Christchurch Park, Ipswich - 1/2/2018

A male GOOSANDER had turned up on the pond, but there was no sign of the female that was present earlier in the month (see blog from 19/1/2018)

 

So in May last year I spent a lot of money on a camera kit. I had bought a CANON 80 D camera body and a large SIGMA zoom lens, which put me back close to two grand. Since that time I have not taken a single good shot with that camera set. All my best shots have been taken on my trusty CANON SX 50 bridge camera, which being small I take everywhere and having had that camera and a similar older model for eight years or so know it inside and out.



 

So it was a case of last chance with my camera set. If things don't improve then it was time to sell it on E-bay (which was my second choice after throwing the camera against a brick wall).

So I booked myself on a photography workshop day at Lackford Lakes - see my post from the 29/1/2018. The tuition was good but the results were terrible, and I didn't come back with single decent image. On the Lackford Lakes blog I failed to mention it was a photography tuition day just because the results were so bad.

So I enrolled on a Jessops photography level 1 course which took place the day after the Lackford Lakes debacle. It was a small group in a building in Bury St Edmunds comprising people who have never managed to get passed the automatic mode on their camera. The course was good, we went over the basics, such as shutter speed, ISO and other functions to use the camera manually.

 

So a couple of days later I went to Christchurch Park with a feeling that this was the last chance for my expensive camera equipment. If I was to follow the advice I was given at the Jessops course and still not succeed then that was it.

Christchurch Park Wilderness Pond is probably the easiest place to do bird photography in Suffolk. Large numbers of MALLARDS in a multitude of colours, CANADA GEESE and beautiful MANDARIN DUCKS all hang around waiting to be fed. The birds are so tame they don't usually bother with humans unless they have duck food with them.

 

 

So these photos are the results of my session. Not bad me thinks, there's potential and so I've decided to keep my camera for the time being. Such a complex machine will take maybe a life time to fully master, and that is a challenge I accept, because just maybe I will take that one shot that will linger into eternity.