ISO and Monet

A week ago we took a drive out to Mom and Dad's house. They live along the Sacramento River in a fairly remote area. We forgot to take our cameras. (What's that you say? Photographers who don't carry their camera bag in the trunk of the car....!)

We took the 'back-way' on the return trip and saw 3 osprey nests with big chicks peeking over the sides, a giant blue heron standing on a rock in the river, several hawks, a woodpecker, rabbits and an incredible build up of bright white clouds over Mt. Lassen.

"Never again!" cried my husband.

Sunday, Frank had his camera. He pulled it from the bag sitting on the desk since our vacation to June Lake near Mammoth.

We visited with folks and headed home, the back way.

Osprey, here we come.

Oh my god! It was incredible. We actually saw 5 huge osprey nests. One had four birds in it, all staring straight into Frank's lens. Three nests had three birds in and one nest had only two. One of the birds of a trio clutched onto the edge of the nest and gave us an incredible show of his wings. Click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click. Frank's Nikon takes about 12 shots per second and he was going for every one of those shots.

Around one of the bends in the road we spotted the largest hawk either of us had ever seen. He was standing on a fence post.  Click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click. The hawk was not bashful. He wasn't going to leave his perch. Then we realized he was eating a fresh catch and he realized we weren't going anywhere. He grasped his squirrel in both claws and flew away. Awesome shots, wings spread, clutching his prey.

We discovered a couple more bunnies and snapped their portraits. We've been searching for a Western King Bird and found a guy who would not only sit for his portrait but sang to us as  Frank snapped away.

We rode home into the sunset, talking about the incredible photos that we can submit to this and that contest, talked about printing on metal or canvas.

We skipped dinner and headed right for the computer to load the pictures....

Here's where Monet comes in!

It appears that the last time we used the camera was at twilight up in the mountains for family group shots. Flash was wiping everyone out so the ISO was set up high....very, very high.

Those perfect photos at unbelievable close range? Not so sharp! Claude Monet would have been extremely envious of our osprey. Superb impressionism!

Sidenote: Check your ISO!