Perhaps if I hide behind this tree no one will notice me…
I had a nice weekend.
My children were over on Sunday for Father’s Day and we grilled hamburgers and hotdogs. Bonnie made deviled eggs, her famous bang-up barbeque baked beans and a homemade peach cobbler to accompany the dogs and burgers–no one went hungry. I hope everyone had a great weekend and all those fathers out there got to enjoy time with their families.
—
Before my visit to the NC Zoo this past Friday I’d struggled with the choice of which lens/camera combination to take. I knew we’d be walking a lot during the day so weight was a strong consideration and I also knew that because of the larger size of the animal habitats many would be at a distance requiring a longer lens.
I finally settled on my Nikon D300 and a Tamron 28-300mm zoom lens along with a 1.4x tele-converter for those extra-long shots. It was the first time I’d used this particular combination and perhaps the last. The D300 was the right choice with its DX 1.5x crop/magnification factor, but the Tamron lens at 300mm proved to be soft and slow (f/6.3.) The sun was bright but there were large deep shadows, which is where most of the animals were hanging out. When the 1.4x tele-converter was added I lost at least one f-stop and autofocus became useless/unreliable between 200-300mm. This was especially so when shooting into the shadows. The day ended with a batch of photos that seemed to fall into two distinct camps–very sharp or very soft.
Some of these issues were expected but I’d hoped the lens performance would be better then it was. Still I got some okay photos.
—
Saturday evening we watched the 2008 movie “The Reader,” starring Kate Winslet. The movie is set in post-Holocaust Germany and deals an illiterate woman who was a Nazi prison guard during World War II and a boy/man who had an affair with her. I have to say I enjoyed the movie more than I thought I would. Kate Winslet’s performance was excellent, even though at times the character appeared to be a difficult stretch for her.
NIce peek-a-boo shot. LOL Being a bit on the geeky side, I am always looking to down size because of travel: what lens, what bag, etc. I am aware how important our lens is to the quality of the image, especially a camera like the D300. I guess the bottom line is to have with family and enjoy taking images.
Earl, of course you made the right decision on your choices. :-) You got the pictures! When I go to the zoo, I travel solo. No one in my family cares for it. So, I take my D300 and my Tamron 200-500. I also carry around my tripod all day. It makes for quite a day of exercise walking from one side of the zoo to the other, but nothing like a tripod for steady, sharp shots.
My 200-500 starts to mis-focus if pointing into shade. This generally happens around the 400mm+ mark. I just switch to manual focus.
I’ve not seen The Reader. I’m currently watching Citizen Kane. Now that is a good movie! I’d never seen it before. It was Orson Wells’ first and best movie. Some say the best movie of all time. I’m enjoying it.
@Monte: It was a fun day and I’m also very much on the geeky side. :-)
@Paul: I got “some” of the photos! There were a couple of great shots I know I missed with my chosen combination. I would of been better with my tank 80-200mm f/2.8 and the tele-converter. Not as much reach but each quicker reaction time and less missed shots.
Paul, you’re shooting B&W, using film and watching Citizen Kane (a classic)–you haven’t felt funny like you’ve stepped through a time-warp or anything have you??? LOL ;-)
LOL! I may have done that, Earl. Who knows?! I may soon shun e-mail and you’ll get letters from me in snail mail that have comments about your posts! Just so you don’t worry too much, I’m going to watch Rambo this evening. I didn’t see the last one, which came out some years ago.
I like the combination of the textures provided by the elephant and the tree trunk.
I certainly have kicked myself more than once for choosing the “wrong” lens for an outing. I know how frustrating it is to miss terrific moments, but judging by what you have shown us, you still came back with a nice catch.