This is one of the few action shots involving birds I consider successful with my medium format film camera, the Mamiya RZ 67. It shows a roseate spoonbill taking a bath in the Myakka River in Florida. Note the blurred wings. The top-end shutter speed on this camera was 1/400th of a second, and that wasn't enough to freeze the motion. This is why today with modern cameras I use a shutter speed of 1/3200th because I like to see tack sharp detail even in fast moving subjects. I shot with a 500mm Mamiya lens which was equivalent to about a 300mm focal length in our full frame digital format. I was using a Gitzo tripod at the time, and as I spread the legs of the tripod the center metal plate that held everything together broke. So, I was holding half the tripod with 2 legs in one hand and the other half with one of the legs in the other. I wasn't abusing the tripod by banging it on a rock or anything akin to that. All I was doing was opening the legs to shoot from a stable platform close to the ground. At the time, I was writing a monthly column for Petersen's Photographic Magazine, and I wanted to share my story of the tripod with the readership. The editor wouldn't let me do this because Gitzo was an advertiser in the magazine. I wasn't happy about this, but that was reality in the business world. I sent the broken tripod to Gitzo for repair or replacement, and the first thing they did was accuse me of somehow abusing the tripod. This happened in the early 90's, and since this incident occurred, I've never purchased another Gitzo.
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