Nature's Sunrise Perfection at BirdsongThe season of fog is here.

But I've really felt the itch the last few days and when the weather forecast called for a sunny morning with frost advisory I had to go out. Set the alarm for 6 AM and head out! I was hoping for some nice low fog over the evaporating water with this difference in water and air temperatures and it worked out perfectly. Based on my previous visits I expected geese to be there  too but would be fine either way.

For this first outing after my break I did not head far. Birdsong Park close to where I live seemed like the perfect place to get going again. After arriving I headed straight for the ponds

The dose of rustiness showed up - I botched up quite a few initial pre-sunrise photos! I was playing with double exposures over the weekend and forgot that mode turned on! I got so used to the fact that switching custom settings resets "everything" on my D600 that I did not even check. I switched to my landscape setting and started tweaking the camera from there without giving it much thought. With other unintentional settings, it might have been obvious but with the double exposures, I went on for quite a while before I finally noticed.  I was working on a tripod and my compositions did not vary too much from frame to frame. Ouch! Lesson learned - custom settings do not reset double-exposure settings on the D600!

All was not lost though. When I finally moved the camera enough between two exposures and ended up with strange ghost trees I knew immediately what I did. I turned the mode off, and started over just as the sun backlit the fog over the pond. It was a wonderful morning and a great inspiration to get back to these wonderful morning expeditions where one rarely runs into another human being. Nature created another wonder and I was there to see it!

Blinding Warmth at BirdsongTrying to show how blinding the sun was and how warm the light was despite the temperatures being just above freezing.

Blinding Warmth at Birdsong

Get up, capture your wonders, and have fun!

Equipment used:

• Nikon D600
• Nikon 24-85mm Nikkor Lens
• Manfrotto tripod (055MF3) and head (496RC2)
• Cokin graduated ND4 filter
• Cokin P Holder with a 72 mm Adapter
• Think Tank Speed Demon Waist Pack,  Petzl Zipka Plus 2 Headlamp (always in the bag just in case), SanDisk Extreme 32GB SD Cards
• Exposure delay mode of 2 seconds, no remote release
• Nikon Capture NX2

Using my links to buy your equipment keeps me going and costs you nothing. You can also use the Amazon search box in bottom left for anything not mentioned here. Thank you very much, I really appreciate it!