It was a little difficult to chose a photo of the month for September but after a little internal struggle – I came up with one.
A High Photo-Count Month
I did quite a lot of photography this month:
- birds on rocks
- birds flying
- flowers
- waves crashing onto rocks
- waves not crashing onto rocks
- birds in trees
- two new species of birds I’ve never shot before
- head-shots of myself for YouTube videos
- Dolphins
- and a Stingray!
As I write this post, my photo count for September in Lightroom is 707. But I haven’t imported them all yet! And let’s face it, the month ain’t over.
However, the main reason for it being hard to chose was not the fact that I had so many photos. It was because of one particular subject that I have not mentioned yet.
Humpback Whales!
Our Whale Watching Trip
If you have read my Whale Watching Coffs Harbour blog post, you will know that my family and I went out whale watching on the 15th of September. It was such an amazing couple of hours and I got so many great shots.
The photo of the month however, is…..(drum-roll please)…………………
I only managed to get photos of one of the three breaches we saw that day but I am happy because this one was spectacular! I like this particular shot because the whale has a nice arch in it’s back and is showing that massive pectoral fin to the camera. Their pectoral fins can be up to a third of their body length.
*Techie camera-speak warning*
This shot was taken with my Nikon D5200 and Nikkor AF-S 55-200mm f4-5.6G lens. I took it at 1/1250th sec, f6.3, and ISO 800 as you can see in the image below.
There was a lot of smoke haze from the bush fires looming around that day but visibility was still good.
There was quite a bit of swell too, so the boat was moving around a lot. This is why I chose such a high shutter speed and ISO.
I have found lately that the quality of the shots I take with my 55-200mm lens has diminished. It’s just a kit lens after all, but I am disappointed with the sharpness of the images I’m getting. It has always been softer with long-distance shots, but lately it seems much worse.
This is the 2nd one of them that I have owned. The first one stopped Auto-focusing which was pretty frustrating. Might be time for a new lens, but not another one of these.
Make Me Jealous
Time to make me jealous of your gear! Please comment below with your favourite lens, the one that gets you the sharpest images.
Be sure to come back again next month for October’s image of the month. Thanks for reading my blog, please share it on social media by using the buttons below.
If you are interested in a whale watching trip of your own in Coffs Harbour, check out Jetty Dive’s website for more information. They are fantastic.
