[kayasaman]

Heya, originally I wanted to post this up ages ago but after visiting the reserve last Friday and having a meeting in order to find a way for me better to support the place and everyone involved, I became completely burned out. As a result I have been trying to replenish my energy (what little there are) reserves and it's taking a long time.

Let's start off with some Lapwing chicks:



Here's mom shielding the little guys from the wind and weather:




By no means rare but it's the first one that I've seen, it's a duck and it's called a Teal:




These are rare little guys called Plovers... not sure if they're the common or mini type but they are definitely ringed:



They are right in the center to the right of the Tufted Ducks ;-)


Swan action shot:




I hear Cindi Lauper singing: "Gulls just wana have fun" LOL:




This is a cute little bird called a Red Shank:






Hidden drama with the Gadwall ducks:




Black headed gull bullying it's larger "common" counter part:




Macro style shot of what I originally thought was mint then found out it was something else and now I have forgotten completely <sigh>:




Nice detail and color on this Graylag goose:




OMG!! The Canada's are at it again??!!?? :-P




Getting ready for takeoff:





The whole sequence is here: College Lake 04/21 - Google Photos

I could have culled or preened some of the shots but to be honest, I got a little bored with the whole ordeal. I've been doing so many birds lately that it just gets a little tiring of having the same subjects over and over.... I mean where are Wolves, Bears, Raptors, Cougars etc... what I would I give for a marmot or prairie dog right about now....



The night before last was pretty rainy and actually it was a great excuse to get out since I love this type of weather. Slight problem was that my Pentax lens - the 24mm Samyang does not as it's not weather sealed which really makes life hard for me!

Instead I did the best thing I could and used my D500 with Tokina 12-28mm f/4. It's an amazing lens but one that I have never really used since I have the Pentax for landscape and low light stuff. Though it was going to prove to be a great way to test and experiment with it.


So the first location I went to was a total bust but then the second place turned out to suite the setup pretty well. There was enough light to make things work and I actually ended up with the best results from the whole evening:







Yeah it was really raining heavily:












The body definitely struggled with these:




















Here's a classic case of where the AF failed to lock on due to the scene being too dark:




The full album is here: Spade Oak Henley Pitstone 04/28 - Google Photos

There's also a little short video blog of me explaining things.


Because of the disappointment with the last section of shots, I decided to go back this morning/last night and redo them using my Pentax. Will post that over in the K1/ii section later this evening :-) Really there's no comparison as the K1 was in it's element

---------- Post added 04-29-23 at 02:46 PM ----------

Just a quick note for the first batch of bird shots.... Yes! 500mm came up a little short..... hopefully in time I will be able to get something longer for occasions like this. Basically I am playing with the idea of the 800mm f/5.6 with built in TC. It seems to happen frequently for me that 'standard' tele size lenses are just simply far too short and getting closer to the subject isn't an option