LUMINOSITY UNDER WATER

Pacific Sea Nettle, Oregon Coast Aquarium, Newport, OR

It’s tempting to just follow the actual time line and post only the photos that reflect what’s going on at the moment of publishing. I would follow the ”journalistic path” of the blog but many photos I create, especially those on the more artistic side, would fall under the table and never ever being shared with you.

Today’s image of a Pacific Sea Nettle is one of my favorites from our recent trip. It’s not wildlife and it was all about dealing with the circumstances of shooting through the thick glass in the Oregon Coast Aquarium in Newport, Oregon.

I pressed the lens tightly against the glass of the aquarium and the rest was done by the lighting source of the tank above the water level. A few years ago I would never ever had dreamed about using a sensitivity of ISO 16000 for a photo. Now, with the great handling of high ISO settings in mirrorless cameras and much better noise reduction features in our software, this is just a matter of employing all these tools. Don’t take me wrong, I still believe shooting with the lowest ISO settings as possible is the best way to go for a high quality image. This time ISO 16000 allowed to expose at 1/640s at extremely low light conditions and to get this pulsating jelly fish still sharp in the frame.

A public aquarium tries to tell the story about the life under water for a certain habitat, that most of us aren’t able to see in their life time. When I take a shot like this I try to keep any men-made items out of the frame and hope to continue their story telling.

Here in Dubuque, Iowa we have the Mississippi River & Aquarium, one of the best in the country, and practicing many times before at their beautiful fish tanks made it easier to nail down the photo I can present for you today. I hope you enjoy it!

AN EVENING AT THE POND

American White Pelican, Sageville Marsh, Iowa

It was about time to get out again and hold a camera in my hand after a busy week. The goal was to look after a mostly night active critter this evening at Sageville Marsh, a small wetland area not far from home. I will not reveal yet what it was, but a photo and blog post will be postponed until probably tomorrow. The reason is the great display of an American White Pelican on my arrival at the marsh around 7PM. The gesture and long reflection of the bird on the water triggered my desire to make this click across the pond. By the way, it was the first time ever that I saw a pelican at Sageville Marsh. With an overcast during that late time of the day it is probably not an exaggeration to call it low light. I shot this in full frame mode FX with the bird in the center. In post process I finally cropped the image to about DX dimensions and took the bird out of center. I do that to get the brightest part of the lens on the subject and have still a decent arrangement in the frame. This little trick has helped me before to handhold and maintain autofocus at shutter speeds of 1/60s or even slower with the long lens.

AUTUMN IN MINNESOTA #14 - WILDLIFE ENCOUNTERS IN LOW LIGHT

White-tailed Deer, Bear Head Lake State Park, Minnesota

I have never been a friend of shooting wildlife with an ISO setting above 250-320. But when you walk out into nature early in the morning or during a day with low light due to overcast, you have to rethink your ideas. The higher the ISO, the lower the resolving power, the more noise in the image, and the lower the dynamic range. But at the other hand, a sharp photo with a higher ISO setting is still better than capturing a blurry picture because shutter speed is too slow as a result of having the ISO settings in the basement. This is in particular true if a very long focal length is employed while handholding the camera. There is a limit where Vibration Reduction or Optical Stabilization, as SIGMA calls it in their lenses, may help you to get a sharp image. The well-disposed viewer of a photo on the web, in a blog post, on Instagram, or any other social site may not see much of a difference, but the real quality bar for a good photograph is the ultimate print.

The photo of this White-tailed Deer, up in Bear Head Lake State Park, Minnesota was shot at ISO 800. To make it clear, it wasn’t a difficult shot. As I wrote here in the blog before, the deer near a campground are not tame, but they are used to people and don’t run away as soon they see a human. Staying in or near a campground is a safety strategy that at least works during the camping season. Their predators, like wolves, avoid these places.

I have shot handheld at 500-600 mm focal length, 1/60 s, ISO 200 or even lower, but I also have deleted a lot of pictures with this kind of settings. Practice is always the key to success for sharp photos but sometimes a higher ISO can save your butt.

