Cygnet: Cuteness Overload

Thankfully, I get a tax return each year. With this year’s return I invested in a nice piece of glass (lens) for my camera. I still want to update my camera body but for now it made more sense to put the money towards a new lens (as long as I stick with Canon the lens will fit when I upgrade the camera body). Lately, I’ve been frustrated that I haven’t been able to get close enough to my subject. My longest lens was a 55-250mm and it just didn’t have the reach. So, I purchased the Canon 100-400mm lens. 

I bought the lens on Sunday and my first test shoot with it was on Monday, when I headed to Plymouth to find the cygnets. And there they were! Oh my, they are just the cutest babies. In total there were three (at one time there may have been 5-7 but the turtles got a few of them). I arrived after this little baby had been rescued by an observer. Apparently, the baby had drifted away from the rest of the family and ended up down the river. A man saw it struggling and picked it up and put it on land close to where the parents were swimming. The father swan came over and stayed with the baby while the mother swan stayed in the water with the other two siblings. After I had been there for about 15 minutes the baby joined the rest of the family in the water and all seemed well.

I was very happy with how close I was able to zoom into my subject. However, I really should have had the camera on a tripod. The lens is heavy/big and it was getting dark so I had to really bump up the ISO on the camera (which gives the photo a lot of noise/graininess). I fixed it in Lightroom but in the future I should probably use the tripod more often with this lens.