Day 353 of 365

Day 353 of 365, originally uploaded by Rob Weiher.

Finally...I got my shot of the white crane. I've tried numerous times to capture this bird, who frequents a pond near a spa I work at on the weekends. Each time I've tried to photograph it there has either been distracting things in the foreground (a ducks butt on one occasion), or in the background (sprinklers) or it was out of focus, or not very clear or the lighting was all wrong so lost detail. Today I caught it with lighting that seemed to finally work for me. Seconds after I took this shot (in portrait so I could get the reflection) it took off and because of my camera rotation I wasn't able to get a full shot of it...half it's beak was cut off...doh.

I think it finally came down to getting my setting right when trying to photographing this bird (or any future birds). My settings were 300mm, 1/400, f/5.6, ISO 200. Increasing my ISO is a recent addition to my work flow. I've been so stubborn about keeping it at 100 that I was losing shots that needed that little extra light. Because I was able to shoot at 1/400 second I didn't lose sharpness at 300mm like I would if I was shooting at 1/320 or lower. Simple things that are finally after 353 days clicking in.

Only 12 days left...