I like the Tundra Swan! Very good work... What camera, Mark? The lens brochure says that lens weighs 13 lb! That A*400 must be the f/2.8 ED? Boy! What a lens!
Thanks Keith!
The Kellogg Bird Sanctuary is about 15 miles outside of Kalamazoo. It was founded in the 1930's to try to salvage the near extinct Canada Goose. I don;t know if they were successful with that since the goose was declared extinct. (All of the canada geese we have today are the descendants of a handful of breeding pairs discovered out west inthe 1950's).
Now KBS is one of the largest breeders / introducers of Trumpeter Swans in North America. A nice bonus is that we see lots of Trumpeters all around SW Michigan because of their efforts.
The Tundra swans are not officially bred there, but they show up almost year round (except in the height of summer.) It's kind of an anomaly since they usually winter along the ocean coasts - my Stokes Field Guide does not even show them in Michigan though they are at the KBS most of the year (I have never seen them elsewhere, though.)
That was shot with the Pz-1p - the IF function is the only way I know to quickly get slow shutter flash synchs with Pentax gear. If you look closely at the photo you will see two highlights in the bird's eye - the top one is the sun, the bottom one is the flash.
The A*400 is really sharp and really heavy - the AF funciton of the 1.7x is pretty limited, but it does serve to lock in the focus once the shot is basically pre-focused.
- MCC ----- Mark Cassino Kalamazoo, MI -----
Photography:
http://www.markcassino.com
