Langstone Joe
Breakfast
Birders – avert your eyes!
I know I really shouldn’t be posting this as its soft, a bit blurry and will cause all proper bird photographers to bury their heads in their hands. But I can’t resist :)
There I was at the crack of dawn to shoot sunrise at Petersfield Lake, my first shoot there for months. Naturally all I could see was grey gloom and the zillion or so waterfowl birds doing their usual best to disturb the water surface. Didn’t really matter today as I was leaning on the tripod dozing in the vain hope that some light would break through.
When in my dopey state I noticed this Cormorant fishing 20 or so yards away and on its 3rd dive it caught a small fish. Cool. Like watching David Attenborough without the TV. Its next dive it caught another and again on the next. Suddenly I remembered I am supposed to be a photographer and not just a tripod leaner and felt I should make an attempt to capture this. The problem is I have about the worse camera for wildlife, as I have found in my previous attempts at birding, it was also before sunrise and quite dark! So I stuck the thing on auto and attempted to focus, which of course the camera didn’t. I quickly learnt three things about Cormorants, they stay under the water for what seemed like an age, they come back up miles away from where they started, and they gobble down their catch quicker than my camera will focus.
Finally I managed to predict where it would surface and it popped up with this large fish (a young Carp?) and I went into full panic mode of pressing buttons and getting flustered. Well, I got the shot, trouble is 1/200th second and ISO 3200 on a mirrorless camera is just asking for trouble with noise and blur.
It caught several more small fish, but this whopper must have been catch of the day. Thanks Mr Cormorant for turning a dud shoot into a fun time.
My website --> Joe Davies Photography
Breakfast
Birders – avert your eyes!
I know I really shouldn’t be posting this as its soft, a bit blurry and will cause all proper bird photographers to bury their heads in their hands. But I can’t resist :)
There I was at the crack of dawn to shoot sunrise at Petersfield Lake, my first shoot there for months. Naturally all I could see was grey gloom and the zillion or so waterfowl birds doing their usual best to disturb the water surface. Didn’t really matter today as I was leaning on the tripod dozing in the vain hope that some light would break through.
When in my dopey state I noticed this Cormorant fishing 20 or so yards away and on its 3rd dive it caught a small fish. Cool. Like watching David Attenborough without the TV. Its next dive it caught another and again on the next. Suddenly I remembered I am supposed to be a photographer and not just a tripod leaner and felt I should make an attempt to capture this. The problem is I have about the worse camera for wildlife, as I have found in my previous attempts at birding, it was also before sunrise and quite dark! So I stuck the thing on auto and attempted to focus, which of course the camera didn’t. I quickly learnt three things about Cormorants, they stay under the water for what seemed like an age, they come back up miles away from where they started, and they gobble down their catch quicker than my camera will focus.
Finally I managed to predict where it would surface and it popped up with this large fish (a young Carp?) and I went into full panic mode of pressing buttons and getting flustered. Well, I got the shot, trouble is 1/200th second and ISO 3200 on a mirrorless camera is just asking for trouble with noise and blur.
It caught several more small fish, but this whopper must have been catch of the day. Thanks Mr Cormorant for turning a dud shoot into a fun time.
My website --> Joe Davies Photography