By Ted Grussing
Friday, my new Nikon D850 arrived along with the Nikkor 200-500mm f/5.6 lens and a few other goodies. This is my first venture into Nikon gear in over fifteen years, but the reviews on this combo are just to good to not give it a shot … actually about a thousand shots since Friday. The manuals proved useless in getting started, but a series of YouTube videos walked me through the setup of the body and a lot of tweaking after the original setup. Trip up to Eric’s and shot some birds and then three separate trips to the ponds, two of which were today. I still have a lot to learn and also the camera has a different feel, but I’m getting used to it.
The tracking of moving subjects is impressive … today from about 300 yards, I caught an Osprey diving into a pond, coming up with a brown trout and flying in front of a wooded area … out of over fifteen shots only a few did not grab a focus … too small to be worth using, but still an amazing feat. The detail that the 45MP sensor captures is nothing short of amazing too … the 500mm lens is cool and I’ll get used to the feel of it and should have a relatively short learning curve with muscle memory because it does handle differently than my Canon equipment … which I still love.
I took this shot yesterday of a Great Egret launching into flight … white is incredibly difficult to shoot, but I came close to nailing this one … the grace and beauty and power these birds have as they enter flight is remarkable to see. I’m going to try some slo-mo video of them taking off too as a couple of the vids I watched interspersed video and still shots and it was very cool. Again, more study and practice. Got few ideas from the vids on setup which I thought would work well on my Canon equipment, so went through all the setup menus I had for them and did the modifications.
It’s fun to learn new things and it is very neat to find myself breathing every morning … another day to live and to share the beauty that surrounds us. A new week is beginning … make it a good one … a moment at a time and smile!
Cheers
Ted
May I not forget that poverty and riches are of the spirit.
Though the world knows me not, may my thoughts and actions
be such as shall keep me friendly with myself.
— Max Ehrmann
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The easiest way to reach Mr. Grussing is by email: ted@tedgrussing.com
In addition to sales of photographs already taken Ted does special shoots for patrons on request and also does air-to-air photography for those who want photographs of their airplanes in flight. All special photographic sessions are billed on an hourly basis.
Ted also does one-on-one workshops for those interested in learning the techniques he uses. By special arrangement Ted will do one-on-one aerial photography workshops which will include actual photo sessions in the air.
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