Nikon D750, Sigma 150-600mm / f5-6.3 DG OS HSM S, Induro GIT 404XL tripod, Induro GHB2 gimbal head,   at 490 mm, 1/320s, f/6.3, ISO800

IT HAS TO BE SPECIAL

Downy Woodpecker

With the snow now gone bird photography needs a different approach again. I could use a flash for bringing out the colors, especially on a day with an overcast or in a low light situation, like at the end of the day. I have done that many times and it works very well in a lot of situations. The Downy Woodpecker is a bird we have in our woods all year long, many photos were made over the years, and making another image has to be special. Friday evening, when the sun sent its last rays through the trees, I realized how the soft light touched the old cedar tree in the front yard and the bird resting on it. When they hold a position like this there is usually a predator around, but other birds were present, so I think the Downy Woodpecker just enjoyed this shaft of warm light as much as I did. Yeah, that’s what I mean, it has to be special…

FEEDING A SECOND BROOD

Summer has passed its peak and most birds are done with their offspring. Not so the House Wrens. Mother wren has incubated a second clutch of eggs and is currently feeding her babies in a gourd that hangs from our porch. We have two bird boxes for the wrens in the front yard but it isn’t the first time that they use a different location for the second brood. Usually we see both parents feeding but this time the male hasn’t shown up at the nest yet, although he is still around. Maybe as the little birds grow during the next days, and more food is needed, he might support the effort.

It was raining this evening and there wasn’t much light available. I just played around with the camera for some practice and was surprised that even a halfway sharp image turned out. This was shot with 1/20s at 600mm. The female wren checks the surroundings carefully before she flies up to the entrance hole of the gourd with the much needed food.

NATURE CLICKS #386 - RED-SPOTTED NEWT

Two Red-spotted Newts, Watoga Lake, Allegheny Mountains, West Virginia ---- 

If you saw my photo from Watoga Lake in yesterday’s post you can imagine that Joan and I had a really good time there. Our excitement grew when we discovered a whole bunch of Red-spotted Newts in the crystal clear water at a shallow part of the lake. So, what is a newt? I found a simple answer on a website of the University of Georgia. All newts are salamanders, but not all salamanders are newts. With other words, they are a specific type of salamanders. The Red-spotted Newt is a subspecies of the Eastern Newt. This newt produces tetrodotoxin which makes the species unpalatable to predatory fish and crayfish. Key to survive! There is a lot more to tell about the biology of this very interesting critter. I trust you know where to find more detailed information in the world wide web.

Since this was not an “everyday” shooting situation I like to share my approach for this photo with you. We had an overcast day and it was already late afternoon, hence the amount of light was limited. Even if the water was crystal clear, we had to deal with some reflections of the sky on the water surface, means a polarizing filter was mandatory. The B+W F-PRO Kaesemann High Transmission Circular Polarizer MRC filter did an excellent job to keep the glare on the water out of the frame. The downside is that it swallows about 1-1.5 f-stops. The photo was made handheld with the Sigma 150/f2.8 at 1/40s, f/4.5, but to get into this speed range I had to pump up the ISO to 400. I tried to keep the focus point on the eye of the adult newt on top, but obtaining focus on a small spot under water is quite a challenge. The newts moved around but often stopped for short periods of time.

There is lots of wildlife in West Virginia. It is not always easy to spot because most of the state is forested land. Our biggest hopes to see a Black Bear again were not fulfilled, but the excitement while watching the Red-spotted Newts left a lasting impression on us.

NATURAL LIGHT AT ITS BEST

Male Common Merganser, Mississippi River, Le Claire, Iowa

I felt a little like an oddball among all the photographers that gathered yesterday in Le Claire, Iowa. Almost everybody there seemed to focus on one subject only, the eagles. This is somehow understandable and I’m happy for everybody that travels to Iowa to see a Bald Eagle, maybe for the first time in their life. The return of the Bald Eagle is a great success story in North America. However, only a few people realized that we had a great light situation coming up, very beneficial for every bird that swims on the water, as the sun got lower and lower in the late afternoon. The presence of hundreds of mergansers, ducks, pelicans, and other waterfowl on the water right in front of us was probably noticed by some, but only a few people took advantage of the high quality natural light. To make this a little more clear, the Bald Eagles sit quite often in a tree and not much happens for long periods of time. Everybody waits for them to get into hunting and fishing mood and if one the eagles takes off and soars overhead, the rattle of camera shutters is the dominant noise in the air. At the other hand, there is a constant battle going on between gulls, ducks, mergansers, and pelicans about the best fishing grounds and none of these birds come ever to a stand still. Combined with just gorgeous light from the low sitting sun we had an abundance of photo opportunities even if the eagles decided to have a break.

