For Wings on Wednesday…some real wings. The Anhinga is so much more attractive than its cousin the Cormorant. This lady was in relatively deep shade just at sunset. The mosquitos were coming out, and I was about to leave the rookery pond in the golf course on Jekyll Island, Georgia, after a session with the Wood Storks and Egrets, but I could not resist. The bird was pumping both wings and tail, and moving its head rapidly from side to side, and in the dim light I only managed a couple of shots that caught the bird still enough to show full detail. It was an excellent example of a situation where the HD video capability of today’s compact cameras comes into its own. See the video below. (And it does, by the way, demonstrate the photographic challenge pretty well too!)

Canon SD4000IS behind the eyepiece of the ZEISS DiaScope 65FL for the approximate equivalent field of view of a 1400mm lens on a full frame DSLR. Camera limited aperture of f4 @ 1/50th @ ISO 200. Programmed auto.

A touch of Fill Light and Blackpoint slightly right in Lightroom. Added Clarity and Vibrance and Sharpen narrow edges preset.

And here is the video. One thing about video is that you can shoot in much lower light levels and get good results than with still.