500

This is Bigma!  Get it? "This is Sparta!" vs "This is Bigma!"; 300 vs 500.  Ahh never mind...

On to today's topic.  A friend of mine let me borrow his Sigma 50-500 (non-OS) [aka Bigma] lens for Canon bodies.  All I can say is not bad at all (if you know how to use it!!!).  The first time I used it, I hand held it standing up...not a good idea.  This beast of a lens is freaking heavy!  Eventually I got the hang of it.  I sat on the asphalt and used my knees as a bipod (there's a joke here somewhere that I'll leave alone).

As you can see in the images above,  I definitely needed to use a tripod or monopod for this big boy.  No matter how stable I thought I was, ghosting was still noticeable.  I was shooting at ISO 800 f7.1 1/400 at 500mm.  The rule of thumb is suppose to be your shutter speed must be 1/used focal length.  Maybe I should follow it...haha.  The idea is to use the lowest ISO possible to obtain the best image quality.

 At times, I followed the rule of thumb and it turned out nice.

The image above is from my visit to the San Diego Wild Animal Park.  A day before the San Diego visit, I tested the Bigma near a horse ranch in my neighborhood.

These were taken late afternoon.  I had to bump it up to ISO 1600 for a decent shot at 500mm f5.6 1/200 on a monopod.

I was lucky that day...  I saw a few minutes of horse play.  Those 'stangs do bite!

By the way, to give you an idea how far I was from these horses.  Below is a close up (500m):

What's the opposite term of a "close up"?  "Open up"?  Anyway, the image below is fully zoomed out (50mm):

That's the power of the 500!  Both images were not cropped and were minimally retouched (pretty much fresh of the camera).  A couple of days later, Airwolf decided to check out the horses too.

I took a few more shots.

Afterwards, a family decided to visit the horses.  I couldn't help it so I took one "street" style photograph.

I was able to get closer to these curious creatures and took pics using my Canon 50mm 1.8.

They are bigger than you think when you stand next to them.  Why did I have a long face?  It's because I wish I had a carrot that day...

I took one last shot using the Bigma and left the horse ranch, wondering what will happen to these wonderful creatures.

Do you smell that? *cough* *cough*  It smells like progress... aka smog aka air pollution aka when I win the lottery, I'll move out to Hawaii and breathe fresh air every day.  Maybe.

I enjoyed using the Sigma 50-500 (non-os).  I would like to borrow it again for a surfing competition event at the beach.   Are you reading this NN?  Haha.  Thanks for reading.  WOohoo for blog post numero 10!

A Visit to San Diego Zoo Safari Park

Imagine walking around with a Bigma, a 100 macro, 70-200 MK II in the San Diego Zoo Safari Park...et cetera et cetera.  How to I put this... It's freaking heavy!  Boohoo.  Poor me!  But hey, you gotta do what you gotta do to get the shots you want.

With a monopod on the Bigma, I was able to produce the shots above.  A group of us also visited the Butterfly Jungle Exhibit.  I've never been so close to many butterflies before.

It was an amazing experience.  The butterflies actually land on you!  Near the Butterfly Exhibit are these birds below (I tried looking for the name but I couldn't find it quickly at the SDZSP site).

That was another cool experience.  People are able to feed these beautiful and friendly birds provided by the park attendants.  Here are a few more bird images from the park.

Photography will be the end of me.  I'm trying to keep it together and not become a Bird Photographer!  It'll require to buy a new set of lenses. =*(  Flaaaaaammmminnngggooos!

Someone has to be different.

Don't forget the gorrrrriiilllasss!!!  There were a lot of people just hanging around the Gorrilla Forest.

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Time for siesta!

Here are the other mammals that I saw.

There were a whole lot more to see and photograph at the park.  I can't wait to go back.  I had a great time that day.  And of course I can't end this blog entry without these...

If you are reading this paragraph, you are awesome. =)  Special thanks to my photography friend Neal, John and the So Cal Photo Explorers Group for giving me the opportunity to improve my photography.