Happy New Year and Flying Turkeys

Well, today we bid goodbye to 2015.  It has been a great year although it didn’t go as well as I had planned it back on January 1st.  But does it ever go like a person wants it to go?  Ha! Dream on…… 🙂  But I am happy that I am still waking up atop the grass.  At my age that is a fine thing.  I spent the year photographing, buying new equipment, and selling old equipment.

The new equipment is paying off.  (You can never have enough cameras) My new camera is a  Canon EOS 7D Mark II, of which I actually bought two, are amazing.  They can take photos, make videos, (still learning that), make time-relapse photos, and make coffee in the morning.  Well, maybe that last part was an exaggeration, but I am still not finished with reading the manual. 🙂

One thing that I can do is to get amazing photos of birds in flight.  That is one thing that I love to do.  This camera has the capabilities to shoot at an amazing 10 frames per second, and that makes the job a bit easier.

Yesterday, December 30, Ann and I were out at Spring Creek Park.  As we drove through slowly we came upon a flock of Wild Turkeys.  As I slowed, they became nervous, and a few seconds later they took flight to fly across the water about 100 yards, to land in another spot.

I had my Tamron 150-600mm super telephoto lens on the camera, as I always do when I am in the birding/photography mode.  I was able to snatch the camera from my lap and aim the camera towards the flying birds.  The spot-auto focus instantly locked on to a few of them as they passed.  The hard part was keeping the birds in the viewfinder.

I think you will be pleased with these two, of several photos that I captured.  The other twelve or so, will never again see the light of a computer monitor. 🙂 The tech data for photographers that are interested is:  Shutter speed 1/8000 sec., Aperture f6.3 with an EV adjustment of -0.3, at an ISO of 1600.  Spot-exposure and spot-focus. Click the photos to see beautiful enlargements.

Wild Turkey in flight

Wild Turkeys in flight

I must say, that I was impressed with the results.  Both images are available as 12×16 prints.  They will look amazing framed.  Of course, I have those prints for sale. (hint, hint).  You can always contact me if you are interested, and that goes for all of the photos that you see on this blog.

So that’s all for this brief post.  Happy New Year to all!

Happy Birding!!  (and photographing!)