NATURE CLICKS #292 - DIFFERENTIAL GRASHOPPER

Nikon D750, Nikkor 24-120mm / f4

Grashoppers, crickets, and katydids dominate the sound spectrum almost everywhere where nature has a chance to unfold in Iowa during the month of August. Especially at night it is a never ending “wall of sound” produced by these insects.

I mentioned it before, I’m not into macro photography but when Joan discovered this full grown Differential Grashopper last weekend in the Devonian Fossil Gorge, located below the emergency spillway of Coralville Lake, I had to make a few clicks. I could swear this grasshopper was at least 60 mm long (~2 1/2”) but my books say they are only 45 mm (1 3/4”). However, it was bloody big!!

The Nikkor 24-120 mm, f/4 isn’t a macro lens, but I had it on camera and any piece of my other gear was tucked away in the car. Well, this is as good as it gets under these circumstances… ;-)

CHANGING TACTIC

Nikon D750, Sigma 50-500mm / f4.5-6.3 APO DG HSM

This weekend Joan and I explored Lake Macbride, which is located between Cedar Rapids and Iowa City. Heavy rain delayed our departure Friday night but we set up our campsite and launched the lake with our kayaks finally Saturday afternoon. This is an 812-acre lake and the park is with 2,180 acres Iowa’s largest state park.

We had some really good bird encounters in the forest and on the lake, for instance a Caspian Tern, Bald Eagle, Wild Turkeys, Pileated Woodpecker, Kingfisher, Green Heron, to name only a few. Of course, not everything leads to a photo and as I have written here before, the keeper rate by shooting from a kayak is ‘a little’ lower than by using a tripod on solid ground.

Approaching a Great Blue Heron with the boat is a tricky task. Most of the time they took off with a croaking call before we even got close enough to make a picture. This guy had escaped already twice. They just fly away and land at a different spot a few hundred yards down the shore. This shot was made after we changed our tactic. We paddled around the bird in a safe distance and approached it finally with the wind in the back. We drifted slowly towards the bird, without using any paddle strokes. The heron liked that obviously a lot better and allowed us to get into shooting range. I made the movements with the camera very slow and carefully. Fill flash was again essential to bring out the color of the feathers. This didn’t bother the bird a bit and I made quite a few clicks during this 12-minute approach.

GAELIC STORM AT THE IRISH HOOLEY

I’m on a business trip in Denver, CO this week and my posts are a little bit behind ”actual”… I talked about an eventful weekend in my last post, and yes, we had some really good time last Saturday at the ‘Irish Hooley’ outside of the old Star Brewery in Dubuque, Iowa. Our friends Jeanne and Dave had invited us and we enjoyed the concert of Gaelic Storm, a chart-topping, multi-national Celtic band, as they call themselves on their website. We have seen them before and they did a great performance again.

I admit, photography was not a priority this evening. We just enjoyed the company of our friends, perfect weather, great music, and some good beer and food. Live was good… Thank you Jeanne and Dave!

10 OF SOUL, THE REAL DEAL!

Nina Little (vocals)

It was an eventful weekend, starting Friday night with “Dubuque… and All That Jazz” concert in downtown Dubuque, Iowa. 10 of Soul, a great band from the Quad Cities, took the stage and it was again what I call “the real deal”. Go to their website, read some of their bios, and you will get an idea why this band is so darn good.

Dave Abdo (bass)

As the avid reader of my blog knows, I hardly leave the tracks of wildlife, landscape, and nature photography, but I tried to capture the passion and fun the musicians obviously have. It was a great performance and it wasn’t just me who enjoyed it. Not all pictures turned out the way I was hoping for, and unfortunately I don’t have a photo of all eleven band members. Thank you to the band for respecting my close presence with the camera at the stage!

Christina Boyer (vocals)

Rusty Ruggles (reeds) and Mike Mc Mann (trombone, arranger)

Dwayne Hodges (vocals)

Tyler "Booter" Robertson (guitar)

MISSISSIPPI RIVER STORIES 2015 #8

Nikon D750, Nikkor 24-120mm / f4

Joan, I, and the dog went out this evening for a nice long walk into the Deere Marsh, a wetland area between the Mississippi River and the big John Deere factory north of Dubuque, Iowa. We had a fresh and clear day with a few puffy clouds in the sky, but unfortunately they all had disappeared before the evening.

Joan likes to shoot wildflowers and plants and this area had still plenty to offer for her. I just brought my favorite “walk around” lens, the Nikkor 24 - 120 / f4, and was hoping to chase some good light.

We had what I call a “dirty sunset”, a little hazy and not too pretty, nothing really special about it. But after the sun disappeared behind the ridge of the Mississippi Valley things started to unfold. Hundreds of Red-winged Blackbirds were flying above us towards a grove with tall trees, located on a small island in the river. They obviously spend the night there after feeding on insects and seeds during the day between the water lilies and arrow heads that grow in the backwaters of the river. I would not have made any picture of the sunset because I didn’t have a middle-ground with an interesting silhouette, but the blackbirds took care for that and became the story telling element in this photo.

