In focus - Nesting Great crested grebe

Nesting Great crested grebe, a photo by Naturephoto_FI on Flickr.

Today I fetched my Sigma from the service. They told me that they changed the focusing chip - read the previous blog post about Sigma's recall of certain telephoto lenses. On my way to home, I stopped to take a couple of shots of this Great crested grebe pair. The focus now works fine (no hunting) and the photos look sharp.

Focus you Sigma!

Due to long weekend and no fly-fishing conditions, I spent some time bird-watching and photographing (more the former). As the birds are quite far from the bird-watchtowers (I visit), only my long telephoto lens is suitable for this kind of photography.
However, a while ago I started to have focusing issues with my Sigma 120-400 OS HSM lens. It just started to hunt and even if achieved focus after about 10 secs it was often false focus. By time, the lens focusing deteriorated and during this weekend it went to non-existent. Of course, I could still shoot with manual focus, but in most cases, like hunting osprey, it was just luck or lack :).
I tried to work out in what conditions was the focus working (distance, light, aperture, ISO, etc.), but the whole thing was inconclusive.
A short consult of the mighty Internet revealed that Sigma announced some kind of design issue with their long lenses and offered fixes of those.
It is strange that the focus, in my case, deteriorated vs sudden failing. Anyway, I took the lens to the local Sigma service and they confirmed this issue. The estimated time to get the lens back is 3 days. So, I will update this blog soon and tell about my experience.

This is Sigma's announcement about the focus failure.

These are the affected models and serial numbers:
--- APO 50-500mm F4.5-6.3 DG OS HSM
--- Serial Numbers between 10633051 and 10972000

--- APO 120-400mm F4.5-5.6 DG OS HSM
--- Serial Numbers between 10574001 and 10972000

--- APO 150-500mm F5-6.3 DG OS HSM
--- Serial Numbers between 10674301 and 10972000

Mika Vainio's best flies - presentation and fly-tying at EPK

Image by sunnysuomi via FlickrImage by sunnysuomi via FlickrImage by sunnysuomi via FlickrImage by sunnysuomi via FlickrImage by sunnysuomi via FlickrImage by sunnysuomi via FlickrEPK - Fly tying w Mika Vainio-001, a photo by sunnysuomi on Flickr.

EPK has arranged a seminar with Mika Vainio (Team Manager - Vision), where Mika went through his most recommended 5 flies (It was more than 5 :)). He explained how to tie them and how to fish them. Finnish being only a second language to me, I expected to get tired of listening ;), but it went pretty good. His Finnish is pretty clear and easy to understand.
I uploaded couple of photos of Mika,the EPK club and the flies. Not all the flies, for that kind of information you should come to EPK events. ;) Only kidding. Enjoy and comment, I might upload some more.

Last spring (same time in April)

Temp set for Blog, a set on Flickr.

Last spring looked quite different. Have a look at the photos attached from just one year ago. Here, spring is late! Will this mean a warm summer (or just the opposite)? Today, I do not care! I just wish to see some sunshine during the weekend.

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