A New Chapter: Nature

Not sure if you have noticed or not, but 2014 is almost 25% done already! April is here, which means rainy days, warming up weather, and animals return back and become more active. For the past 4 months you may have noticed that I haven't been posting many blogs or pictures. I have actually been looking at my photography plan and decided it was time to switch over.

Quick History:

I started out doing photography of landscapes and it quickly grew into friends and family wanting portraits done. Shortly after that, I was requested to shoot a wedding. Excited about the opportunity, I purchased a pro level lens for portrait/wedding shots; Tamron 20-70mm f/2.8 with VC. It was an amazing lens and my research showed that it was a staple for any wedding. So I spent the money and purchased it with credit with a new camera that offered low light ability; Nikon D7000. At the time, I couldn't afford a full frame camera like a Nikon D600 (and still can't afford one). I decided I was going to really dig into portrait photography. I ended up doing dozen of photo sessions and ended up doing two weddings, pretty much breaking even with all my expenses the first year!


When I started this, I told myself I would only do weddings/events/portraits until I can afford a super telephoto lens (over 500mm). Well, the time is now! Last January, a new lens was introduced to the market that raddled the professional world and extreme nature hobbyists like myself.  Tamron released the SP 150-600mm F/5-6.3 Di VC USD (Tamron's Official Page for this lens), at a very low price for this length of a lens. It's not as good as glass as the Nikon AF-S NIKKOR 200-400mm f/4G ED VR II Lens, but from the reviews and looking at the $5,000 price difference, you can see why my interest was captured. 

I've been following reviews for this lens for months. Watching YouTube channels for people's reviews; both professional and non-professional. Across the board, everyone was impressed. I could see some difference in the quality and not to mention the f stop is only 5 at the 150mm and the fastest the lens fully zoomed is only 6.3. This requires a relatively good day to get images and also the lens isn't weather sealed. However, the price again reflects all of this.

I was expecting to wait 5-6 years to get to this point to have a super telephoto zoom lens, but because of this release I'm ready to do it now. To start this process I listed my portrait lens on Craigslist for 900, taking a small hit on the retail price of the lens (about $500) with only a year worth of use. However, remember that I paid that lens off already last year. So I looked at this as selling old equipment and upgrading, so this lens will only end up costing me $200 dollars. With only a few contacts and a few no-shows, I decided to post on my personal Facebook page and was able to sell it in a week.

Now, up to that time I was in a slight chaos mode with my photography. I'm going to take a huge hit in sales because I am not able to do portraits anymore and I no longer have a wide angle lens to take landscapes! But, my real dream is to do nature photography. Capture animals in their element.

I will be making a new blog either this weekend or next weekend, on what I'm hoping this year will result in. I don't plan on making nearly as much as I did last year, or even half of it. But, I do plan on having much more fun!  Also, this lens is on back order for another few weeks. So I wont be able to shoot to much until then. 

This bird above was taken out of my double pane glass door and a screen door using my 70-300mm lens. That is why the image is a bit soft but I am hoping to get more of these type of shots, but much more sharp obviously, of many different types wildlife. 

Imagine the type of images with double the zoom!

Because of my father

I wasn't going to blog about today's photos I did when I visit Frame Park in Waukesha, however, I realized today that my nature photos are because of him. Not in the traditional sense of him showing me how to use a camera, but he showed me how to hunt.

Today I realized that taking my nature photos wasn't something that naturally came to me, but was passed down from my father. He taught me the fundamentals of hunting and patients which allowed me to get my shots today. I realized this when I saw a family of ducks swimming around the edge of the water, and when I tried to walk up on them I scared them away. I then thought, when we go hunting we scare all the animals when we walk out to our spot. What if I just set my stuff up here and just wait. My reward was some great shots, and something I can show my father I am grateful for because of what he taught me.

My first shot is what I was rewarded with after waiting in one spot for over an hour. I was hoping their nest was near by and that I simply just scared them away, and with their nest near by they would come back. As you can see from this shot, they did.

I was able to shoot these ducklings from only 15 yards (about 13.5 meters), and was able to do so for about 30 minutes! As long as I only moved my camera on my tripod they didn't seem to care I was there. Whenever someone would walk up to me to see what I was taking pictures of, they would swim away quickly. They would then apologize for scaring the birds away and would walk away, and no more than a minute later they would come back.

The ducklings got even closer when their mom swam around the bushes and was out of site.  I couldn't believe how close they got. They where less than 10 yards (9 meters) away! I checked my exposure when I took this picture as the sun popped out of the clouds and I was very pleased with this picture. I did wish I zoomed out slightly more to get his tail in foot in the picture, but I still love this shot.

My last shot was when they started to swim away, and I felt I had enough duck pictures. I made sure in this picture that I would have full body and feet in the shot. It almost seemed he was looking back to make sure I got the shot (the rest of the family was eagerly swimming away).

Because of my father, I had the patience to sit in the bushes like a weirdo and get these great shots of the ducklings.

Happy Father's Day to my dad, all the other dads, and to all the moms who also need to play dad.