“SLOW” TELLS A BETTER STORY

Nikon D750, Sigma 50-500mm / f4.5-6.3 APO DG HSM, tripod, gimbal head, SB 800 speed light

@500 mm, 1/40 s, f/8, ISO 500

We never had so many Ruby-throated Hummingbirds visit the yard like this year. Especially now, with the juveniles buzzing around, it is very busy at the hummingbird feeders that hang from our porch. Every second day we mix a 1.75 liter bottle of sugar water to keep up with the high demand. We never ever have even been close to this amount. 

After a number of hot and humid days we finally got some much needed rain yesterday and today and the temperatures dropped quite a bit. This is probably another reason that we saw the hummers even more frequently today. With nothing but gray clouds in the sky I decided to stay home after work and aim for some new photos of the smallest bird we have here during the summer.

Nikon D750, Sigma 50-500mm / f4.5-6.3 APO DG HSM, tripod, gimbal head, SB 800 speed light

@420 mm, 1/80 s, f/8 ISO 500

I was asked today if I shoot my hummingbird pictures with a high speed setup. The answer is no, I don’t. Remember, my goal is story telling and that means in most cases I like to show a hint of the environment, even if it is just blurred because of a shallow depth of field, like with these two images from today. The light and the green and yellow color in the background suggest a lush environment, typical for a day in August, and typical for just how it is around here at the moment. On a rainy day there isn’t much light available and using the flash is essential to bring out some colors of the birds. No matter how hard I would try with a high shutter speed of, lets say 1/500 s or even faster, the background would always be pitch-black. And with that there is no story telling…

Another part of the story telling in both photos is the dynamic of the wing beats. You see the wings multiple times and this is how you see the birds when they buzz around. They don’t look frozen. However, there has to be one thing that needs to be sharp to make the image work, and that is the eye of the critter. If the eye is blurry, and believe me that happens more than I like, the image ends up in the trash can of the computer…

TO BLUR OR NOT TO BLUR

Nikon D750, Sigma 50-500mm / f4.5-6.3 APO DG HSM

Ok, if you are tired of wildlife photography, here is something different for you. While paddling again on the Mississippi River I saw this airplane flying by twice. The pilot of this 1938 Luscombe 8A enjoyed probably the nice weather as much as we did. 

During his second fly-by the light on the fuselage was just great. This is finally my favorite shot, with the Luscombe, the clouds in the background, and the light coming all together nicely. The pictures are tack-sharp, at least on the much larger originals I’m able to count every rivet in the airplane.

There was only one big flaw. The propeller was sharp too and it looks like it came to a stand still. Not good at all, but this is due to a fast shutter speed of 1/3200 s. I shoot 99% in aperture priority mode in order to control depth of field and the camera selects the shutter speed for each picture on its own. In order to get the propeller blurred it needs something slower than 1/125 s and the camera must be set to shutter priority or manual mode. I have done this before. It works well, but it requires a good panning technique while following the airplane with the long lens. Well, there was just no way that I could do this on a windy day while shooting from a kayak…

So how did the prop finally got blurred? Photoshop came to my help and I used a filter called Spin Blur. It took me a few minutes to figure out the best settings but it isn’t difficult.

Looking at this airplane we expect the movement of the propeller, because that’s the way we see it flying. Otherwise it looks like the plane is parked in front of a museum and the stick that holds it was removed in Photoshop. Well, that’s not the story I like to tell with an image like this…

NATURE CLICKS #290 - BELTED KINGFISHER

Nikon D750, Sigma 50-500mm / f4.5-6.3 APO DG HSM, SB 800 speed light

I have reported about my desire to get closer to a Belted Kingfisher here in the blog just recently. Well, another visit in the Green Island Wetlands last weekend lead to this shot. I had the SB800 speed light on camera and was working the bird for almost three minutes. As most birds, the kingfisher didn’t care for the flash and was concentrating on one thing only, the fish in the water. This was the last click before it went down like a rocket. I couldn’t see the impact on the water from my location but heard the splash...

NATURE CLICKS #289 - SPOTTED SANDPIPER

Nikon D750, Sigma 50-500mm / f4.5-6.3 APO DG HSM

This is probably a juvenile or at least a noon-breeding Spotted Sandpiper, foraging and feeding between the logs and driftwood along the shore of Mud Lake at the Mississippi. Moments like this are the highlights and the best reason to go out again and again and try to capture the light or freeze the moment of action. A thin overcast made for a subtle light and being at the right place at the right time with the kayak and camera allowed me to make the click. Someone may say this is just luck. Sure, a little bit of luck is part of wildlife photography, but the luck will follow you if you go out and work a location over and over again. If you know a location well and if you are prepared for the shot, the luck will find you...

