This used to be the go bag every weekend no matter the season.
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Growing up, my father ran a photography studio in the basement, with all the chemicals, processing, red lensed light – the whole gambit. We’d get invited to weddings galore – always at the Oshkosh EAA Air Show every year because he melded photography with his love of aircraft. My uncle was also deep into the art of taking and developing the perfect image, so I came by the hobby naturally.
This all started a few years ago, when a red tailed hawk was hanging out in my area of downtown, doing her utmost to snare a pigeon. Of course, I had no television, and no career to speak of, so that became my entertainment. I grabbed the longest lens that I could find for my first DSLR, the 12.4 mega pixel Pentax K-x which I still have. And of course I bought the “storm trooper” version, because why not?
I tried my utmost to get a clean picture of a this hunter from a city block away. Usually failing miserably in my attempts with a 70mm lens with a busted autofocus that I couldn’t fix. So I upgraded the lens, and still generally failed.
I’d make a cup of coffee, take my rickety cheap tripod out and set it up and the wile away the day trying to get ‘the shot’.
It wasn’t the fault of the gear. I had taken plenty of reasonable photos with that camera, just in conditions that weren’t a city block away on cloudy winter days.
Of course, as an architect there was a goal. Tack sharp images of this fierce hunter, in action. The perception of what was possible was falling short of the desired result. Unacceptable.
The habit of communing with nature was sparked once again, and I had a goal. Taking high quality photos. Birding was to follow. But not just any bird, urban birds of prey and birds of prey in general. That was quickly followed by taking great quality pictures of birds and nature in general. This struck a balance with spending most of my time in front of a monitor. My girlfriend also caught the shutter bug and was a fan and supporter of my clickings. 100% unpublished, until I started this site.
To obtain these images, the gear needed to evolve. Below is the go bag of my weapons of choice for chasing the great photo.
The perfect size go bag for photography on the move. Complete with a clip system for including a tripod. It’s followed me on bike trips, road trips and airplanes. Another of those items that protected my gear while my car gave its life to save mine a few years ago. Car totaled. Camera bag and the gear inside – unscathed.
I love this camera. Decent shutter speed, great image quality, I modded the back button for continuous controlled focus. Obviously not the top end, and I don’t have 3 bodies & 20 lenses, but for what I take photos of – it’s perfectly suited. There are countless comparison sites out there to deep dive on DSLR cameras – and I know its not the newest kid on the block – but it’s a solid value for what you get, and I’ve taken it everywhere. Trudging thru marshes, sitting in bushes, camped out on the shoreline in the dead of winter – it’s been solid thru it all.
Came with the kit, and its a solid and responsive lens for close photos. It gets a little dicey around 120mm but all-in-all a solid all around lens for general photos and indoor events. Baptisms, birthday parties, weddings – I’ve captured some memorable moments with a kit lens. It’s great not to have to carry 2-3 lenses with you when you’re just out for a stroll or doing product or interior images.
I like this lens a lot. Snappy & fast focus, decent zoom and its never let me down. I’m ok with the crossover with the 18-140mm, because it means less swapping, but this is a great lens to swap to. The vibration reducing is a must for hand-held shooting.
Ever need to take a photo of something a half mile away? This is the lens. I’ve been in a line of photographers with the $10,000 fixed lenses on giant tripods and managed to get better pics of an eagle flying over, simply because I had the more nimble rig. This lens has been with me all over the midwest and provided endless amounts of detailed amazing photos. It’s pretty amazing to be the only one to see the humming bird dive-bombing a bald eagle on the nest when you go through the days pictures. Portable, powerful and for a price that doesn’t mean selling a vital organ to obtain it.
One of the listed issues with the D7100 is a smaller buffer size, which fills up when you’re shooting burst and then lags a little when it writes to the memory card. Well – you can get around that with a high capacity, high speed memory card. Hit the shutter, and the image is exposed on the sensor, offloaded to the buffer and then written to the card. The faster you can get that data out of the buffer and onto the card, the faster and more often you can shoot those moving nature shots. These are the ones that I use. These are getting cheaper by the minute as well it seems.
I purchased the D7100 and 2 lenses as a kit a number of years ago. The upgraded camera bag came as a supportive and loving gift, the hobby – born of part genetics, part strange circumstances in 2009.
When the day’s entertainment included a live nature show and the struggle for survival, and my particular desire to capture the nature surrounded by buildings downtown.
Lifelong hobby born over a cup of coffee, gazing out the window and a non-functional manual lens.
I have USB drives FULL of unedited, raw pictures from these weekend respites with the local feathered friends. I’ve always meant to get them posted somewhere, but there’s always something else that comes up. Someday, I suppose.
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