Been a bit of time since my last post. No real theme today, just some samples of some shots over the summer. The first was taken in July, when the canola was in full bloom.
The rest are taken with my new Pentax K5. My old Pentax K20 has more than 100,000 clicks on it and I am concerned it may die. As the K5 was a great bargain as it was discontinued, I picked one up. Very happy with it and an improvement in image quality from the K20.
On September 2 there was a very strong wind blowing - 80 to 100 kph. I noticed that there were three hawks swirling about and landing in our yard. They had a kill - a gopher - and were each in turn chasing the other off.
Having just received my new K5 a day earlier, I put on my Sigma 170-500 and stuck my head out the upstairs window. As I did so, one of the birds appeared just over the roof, stationary in the wind. It was almost too close for 170mm! I blasted away at 7 fps, getting the money shots. Phenomenal - I had never seen the hawks this close. I took a moment to chimp and saw the dreaded words 'No card in the camera' on the screen!!! I had taken some test shots earlier and left the card in my computer.
After screaming around the house and berating myself for being an idiot, I calmed down enough to take many more shots, but the birds never came as close. So I am posting the leftovers - of my shots, not the gopher! (I went into the yard after and there was not evidence of the gopher. Nature is very efficient)
The last two are of wheat in a field near my house, early morning as sun began to rise.
Hope you enjoy these.
Garth
