American White Pelicans and Ring-billed Gulls, Mississippi River, Le Claire, Iowa
After a week of business travel it felt great to go out and enjoy nature and wildlife watching again. Yesterday’s trip along the Mississippi River led me all the way down to Le Claire, Iowa and up back north on the Illinois side to Savannah, followed by a short visit of the Green Island Wetlands on the Iowa side again.
Below lock & dam #14 in Le Claire these two American White Pelicans rested on a sandbank in company with a number of Ring-billed Gulls. They preened their feathers in the sun. It was quite a bit away from the shore and the 1.4x teleconverter was used to expand the focal length to 840 mm. People always debate the use of a teleconverter and claim it would degrade image quality. Except for the loss of light that hits the sensor (it becomes a f/9), I can’t confirm the loss of sharpness. The Nikon Z 600 f/6.3 works great with the TC-1.4x.
Nikon Z6II, Nikon NIKKOR Z 600 f/6.3 VR S, Nikon Z Teleconverter TC-1.4x
@ 840mm, 1/1000s, f/9, ISO 200, image slightly cropped