I ordered my Nikkor 800mm PF lens from Nikon on Friday night and it was delivered late Saturday evening thanks to priority delivery from Nikon Professional Services.
I went out to the Great Bridge Lock Park on Sunday morning to put it through its paces. The first thing I noticed was how light it was. It’s pretty amazing that a 800mm lens is light enough to be hand-held. It’s only September, so the winter migratory birds have not arrived yet. The Brown Pelicans that were so abundant in February were nowhere to be seen. All in all, the pickings were very slim.
Fortunately, a couple Belted Kingfishers allowed to me to practice my birds in flight with the 800mm. It looked like a territorial dispute and one of the Kingfishers did not like the other one in it’s territory. This kept up for about five minutes so I really got some practice in trying to capture them in flight. Looking back, I think I did a pretty decent job of it, but I realized my shutter speed of 1/1250th was much lower than it should have been.
I think I’ll try my hand at Stumpy Lake next, although its probably a good four to six weeks before the Herons and Egrets really start showing up.
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