Every morning for the past week or so, I have noticed what I believe to be a sharp-shinned or Cooper’s hawk perched on the telephone wires that parallel Fiddyment Road. This morning, before leaving for the gym, I changed to my 70-300mm zoom lens so that I could take some closeup photos. Of course, probably because I was prepared, he was not there this morning. But, as luck would have it, I encountered another kind of hawk, a mosquito hawk, trapped inside the gym, flitting frantically about trying desperately to escape through the window. When I got my camera and tried to focus, I discovered that I couldn’t focus my 70-300 lens at the same distance I could have with either my 35mm prime or my 18-200mm zoom lenses. I kept trying to focus at too close a range until I finally realized what the problem was. When I moved about ten feet away and sat on one of the pieces of gym equipment, I was finallly able to focus on the mosquito hawk. He’s mostly silhouetted here because I neglected to change the ISO, but I think the screen background and the fall colors out the window give the photo some interest. I lightened it a bit using Aperture Presets.
Focal Length 300mm
ISO 100
f/5.6
1/125