Yesterday morning, I did something I haven’t been able to do in a long time … a very long time. I loaded up my gear and headed out with the kayak (“Rubber Duckie”) for a wonderful morning of nature photography. I was able to get out a couple of times last summer, but the preceding two years saw little or no activity due to our drought. And with my recent surgery, it’s taken me this long to be able to give it a try this year. I wasn’t sure how I’d do, but I just had to give it a try.
I arrived at my location about one-half hour before sunrise. I unloaded my gear, hauled the kayak ~300 feet to the launch area, and was in the water about 15 minutes before sunrise. I paddled back to my favorite spot, which was a bit difficult to get to because of the large quantity of water plants (primarily American Lotus, which I’ll feature in an upcoming post). I ended up seeing and photographing quite a few critters and flowers. One of the things that I noticed very early was the number of bullfrogs … literally hundreds, if not thousands! On my way back to the take-out area, I stopped along the way to photograph a few of these guys:
I’ll likely make another trip out in Rubber Duckie pretty soon! Oh, and just a note to say that I think I did extremely well on my first big outing since surgery. No real issues, but I sure was exhausted when I got home! So much, that I lay down and took a well-deserved nap! :o)
Photographic Equipment Used:
- Canon 5D Mark 3 body
- Canon EF 100-400mm, f/4.5-5.6 IS telephoto lens + Canon 1.4x TC
- Handheld from a kayak, with IS “On”
- ISO 400 and 500
- Aperture f/8
- Shutter 1/640 sec. and 1/800 sec.