I Didn't Have The Right Lens At Sanibel But So What?
Barry L. Lively
February, 2007
A few home truths about photography came to roost last week on a trip to Sanibel Island in Florida. The most important ones can be framed as questions:
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If you are awake and have a camera in your hand, why can't you find a good image, even if you don't see the one you were looking for?
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Detail?? What do you mean you need a lot of detail in the image? What are you going to do with it even if you have it?
We don't get to Sanibel as often as we would
like to, the last visit was three years ago. They had had hurricanes
in the meantime and to an outsider it looked as if they had pretty well
put it back together again. I don't want to minimize the effects of
those storms, they had tremendous impact on people's lives. For example
the author Randy Wayne White lost his house and ended up writing his
most recent book "Dark Light" in part in the corner in a bar.
But outward appearances on the island were that things were more or
less back to normal.
For a photographer, the J. N. "Ding" Darling Wildlife Refuge
is a must. There are more than 220 species of birds on its 6400 acres
of mangrove, small lakes and hardwood forest. Inching along in bumper
to bumper traffic on Periwinkle Way on the main part of the island it
is hard to believe that over 2000 acres of the refuge a couple of stone
throws away have been declared wilderness. We could use a bit more wilderness
on Periwinkle.
It used to be that the wildlife refuge opened at dawn. This was great because we could get images in the sweet early light. Here is one taken a few years ago.
We stopped at a good birding site - lots of roseate spoonbills, herons, ibises, etc. in the water - and joined a small crowd of photographers. It is interesting to see what equipment shows up. There were plenty of point and shoots with the users holding them out at arm's length and composing through the display and quite a few at the other end of the spectrum, Canon EF f/2.8 L 300 mm image stabilized lenses ($3849 from Adorama) on tripods. With my trusty Canon 17 - 85 mm on my Canon 20D (on a tripod) I was ready for action. The people with the EF f/2.8 L 300 mm image stabilized lenses (on tripods) were getting close ups of catchlights in the right eye of a blue heron while the bird was not a whole lot more than a speck in my viewfinder so I moved on. I walked up the road a piece and on the other side was a slough with some interesting reflections in the water. I got this shot.
