Normally you’ll see people walking along a beach either early morning or late evening. It seems these seagulls had the same idea on this particular evening.
I snapped this photo using my general purpose walk-about zoom lens, a Nikon 18-200 VR DX, with a Nikon D300. A few years ago capturing photos in similar conditions would have required a faster lens but with newer cameras, a f/3.5-5.6 lens is more then fast enough ninety percent of the time.
The combination of modern low-noise/high-ISO cameras and Vibration Reduction (VR) lens lets you take handheld shots like this without loosing data in the dark areas, blowing out the light areas, having a high noise level or giving up DOF and sharpness. In my opinion, it’s the most significant improvement in the latest generation of digital cameras and lens.
Now that’s not to say I don’t have a wish list for faster lens…I certainly do! ;-)