By Nathan

Right before Christmas I bought the Canon 7D as a graduation present for myself!  Since most of my photography is of the outdoors I spent some time outside in the morninings getting more familiar with the camera.  It is very similar to my older 40D but I do enjoy some of the improvements such as the higher resolution sensor, better LCD screen, faster focusing and 8 frames per second.

I haven’t had a chance to really use the video feature yet, but from the short time I did use it, it was evident I need to shoot the video from a tripod.

This year the weather was pretty mild in Pennsylvania except for a few showers.  We took advantage of the weather and did a 5 mile hike in Fair Hill with Katharine’s parents.  One thing I’m working on is using the camera in full manual mode.  Before I would usually use shutter priority since I like taking photos of moving objects.  Manual gives you more control over the camera, but it can also lead to a lot of of poor photos when you’re first starting out, but I think I’m getting better.

Canon 7D, 28-135 @ 28mm, 3.5/f, 1/200 sec, 600 ISO

Since I’m an avid wildlife photographer I usually spent hours staring out the window of Katharine’s parents’ house waiting for some sort of wildlife to come by.  Last year I spent hours waiting for a red fox, which I finally saw and got some photos of.  Because there was no snow it was harder to determine the foxes common routes.  One evening while running out the front door to photograph a deer I saw the fox running through their front yard but he was too fast for me to get a crisp photo.

One afternoon Katharine and her mom spotted a hawk sitting in a tree in their backyard.  I quickly ran outside with my camera and snapped a few photos.

Of course there were lots of branches in the way and the hawk was still at a good distance.  It didn’t seemed to be disturbed by my presence so I crept down the deck stairs to get a closer look.  I then realized in my rush out the door I didn’t put any shoes on and the rain soaked ground wasn’t going to do me any favors in my wool socks.  Like any dedicated photographer I took my socks off and preceded to stalk the bird barefoot in the wet grass and cold mud.

After 15 minutes of playing a game of “red light green light” as the hawk looked away, I got pretty close.

This was the final photo before he turned and took flight.

As you can see I should have had a faster shutter speed to catch the quick movements as he leaped from the branch.

I did however catch one frame while his wings were at the peak of their extension, which I think is a little clearer.

Katharine has already planned a lot of trips for 2012 and I’m looking forward to expanding my photography portfolio.