My observations from previous years proved that the Common Mergansers can be found always close to the edge of open water. A little further north ice had jammed up the Mississippi, but here in Le Claire, Iowa was enough open water and plenty of fish for them to have a happy life. I shoot birds quite often with the support of flash light to overcome the gray of an overcast and bring out the colors of their feathers. Yesterday, with this gorgeous natural light in the late afternoon I didn’t even think about to get the flash light out of the bag…

NATURE CLICKS #345 - CEDAR WAXWING IN THE RAIN

Lake Superior Provincial Park, Ontario, Canada -----------

Here is the question, what do you do if it rains out in the wilderness? The only answer I can give, take the camera with you, otherwise you will miss some of the best story telling shots. This Cedar Waxwing was the only one we saw during our trip around Lake Superior. It looked a little bit pitiful with its wet feathers on this gray and misty day, but the waxwing is such a pretty bird and I had to give it a try.

Using a flash light for enhancing the colors was not really an option in the rain. No matter how much the flash power is dialed down, it is difficult to go without unwanted reflections. Handholding the D750 / 150-600 combo and following the fast moving bird required a much higher ISO setting than I like to use for my wildlife photography. The photo was made at 1/200 s, f/6.3, and ISO800. This was obviously enough for a proper exposure and still slow enough to show the rain as small strings in the background. The rain drops on leaves and twigs and the wet shimmer on the waxwing’s feathers are all story telling elements that are important for this photo.

LOOKING DOWN, MANDATORY IN BAD WEATHER

Pukaskwa National Park, Ontario, Canada

When we have to deal with a gray overcast and maybe drizzle or rain it is tempting to leave the camera in a safe and dry place while going on a hike. By doing so it is guaranteed that most of the time we would just skip opportunities that may lead to a shot the “fair-weather-shooter” will probably never see. This is not the time for the great vistas but by keeping the eyes on the ground, between the rocks, bushes and trees, you will come back with a nature shot that is at least not the same the guy before you had already posted on the internet.

We had such a day while camping and spending time in Pukaskwa National Park, Ontario, Canada. I actually get excited if fast moving clouds, wind, and weather provide moments a bald, uniform blue sky will never deliver. Hiking through rugged terrain on the Manito Miikana trail, on a peninsula surrounded by the waters of Lake Superior, we saw this spot with rocks, ferns, moss, and lichens. Light wasn’t there in abundance but enough to make the click at 1/30s, f/8, and ISO 640. Sure, I could have made the picture at f/4 to get a faster shutter speed but I really wanted more depth of field since my subject wasn’t just the ferns but the whole scene. See the reflections on the ferns caused by the rain water? Yep, I left the polarizer in the camp site…😏

 

UPDATE ON THE OWLETS

600 mm, 1/100s, f/6.3, ISO 320, flash fill

I know I have some friends out there, and as far away as South Africa, who like to hear about how our little owlets are doing. The weather has been kinda “crappy” during the last few days but I try to drive down to the Mississippi River after work several times a week in order to see how the young Great Horned Owls develop. For those who do not always read my blog, this is the first time during the last four years that the Great Horned Owl is raising two young owls. Any other year before was only one owlet in the nest.

Today it seemed again that the juveniles are in good condition and there was a brief moment when I saw both of them at the same time. The mother perched in trees nearby most of the time. She was at the nest only once while I was there. Mother owl went always back to the same trees and branches during the last week because she probably can observe the nest very good from all of her preferred spots. She must trust me, because she turns quite often her back to me and rather looks over to the Mississippi and perhaps watches for some prey.

600 mm, 1/100s, f/6.3, ISO 320, flash fill

Rain and dark clouds during the last evenings made the photography very challenging. There wasn’t an ounce, and not even a gram of nice light! In these conditions I like to master flash fill for my images, with all its quirks, like overexposed branches, red eyes, or just dealing with the settings in camera and in the flash. The missing contrast on an owlet’s head or body in low light makes it difficult to obtain always focus for a sharp image and not every picture is a keeper. I know, this doesn’t sound like fun but I really enjoy the process of trial, error, and improvement, and it makes me happy if at the end of the day there is an image on the memory card that tells the story…