I ran across a picture I took a while back. This, by far, was the most difficult picture that I took...I was chasing after two western swallow tail butterflies involved in a courtship dance above an open grass field...I did it after almost tripping and falling down several times...
Why It was Difficult:
1. Butterflies are fast and totally unpredictable in changing direction
2. 400mm FL view is very narrow on the viewfinder making tracking fast erratic objects like butterflies a real challenge
3. The depth of field is very thin...you've got to nail focus fast and snap the shot fast.
Canon 5D Mark III, Canon 400mm f/5.6L, Canon 25mm extension tube @ 400mm; f/6.3; 1/1250; ISO 800, AI Servo, center point with 8 assists, Case 5
This image for a project with an incredible 12 year old gymist was a bit of a challenge. Canon 5D mark III / 24-70L Mulitple strobes and a couple hours of the crew sweeping.
From a challenge in a photography group to "freeze the action." Took me a bit to set up a rig to drop the water, then figure out how to capture it.
Canon 7d w/50mm 1.8 and 13mm extension tube. Flash on camera right, HSS 1/6400 @ F4, Iso 160. Countless missed shots, with 3 "keepers."
The difficulty was not in taking the shot, but in post rocessing to correct for the different light sources: street lights, flood lights, and neon, and minimizing the lens distortion.
Subject: Sky City Tower, Auckland New Zealand.
Camera: Canon 7D Mark II
Lens: Tamron 16 - 300mm
Settings: ISO 3200 / 16mm / f/3.5 / 1/25 second
Post processing: Lightroom / Photoshop (Alien Skin Exposure plugin).
I was watching this sparrow fly around, and i was patiently waiting for it to land. It did right in the middle of a Thorn Bush.
I have 2 very different but also very challenging photos I'll add. First up is the Canadian Pacific's Holiday Train crossing a bridge about 40 minutes from home. It's an annual thing but the previous 2 years were too miserable to see it from where I wanted to try my shot. No idea how long it was but I was able to find the width of the bridge on line, and fortunately went mid afternoon to figure out what lens might work. I had guessed wrong thinking I'd need a telephoto zoom but quickly realized I needed WIDE. I also got lucky in that it was cold & by dark the swampy area I wanted to use had frozen over just enough to walk on. There was no way to practice until it came into sight & no way to work out settings in advance BUT it had to stop about 1/2 mile past the bridge or it wouldn't even be possible. As it crossed I tried a few changes to get my shutter speed up a bit & this is my best shot from the series. !D mark 4, Canon 35 F 1.4 L lens at f 1.6, ISO 6400, 1/13 second, hand held.
The second shot is from one of the first R/C events of the season & again is hand held using a 1D4, Canon 28-300 L IS, at 130 mm, f5.6, ISO 400 & 1/2000 shutter speed. Telemetry that was downloaded later shows the speed of the pass to be in the 420-440 KPH range and I couldn't back up much from the flight line so how the heck I kept in in my viewfinder is beyond me but this is 1 of a 7 shot burst with only 1 slightly soft image.
