hold on, we're having a bird dog moment

It's all birds and bird dogs around here.

[abirddogmoment]

oh yeah, this is exatly what we needed

[abirddogmoment]

Misc. Rories from recent days

[kikmessenger]

nose.com/smells/inquire

[abirddogmoment]

Bookended my trip with - you guessed it - a walk in our swamp ❤️

[abirddogmoment]

This nursery marsh (as I've been thinking of it) was home to a ton of american coots, eared grebes, gadwalls, and ruddy ducks who were all raising their young of different ages. I was able to watch all the different life stages in one place, it was so so cool.

Bird species are in the Alt Text. See if you can guess the species or family before clicking 👀

[abirddogmoment]

fuck there's bugs on my face <- phrases uttered on tonight's very quick jaunt

[abirddogmoment]

This marsh was bursting full of life. Coots, grebes, and ducks were using it as a nursery to raise young birds of all ages. I could've easily spent the day here if I wasn't trying to get home. Many more photos to come.

(volume up for birds and Rory sneefing!)

[abirddogmoment]

Jackpotted on this random gravel road just off the highway in eastern Saskatchewan. Sooooo many signs of wildlife, such a pleasure to see.

Tracks are pheasant, grey partrige, white tailed deer, moose, coyote, and Rory and I.

[abirddogmoment]

Alright I registered Rory for the CGN in a couple weeks, everyone send canine good neighbour vibes our way 🤞

[abirddogmoment]

Our final driving day started with a walk between freshly-mowed fields. This picture was taken at 6:30am; I would bottle this smell if I could.

[abirddogmoment]

Roundest known object

[abirddogmoment]

A love letter to Saskatchewan 💛

[abirddogmoment]

Noodling through western Manitoba 💛

That bottom picture was an attempt towards my longstanding photography goal ("show the vastness of the landscape"), chatting about it and another version of the same shot below the cut.

Last post I made describing my goal and plan, also links to photos I've taken that kinda have the vibe I want

I have two camera setups, a landscape/portrait setup with a Sony a7Rii and a wildlife/big zoom setup with a secondhand Canon Mark 7D. It is a luxury, both my setups have huge pros and cons, feel free to ask if you wanna know more.

First photo, main post, taken with the Sony + 70-200mm lens zoomed to 200mm, f 8.0. I think it achieved my goal decently! The Sony is really good for preserving shadows and I like the extra depth in the landscape using the shorter zoom. I think if I had backed up further ("cropped" less tightly to the dog while still preserving my 200mm zoom) I could've gotten closer to the wow factor I wanted. The 8.0 probably could've been dropped, I got a lot of grass and gravel in my field of focus, but I don't want to lose much more detail in my background. I'll play around to find the right number, I'm thinking a couple stops down might work.

Second photo, below, taken with the Canon (crop sensor) + 150-600mm, zoomed to 400ish mm, f 8.0. This one didn't give the vibe I wanted. Don't get me wrong, it's a fine photo. My lens compression worked great but it lost too much detail and the vastness.

Things I'm gonna try next

- Try using the big Canon zoom again at a much higher f stop, see if I can preserve more background detail and still get the heavy lens compression from the big zoom. It's not a very sharp lens to begin with so I've gotta play around. The big zoom + crop sensor is actually really limiting, I have to be way far away to get a good view of the background landscape. Probably going to abandon this setup for this goal.

- As always, keep my eyes peeled for good spots (elevated, big vast landscape, quiet enough that I can walk really far away from Rory), and carry my camera on more adventures.

I am really happy that it looks like I'll be able to achieve my goal with my sony and 70-200mm, which is my preferred setup to carry on hikes and the reason I have that camera. I've got a couple more trips planned this summer that might provide the right opportunity so I'll report back when I make more progress!

[abirddogmoment]

Back road cruising just outside Winnipeg

[abirddogmoment]

Quick nature walk as the thunderstorm ended

[abirddogmoment]

Waiting out a second thunderstorm on a gravel road - volume up to hear the rain!

[abirddogmoment]

Super damp walk a couple hours after the severe thunderstorm passed.