MISSISSIPPI RIVER STORIES 2015 #7

Yesterday evening Joan was finally able to join Cooper and me for a paddle tour on the Mississippi River and the backwaters of the adjacent Mud Lake area. There is not a single day or night as the one before and I really don’t get tired paddling the same area and looking for the light, wildlife , or what else nature presents.

A juvenile Red-winged Blackbird is not the most attractive bird in the world but if “killer light” hits the little guy between the reeds of the backwaters I can’t resist to make the click. Wildlife photography with natural light as pure as it gets...

I have met the guy on the left before in the Mud Lake area. I believe he runs a business that provides stand up board paddling during the summer. Well, I don’t think it is the worst job in the world… 😊

MISSISSIPPI RIVER STORIES 2015 #6

It has been a while since I have posted under the headline of “RIVER STORIES”, but hey, here is another one…

While leaving the marina at Mud Lake Park with the kayak again this evening, and just after I turned into the main channel of the big river, I saw one of the Bald Eagle adults that call this area home. You can’t have a better start, despite the gray overcast...

The water lilies are in full bloom at the moment and other flowers grow in abundance along the levies and islands in the Mississippi.

No Foster’s Terns today but these adult and juvenile Ring-billed Gulls posed nicely for a shot.

All images: Nikon D750, Sigma 50-500mm / f4.5-6.3 APO DG HSM

This flower is called Marsh Mallow (hibiscus militaris). They can grow up to 7 feet tall. I have never seen them before, although we paddled this area many times during the last few years.

GOING FOR THE GRAPHIC

We move rapidly into the second half of summer and many plants and wildflowers loose already their lush color and started drying up. I wanted to make a photo of this fern since quite some time because its shape and pattern fascinates me. It has a bold graphic and I like to see it on my office wall. I had a first try a few days ago already but didn’t like my results. But today I realized I was almost running out of time because many of the ferns down in the Little Maquoketa Valley started loosing shape. 

The Carl Zeiss Distagon T*, 35 mm, f/2 ZF with its manual focus is a great lens for this kind of photo. Closing it down to f/16 gave me enough depth of field for all leaves being in focus, even the ones in the second and third layer behind the front. Exposure time dropped to 1/13 s and therefore it was important not having any wind. I shoot more than 99% of my photos by using the viewfinder for composition and focus. Because the camera was low on the tripod and with only manual focus it made sense to use the screen in the back of the D750 instead of the viewfinder. It’s hard to break old habits but I actually liked it this way. It allowed me to keep my eye glasses on the whole time (I usually take them off while shooting through the viewfinder). This would not work with a moving critter and most of my wildlife photography but I start reconsidering how I may photograph landscapes in the future. I believe it makes me more thinking about composition, about what is in the frame and what is not…

NATURE CLICKS #288 - FOSTER'S TERN

Nikon D300s, Sigma 50-500mm / f4.5-6.3 APO DG HSM

Our dog Cooper and I took a kayak trip on the Mississippi River this evening again and it felt once more like entering “wildlife paradise”. What else can you call it, if you spot during a one and a half hour tour four Bald Eagles, three Great Blue Herons, numerous gulls, pelicans, geese, ducks, blackbirds, muskrats, and turtles? This is all amazing and wonderful in the warm light of the evening sun, even if we have seen all these species many times before. 

To make a great trip perfect I discovered five Foster’s Terns sitting on logs stranded in the mud of a river bank. I have never seen Foster’s Terns here in Eastern Iowa before (only in the Bolsa Chica Wetlands in California). They were not far from a group of Ring-billed Gulls. While the gulls took off when we got closer, the terns just stayed, even when we drifted by within six feet distance. At that time the D300s was still in a waterproof bag behind my seat but the dauntless behavior of the terns made me paddling around them into a position where the light was in my favor. I took my old camera on the water and its DX sensor made for a 630 mm equivalent, with a focal length of 420 mm set at the Sigma 50-500.

I wrote before how difficult it can be to shoot with the long lens handhold from a kayak, especially if it is windy as it was this evening. I shot several bursts in continuous shooting mode and almost 200 clicks later I still wasn’t sure if I nailed it. Well, the keeper rate wasn’t too bad and finally I had quite a few images to choose from.

The photos were made on the Mississippi, just outside of the Mud Lake area, north of Dubuque, Iowa. I have seen and photographed Caspian Terns in this area last year but this is the first time that I had a sighting of a Foster’s Tern. There is still a little doubt about my identification of the species. For instance the Common Tern looks very similar, but after checking several sources I believe these were Foster’s Terns. If you are a birder or nature friend who can confirm this or have a better suggestion, I would love to hear from you.