Ring-necked Duck captured by Z 9 / Z600f4 TC
It was another gorgeous moning at the Water Ranch. The Ring-necked Ducks were being particularly friendly this morning often coming closer than I could focus. The Z600f4 TC’s ability to capture minute detail boggles my mind and when I saw all the drops of water, the barps of the feathers pop within the narrow band of focus at f/4, the thought popped into my mind. What would happen at f/11? So I dialed f/11 in and instantly saw my shutter speed head for the basement, 1/40! Capturing the detail requires that extra depth of focus, but also a shutter speed to stop motion. Ducks bob up and down and side to side. 1/40 ain’t enough to stop that motion alone so I needed to really watch peak of action. Then I needed to really shoot a lot of frames because it is really a low precentage shot. And in the end, I only needed 1 frame, the one you see above, to be successful. To get the shot then cost shutter speed, lots of frames, time to go through all those frames at the minimum. That’s the price of depth!