70 for publication: apparently the Japanese love seeing photos of people with cameras. Picked up a camera for a friend: she bought the same Lumix that I shoot, and by me picking it up she saved sales tax and shipping. And best of all: borrowed $13,000 worth of a Canon Eos R camera and 500mm prime lens!
Me, with said camera and lens on my Manfrotto tripod. My wife had just texted me and asked how it was going, I replied with this selfie. :-)
More pix under the cut, as usual clicken to embiggen.
The camera and lens on the hood of my car. I should've removed the lens hood so we could see the front element. I used the 128gig memory card from my Lumix as I had no idea how much shooting I would be doing nor how much space a 30MP sensor shooting RAW + JPEG would require. This photo was taken with my Lumix, having taken a 32gig card from my Canon 6D.
The Eos R is a fairly new camera from Canon. It's a 30 megapixel full-frame camera and is mirrorless, which reduces the camera's thickness and introduces a new line of lenses. With an adapter you can use the main Eos line of lenses, and the adapter gives you another set of controls to fiddle with.
This particular image was originally a stitch of twenty images, but after I put together the panorama I noticed that the focus point was on the woods behind the birds, not on the birds themselves. But I liked the composition and wanted to keep it, so I applied a pastel brush technique to it. I think it works well.
This shot, taken as a whole, was boring. Then I noticed that it had some good action off to the side and with a crop it was greatly improved. One thing that impressed me with this lens was its image stabilization capability: I shot this photo hand-held! No tripod!
This image demonstrates just how shallow the depth of field can be with a 500mm lens.
I'm rather fond of this duck photograph. I like how the duck's head is slightly turned towards the camera, and I love the curve formed by the head and neck echoed in the reflection. And the detail caught by the camera and lens in the ripples is gorgeous! Of course, for $13,000 it ought to be!
This is last 500mm shot. There are two loops in the wildlife refuge, a north loop and a south loop. Last year I drove the north loop and it took a lot of time, this year I took the south. Much shorter, the first leg had two-way traffic before it turned in to one-way so I could turn around if I ran out of time, and I hadn't seen it before. I was merrily shooting along when I heard this massive racket, looked up and saw this huge flock of cranes flying about. I took a number of photos and this was one of the head of the flock that I liked.
That's it for the Eos R and the 500mm lens. I didn't have much time as I arrived much later than I should've and had to get the camera back before the exhibit tent closed. But I did take photos with my Lumix ZS70....
I had a chance to shoot the flock of cranes with my Lumix, which zooms out to a 35mm equivalent of about 780mm. Considering the much smaller optics and sensor size and a 20 megapixel vs 30 megapixel capture, I think it acquits itself quite well when it came to capturing the flock.
This is a seven-step HDR, I like the crane in the middle with its wings flexed.
This is a nine-image stitched panorama. I shot this at the first pond where I shot the duck and the shallow depth of field with the 500mm. I liked the stillness of the water giving the reflection of the mountain and the trees and bushes.
I'm hoping next year to maybe spend the night in Albuquerque so I have only a 90 minute drive instead of 2.5 hours from home, it'll depend on my job situation in the coming year. At the Canon booth last year they were giving away free baseball caps, as seen in the selfie. I wanted to get one for a friend who also shoots Canon, in fact I sold him my T2i which was a HUGE step up from what he was shooting. I didn't see any out and asked, they had them in the back. I just wanted one for him, turned out they had a different color this year and they were happy to give me two! So I have a yellow/butterscotish color cap that I can keep in my wife's car, and the greyish color for mine with one for Terry when I get back to Phoenix.
Next year I want to borrow a Canon 5D body: that puppy has 50 megapixel resolution! But I also want to get at least 3 hours with it if I can so I can explore more of its capabilities.
Me, with said camera and lens on my Manfrotto tripod. My wife had just texted me and asked how it was going, I replied with this selfie. :-)
More pix under the cut, as usual clicken to embiggen.
The camera and lens on the hood of my car. I should've removed the lens hood so we could see the front element. I used the 128gig memory card from my Lumix as I had no idea how much shooting I would be doing nor how much space a 30MP sensor shooting RAW + JPEG would require. This photo was taken with my Lumix, having taken a 32gig card from my Canon 6D.
