I got up early monday to distract myself from an upcoming interview. Late as always, the 40 minute drive south was a battle against the ever-brightening horizon. By the time I had arrived, it was too late to capture both Venus and the pre dawn light as I had previously planned.
Once I had arrived I saw some interesting reflections over the freshly formed ice, so I hopped out of the car and hastily set up the timelapse camera. I headed on to the beach to begin my morning.
The low clouds on the horizon blocked a lot of the early red light, but allowed for some nice contrast in the waves themselves. In my camera bag I had my Canon T90 with about 1/3 of a roll of slide film in it, most of my FD mount lenses, my Sony a6000, and the 38mm 1.8 lens from my recent Olympus Pen FT purchase. I started with the T90 and the 24mm 2.8 since the film has been living in that camera for far too long and needed to be finished. Most of those photos were all one composition, but adjusting the aperture to experiment with how different shutter speeds affected the rolling waters. Unfortunately we will have to wait until that roll gets developed before we see the results.
I soon switched over to my Sony, which was an excellent opportunity to try out the 38mm 1.8. The Pen FT is a half frame camera, so the lens is only designed to cover the smaller film plane area, unlike the Canon lenses that I also adapt over. Even with the aps-c sensor, it still vignetted quite a bit wide open. Despite that, I really enjoyed the results from this lens.
After the world got brighter, I switched over to my wildlife lens to try to catch some bald eagles on some nearby ice. I was impatient and spent some time throwing ice sheets across the freeze until the plunked down into the remaining standing water.
The eagles were consistently moving between their favorite perches, but not too many got close to me. I think I counted about 6 or 7 total, most of them being juveniles. I kept half an eye on a distant group of gulls, as they would all flutter up whenever a baldie passed over.
The highlight of the morning was seeing a small muskrat swimming next to the shoreline under the ice. I was too stunned to get a picture, but it was absolutely incredible to see so close. Unfortunately my joy was soon squashed, as I returned to its original location, I realized my timelapse camera was gone and most likely stolen. Too bad I drilled out the case and lost the battery cover on it, so good luck selling it.
