Palomar, East Grade

My lens came. It is a monster. They call it the Bigma. It is effectively a 75 - 750mm telephoto zoom on my dx sensor. Will be interesting to see if it can handle the added distortion and additional stop from the 1.4 teleconverter that I have ordered for it.

Did I mention that the lens was big? I don't want to hear the sniggling little jokes about compensation, either. But this baby is heavy. Shooting it off a borrowed Gitzo monopod and quick release but the optical stabilization actually prefers to be handheld.

Yesterday Doug and I test drove some photo gear, driving up the east grade to Mt. Palomar and the Henshaw Overlook, usually a fine place to site raptors. Didn't see a lot of things but it was a fine view and we familiarized ourselves with our gear and its limits.

Caught a family of vultures in a tree.

It is plenty sharp. Ken took this nice picture of Brett with it at breakfast, at 750mm at 1/1000 with the iso doubled to 2000 at f6.3. I am looking forward to continue working with this nice piece of glass, fruit of my labors after a successful blackjack run.

The East Grade is such a nice quiet route, later we stopped at this beautiful roadside shrine for a firefighter from Picuris Pueblo near Chimayo, the Penasco Handcrew, that gave his life fighting the terrible 1999 La Jolla fire. Thank you, Gregory Pacheco, for your courage, service and ultimate sacrifice.