2017 RETROSPECT / 2

Red-tailed Hawk with roadkill

Photographs bare our memories and while looking through the images from last February I was reminded how little snow we had on the ground last winter. I had reported about this Red-tailed Hawk not giving up a dead raccoon, which was probably killed by a car, when I stopped on the other side of the road and started shooting. The hawk had a large injury on its chest but was otherwise acting very normal. I just can assume that the bird had contact with a car as well. This was the only picture where the hawk stared right at me but I like the shot just because of the direct eye contact. This is not always a good thing but I think in this matter it tells the story how the Red-tailed Hawk stood its ground.

BALD EAGLES - GESTURES, LIGHT, AND TEMPERATURE CHALLENGE

Great gesture, the moment when the eagle drops suddenly down to go for a fish ----   

The weather conditions are ideal for Bald Eagle photography at the moment. First we had a clean blue sky, which in combination with a low sun in the afternoon makes for good colors and light. And second, it was cold, and I mean really cold, and this requires the eagles to eat a lot in order to survive. If the eagles are hungry they are in permanent move in search for fish, and this gives us photographers a lot more shooting opportunities than if the temperature is just around the freezing point.

When the eagle is about to put its talons into the prey you can hear the camera shutters rattle...

As expected, about 60 miles down the river at lock & dam #14 in Le Claire, Iowa the parking lot was quite full and people enjoyed watching and photographing a good number of Bald Eagles today. The cold bares some challenges and being properly dressed is absolutely essential for spending time behind the camera. I saw several people climbing out of their cars full of enthusiasm and making a fashion statement with every piece of clothes they wore, but ten minutes later they disappeared again because they were not dressed warm enough. Shooting with gloves is not my favorite thing to do but there was no way around it today without a high risk of frostbites.

The flight patterns of a juvenile Bald Eagle while hunting for fish is harder to predict, their lack of routine shows quite often.

I took many pictures of Bald Eagles already during the last thirteen years since we lived near the Upper Mississippi Valley. So why going back to the best spots over and over again with the camera? Well, just watching these majestic creatures is priceless and having hundreds of photos in the files doesn’t mean there are no new gestures or light patterns to discover, and there is always this one special picture that still needs to be made…😉

All images: Nikon D750, Sigma 150-600mm / f5-6.3 DG OS HSM S, Induro GIT 404XL tripod, Induro GHB2 gimbal head

2017 RETROSPECT / 1

I finally found some time tonight looking into my photo archive from 2017 for pictures that may deserve to be seen by the public and that mark some of the highlights during the last year. In January I spent quite some time along the Mississippi, which was other than right now not frozen over for the most part.

When a Bald Eagle drops out of the tree and glides towards the open water you know the hunt is on. This one flew right at me but I was able to nail the focus on its eye, which has to be sharp, no matter what. If not, the picture goes to the trash can…

This photo of an excited Herring Gull was made below lock and dam #14 in Le Claire, Iowa. The direct light of the late afternoon sun helps to bring out the dynamic of the scene. I chose both photos because the quality of the light makes the story telling a breeze.

NATURE CLICKS #388 - DARK-EYED JUNCO

Can you tell I’m having fun again shooting birds? The snow on the ground is my favorite reflector and the flash arm with flash light can stay in the photo bag if the sun is out and its light is bounced back from the ground. The Dark-eyed Juncos are here in large numbers and take advantage of free food and water from the heated bird baths. They feed mostly on the ground and go never too far away from a hiding place, like our bushes and mountain pines. I saw a hawk flying in today and within a second you can’t see any of them anymore. They even use the old dried leaves between the shrubs to hide. The juncos don’t make it always easy for the photographer because their dark eyes blend often right in with the feathers, and if there is no catch light on the eye it looks kinda lifeless. I don’t think that only a bird with a catch light in its eye makes a good photo, but in case of the Dark-eyed Junco it makes all the difference.

HAPPY NEW YEAR

The year ends with very cold temperatures and snow on the ground, ideal conditions for some bird photography in the backyard today. This young female Red-bellied Woodpecker posed nicely on the trunk of this gnarly Ironwood (American Hop Hornbeam).

