There’s a Goose, Loose abooot the Hoose.

_MG_0083, originally uploaded by http://andrewskelton.net.

Not the image I had planned to start with after my trip away, but one I’m rather pleased with, especially as it’s one taken with the Canon 5D Mark II, not my normal weapon of choice, the awesome 1D4. Taken at the end of the day, with the last vestiges of afternoon light, I’d all but given up on photography at Slimbridge. I positioned myself along the boardwalk now in place along the front of the main centre with the main lens trained on the birds swimming around the lake. I’d been using the 5D on an off, during the day, having fitted the Sigma 150-500mm lens allowing me to photograph birds from a different perspective to that of the 600mm lens and so when a couple of Grey Lag Geese got a bit closer than the other birds dare I was able to use this second camera to capture them beautifully illuminated by the late sunlight.

You’ll be seeing plenty more images from Slimbridge, as well as the Rally, Birds of Prey centre and today’s trip to London Zoo.. though I have to sort through them all first. Overall, I didn’t take half as many photos as I normally take – not sure why, but I certainly wasn’t in my ZOne.. neither was I in Zones 2 to 6 (next time I’m taking my Oyster card with me, so there’ll be no excuse).

Today’s trip to London Zoo was full of mixed emotions which I’ll be blogging about in the coming days, where the animals are concerned, but the big downer of the day (there doesn’t have to be a “Downer of the Day”, it’s not a daily challenge or competition!) was the sticking of the tripod mount on my beloved 600mm lens. This tripod mount is part of the lens, a collar fitting, that as the name suggests is where the lens is fitted to the tripod – it also allows the camera to be rotated through 360 degrees so you can take a picture from any orientation quickly and easily – I use this function a lot. I also use the tripod mount a lot to carry the lens around and whilst this function hasn’t been affected, I certainly can’t move the camera from portrait to landscape mode at all. I have thought about trying to fix the mounting myself but the lens is incredibly expensive (don’t go and google how much.. I SAID DON’T) and as such I think it probably best that I let a professional fix the problem. THe question is now whether I can bear being parted from my beloved!

Advertisement