Equipment malfunctions, a new birding location, and some pictures of sandhill cranes














This is Los Poblanos open space. It's an open field about two miles from where we live and birds can often be found here. Earlier in the afternoon we had driven past the fields and I'd seen a few cranes and lots of geese. The light was perfect, I decided that as soon as we got home I'd load up my camera etc., and head back there. Upon arriving at the dirt parking lot, I unloaded the tripod and camera and headed back out to the fields. In trying to place the camera on the tripod, I realized that a plate on the gimbal was loose and because of that, the camera would not stay level. UGH, back to the car. The plate required an allen head wrench, which I hadn't brought with me, so I left the tripod in the car and headed back out again. Getting closer to the birds, I checked the camera and lens settings finding (low and behold) another issue. The teleconverter I use on occasion was on the camera and had reduced the amount of light to the camera sensor. With this, the pictures would be very dark. A teleconverter is a small lens that you can place between the camera and lens and depending on what setting you select that can multiply the magnification of the lens times 1.5 or 2X. So my 600mm lens would be a 12000 mm equivalent. But it was too late in the afternoon and the teleconverter restricted the amount of light to the sensor (electronic shutter). Back to the car to remove the teleconverter. Third time's a charm? Heading back out to the field again I realized that off in the distance at the very far end of the field there were houses and cars etc. so I needed to position myself so that those distractors would not be in the pictures. There were two ridges in the field that sat higher than the field itself. I sat on the the ridge closest to the birds and started taking pictures. The sandhill cranes were gorgeous and they were busy digging out insects from the dirt, which was a good thing as they ignored me. This is really the first time I've used my camera in the late afternoon and one of the first times going birding late. The field is great, easily accessible, and not a long walk so I can see myself going here more often during the winter months while the migratory birds are here. If you would like to view the pictures at a higher magnification you can go the menu bar to view and select zoom in. Another recommendation is too view the pictures full screen which is in the same location.

 

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