Picking Up My Camera

Since DW and I have returned home from our Costa Rican vacation, I've barely picked up my cameras.

After that wonderful trip, I decided that I was going to sell my camera equipment because, quite frankly, some of my gear was becoming too heavy for me to wield. They say that love hurts and that was becoming true with my love of photography.

After I listed my Nikon D7200 and a bunch of lenses on Kijiji, I packed them up and put them in one of my large camera bags, not planning to touch them again. I've decided to keep my D750, for now, plus three lenses: a standard 50mm f/1.8 prime; a 24–70mm f/2.8 zoom; and a 10–20mm f/4–5.6 wide-angle zoom lens.

I can't be without any photography gear. That would kill me faster than the strain on my joints.

The biggest lens that I have is the one that's causing me the most pain, and that's my massive 200–500mm f/5.6 zoom, which weighs 2.3 kilos. With the camera attached, it weighs more than three kilos.

Hoping that it would sell, I packed it up as soon as I had it listed.

But last Sunday, DW and I decided we wanted to go bird watching at Mud Lake, so I needed my big lens once more. DW has her new Canon R7 with a 100–400mm lens, so I pulled out my big lens too.

It's the first time I've had it on my camera since Costa Rica.

I've only used my Nikon one time before, since our vacation. That time, I had my 50mm lens on it to take my annual selfie, just before my birthday. That shoot took about 15 minutes, after which I put my camera away.

At Mud Lake, we saw and heard the usual suspects: red-wing blackbirds, cardinals, chickadees, Canada geese, mallards, and nuthatches. There were also seagulls and crows, but not much else.

On Saturday, DW consulted her Merlin app and discovered her bird of the day was a black-hooded merganser. We had never seen one before so she consulted another app to see where this duck had been spotted.

It was observed at Mud Lake, hence our Sunday visit.

We didn't arrive as early as we had planned, and by the time we arrived there were lots of people with noisy kids on the trail, so we decided that our best bet would be along the shore of the Ottawa River. There were people along the banks but they were serious birders, who were quiet.

This is where we saw countless mallards and geese, but shortly after we arrived, a few more ducks flew into this quiet area. They weren't the mergansers but they were my favourite ducks, who I hadn't seen at Mud Lake since last fall.

Wood ducks.

Capturing these ducks is nothing new but I never tire of seeing them. I snapped several shots before DW and I decided to move on.

When we returned home, I quickly culled a bunch of dud shots. I had taken pictures of chickadees whilst they ate sunflower seeds from DW's hand. I shared a few shots on this week's Wordless Wednesday.

I edited the photos lazily. That is, I downloaded them from my camera to my smartphone and then used Snapseed to process them. I call this method lazy because it's faster and, in my opinion, not as good as taking the RAW file, fine-tuning it, and importing it into Paint-Shop Pro.

In Snapseed, I often use a Details mode to help with the sharpening of the image, but whilst working on a shot of the wood ducks, my finger slipped on the slider. Instead of moving it in a positive direction, it moved all the way in the negative direction, removing detail.

I've never moved the slider to the left before. I've always wanted to add texture; not take it away.

But the effect was interesting. It seemed to leave the ducks alone, for the most part, but smoothed out almost all of the ripples on the water's surface.

Now, in truth, it did soften the ducks, but I'm not too bothered by that, even though that setting is all the way at –100. You can still see the bands and colour in the feathers. They're just not razor-sharp.

I edited the same photo, later, in PSP, keeping the sharpness but adding a vignette to soften the water on the edges. I also lightened the image. Which photo do you prefer?

Yeah, me too. It pays to not be lazy.

When we returned home from this shoot, my shoulder was irritated from lifting the heavy lens. But I was glad I picked up my camera again.

Happy Friday!