I took this picture of a roseate spoonbill taking a bath in Myakka State Park, Florida, in the 90's before I became seriously enamored with bird photography. I was still shooting film, and the fastest shutter speed my Mamiya RZ 67 offered (being a medium format camera) was 1/400th of a second. That's why you see quite a bit of blur here. I was shooting from a low perspective with Mamiya's 500mm f/6 telephoto, equivalent to 280mm in the full-frame digital format. I spread the legs of my tripod out so I was as close to the ground as possible, and at that moment the main plate of my Gitzo tripod broke into two pieces. One tripod leg was attached to one piece, and two legs were attached to the other piece. This is why I've never purchased a Gitzo product since then. When I sent it back to the company, they accused me of abusing the tripod. So, without a tripod, I handheld this shot with the heavy equipment. I shot wide open -- f/6 -- at 1/400, and I used Fujichrome Provia 100 transparency film.
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