Monday, April 16, 2007

Egret and Sunset Catch


The lakes at LSU are a great place to try out new equipment and get in a nice walk at the same time. My son and I certainly enjoy it. A few years ago, realizing that my old tripod was a bit flimsy, I had just bought a new one and took it for a hike around the lakes. On this new, heavy duty tripod, I mounted my trusty old Konica T2 along with another purchase: a very used Vivitar 300mm lens. By adding a 2x teleconverter to the Vivitar 300mm, the old Konica was looking through 600mm of focal length!

Even though the tripod was steady, the Konica plus 2X plus Vivitar sitting on top of it was not exactly motionless. Even so, we had a nice walk while I experimented with the equipment and a roll of Kodak Ektachrome E100VS – a highly saturated transparency film designed to produce very colorful slides.

The end of our hike, the last few shots on the roll and the close of the day were coming together nicely. We set up our cameras for a few closing shots. I spotted an egret standing patiently on a submerged stump near the middle of the lake and took a shot. Then, ignoring all advice about shooting directly into the sun, I relocated. Aligning the egret with the sun, I waited for something to happen. Surely the egret would fly away at any moment but nothing happened. Meanwhile, the sun continued to sink. Disappointed and giving up, I turned my head and yelled to my son that we should be going. Naturally, this was when the egret struck. I yelled in disappointment but recovered in time to get this shot.

I like this picture a lot. It was planned (well, sort of), pushed my equipment to its limit (well, a bit past), original (to me anyway) and reminds me of a nice hike with my son.

No comments: