Sitting Still, Enjoying the Day, and Shooting

One of the great things about living in a city is that, in the parks and other quieter places where there is more nature than people, the wildlife is willing to be a bit more adventurous. Birds - not just pigeons and sparrows - hop right by you, going about their business, not too concerned with the upright ape-thing. This is an amazing thing for photographers, especially those that don't have the hyper-long focal length lenses that most bird photographers need.

Even still, at 200mm and wide open, my D3100 needs to go up a bit on the ISO to be fast enough in the shade. And, of course, I need to play with cropping in Lightroom. It may feel a bit like cheating to recompose after the image is taken, but wildlife isn't always cooperative in getting the best angle or composition in real time! Now, if I were doing street photography and cropped this much, I'd feel like a lazy photographer. But when my lens can't quite reach out, I'll sit back and crop!

So, I spent the day in Rock Creek Park, reading, enjoying the beautiful weather, and being on the look out for interesting shots. In my next post, I'll explain just how educational this whole experience was for me, but, for now, enjoy the images!

Equipment Used

Nikon D3100 Camera
55-200mm f/4-5.6 lens

Images