Arms Of Steel

Late last year I landed myself a nice little contract to photograph wild birds of Bhutan. Just PERFECT! Finally I can now consider the possibility of upgrading to a camera body with a higher pixel count.

I ordered myself the darling of the present breed of professional camera bodies - the Canon EOS 5D MK IV. Only to realize, too late, that the pixel counts aside, the camera was equipped with a sensor size that was inappropriate for bird photography - it came with a full frame CMOS - not the most ideal for bird photography.

Well, too late to do anything - I had to order yet another body - this time with a CMOS size designed for bird photography - the Canon EOS 90D, equipped with a APS-C sensor, with a form factor of 1.6X.

Disaster yet again - the images produced by the body was grainy and not as sharp as it ought to be. I tried all sorts of settings - to no avail. I gave up and went back to my full-frame EOS 5D MK IV.

It was during the course of running the camera body through a series of tests that I finally derived much satisfaction - about myself - as a photographer. Look at the following image:

Blue-fronted Redstart - near perfect image captured under extreme difficult conditions. Photographed at 3:10 PM yesterday the 20th February, 2023.

Tell me - how many photographers do you know who would dare attempt to shoot an image at this near impossible setting: at aperture f/5.6, ASA 100 and shutter speed of 1/8 - employing M shooting mode? Very, very, very few, if at all! I even got the tail tack sharp - remember a bird's tail is hardly ever still.

You gotta have arms of reinforced steel to be able to produce this sharp image at the given camera settings. Consider further that the lens in use, combined with the camera body, weighed in at a combined weight of over 5 KGs - and NO TRIPOD in use - except that the lens was rested on my car window.

Only a passionate photographer will understand the joy of accomplishment at this level - SIMPLY MIND BLOWING! - although I say it myself 😋.