Marston Lake – Grebe on Tamron 150-600mm–EOS R +1.5x

This week was not going to give me many chances for an early start to visit a lake, so Tuesday was one that allowed me that opportunity and it was fortunately not overly cold. There were two purposes for this visit, the obvious one was do my best to get some more shots of the resident Grebes, the second was get a further idea of how effective the lighter Tamron lens was, now it could be married effectively with the Canon EOS R mirrorless body. I knew it worked very effectively with the Sigma 60-600mm, and I knew there were times when a lighter lens was essential purely due to the distance I might have to travel with a long lens, and the Tamron had proved to be a good sharp lens before I had bought the early equivalent Sigma, what I was less sure was how it might perform overall with the EOS R.

This trip put my mind at rest on at least that score, but  I still have to master how to deal effectively with placing of the cursor on the screen speedily and consistently. Several times I have lost the focus square to the top edge of the screen when I need to place it more strategically to follow my subject, especially off-centre.

I am improving my success with panning, and living with the slightly stuttering movement as I follow a bird especially if in flight as opposed to on the water, The incentive to polish this aspect is because with the larger pixel count of the EOS R compared to my EOS 5D, if I get the shot it is definitely cleaner, lacking noise in comparison under similar circumstances when light is borderline.

I stayed only long enough to give me sufficient time thereafter in processing the images I managed to capture. I was unable to see a successful fishing foray with the Grebe, but did get a shot of a black-headed gull with a small fish it had just caught, and a lone Grebe, searching and calling for its mate, as it swam to every corner of the lake.

Brogborough Lake — a Short Spell of Wind

 

          I did not harbour high hopes of high winds or sunshine; just a keen desire that I might be lucky enough to get a decent breeze to encourage some sailors to choose this time for some outdoor exercise on the lake, and upon arrival there were certainly a fair number of windsurfers out on the lake, and there was certainly more wind here than I had experienced at Marston Moretaine, just up the road.

          At this point it did not look particularly promising, so for a short while, I just stood and watched, however, the wind improved, and the sun at least was attempting to break cover from the clouds, so that made me get back to the car and breakout the Benbo tripod, attach the gimbal head and take the 7D MkII with its Sigma 150-600mm Sports lens and lock that in place. I spread the legs, set the central column vertical, and locked the tripod and set the lens balance in the long Arca Swiss shoe, and hefted it on my shoulder after closing the boot, and locking the car, headed for the jetty.

          The legs were not perfectly aligned with the slats; but two out of three was not too bad! Holding the camera and lens firmly, I loosened the bolt, put the last leg in place, aligned the central column vertically, then locked everything firmly. I loosened the gimbal head’s two nuts, did a quick check of ISO speed and exposure, and was ready for action — just in time for the very first jump of the afternoon. The omens were good!

           The sun even brightened a tad and although while setting up I had spotted Sam on his hydrofoil and without having to pump his board to begin planing, I was too late to capture any shots of his activity. However, I did manage to capture some more jumps by Richard and Geoff, and also a newcomer from the North, so I felt rewarded for my decision to head out to the lake. The spell of reasonable wind did not last for too long, so for a change, I was left with a good time to get the gallery of images up on the blog before the end of the same day as the action. This was a great way to end the year on a high.