The Eos R is a fairly new camera from Canon. It's a 30 megapixel full-frame camera and is mirrorless, which reduces the camera's thickness and introduces a new line of lenses. With an adapter you can use the main Eos line of lenses, and the adapter gives you another set of controls to fiddle with.
This particular image was originally a stitch of twenty images, but after I put together the panorama I noticed that the focus point was on the woods behind the birds, not on the birds themselves. But I liked the composition and wanted to keep it, so I applied a pastel brush technique to it. I think it works well.
This shot, taken as a whole, was boring. Then I noticed that it had some good action off to the side and with a crop it was greatly improved. One thing that impressed me with this lens was its image stabilization capability: I shot this photo hand-held! No tripod!
This image demonstrates just how shallow the depth of field can be with a 500mm lens.
I'm rather fond of this duck photograph. I like how the duck's head is slightly turned towards the camera, and I love the curve formed by the head and neck echoed in the reflection. And the detail caught by the camera and lens in the ripples is gorgeous! Of course, for $13,000 it ought to be!
This is last 500mm shot. There are two loops in the wildlife refuge, a north loop and a south loop. Last year I drove the north loop and it took a lot of time, this year I took the south. Much shorter, the first leg had two-way traffic before it turned in to one-way so I could turn around if I ran out of time, and I hadn't seen it before. I was merrily shooting along when I heard this massive racket, looked up and saw this huge flock of cranes flying about. I took a number of photos and this was one of the head of the flock that I liked.
That's it for the Eos R and the 500mm lens. I didn't have much time as I arrived much later than I should've and had to get the camera back before the exhibit tent closed. But I did take photos with my Lumix ZS70....
I had a chance to shoot the flock of cranes with my Lumix, which zooms out to a 35mm equivalent of about 780mm. Considering the much smaller optics and sensor size and a 20 megapixel vs 30 megapixel capture, I think it acquits itself quite well when it came to capturing the flock.
This is a seven-step HDR, I like the crane in the middle with its wings flexed.
This is a nine-image stitched panorama. I shot this at the first pond where I shot the duck and the shallow depth of field with the 500mm. I liked the stillness of the water giving the reflection of the mountain and the trees and bushes.
I'm hoping next year to maybe spend the night in Albuquerque so I have only a 90 minute drive instead of 2.5 hours from home, it'll depend on my job situation in the coming year. At the Canon booth last year they were giving away free baseball caps, as seen in the selfie. I wanted to get one for a friend who also shoots Canon, in fact I sold him my T2i which was a HUGE step up from what he was shooting. I didn't see any out and asked, they had them in the back. I just wanted one for him, turned out they had a different color this year and they were happy to give me two! So I have a yellow/butterscotish color cap that I can keep in my wife's car, and the greyish color for mine with one for Terry when I get back to Phoenix.
Next year I want to borrow a Canon 5D body: that puppy has 50 megapixel resolution! But I also want to get at least 3 hours with it if I can so I can explore more of its capabilities.
no subject
Date: 2018-11-25 02:15 am (UTC)I didn't know about the event before. We get some cranes up here too, but I just know about the timing.
no subject
Date: 2018-11-25 02:58 am (UTC)If it's at a National Park Service refuge, you might want to look it up and see if it's an 'event'. I didn't have a particularly good time the first year: it was incredibly cold, as in below freezing all day, and while I was dressed for it, it just wasn't much fun. Last year and this year I had a better idea as to what was going on and enjoyed it a lot more. Plus I was confident enough to walk up to the Canon people and ask to borrow expensive gear, and as Frost said, That has made all the difference!
no subject
Date: 2018-11-27 10:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-11-27 11:02 pm (UTC)If you don't mind traveling and you enjoy birding, there's a huge birding event in Ohio that attracts something on the order of over 10,000+ birders! Canon has the same team that does the Festival of the Cranes here, so you can borrow high-end gear if you're up to it.
no subject
Date: 2018-11-27 11:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-11-27 11:10 pm (UTC)Heh. I entered Ohio Birding Event into Google and got this:http://www.biggestweekinamericanbirding.com/
and that's the one, May 3-12 2019. It looks like it's pretty much the entire group of sponsors that do the Bosque del Apache event. The Hunts people are good, I've bought two cameras from them, albeit one was for a friend who paid for it over the phone and I just delivered it. She saved tax and shipping, so she was quite happy.