Every time I revisit this image, I see something new
Every time I revisit this image, I see something new
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Behind The Lens
Location
My wife & i were visiting a small seaside town on northern Vancouver Island named Port McNeill. The primary industries there are fishing & logging, but we were actually there to deliver talks about dairy cows at local schools!Time
We had just finished dinner & decided to take a walk down to the pier, as we'd spotted a pair of otters frolicking earlier. I brought the camera in hopes of catching a shot of them playing before it got dark. I'd say it was probably close to 7pm.Lighting
The lighting was actually not doing me any favours that evening! A bank of clouds rolled in from the west, obliterating the sun entirely. As we were on the east side of the island, the light wasn't great to begin with!Equipment
My old trusty backup body, a Nikon D700 which refuses to die ... i had just purchased a used Sigma 150-600S, so i wanted to see what it could do in less than optimal light. Handheld as i leaned over a railingInspiration
The eagle was actually a complete surprise. We were walking along the pier looking for a sign of the otters we'd spotted earlier, when this guy just swooped down over an adjacent pier & landed on a post. I managed to catch this shot of his landing & only a few others while we watched him hunting.Editing
I think images like this should be preserved, not modified; that's just the old voices talking! Seriously, i liked the effect between the movement & rapidly deteriorating light, so the only post work this image received was to reduce the very busy background to blurs & subdued tones, and a touch of levels & some noise reduction (as it was shot at ISO 400). That was only because i wanted to preserve the original feeling of the moment.In my camera bag
Everything ... really. I have stuff I haven't used in 20 years, still in one bag, case or another. It's all in my truck, it all goes everywhere with me. My wife & i share many jobs; from rescuing animals from floods, wildfires and just neglect & abuse to driving around the country with a mobile dairy barn teaching kids where their milk comes from. I also provide emergency support & transport for horses & other large animals, so that keeps us busy too! My wife is an equine therapist, & her career draws us both into some amazingly complex environments. Throughout it all, one or both of us pretty much always has a camera at hand, & due to the variety of situations & conditions, we never know what we're going to encounter in a visual sense, so we pack everything including the kitchen sink. I typically have 3 or more bodies (Nikon D300 for grab shots, a D850 & that old D700 that has more stories than a sea captain), a LOT of glass, way too much ... the D850 usually wears the Sigma 150-600, the D300 has a 24-120VR & the D700 is almost always coupled to a 70-200 2.8VR. Besides that we have tripods, an equatorial tracker, enough spare batteries & memory cards to furnish a small university, and more spare parts than some camera shops ...Feedback
I've written a few of these now, & i've noticed a purely unintentional scheme; be ready for the unexpected, don't get zoned on any one thing. In this case, we went down to shoot otters, wound up catching a great shot of an eagle. Look around, there's so much to preserve & capture!