The Frankenlens
For reasons too long and tedious to go into, I’ve not been able to get into a city as I’d hoped. A plan to go into Manchester for a day of street photography became an errand to go sort out an admin problem at Liverpool Hospital. Then that was cancelled at the last moment so I’ve had to console myself with the occasional walk to photograph some wildlife. Wildlife photography has never interested me but after my success with the herons, I got an itch to see if I could set myself a harder challenge.
But what challenge could I pick?
The answer presented itself when I briefly saw a kingfisher darting down the canal the other day.
I’d never seen a kingfisher in my life and, certainly, I've never photographed them.
So, on Thursday, I headed down the canal, and began to scout around in the hope of seeing another kingfisher. I didn’t hold out much hope, so I just sat down and tried not to fret about seeing one and then there it was… A flash of blue streaking along the canal, maybe a foot over the water.
It started a long afternoon of my tracking to and fro, trying to figure out how these birds operate. Ah, okay, they like to sit on a branch. It’s usually a bit over the water. They don’t spend long in any one spot. They don’t often come back to the same spot. They dive, usually catch something, and then fly back up the canal.
On and on it went. And I began to snap the odd picture. I got one with an insect. Then I got it with a small fish in its beak.
The frustrating part was that I was too far away. The reach of the 300mm lens wasn’t enough, even when I cropped them later on. And the focus was tough. Beyond tough. Almost impossible. Yet that made it perversely more of a challenge and that attracted me. This might be fun.
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| Too far away... |
Friday morning – after about 4 hours sleep after watching the election results until 5am – I cycled into St Helens. I had a plan. I’d bought my old Sigma lens at Cash Converters and I’d noticed their website said they had a 2x tele converter for £14. I know the established wisdom of teleconverters is that they’re not worth it. They double your aperture, starving the camera of light, and usually don’t work any better than cropping. Yet I suspected that the converter had originally been paired with the lens I’d bought, though it didn’t specify it was for a Sony A mount. But online this model only seemed to come for the A Mount so I took the gamble. I bought the converter and took it down to the canal to see if I could get everything to connect. Much to my surprise, they did.
I connected the 300mm lens to the tele converter and that to my A to Z Mount adaptor which then goes into my camera. I was also surprised to find that my aperture ring on the mount adaptor still worked. I still didn’t hold out much hope. The day was very sunny so the aperture problem wasn’t evident but the focus was going to be even more of a challenge now I was shooting at 600mm on an ugly monstrosity of a Frankenlens.
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| The Frankenlens |
The rest of my morning and much of the afternoon were spent trying to get close to kingfisher. I was hoping it might come back. But nothing. In the spot I’d sat the day before, there were now two fishermen. I guessed they were making too much noise for the kingfisher to fish that spot, so I moved down the canal to where I’d briefly seen the kingfisher sitting on an old sign they have up on the canal.
And I waited and waited. Felt like an hour and I must have mentally given up since I'd been checking my phone when I looked up and there it was. Sitting on the sign.
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| More reach but still not great |
I got a few shots. Nothing great. I was in the process of trying to get closer when some other photographer came along with her husband. He’d clearly spotted me watching “something” and proceeded to spot the kingfisher himself. He pointed it out to his wife, who then deployed a £5000 camera (when new, that’s the price of a Canon EOS R5) and what was probably a £2000 lens. I felt a bit shit, having sat there an hour with my Frankenlens. Feeling a bit crap about myself, I decided I’d pack up.
I went back to my bike. Had a quick drink. Tweeted about this development and that I was going home but the response on Twitter was that I should stand my ground.
They were right. Plus the weather was good and the couple didn’t wait around long. They got their shots of the kingfisher and went on their way.
The next hour, I spent standing as near to the sign as I could get. The kingfisher didn’t come back for such a long time.
There’s something I didn’t expect to experience with wildlife photography and it’s the thrill of the moment you’ve waited for. My fingers stumbled getting a focus with my lens (all manual focus, remember, since my adaptor is a dumb adaptor which doesn’t allow my camera to use the autofocus). It was also even harder with the 2x adaptor. I mean even a slight touch to the focus ring could adjust it too much.
But I got the photos. Or enough photos that I hoped one would be in focus.
And the result is now probably as good as I’m getting. The weather was perfect. The distance was as close as I’ll ever get without a hide. I even steadied the camera on the bridge so it was pretty stable. It’s not too sharp, the ISO too high (introducing a bit of noise) and the lens just isn’t up to it. But it’s okay.
And that realisation made me think that bird photography isn’t for me. It’s not that it’s not fun but there’s absolutely a reliance on gear. Street photography can look rough, blurred, and badly exposed and it’s part of the aesthetic. I can use a 30-year-old lens and its flaws lend the shots character. With wildlife photography, you’re looking for a kind of perfection that’s only achievable through the very best gear. Plus, really, it’s hard to compete with the tech. One lazy photographer with a long stabilised lens, with the best autofocus, and a high-megapixel camera is always going to come out on top.
So yes. It’s fun but I can’t wait to get back to street photography.
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