After my 3-mile hike at Deerfield Park on Sunday with my old beat-to-hell Canon s95 point-and-shoot camera, I was eager to get back for more hiking and shooting with something, not a 12-year-old pocket camera. However, first I would have to suffer through some time in the gym on Monday to make me feel like I’m not following through on past threats to slack through my AARP years while waiting for the dogs above to call me home.
24 Hours Later
I returned to Deerfield on Tuesday morning with my Nikon z50 and a 28mm f/2.8 lens (42mm equivalent on the crop sensor z50). My focus (no pun intended) would again be to get in a hike at pace, burn some calories, and snap some photos along the way.
The z50 is a big step up from the old s95, but they are also very different beasts. It’s still not as good as my full frame cameras, but it is a sweet little interchangeable crop-sensor lens camera that I picked up last year on the used market, and combined with a small 28mm lens is great for hikes where you don’t want to be weighed down with gear.
Hiking and photo creeping with a short fixed focal length is always challenging for me, especially when trying to capture animals and critters. And, of COURSE, the first thing I saw when I got on the trail was two fawns and mama deer eating in some nearby grass.
By the time I got close enough for a shot, the fawns had scurried behind mom, but she was extremely cooperative (I think she was just standing her ground and protecting her kids) and allowed me to at least get a shot to capture the moment, even if technically it’s a bit of a mess.
After that, the rest of the hike was a blur of rolling sandy trails, wildflowers, mosquitos, and sun breaking through the park’s tall trees.
This was another hike where picture-takin’ wasn’t the priority, but it was a great morning to be out, and I ended up getting in about 4.5 miles of pacy hiking. And I was my typical unsightly mess of soaking sweat and OFF! fumes at the end.
***
Thursday (today) was/is supposed to be another hiking day, but after two months of drought-like conditions in mid-Michigan, we have finally been getting some rain recently, and as I type this morning, it’s still pissing down. I may venture out when it stops, but the mosquitos will be raging, and I’m a little concerned about the amount of DEET one can use over a summer before morphing into a Sleestak.
Ah, no worries, that which doesn’t kill me will only make me stronger. And an “extra-dimensional reptilian bipedal humanoid.“
Later.