Eric with camera and wildlife lens

The wonderful thing about wildlife is that it is all around us, even in places that are not so wild. The truth of this statement, however, depends on what you define as wildlife. I take the term literally; it implies all life that is not domestic or planted (in other words, wild). If your idea of wildlife is restricted to larger members of the order Mammalia and unusual varieties of avian species then you will consider the statement to be false. Regardless of your point of view, I love being outdoors and around wildlife.

My friend Dave and I were visiting Cheam Lake, a Lower Mainland wildlife sanctuary. We saw a good variety of birds and insects and enjoyed wandering along the various well-maintained trails. While there we took a couple of photos of each other using a pair of glacial erratics to augment the scene. When hiking trails it is my custom to bring two cameras with me. My friend is using one to take the picture and the other is displayed in hand.

The camera I am holding is the rig I use for shooting wildlife at a distance. I use an APS-C sensor DSLR camera to take advantage of the 1.5X crop factor (it magnifies the focal length of your lens). The lens is a Tamron 150-600 mm Generation I zoom with a Nikon mount; it functions as a 225-900 lens because of the smaller sensor. If you notice there is a black band around my waist; I adapted a rifle harness to hold my camera system. The usual neck strap on the camera's body doesn't work well due to the amount of strain the lens places on the camera's faceplate. This way I can use the lens' tripod mount to support the combined bulk which I find works much better.

The second camera, the one being used to capture the photo, is a full-frame DSLR with a wide-angle to telephoto zoom lens. It weighs much less than the aforementioned one and I can carry it easily with the standard carrying strap. This camera is used for scenery, portraits, and some close up work. I sometimes bring an external flash which makes a huge difference when photographing people. Macro photography is done with an entirely different system; I usually bring it out by itself when I am hunting for tiny subjects.

Photography is a passion for me, but really it gives me license to venture into the world to discover what is out there. The thing that I get most excited about though is the wildlife that is around us. It is nice to know that I don't have to go very far from home to photograph it.

Thanks for reading.     Ericspix     Eric Svendsen

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