Back to Bosque de Apache for Feathers on Friday. One of most impressive aspects of any visit to Bosque is the number of geese and cranes in the air at any given time. It also represents one of the greatest photographic challenges. Sometimes there will be 35-100 long lens photographers parked along a field where the geese and cranes are active, all standing behind their massive lenses and tripods, all hoping for the great flight shot, and practicing on the flying birds. You can almost smell the memory cards burning, and you most certainly can hear the electronic snicka, snicka, snicka of the motor drives going constantly as a undercurrent in the sound of the geese.

This year I did a lot of experimentation with my SX20IS and Sports Mode. The IS20 does not have a rapid burst mode. It shoots about .6 frames per second, which is, when faced with flying geese or cranes, slow, slow, slow. Even so, with the camera on continuous shooting and Sports Mode, and by concentrating on shots I thought I might actually make, landing birds and gliding cranes, I probably got as many keepers as the long lens guys next to me…just maybe not as feather pinning sharp. Still I had fun.

And you have to admit, even a mediocre shot of a Goose in landing mode is impressive! (But then, maybe that’s just me.)

Canon SX20IS at 560mm equivalent field of view, 1) f8 @ 1/1250th @ ISO 400 and 2) f8 @ 1/1000th @ ISO 400. (What Sports Mode does in the Canon is interesting…it chooses both a fast shutter speed (to freeze action) and a small aperture (to increase depth of field and make it easier on the auto focus) and adjusts the ISO to compensate. Not a bad plan for birds in flight.)

Processed for clarity and sharpness in Lightroom.

And the bonus shot, just for fun.