It’s not that the duck and lunar eclipse have anything in common–except for me and my camera. Oh, it could be the fact that one was planned and didn’t turn out well and the other wasn’t planned and turned out successful.
First the Mandarin ducks at Elk Grove Regional Park in Elk Grove. This was a planned outing for 9 a.m. By the time we got there and I drove around to the other side of the lake, the ducks needed to nap. It seems they like swimming in the fog! Those of our group who got there about a little earlier and parked in the right lot, got beautiful shots of them swimming. I still got some of them napping and standing. And, I did get some fog shots. We get the Tule fog in Sacramento. I love the moodiness of fog.
These are some of the ducks and moody fog images:
For the lunar eclipse, I decided to sleep in if I could; but if I woke up in time, I would just shoot the triple lunar event from my backyard. I woke up at 3:45 a.m. (Darn my internal clock) and tried to go back to sleep. At 4:15 a.m., I got out of bed, gathered my camera gear, set up and opened my back door. Now this is the way it should be done–in PJs, bathrobe, coat, drinking tea and set up right outside my back door! I didn’t get cold!! I did try several lenses before I ended up with my fixed 300mm. These were the best of all the shots:
So there you have it. Planned or unplanned, I had fun!
Slow Shutter Speed 
Fabulous moon pictures from your back yard!! Love ’em!
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Fabulous moon pictures from your back yard!! Love ’em!
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Thanks BC.
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So cool that you were able to see the moon eclipse from home!!! Here in Zurich it was so cloudy that it was impossible to see the famous supermoon…..
And for the mandarin ducks… I have similar experiences with them in Ireland! Once I found them (during summer, with their eclipse plumage… which means they looked horrible!!), every time I tried to see them they were super far, or sleeping or in the darkest place of the pond…. hahaha, frustrating ducks!! But you got nice foggy photos!
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Thanks Mercedes. The fog photos turned out okay, but I’m going to have to go back after those ducks. It’s like all the ducks in the lake were taking a siesta! We even went to lunch, and when we got back, they were still is the same place!
Regarding the moon shots, they looked good in my camera, looked okay when I edited them (not super sharp), but when I put them into WordPress–yikes!
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