At the end of last week, the weekend rapidly approaching, the weather forecast fit perfectly in the inverse flow I thought I was in. But fortunately, predicting the weather correctly more than one hour ahead seems difficult if not impossible. I thought I was doomed to go out under leaden skies and had decided to take the long lens and try some pan blurs at the local fishing ponds. Ducks, geese and coots abound so at least I had something to point the lens at. But when I got out the door to walk the dog, I could see there was a clearing at the horizon and the overhead cloudcover was not solid at all. So I urged the dog to hurry and do his thing, quickly packed all lenses and headed to the fishing ponds. It may not be the best place for landscape photography (to be honest, I never got anything remotely nice at all), but when a colorful sky reflects in the water, all kinds of interesting shots lie waiting for the photographer with a good eye. Reflections of reeds, silhouettes, pan blurs, you name it. Because of a stiff wind, the birds stayed on the far side of the pond, so I needed to use the long lens. The sunrise itself was nice but short, the predawn light on the other hand was wonderfully pink and stayed around for a long time. It was still relatively dark, and instead of upping the ISO, I chose to increase the shutterspeed to show the calm floating movement of the coots and depict a tranquil and peaceful morning.
Common Coots; Canon 5D Mark III w. 500/4L IS; 1/4s at F8 and ISO400; tripod
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