Nature Photography

I headed out to Cherry Creek State Park again today. I brought my brand new Kenko 1.4x Teleplus PRO 300 DGX teleconverter with me. I purchased this teleconverter for two reasons. First, the Kenko TC’s have a way of “tricking” Canon camera bodies like the 7D, which do not natively support f/8 autofocus, into allowing AF when the maximum aperture is indeed f/8. When I use this TC on my Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 lens, at 400mm with the TC the maximum aperture becomes f/8. Second, I’ve scheduled a rental of one of Canon’s new supertelephoto lenses that will be arriving in late August. I wanted to have a TC on hand to add for increased reach. The price of the Kenko 1.4x was pretty good, at $240, so I went for it.

I did some shots with and some shots without the TC today. It seems to work pretty well when there is a ton of light, as in direct sunlight. Light was rather spotty today, though, as it was somewhat overcast. So I spent some time honing my manual focus skills. The only real birds of interest out and about today were Snowy Egrets, a bright white type of heron with yellow feet and a yellow patch around their yellow eyes. There were at least six of them hanging around various areas of Cottonwood Creek, both in the creek itself south of the reservoir, as well as in the Cottonwood Creek wetland area between the creek and the reservoir. Shortly before I packed up and came home, I saw several flocks of Snowy Egrets flying overhead….in total there must be at least 50-70 individuals at Cherry Creek. Where they all hang out during the day I can’t even fathom….I think the most I’ve counted at one time in the areas I usually hang out is about 10. Anyway, here is a gallery of some of the better shots of the day.