Female Yellow-rumped Warbler, Dec 31, 2017, near Durango, Iowa

The weeks before Christmas the weather has been relatively warm and to our surprise we had a female Yellow-rumped Warbler at our bird bath and below the suet feeders. The northern edge of their winter range is normally several hundred miles south from here, but another birder told me that is not totally unusual to see a few here in eastern Iowa if the winter is mild. I was awed when the warbler still came to the bird bath and feeders today despite the fact that the temperature was at -18ºC (0º F) and with a solid snow cover on the ground.

Shenandoah National Park, Virginia, October 2017

Usually I would end the year with a few “Retrospect” blog posts about my photographic highlights during the year, but some last-minute business trip between Christmas and now kept me from doing it. Maybe I find the time in January… However, I like to thank everybody for stopping here, for your emails and messages with opinions, critique, and advice. I appreciate all of them and would be happy to see you back in 2018!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

HOLIDAY GREETINGS

Ice forming on the Mississippi River  ----   

All visitors and friends of my website, have a wonderful Christmas!

Allen Besuchern und Freunden meiner Webseite ein besinnliches Weihnachtsfest!

No snow on the ground this year but the ice on the Mississippi River will grow due to much colder weather in the next few days.

 

MISPLACED TUNDRA (NOT REALLY)

Cranberry Glades, West Virginia ------   

If you walk on a trail through a bog in the fall, like the Cranberry Glades in West Virginia, the peak season for flower and plant photography is already over. The Glades resemble an arctic tundra that seems to be misplaced in the southern mountains. Many rare plants, critters, and birds can be found here that are usually common to the bogs in the far north. This is a botanical paradise but so late in the season you may have to look for other things. With open eyes for the light on the landscape pictures can still be made. This fir, standing exposed in the bog, became my subject when a shaft of light broke through the clouds. The remains of woolgrass put little white dots into the grass and the bare trees in the background tell more about how close this 3,400 feet high location was to winter already in October.

GEAR TALK: FIRMWARE UPDATE AND LENS OPTIMIZATION

White-breasted Nuthatch, Nikon D750, Sigma 150-600mm / f5-6.3 DG OS HSM S ———

I made an overdue update of the firmware for the SIGMA 150-600 Sports lens today. Thanks to the USB dock and optimization software from SIGMA I can customize the lens to my shooting preferences and create two presets for autofocus and optical stabilization (aka vibration reduction), or even correct the focal point if necessary (although I never had to correct the focal point yet). This sounds complicated but is very easy to do. After the presets are created on your computer screen and transmitted to the lens you can choose either customized setting by just flipping a switch on the lens barrel or you can leave it off. For example, I can switch from a more dynamic autofocus and optical lens stabilization that I use quite often during bird photography, where fast movements of the subject are most likely, to a smoother focus and stabilization behavior with slightly better accuracy.

In order to test my new presets I just stepped outside and looked for a bird. The White-breasted Nuthatches are permanent residents here all year long, they are just fun to watch, and seem to be the perfect subject for such a test. It looks like the nuthatch was sitting on this branch forever but this was just a couple seconds that the bird remained in this pose. Their movements are usually fast and erratic, and it is a challenge to get them in focus while handholding the camera with the relatively heavy SIGMA 150-600 Sports lens attached. I liked the focus behavior of the lens before, but after reviewing the first few images, made with new firmware and refined custom settings, I could already tell that the focus speed and accuracy, as well as image stabilization were even better. Don’t take me wrong, I still believe that proper hand holding and constant practice with such a heavy lens are the basics for a sharp image, but it is nice to have confidence about the technical side of the gear. If my photos are out of focus I can only blame the pilot…

MISSISSIPPI RIVER STORIES 2017 #11 - FROZEN OVER

Mississippi River, Finleys Landing, Iowa

I made a short trip to the big river yesterday morning. It was actually not very promising with a uniform gray sky hanging over this part of eastern Iowa. To my surprise the Mississippi was almost completely covered with ice. Not unusual for December but it has been way too warm for this time of the year lately and we had only very little snow so far. 

