When You Least Expect It

Photography is one of those elements in life that continue to surprise the participant. Just when you think you have what you came for, there is a little more there. It's the ten minutes after sunset when everyone has taken off that the sky presents its inner beauty. It's that moment that you remember to turn around to find the fabulous view you have been walking away from. These are the giving beyond the capture in photography.

I had two such events present themselves within ten minutes of each other. The first I explained in yesterdays post The Ride. The second opportunity actually happened before the first. I had gone up to Falasburg Park north of Lowell MI for some background shots only to find that the trees had not popped yet. Beautiful blue sky with a lifeless tree line. Sweet, perfect for some black and white images. But that is not the special event of the day.

I was sitting on a bench by the water with my 5D Mk II on a tripod spying a goose floating upstream when I heard a couple of geese honking and splashing further upstream. My EF 70-200 f/2.8 IS lens with the 1.4 teleconverter was mounted to the 5D2 so I pulled it off the tripod to take a  look at the commotion upstream.

Come to find out, the commotion was avian talk for a pre-departure briefing. They started moving and I stated shooting. The image below is the second of three that was of the takeoff run.

I really did not have the camera/lens combination for this shot but sometimes you take what you get and be happy with it. The 40D with this same lens combination would have made the 320 mm combination into 448 mm on the APS-C sensor. The high speed burst on the 40D may have provided a higher percentage of images to choose from but that was not to be the case.

The image below is just one of those images that pops from the screen when viewed in Lightroom. It say's, "I'm the one..." A touch of vibrancy (what a great slider), a tad bit of clarity, and poof, ready for prime time display. Ok some sharpening if it were going to print.

Well, it wasn't that easy. I had to do a bunch of spot healing as when I was zoomed in there were little white traces behind and below the geese. Take-off must exert a lot of strain on their system. Either that or it was extra thrust. Hmmm.

Hey that will wrap it up for today.

Cya... Doug