What happens when you drop your 500……? keep Shooting, unless of coarse the glass shattered or it fails completely.
I had spent 8 great days in the mara, so I decided to head to Amboselli. I had not been there and I was hoping to find big herds of elephants creating dust walking through the desolate plains. It was a long day and a rough drive. Tired, I grabbed too much stuff, my 500 with my 7D body attached slipped from my grip, and crashed down on the beautiful stone pathway. I reached down, picked it up, everything was in tack, no sounds of broke parts; I hoped for the best. I got to my room, raised the camera, pushed the shutter button…nothing. Did the initial trouble shooting, turned it off, took out the battery, played with the buttons several times…nothing. That was ok, I was having trouble with the body and it was my third back up.
I put the 500 on my 5D Mark II focused on a textured tree trunk, and it focused beautifully, fabulous. HOWEVER, there was that little voice nagging at me that I should download it and take a look on the computer. Blurry, more like a soft focus. Keeping the faith I mounted it on my Geizo tripod, and took the same shoot using both auto focus and then manual focus. Downloaded it…blurry. I still had my 70-200 and my 1-4 extender, but most of the animals are quite far from the roads, in Amboselli.
Since my goals was to shoot animals in the dust for a moody artistic look, and generally with mist, dust, or fog, your are not going to get a sharp focus, I decided to shoot anyways.
Using my laptop, I just took one of the images and did some quick processing using NIK filters. With more time, and working on my desk top, I am inspired to create an unique moody series with a lot of the images.
Things like this happen all the time in the field. Don’t let it ruin your trip. Regroup and think out side of the box.
For %15 off NIK software, click the link at the bottom of my blog.
See my gallery Wild on Earth to see more examples of what can be done using this software.
Pole for the lens as we say here. good to hear you did not give up completely on the lens and that you could use it for some specific work. I reallylike the result of the 1st and 3rd picture.
Hope the rest of your stay goes well.
Great words and excellent images. Thanks Piper. I too just dropped a lens and camera onto stone while in Israel.It kept working!
When life gives you lemons make lemonade. And you did! Beautiful images!!!
Pole sana.
Cousin, so good to see your face and join you in your “Walk” All is well here, today.