photoartflightWeathered Feather Panorama
While taking a walk at the Audubon’s Plainsboro Preserve in NJ, I was looking for some photo opportunities. Plainsboro Preserve is almost 1,000 acres with a variety of trails and an almost 50 acre lake. Because it is a large area, most birds are distant, but you never know what you might find. It also seems to a have a lot of Beavers, so you see their handiwork (felled trees with their tooth marks) all around the areas near the water on the Preserve.
I found this weathered feather along the path and thought it looked interesting. I took 2 images, handheld with a 300mm f/4 IS lens with a 1.4X teleconverter. I like this Canon lens for an all purpose Walk Around lens. It is sharp, image stabilized, focuses fairly close on its own, very hand holdable, fairly lightweight and sharp. So I use this lens quite a bit for when I am just taking a walk with no idea of what I might photograph. If you carry extension tubes with you, you can even get closer for a very close, almost macro lens.
I used Photoshop to combine the two images, which most of the time works well! You just have to give enough of an overlap so it seems to be more accurate in lining the 2 images and automatically blending the final image. Every once in a while you might have to do a slight touch up.
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