Project 365 - Day 170 - The Ugly Duckling...

I went down to Oakville Harbour today to watch the sailboats and maybe get a few shots in.  It was really busy on the pier with foot traffic and guys fishing.  I ended up getting some shots, but the sailboats were tearing down and coming in to dock so there are not a lot of usable ones.  What a beautiful day though.

While I was on the pier, a pair of swans swam right by me.  I had my 70-200mm lens on so I got a couple of shots off of these guys.  This swan was actually swimming toward shore with the sun in his face.  The sun lit him perfectly.  You can see his little black feet paddling along, these guys can move fast!

Sigma 70-200mm lens at 200mm and f/6.3  1/2000s shutter and the ISO is 800.

Project 365 - Day 152 - My new toy

At the Henry's Exposure show yesterday, I picked up a new toy.  It's a 70-200mm lens, a good long one.  It has a fixed max aperture of f/2.8, which means it's nice and fast.  It's the older cousin to my 24-70mm Nikon lens.

I went with the Sigma mainly because I liked the look and feel of the lens.  Also, it was lighter than the Nikon - but it's still very heavy.  Today when I went out I got to Oakville Harbour, there was a tonne of fog and no lgiht was making it's way through.  It was quite dark.  This lens had no problem focusing in on the birds as I was panning across.

I got this tern (common tern) this morning.  I have been to this spot twice now and watched these guys fish.  It's quite entertaining seeing how they fly around looking down at the water, then with a flick of the wing they are diving headlong into the water.  More often than not they come up empty, but every once in a while they come up with a little fish.

When I saw that I got the shot, I was giddy.  Then I zoomed in on the shot and noticed he had a fish.  Score!  :-)

70-200mm Sigma Lens zoomed right out to 200mm, no stabilization and handheld.  1/320 shutter at f/2.8  ISO was 800