The right lens at the right time

… or in this case the wrong lens at the right time.

When photographing both landscape and wildlife its always a compromise as to what lenses adorn your camera bodies at any given time.  When you’re laying in wait in a hide, selecting the right lens is a lot simpler. But when you’re like me with a preference for shooting landscapes, I more often that not am stalking my next location when wildlife presents itself.

Sometimes the scenario arrives when one has to make  the decision to either capture the moment with what you have or to risk missing the moment by going for a lens swap.

Whilst at the Heavenly Lake in the Tian Shan Mountains in Xinjiang, China I ran into this exact conundrum.

When  firmly planted  on knee on a rocky outcrop I was peering into my viewfinder composing an image of a temple across the lake I heard the squawking sounds of Eagles.   Given that they had been relatively silent during the earlier part of the day I knew something was up.

I stood leaving my 5D Mark 3 safely mounted on the Gitzo tripod and reached around for my 1D Mark IV which was hanging at my side on my Black Rapid shoulder strap.

As I lifted the lens my fingers went straight to the ISO button. I knew I’d been shooting a landscape with this body not 2 minutes earlier and I was at ISO 100 at best.  As I scanned the sky I was already adjusting the ISO up.  How much, 3 clicks on the dial  ISO 100->200->400->800.

I spied what was making all that noise….  I adjusted the zoom out to its longest focal length knowing I was going to come up short, cursed under my breath that I only had a 70-200 lens fitted, as I framed the subject and focussed  and fired away.

10 frames and it was all over.  It was literally one second moment.

I turned around to see Joshua, he said calmly with a wry smile “Please tell me you caught that..”

As looked at the LCD on the back of my camera, I think the smile on my face said it all.

With all the careful planning in the world sometimes everything does come together, the right lens, the right place, the right time and the right light. More often than not it doesn’t.  But as always you make the best of the situation at hand, and when nature throws some magic at you, you just shoot away.

It was amazing watching these two Golden Eagles tumble in a mid air melee.

The right lens or not, it was all part of a something special.