The Turtle Pond Photoshoot

Baltimore Woods in Marcellus, New York, is known for its variety of birds. However, I believe the pond full of turtles in the far back of the park should be the main attraction.

This little park was full of well-marked trails and plaques with educational information on them. The park boasts its large volunteer effort, and this can be seen in its well-maintained trails and nature center.

With the first over 80 degrees day of the year, we were not surprised of the amount of turtles sunbathing on every surface they could find. Walking up to this pond, we could immediately see about 8 turtles on one log. Before getting in close enough for a picture, though, a family of four children came from a nearby trail and immediately ran to the embankment. Alarmed, all the turtles jumped back in the water.

Exercising caution around any animal is important as us humans are the one encroaching on their home. It’s important to stay quiet, not make any sudden movements, and not get too close to the creature. This can cause unnecessary stress and anxiety on the animal. Not everyone thinks of this, especially children, so I understand their excitement for seeing turtles in the wild.

To capture these images, I used my Rebel T6 camera’s zoom lens. This allows a user to not have to get close to a subject, which is beneficial for the animals so you can remain at a comfortable distance from them. Originally spooked by the family, we sat patiently for the turtles to make their way back to their designated sunbathing areas.

The downside to the zoom lens is that it’s much harder to get the correct focus on a subject if you’ve got a wide aperture on automatic focus. Notice how in the below photos the first turtle is clear while the other two turtles behind him are blurry. This was taken with a wider aperture than the second photo, that shows all 3 turtles much more clearly.

To remedy this, I found it best to take multiple shots while waiting for the camera to automatically focus. Another way to achieve your desired shot would be to use the toggle button on your camera to switch from automatic focus (AF) to manual focus (MF). This feature will be touched upon in later blog posts.

A surprise guest came to the pond while I was sitting there with the turtles; a beaver came to the pond! He swam around until he hid in a bush where I unfortunately could not get a clear picture of him.

I definitely look forward to going back to Baltimore Woods to have more photoshoots with the turtles. They were great models to use for practice with the zoom lens and using different apertures. Please enjoy some more photos below.