This is a view across the river, shot with the Sigma 150 / f2.8 and the 1.4x Teleconverter attached. This combination makes it a 210 mm focal length on the Nikon D750. I thought the compressed view works good to make the ice on the river my subject. It keeps most of the gray sky out of the frame without giving up on the mood of the scene.

I know, it’s not the most flattering photo but it tells another one of my little Mississippi River stories.

LESS IS MORE

Lake Michigan, Door Peninsula, Wisconsin ------

Today’s cameras have a lot of dynamic range, about 2-3 stops of light more than the good old film cameras. This is for some people still not enough and they employ HDR  (high dynamic range) software to get even more than just a black dot out of a mouse hole in the ground (Am I too sarcastic? 😉). There is actually nothing wrong with that, it just may not benefit every kind of photo, it's overdone quite often. For me there is usual enough information stored in the RAW files that may become eventually a photo, printed or published here on the website. Romancing a landscape image does not require to see every tiny branch or making the inside of a crack in a rock visible. Less is more. Sure, in a high contrast environment the shadows can be lifted and quite often the highlights are lowered a little bit. For this photo it was all about balancing the contrast a tad to make the lines (sun spots, waves, clouds) generate some magic.

WARM KISS

Eagle Point, Peninsula State Park, Door County, Wisconsin

I’m not so much after the typical “postcard view” in my landscape photography, but when the warm sunlight “kissed” the birches below the overlook at Eagle Point I knew I had a picture that captured the mood of this late afternoon. The view goes over the northern part of the Green Bay, which was the quiet side of the Door Peninsula that Friday after Thanksgiving. As you maybe remember from my previous posts, the waves of Lake Michigan crushed heavily into the rocky shore on the southeast side on that day. The clouds over Horseshoe Island are not strong enough to be the subject in this photo but make the image a lot more interesting than just a plain blue sky.

TUGBOAT SUSAN L

Tugboat SUSAN L, Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin

We saw the tow and tugboats in the warm light of the late afternoon sun while driving over one of the bridges that cross the Sturgeon Bay Canal and we rushed down to the pier immediately. I reminded myself of a quote by famous photographer Jay Maisel, I found in his book IT’S NOT ABOUT THE F-STOP some time ago: “Never go back. Shoot it now. When you come back, it will always be different.”

I think that was such a moment. It was our last day in Door County, Wisconsin, and who knows when we will be there the next time. The boats might be gone or replaced by new boring models. I’m sure the setting sun hits them from that angle only during a short time of the year. There are many variables that come together for this photo. I’m glad we stopped.

THE TWISTED TREE (2x)

This twisted American Arborvitae was sprayed by the waves from the surf of Lake Michigan every few minutes on that windy Friday after Thanksgiving. But that wasn’t what I was aiming for. It’s the killer light on the tree that made me push the shutter release button of the camera! Oh, you don’t believe me about the spray? Well, what can I say… 😊

LIGHTHOUSES (2)

Sturgeon Bay Ship Canal Pierhead Lighthouse, Lake Michigan, Wisconsin -------

Here is another one of my favorite lighthouses on the Door Peninsula at Lake Michigan. North Pierhead Light is situated on the north pier of the southern entrance to the Sturgeon Bay Ship Canal. Its red color makes quite often for a nice color contrast and the pier and dunes on the south side of the canal provide many interesting perspectives for making a click.

Nikon D750, Nikkor 16-35mm / f4, @ 16 mm, 1/400s, f/13, ISO100, Induro GIT 404XL tripod, KIRK BH-3 ball head

When I saw the big ship on the horizon moving into the frame I envisioned a shot that includes both, the lighthouse and the boat. As the ship was behind the lighthouse the building was still in the shade, but finally the clouds opened a small gap and direct sunlight hit the red lighthouse just right. You can see by the colors of the water how this all played out in our favor. 

Nikon D750, Sigma 150mm / f2.8 APO EX DG HSM, @1/1000 s, f4, ISO 100, Induro GIT 404XL tripod, KIRK BH-3 ball head