At the far end of Sandfly Bay a couple of New Zealand Sea Lions are sleeping. These are young males, probably 4 or 5 years old. They are sexually mature, and weigh about 300 kg - a fair old weight but only 2/3 of the way to their final destination of about 450 kg. Until they are big enough and skilled enough to take and hold a section of beach they will not be able to father pups. So for the next 2 or 3 years they will keep well out of the way of the big males. They will sleep, grow, and practice the fighting skills needed to become fathers.
They are handsome beasts, but only if you stay a fair way away. Close up they are fly ridden and malodorous. They are also already heavily scarred from their practice fights.
They wake, and begin to try and intimidate one another. They rear up,making themselves as impressive as possible. They bite and lunge at one another.
It is a game. These two choose to sleep near one another, and probably fish together. But it is also deadly serious. They are practicing the skills and developing the muscles which will one day enable them to compete for a harem. And when that day arrives they will almost certainly be rivals.
Their skin is tough and thick, but nevertheless they draw blood from each other. They practice using their crushing weight as a weapon.
They head for the sea. One of them drags his genitals along the beach, humping the sand. The connection between fighting and sex is obviously strongly wired into them.
Out in the sea the fighting continues. They thrash and turn through the waves.
One returns to shore about 30 minutes later. Fresh from the water he is lithe and beautiful, his flanks rippling with muscle.
On the beach is a male fur seal. He is an old fellow, and fully grown, but at about 200 kg he's only 2/3 the size of the adolescent sea lion.
The young sea lion rushes towards him, sensing the opportunity for a bit of recreational bullying.
But the old guy will have none of it. He would certainly back down if faced with a fully grown sea lion, but he will not be put off by this whippersnapper. Outweighed and out muscled, he nevertheless has reserves of cunning and courage. He pulls the young tough up short and makes him back off.
So the young sea lion returns to his companion, where the fight is more evenly balanced, and more predictable.
Technical stuff: we were on a family picnic and I brought my long lens on the off chance of seeing some yellow eyed penguins which nest on this beach. There were a few sea lions but a sea lion sleeping in the sand is not much fun to photograph. The two young guys woke and started fighting and I shot 815 frames. Nikon D750. I used a low iso and set it to shutter priority auto so I could forget the camera and concentrate on the action. The lens was a Tamron 150-600 g2, apertures between f6.3 and f11.
Comments
I presume the low iso is to eliminate any noise - and you have the requisite bright light to facilitate this?
Is much compromised by using Tamron lenses with such a high quality camera body such as the D750? Do you need an adapter to fit the lense? and does this alter the full frame equivalence of the designated Tamron lense size?
I presume that you aren't using a Nikon 150 - 600 because you got used to the Aston Martin and don't want to sell it to buy Nikon lenses. I guess this is one of the compromises when building up a set of lenses within going into bankruptcy.
I presume you do have some favourite prime lenses of the Nikon or Nikkor variety?
Happy new year to you and yours.
As to lenses. It’s complicated. Lenses vary in quality according to their image quality and build quality, as well as speed and accuracy of autofocus and possession or not of image stabilisation. On these parameters there’s roughly 3 categories of lens - consumer, hobbyist and professional. Historically the best lenses have been made by the major camera makers, with third party lenses being sold at the consumer end of the scale. But the camera makers make lenses in all 3 categories, so historically there are some Nikkor or Canon branded lenses with shoddy build quality and/or mediocre optical performance. But everything is changing. Sony have overtaken Nikon to now be the 2nd biggest camera maker (behind Canon) on the back of their highly advanced Alpha camera bodies and some excellent lenses. Panasonic and Fuji are quite big players. There are tie ups between all the manufacturers, so Panasonic and Leica share technology. Sony sells sensors, and other parts, such as shutters, to Nikon and Canon. And lenses are computer designed and built by robots so the and the 3 categories of lenses are becoming very blurred - some consumer lenses are now almost as good as professional ones. And over the past decade Tamron and Sigma have both begun to produce lenses as good as or even Better than the traditional makers. Tamron is partly owned by Sony and has had a role in the production of excellent Sony lenses. All the third party lens makers market their wares fitted with Canon or Nikon or Sony mounts.
I have 2 Tamron lenses. The best 70 -200 f2.8 zoom in the world is the Nikkor, but my Tamron has the same specs, and equal optical performance and build quality. And it retails for around $2k as opposed to $4k for the Nikkor. For long lenses Nikon will sell me a 500mm f2.8 lens for $20,000, or a 600mm f4 for $18,000. Or you can get a Tamron 150-600 zoom for about $1200 second hand. Guess which I’ve got? Nikon make a very good 200-500 zoom which retails for around $2k but my Tamron has MUCH better build, better weather proofing, better stabilisation and a longer reach for no appreciable decrease in image quality.
The purists still insist on only using only brand name lenses, but that’s a concept from the old days. I have 4 Nikkor lenses and 2 Tamrons. The Tamrons are far more robustly made and I am very satisfied with their performance. If a long lost and unknown uncle died and left me his millions in pork belly futures I would immediately dash off and buy a pro level long Nikon prime lens. Or, more probably, hock off all my Nikon gear and get a bright shiny new Sony.
There is a lot to weigh up in choosing a camera. I have been vacillating between an all in one bridge camera (The incomparable Sony RX Mark 4) and interchangeable lens cameras, a subject that begs questions about full frame, SLR or mirrorless, or AFC etc, etc. I get enamored with the FujiFilm X-T3, then read its pros and cons and find myself waiting with the others for the new X-T4, the same goes for the Sony A6500 ..... and on and on it goes - Nikons, Canons et al. Of course I realise that there will always be a new model coming out, that's the way the markets planned obsolescence works.
But I do want to upgrade from my current model where I am finding the pocket size convenience doesn't make up for its pretty limiting ability and poor image quality.
So I keep reading and researching and its a nice problem to have to solve. I am sure I will sort it before too long.
I have considered the Nikon Z series, but as you state the lens are limited at the moment; but there are a lot of lenses available if you use an adapter.
I agree that a mirrorless camera if using interchangeable lenses is the way to go.
One resource that I use and is providing worthwhile opinions on various camera model are the many camera reviews that are available online on Utube and various camera sites. I'll keep looking.