V For Victory!

For the first time in seven and a half years, I am closing comments indefinitely and I will not be blogging. I will be, however, publishing my photography for your enjoyment. In order for me to survive what is transpiring in this world today, I must act with self-preservation. I am putting me first!

Comments and my interactions here with you will come again. When? When my heart guides me to.

The story today begins with a man pointing me in the right direction where he just saw a Great Blue Heron. Of course I immediately went off to find this bird in the tall grasses.

If it hadn’t have been for a Red Wing Blackbird swooping down on this Heron, I just may have missed her.

There I stood photographing this Heron. Suddenly from out of nowhere a second Heron flew towards the Heron I am photographing and then both rapidly flew up and towards me. I did not have time to adjust my lens in any way for this was out of the blue unexpected. Immediately I pointed my camera up as I did my best to move along with the both of them in motion.

My lens for some reason would not stop shaking. With all my might and focus I was going to photograph those birds! Because of the 560mm which I had my lens barrel set at I was unable to capture both birds at once. They were just that close.

As I said I had NO time to fiddle or change anything. In faith I aimed and shot as best I could. Thank heavens I was using TV mode, meaning I used shutter priority set at 1/320 of a second.

Let me go back to the double victory I stated a few sentences ago. I found out a few hours later why my lens seemed to shake when I was shooting that day. I thought it was my jumpy nerves. No. Somehow in the transporting of my lens to the car, the stabilization button on my lens got inadvertently changed. Instead of being on super stabilization it was set for no stabilization for tripod use.

Not only did I shoot GBHs in midair, I did so without any stabilization. Whoa!

What you are about to see are pictures taken with zero image stabilization with a long range lens. Most of what I shot ended up in the trash. Yet the pictures below are a testimony I pulled off something extremely difficult for any photographer to do. Victory? You bet!! I outdid me!! Enjoy!!