The cunning predator eyed me coldly. This was her territory and she knew
it. Scant yards away, I returned the steely gaze in kind as I raised a full
five-hundred and sixty millimeters of superb Japanese glass. One hand
gripped the cool metal, Maitani's finest titanium, and the other calmly spun
the focusing ring until I could discern each individual feline whisker in
the brilliance of the two-series viewfinder. My well-muscled arms tensed
like a Greek statue as I became a human tripod holding the long lens
breathlessly steady. Sweat, drawn by the blazing Rio Grande sun, glistened
on my sculpted forearms. The great cat was frozen in anticipation of the
climax to come. With the unforgettable image framed and focussed, I
squeezed the release.
Then I heard it - a sound that few have heard and returned to tell of, a
sound that made my blood run cold. I began to shake as, in that horrible
instant, I tried to comprehend how my good fortune could evaporate so
quickly; how it could all end this way . . .
"Click. . . Pause. . .Whir. . . Clunk."
ARRRGGGHHH!
The mighty cat heard it, too, and in less than a heartbeat turned in its own
length and vanished into the riparian bush.
Stunned, I looked down at the camera's top deck: MANUAL, one-fifteenth of a
second!? How could it be? The shot of a lifetime and I just made it
hand-holding 560 mm at one-fifteenth of a second? It was supposed to be on
AUTO! An adult bobcat (Lynx rufus), in its springtime prime, in good light,
looking straight at me, at 20 paces and I blew it? Please, put me out of my
misery - who-knows-how-many stops over-exposed, five stops too slow to hand
hold!
For the sad result, see:
http://members.home.com/garyetx/bobcat.htm
Gary Edwards
(who is at least as boneheaded with an OM-4T as Ken Norton is with his
OM-2S)
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