Viewing the trail through a different lens

Originally, I was going to title this entry, October 7th, 2021, but people might not understand. Either way, I'm going to have to explain the significance of this date because it pertains to this blog entry. On that date, I took my last photo with my Canon EOS 80D DSLR camera. At the time it was a conscious decision because I was out on a hike in Chiricahua National Monument in southeastern Arizona. I'd noticed that I wasn't getting good quality images mainly because the lighting was harsh and so I switched to my iPhone for the remainder of the trip.

I didn't figure that it would be over 2 and a half years until I picked up that camera again, but it has. What got me thinking about picking the "Big Boy" up again was the videos I took last week of the coyotes that many of you have seen on my Instagram or Facebook feed. Although good, had I had the Canon, I would have been able to zoom in a lot closer to the coyotes than I could with the phone. I'm also not saying that I'm going to go back exclusively to the Canon as there are benefits to both of them, which I will detail below.

I have been taking photos since I was in third grade (so almost 60 years). My parents bought me a camera, probably for my birthday or Christmas that year. It took roll film, so it wasn't a Kodak Instamatic. This one had a steep learning curve to it, especially for an 8 year old, but I was up to the task. Eventually, I bought my first DSLR camera when I became a photographer for my high school yearbook. My wife bought me a better camera as a wedding gift and eventually I made the switch to digital. Needless to say, I've been a photographer for most of my life and I have a love for photography.

Which brings me back to last week when I spotted those coyotes. The iPhone is good, actually great for landscape photos in my opinion. Its zoom has gotten so much better, but you still can't get really close shots of wildlife using the phone. And so I dusted off the "Big Boy" and started looking it over to remember the ins and outs of DSLR. The batteries were dead, so that was the first order of business and then I waited for a good day when I knew I was going to go out on a hike. That ended up being this afternoon and these are three of the shots I took along the way.

With the iPhone, I wouldn't have even bothered with the bird on the trail. It would have been too far away, even with the phone's zoom and if I'd gotten closer, it would have flown away and I wouldn't have much. I would have had the same problem with the butterfly. Animals have proximity zones. You get inside their zone and they take off. With the telephoto lens on my Canon, I can get much closer to get a good shot without entering their proximity zone.

With the gopher snake, I know I wouldn't have been able to get close enough to it to get the tongue shot that I got. I kept getting closer to it and eventually I entered its proximity zone and it turned around and headed into the brush. I'd taken lots of photos of it before it turned around and hightailed it out of there, but I didn't know exactly what I had until I was able to look at the shots on the computer's big screen. I had several good ones, but this one was just fabulous.

So in the long run, I'll continue to use my iPhone for most day to day photos, but the Canon is my "Go To" for wildlife photography.