I have used a pretty humble set up for a long time now as far as DSLR equipment goes. I have just 2 lenses (albeit decent ones) an external flash and a 2 x converter. These lenses are the Tamron 18-50 F2.8 and the Canon 70-200 F4 L. My camera body is pretty aging as well (Canon 500D) but it still gets the job done. I have always believed that even the base line bodies are capable of producing great shots with the right lens attached and a little bit of user skill and creativity.
Despite the poor weather as of late we got rather lucky and summer decided to finally show up. The place we visited was primarily for bird photography which I am hardly equipped for on any sort of high end level but I have taken plenty of bird shots in my time as the opportunity presented itself. My favorite being on a holiday to Hilton Head Island in South Carolina where I was able to witness and photograph Osprey catching their morning meal.
However the big attraction at this particular nature reserve we visited was that it currently had Kingfishers nesting there. Having barely ever seen one, let alone caught one on camera, I was looking forward to seeing what would happen. I had my doubts I would come away with any shots I would be very happy with as even with the 2x converter I would only be hitting 400mm and my widest aperture would be a rather small f8. But as always I was determined to give it ago.
Well we had a great time and managed to witness the Kingfishers Hunting several times throughout the day. At first they would only be landing on perches at the other end of the pond which was far to great a distance to get any high detailed shots but it was great to see them in action anyway. Luckily for me, later on one of them decided to venture a bit closer and that gave me a little hope of producing something I was at least mildly happy with. When I got home and developed the shots I was actually pleasantly surprised that they had turned out better than I could have possibly hoped for and i got my self a nice little series of the Kingfisher hunting near its nest.
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| The Kingfisher surveys the hunting grounds looking for a potential target. |
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| After selecting the target the Kingfisher dives down at lightning speed. |
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| After each attempt it would shake off all the excess water on its feathers. |
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| The Kingfisher would then take one final look around. |
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| And then it would return to the nest. |
While waiting for the Kingfishers to show their faces I was visited by two other interesting creatures. Firstly I saw this Reed Warbler show up near by. Its nice to see how they cling on to the reeds with their feet.
Even more interesting than that was this grass snake the decide to swim across to the other side of the pool. Another great sight for me as I have never seen a grass snake before so getting a picture of it in action was a pretty great moment.
