It’s Thursday morning, 36 hours before the start of the Memorial Day weekend, but a lot of folks have had the same notion: head out early and beat the crowds. Good idea? Maybe not. This is the tail end of a three-quarter-mile-long queue of landlocked tin tanks. They’re waiting outside the entrance of a no-reservation campground on a reservoir in far northern New York. The bad news? This campground has only 58 sites, and the locals dropped their rigs by the side of the road earlier in the week. Now it looks like a lot of folks have driven a long way for nothing. Plan B, anyone?

 
If you have a rear rack on your bike, you can carry a rack trunk. I’ve come to like trunks, even though I also use a handlebar bag with my two operational bikes. The ‘bar bag moves back and forth between both bikes, but trunks are more parochial. At least that’s what my bikes think. My Schwinn utility bike uses an inexpensive Ascent trunk rack which expands when necessary to carry larger loads. It’s a simple rectangular trunk, basic black, and just fine for carrying my spare jacket, food, extra water, and whatever I might need when shopping.

In December I bought a new camera, a DSLR which would become my all-round “good” camera. I’ve gone completely digital now, and have given my film camera SLR and lenses to someone who will prize it as much as I did for the 20 years or so I used it. Back in the middle of winter, with snow falling deeply every other day and ice making roads a skating rink too dangerous for riding my bikes, I didn’t give any thought to how I’d carry my Pentax kit on the road. But then came the thaw, with open roads beckoning me to stretch my legs and ride, ride, ride. THAT’s when it hit me—how was I going to carry my DSLR and the rest of my kit? After careful consideration, I decided to buy another trunk rack, one which would serve to protect my camera and lenses as I explored near and far by bike. What did I get? A Louis Garneau Profile trunk. I’ve had it a bit over a month now, and have been putting it through its paces. Does it measure up as a camera bag for bike riding? Looks like it will. Stay tuned for a more detailed report, coming soon….

 
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Birds are challenging subjects for the shutterbug. They are almost always on the move, they’re well camouflaged, and they’re elusive. But I love watching them and trying to photograph them, and always shoot more photos of them however many pictures I have in the archives. Without a good lens, though, shooting pictures of birds can be frustrating. That’s why I wanted a telephoto lens for my Pentax K200D DSLR. I decided on the Pentax 50-200mm F4-5.6 ED telephoto because it was a good compromise focal length—long enough for wildlife, short enough for general use. So how does it perform as a lens for the bird-watching photographer? Great! The short and skinny is that it’s lightweight, compact, bright and it quickly focuses and zooms when in manual mode. On full telephoto, the resulting images are crisp, the dark areas of the photo are clear, and the colors are vivid. And as a deal-clincher, the price was right.

The first time I hefted a Pentax 50-200mm F4-5.6 ED I was surprised by its light weight and vaguely rattly build—my old Zuiko 200mm telephoto for the Olympus OM-1n 35mm camera was solid and heavy. How could a lens with a greater focal length be so light? Did this mean the Pentax lens is poorly made? In a word, no. I was encouraged by reviews that evaluated the lens as a very good one. And at less than USD200, I could buy two or three of these lenses for the price of similarly well-reviewed telephotos that were more weather-tight and more solidly built. Since early in this year, when I bought the lens, I’ve used it in sub-zero cold, in snow, in ice fog, in mist, and on dusty warm days, and carried the camera and lens slung round my neck as I pushed through tangles, climbed over steep bedrock exposures, and crawled under fallen tree trunks. Neither the lens nor the camera have suffered one bit for all of that (the same cannot be said for me knees!). But enough talk. The photos will speak for themselves:

 
This male rose-breasted grosbeak is perched in a blooming crab apple tree, and he’s curious about what I’m up to. The photo was shot at full telephoto extension on a bright sunny day. He’s gregarious, and fairly large, so he’s not that difficult to capture. But the returning warblers are another matter. With the leaves still emerging and not fully grown, it’s not very hard to find the strong-voiced, melodic warblers singing and flitting as they hunt for insects. The difficulty comes in catching them in the lens. Because warblers are small, it’s necessary to be fairly close to get a good image, but it can be done:

 
I used the full telephoto for the yellow-rumped warbler photo above. This shot is an enlargement of the original—this is about 150% of the original shot—but I’m satisfied with the quality. Here’s a 100% reproduction of a yellow warbler taken with the full telephoto as he hunts in a riverside willow:

 
He’s wary of me approaching him, and soon flies:

 
Here’s another small bird taken with the telephoto on full extension:

 
This is a male white-throated sparrow having just had a drink at the edge of an extensive wetland. I was alerted to his presence by the rustling he and his companions made as they scratted for food. They’d just returned from their northern migration and were enjoying the warm sunshine as they recovered from the long journey. The ducks have come back north, too:

 
These are hooded mergansers—three males escort one female and put on a show by flashing their white hoods. The picture was shot when the sun was low but bright, and like the others, on full telephoto. The following photo of a male hairy woodpecker was taken with the lens set to about 100mm:

 
He’d been playing a game of hide-and-seek on a misty day, but was about to tire of it and fly away. Look at that talon! I used the same focal length for the photo below of a common grackle male performing a mating dance for a not terrible interested female:

 
She’d rather concentrate on eating a sunflower seed than watch his dance as he struts and fluffs his feathers while squawking. Another dark bird I see frequently is the turkey vulture:

 
This fellow soared down to get a better look at me, but despite his size, I still needed the full telephoto to get a good shot of him. The sun highlights the trailing edge of his wing feathers, and even illuminates his naked red head. A more colorful bird came close to me as I stood quietly near a thicket of jack pines:

 
This is a grosbeak, but she—or he—is a mystery to me. At first I thought it was a female rose-breasted grosbeak, then a female black-headed grosbeak, but now I’m not so sure. Because the rose-breast and black-head will cross-breed, perhaps she’s a female rose-breasted grosbeak who’s the child of the black-headed and rose-breasted grosbeaks. Whatever the ornithologists would decide, she knows who she is, and she’s beautiful. Another bird who posed briefly for my lens as I stood near the pines was this white-breasted nuthatch:

 
I didn’t need a long telephoto for him, but instead used a 95mm focal length. Here’s a closer view from the same photo, this time a nearly one-to-one reproduction:

 
I’m satisfied with the clarity and brightness of the lens. Look at how each feather is discernible. Here’s another picture which shows the downy feathers of a small bird, this time a chickadee:

 
This chickadee is singing the fee bee song. I like the colors in the background and the highlighted feathers of the bird’s head and rump. Now here’s a bird of a different feather, one familiar to most of us but beautiful nonetheless:

 
This mallard hen is rejoicing in the return of spring after enduring a harsh winter on a small open spot of fast water down on The River. The lens handles the dark darks and bright light hues of this shot very well.

 
The bottom line? I’m very pleased with my Pentax gear, and think the Pentax 50-200mm F4-5.6 ED lens was a very good choice for my budget. Someday I might buy a longer lens so I can get tight shots of small, distant birds, but I pronounce myself pleased with the photos I’ve been getting with this rig. It’s compact size and light weight mean that I’m not reluctant to pack it in my rucksack or carry it on my bike. I give it a whole-hearted thumb’s up, without reservation.

 
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