River stories, part 4

 

I told you that the best part of my kayak tour on the Mississippi would still lie ahead of me after enjoying the eagle, the water lilies, and the company of the blackbirds. While paddling back to the boat ramp I saw four Sandhill Cranes landing in the water about half a mile ahead of me. This part of the Mud Lake area was already in the shade of the trees but I paddled a little harder, hoping that I would still have some light for a picture. Suddenly two more cranes flew almost over my head and towards the sun. They made a circle and finally landed somewhere between the huge patches of water lilies and arrow heads out of sight for me. Within a second I realized that shooting against the sun would only work if I aim for a silhouette shot of the cranes. I switched quickly to Auto-area Autofocus mode and dialed in -2/3 EV exposure compensation. The sun is a little too bright in this image but not blown out.

After that the light was fading away fast and I rushed to see if I could still get a glimpse of the other four sandhill Cranes. The last hundred yards I slowed down and approached the birds very quietly and carefully. In every photography class you will learn that it needs 1/500s for a halfway sharp image with a 500 mm lens. I was already up at ISO 400, and this is where I draw the line with the Nikon D300s for my wildlife photography. The best shutter speed I was able to get with these settings was 1/125s. Being in a kayak and the cranes not standing still didn't help either. :-o My keeper rate dropped dramatically but a few images turned out sharp enough to be shown here in the blog...

Fine Art Gallery - "When the night comes"

 

This evening a few things came together down at the Mississippi River for a good photo opportunity and finally for my second post in the new segment "Fine Art Gallery". First, a wonderful sailboat was tied to the dock at the boat landing. Second, there was almost no wind blowing, making for a smooth surface on the river and in the marina. And third, big dark clouds moved in front of the sun and made for an early blue hour. It all came together the moment I arrived at Mud Lake Park. All what I had to do was to look for the right composition and make it work for my image. I had the Polarizer attached to the Nikkor 24-120/f4. It helped to get rid of some of the glare on the water. I shot wide open with f/4 in order to separate the boat from the background and dialed in -1EV exposure compensation for darker and more saturated colors. This is just my personal style but it works for this kind of photo very well. Could I get a look like this in post process? Maybe, but my goal is to get it right in camera. I hope you enjoy.

Grebe showing off

 

This immature Pied-billed Grebe was only one of many young birds I saw last weekend in the Green Island Wetlands. First it splashed all around and cleaned its feathers for several minutes. It seemed to tell me, look, I can clean myself all alone already.

Than it flapped its wings in order to dry them or just raised them up to let the sun do the rest. And last, it showed off and let me know that it can conduct an orchestra... Well, I know, this is probably asking too much for a little bird but it obviously made this pose that looks like it would conduct a bunch of musicians... :-) Don't you think?

On the photography side, the light at 4:30PM was still very intense but had already a warm touch. It was necessary to dial in an exposure compensation of minus one stop in order not to blow out the highlights on the light parts of the feathers.

This is the best I'm able to get from the wetlands at the moment. The carpet of algae is definitely not an eye pleaser and shooting from slightly above, the only way you can do it there if you use the car as a blind, is never a good angle for a great image. However, after another week of traveling I was happy to be back in the wetlands and I hope you enjoy the photos of the juvenile Pied-billed Grebe and the little story they tell. More to come...