As this is my first "real" trip to the marsh I was just walking towards the way I thought the ponds are. One guy came up & passed me because he took one trail & I took another, but he was going for the same places I was going, but he at least knew the trail system, where as I ended up back tracking to go in the direction he went. I got further back from the parking lot, watching & listening for birds, not seeing much or what I could see were out of lens shot as all I am shooting is my 75-300mm lens (my longest lens & this plays a crucial point later). This isn't a big deal; find a bridge trail so I follow it to see where it goes. I get about 1/2 way across the bridge & there's a stream & a white bird, woo hoo I sit down & watch for awhile taking pictures, trying different compositions, etc. This one guy comes through with a monstrous lens on a mono pod & asks me what I am seeing & I actually didn't have a clue (My dad would kill me for not knowing!!! He taught me a lot growing up & this was a basic identification), I told him I don't know many of the local birds so I am not sure, he tells me it's an egret as doesn't miss a step & keeps going. Ok I have an egret, watch it some more but it's not doing anything really exciting & as I get up to leave it takes off & flies downstream a bit. Of course I wasn't prepared with my camera to try & get the flight picture & I missed the shots. Oh well, so goes life & learning.
I trudge along trying to find my way; I find a clearing on the trails, success!!! I have arrived at a few of the ponds. One had ducks with no one really looking at it so I went to the next one where everyone was checking out with binoculars, cameras, etc. I find a corner & some ducks swimming around & sit on the edge of the gravel to see what I might be able to catch. This older lady comes over & tells me there's a bittern & a Great Blue Heron just off to the left of where I was. I didn't admit I didn't know what a bittern was, but a Great Blue too, it was all sounding more exciting than a bunch of ducks, so I get up & head over towards the same guy I saw earlier with the mono pod. He points me to the bittern camouflaged in the weeds as I had admitted I didn't know what a bittern was. So I positioned myself between the bittern & Great Blue to see what I can get for shots. I am sitting there watching these birds that are just standing not doing anything too exciting, but I was being patient. Then here comes 2 guys from the other side of the pond to where I am with these huge camera set ups on tri-pods & one guy set up his external flash on the camera, & they camp out a few feet from me. The birds didn't seem to be doing much so I stood up to watch for awhile. Talked to a gentleman that was there watching also telling him I feel really inadequate sitting next to those monstrous lenses. I get on the other side of the 2 guys with the huge set ups the one guy had 2 cameras, so 1 camera each wasn’t bad enough, but the one had 2!!! As I was standing there the bittern found something in the weeds & got some grub while the cameras went nuts. There I was standing & missed the shots while I am feeling inadequate with my tiny $200 lens next to the $5-6K lenses.
OK, so I feel inadequate, forgot to grab a sweatshirt before heading out, the sun is setting & I had a bit of a walk back to the car that I didn't want to be caught in the dark doing so I started heading back to the car. I found some really cute gray finchy birds in some shrubs on the way back to the car but they were on the far side of branches & I couldn't get a good focus on them to get a shot & they would have been great shots, OK, fine I gave up but then 2 different humming birds where there as well as if to taunt me & my existing feelings of inadequacies as I missed them too.
Conclusion:
Maybe I should go rent some monstrous lenses before the next outing so I don’t look so inadequate next to all the “experts” out there.
1 comment:
I love photography, I wish I would've spent some time training in photojournalism when I was in school.
I admire how you can make things look so beautiful, like the egret (spelt that wrong probabably!).
Keep up the good work =)
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