Trip to Runde, day 3
This is the third and last post about Runde for now.
On our final day, fellow Pentaxian Tim Øsleby suggested we made a stand on one of the outermost rocks by the lighthouse at Runde, to capture in-flight shots of birds in transit between feeding grounds and nesting colonies.
This turned out to be a very good suggestion, and emboldened by a good night's sleep I decided to have a go at using the FA*600/4 for the purpose. I repressed the memory of previous failures with the FA*400/5.6, and convinced myself that yesterday's practice with the fulmars was all I needed to pull it off.
As if a gesture to that thought, a fulmar came slowly gliding past as if conciously posing as model. We didn't see any more fulmars after this one, but plenty of gannets, shags and kittiwakes. The latter were too swift for capture with the 600, but the gannets held just the right speed to allow some decent shots.
The shags, however, turned out to be a very interesting challenge. While not really much faster than the gannets, they flew very low over the waves, and the autofocus missed them most of the time. With white foam on the wavecrests, the camera constantly latched on to the background rather than the dark brown birds. However, persistance paid off, and I got a couple I was happy with.
Just like the first time I was there, it was hard to leave the lighthouse. It's such a beautiful spot, and such a hard uphill to mount when turning back. At any rate, I'd love to go back as soon as I can.
On our final day, fellow Pentaxian Tim Øsleby suggested we made a stand on one of the outermost rocks by the lighthouse at Runde, to capture in-flight shots of birds in transit between feeding grounds and nesting colonies.
This turned out to be a very good suggestion, and emboldened by a good night's sleep I decided to have a go at using the FA*600/4 for the purpose. I repressed the memory of previous failures with the FA*400/5.6, and convinced myself that yesterday's practice with the fulmars was all I needed to pull it off.
As if a gesture to that thought, a fulmar came slowly gliding past as if conciously posing as model. We didn't see any more fulmars after this one, but plenty of gannets, shags and kittiwakes. The latter were too swift for capture with the 600, but the gannets held just the right speed to allow some decent shots.
The shags, however, turned out to be a very interesting challenge. While not really much faster than the gannets, they flew very low over the waves, and the autofocus missed them most of the time. With white foam on the wavecrests, the camera constantly latched on to the background rather than the dark brown birds. However, persistance paid off, and I got a couple I was happy with.
Just like the first time I was there, it was hard to leave the lighthouse. It's such a beautiful spot, and such a hard uphill to mount when turning back. At any rate, I'd love to go back as soon as I can.
Pentax K20D, FA* 600/4, tripod
Pentax K20D, FA* 600/4, tripod
Pentax K20D, FA* 600/4, tripod
Pentax K20D, FA* 600/4, tripod
This is where the lighthouse keeper lived until 2001, when the light became automatic.The light itself is just outside the frame on the left hand side.
The rusty stump is the fundament of an old light, decommissioned around 1930.
The occupying Nazi forces nicked most of the steel for their own purposes during WW2.
Pentax K20D, DA*300/4, ISO 200
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