Nature clicks #208 - Great Horned Owl, ready to leave the nest

 

A big area of precipitation is still moving through the Midwest while I’m writing these lines. It dominated the weather today but I had to go to Mud Lake at the Mississippi to look for the young Great Horned Owl this evening. Last year April 25th was the last day I have seen a young owl still in the nest before it started the so called “branch hopping”. It means it still stays close to the nest but moves around in the trees near the nest. The development of this year’s owlet was very similar and my suspicion got confirmed today when I saw the young owl sitting on the edge of the big nest. It is ready to leave the nest and I caught the first moment of this important step.

I tell you, it was not an easy task to make this image. The rain was more a mist at that time but nevertheless the equipment got wet, slowly but surely. The light? Well, there wasn’t much and the only way to get something out of the “gray weather soup” was to use the Better Beamer flash extender for some fill flash and color improvement. Having the owlet sitting at the edge of the nest allowed to get closer to the tree and at the same time to shorten the distance because of a steeper shooting angle. I still struggle to use the flash extender. Too many times I don’t like how the eyes of the animal turn out. They look sometimes like a couple LED’s…:-(   Before I went out today I read a few pages in my favorite book about wildlife photography, Moose Peterson’s “Captured”, and there was the hint I was looking for. It’s called “feathering the light”, a technique that uses the outer edges of the flash beam, means the soft part of the light is used instead of the whole beam. Not that I mastered it today but I got a little closer to an acceptable result. More practice is needed… However, seeing the young Great Horned Owl in almost full size for the first time this year was an exciting moment that was worth the effort to deal with the “lovely weather”…

Brown Thrasher captured with SB600 and Better Beamer flash extender

 

We had the third rainy day in a row and our original plans to use the kayaks during this holiday weekend had to be dumped. The canopy of leaves doesn't let much light coming through anymore and so it was the right decision to take the SB600 flashlight and Better Beamer flash extender with me when we went for a hike on the Heritage trail this afternoon. For those who are new in my blog, the Heritage trail is on an old abandoned railroad track that ones connected Chicago with St. Paul in Minnesota. It follows the Little Maquoketa River just north of Dubuque, Iowa and is a great trail for all kinds of recreation, including nature photography. Because of the weather all the bicycle riders and runners that are usually on the trail stayed home and we had it all for ourselves.

We saw several warblers, Indigo Buntings, and American Redstarts again and the young eagle that we discovered recently in a nest has grown quite a bit. The best shooting opportunity came shortly after we started our little hike. For the second time this year a Brown Thrasher showed up in front of the lens. You can click HERE for the older post about this bird. I would not have been able to make this photo without the flashlight and flash extender attached to it. I don't care how far I have to carry the equipment. If at the end of the day one image that I like is on the flash card , I know it was worth the effort...

Nature clicks #168 - Cliff Swallow

 

The cold and rainy weather continued today but it didn't stop me from going out and paying a visit to the Green Island Wetlands. It seemed everything slowed down in the rain. You can hear the birds but they seem to stay away from the open water. I tried it anyway and was even blessed with another first sighting of a bird. It was a dark day again with a strong overcast and I knew light would not be sufficient for working with the long lens in the wetlands. Just putting on a flashlight does not do the trick either because the distance between the camera and the birds exceeds quite often the range of a flashlight. The solution for today's shooting conditions was the attachment of a flash extender. This is basically a fresnel lens, made out of plastic, that is mounted about 8 inches away from the  front of the flash head. I'm using the Better Beamer flash extender and this inexpensive device is able to increase the flash output by about 2 to 3 f-stops. Using the flash in TTL mode helps to get the right amount of light to your subject.

When I saw the Cliff Swallows flying around my "car blind" I was first a little confused. I saw swallows with squared tails and I also saw swallows with deeply forked tails. It wasn't until some of them were sitting down in a bush right beside the water that I realized that some Barn Swallows were among the Cliff Swallows as you can see in the second image.

It is 9:30PM and I just checked the weather forecast for Memorial Day. It looks like it is not a good idea to stow away the flash extender, and oh, there is a "flash flood watch" in effect for our area.... What a lovely holiday weekend.... ;-) Enjoy yours anyway!

More light - BETTER BEAMER flash extender

We haven't seen the sun here for five days. The sky is covered with grey clouds every day. There are still patches of old snow on the ground, and they look, of course, grey as well. But we also can see the first signs of the upcoming spring. A big flock with hundreds of American Robins is foraging in the woods around our house. We have seen them actually several times throughout this winter. It seems they don't migrate much further south anymore. But their appearance is different now. They have started singing and make a lot more noise.

Nikon D200, Sigma 50-500, SB600, Better Beamer flash extender

The natural light in this kind of weather is miserable in the woods and not enough for a sharp image of the Robins. I just acquired a Better Beamer flash extender for exactly this kind of a scenario, where I'm depending on a focal length of 400 -500 mm and the reach of a normal flash is insufficient.

It was raining just before I started shooting and the flash is reflected in the rain drops on the bird's feathers. Not that I really like it, because it makes the flash too obvious, but at the other hand, the sparkling of the little rain drops helps to tell the story about spring, which is hopefully not too far away anymore.

Nikon D200, Sigma 50-500, SB600, Better Beamer flash extender

For this first test I had the flash directly mounted to the hot shoe of the D200. You can tell by looking at the picture of the American Goldfinch sitting in the rain that it may need a different approach. I don't like how the eye of the bird turned out. I need to do more tests to see how a different flash-to-camera angle would improve the outcome. What else is wrong with the finch image? The picture was shot using front-curtain sync flash, which makes the rain drops looking unnatural. It seems they move in the wrong direction. I usually shoot rear-curtain flash but had changed my camera settings for some reason. Oh well, …next time!

So far, I like how the Better Beamer flash extender really increases the reach of the SB600 flashlight, how the colors start to pop, and for this particular weather, make the grey finally disappear.