Nature clicks #193 - White-tailed Deer

 

As you can see by the golden background, the White-tailed Deer showed up in our yard during the last minutes before the sun finally disappeared behind the ridge yesterday evening. It is a doe with two fawns that hang around in the neighborhood and try desperately to find something to eat. Our bird feeders in the front yard are often on their route. The amount of snow we have on the ground makes it really difficult for them to find anything. This fawn was looking after its mother who had already moved on.

This shot wasn’t easy to make. Exposure was already down to 1/60s at ISO 400 and I didn’t have the speed light with the soft box ready to use when I saw them. In the original image I can see that is not tack sharp but I really like the background for this photo that helps to tell the story.

Cardinals everywhere

I think I stayed a little more on the conservative side when I told you a few days ago that we have a conclave of Northern Cardinals of about 15 birds here in the woods around our house. They are here now most of the day and I had the chance to count them again. Now I would say the flock has at least two dozen birds that stay together during the winter. I hope you don’t mind that I show you a few more images of these great looking birds. They will separate soon and it is hard to make a click that close during the summer (oh, I will try anyway).

Here is “The Punk”. The photo was made yesterday during the big gathering in the evening and the wind was still blowing after we had some more snow during the day.

This female had checked in at our “balcony studio” and used the Red Cedar branch to wait for a free spot at the bird feeder.

The last image is a day older than the other two but it was made also a few minutes after 6pm. The snow on the slope in front of our house made for a nice background and bounces the indirect flash light nicely onto the cardinal.

Bald Eagles - gestures and light

Today was a perfect day for going out to the Mississippi River and photograph Bald Eagles, though it was very windy and therefor bitterly cold. It was the first time this winter season that I was back at lock and dam #14, down south in LeClaire, Iowa. It is the location with the best access to the river and the open water below a dam and many other camera owners can be found there on a day like this. I took off late because I like the late afternoon light and the hour before sunset the best at this location. The eagles were very active today and we had plenty of opportunities to practice proper hand holding and panning technique with the long lens. I have used the Sigma 50-500 on a tripod quite often during the last month around our house but shooting with this lens handhold is a total different ball game. It took a little time to get back into full swing.

There are lots of Bald Eagle pictures on my hard drive already, so the question is, what can still be accomplished? I’m now looking for particular gestures of the birds in quality light and I also want to make images that don’t need to be zoomed in because the birds are too far away. With other words, there is plenty of room for improvements.

The first photo is as it came out of the camera, no crop and exposed for the highlights (head and neck), which makes also the blue sky a little darker. I like that. What makes this photo special for me is the gesture how the Bald Eagle turns its head to the side.

The second image is all about movement and great light. It is the moment when the eagle stopped soaring and made the turn to go straight down to the water for a fish. It is a photo I wanted to make since a long time. The picture isn’t zoomed in. I just decided for a 1:1 aspect ratio and cut some sky off on both sides. I think this supports the eagle’s gesture better than the original 3:2 aspect ratio and still leaves the band of clouds intact as an anchor point.

The last photo doesn’t need much explanation. A shaft of late afternoon light hits the eagle perfectly and having the Illinois side of the Mississippi River in the frame makes for a nice environmental shot. What always amazes me is how the long lens compresses a distance. The trees on the other side of the river are half a mile away (~800 m)....

Nature clicks #191 - Northern Cardinal

The last birds that we see here every day are the Northern Cardinals. They seem to prefer the very early morning and early evenings for their visits. We have a conclave of about 15 cardinals who stay together during the winter. The daylight lasts already a bit longer than during the winter solstice a month ago. This allows to make a few clicks after work without relying totally on the flash light. However, I use the speed light as a fill flash to bring out the colors. This photo was made at 5:30PM today. As you can see there is still some daylight coming through the woods in the back and from the side, making for a nice separation of the bird from the background. The branch from a Red Cedar is part of our “balcony studio”. I think it worked for this photo… :-)

Enhancing the light with flash and soft box

Today we got reminded that we are still in the middle of winter. Lots of snow fell during the morning until noon. Well, I call it ideal weather for bird photography! The snow drives the birds to the feeders and water sources that we provide for our feathered friends. Snow flakes create always a nice dynamic in the photo and help to tell the story about survival in harsh weather conditions and this is why I like this kind of weather for shooting birds around the house.

The lack of light (strong overcast) was compensated by using the Nikon SB600 speed light and my self-made soft box. If you like to see how that light enhancer looks like, click on the link HERE , and one of my older posts will open in a new window. The softened light from the flash brings out the colors in the birds. While this works well you still don’t want too much reflection of the flash in the frame. I set the camera to manual mode (today I used most of the time 1/250s, f/8) and also reduce the output of the flash by -2/3. The shooting distance was about 3 meters (10 feet). After a few test shots it is not difficult to find the settings that you may like for your photo. I prefer to use the manual mode for this kind of shooting because it gives me consistent results over a period of time. If the light changes on a larger scale I change the settings of the flash light accordingly.

If you like to try something similar at your bird feeders but do not have a soft box, just take a white napkin and put it over your flash. This is not perfect (neither is my self-made soft box!) but it will give you some results you may like much better than just from the naked speed light. It is a starting point, give it a try!

Post processing for these images was very simple. I cloned out a few snow flakes that reflected the flash light a little too much. Other than that, just the usual tweaks in the basic menu of Adobe Lightroom, RAW sharpening, a little noise reduction, and finally some Highpass sharpening in Photoshop of the critical parts (eyes, maybe feet or some feathers). After three minutes the photo is ready to be saved as a jpeg file as you can see it here in the blog.

I hope my little description of today’s bird shooting may encourage you to try something similar at your own bird feeders, or even better out in the woods. Stay warm and enjoy the rest of your weekend!

Nature clicks #190 - Mourning Dove

 

My job kept me at the desk almost the whole week but I couldn’t resist to grab the camera and make this photo out of the window in my home office. This Mourning Dove enjoyed a few warm rays of the sun on a branch across the yard at the edge of our timber. This is as close as I can get without cropping the heck out of the photo, something I try more and more to refrain from in my wildlife photography. This one is nevertheless slightly cropped in order to make the borders a little less busy.

Why will this photo not make it into my galleries, even if it is sharp and the light is really lovely? Well, it is the background that sucks. It is way too busy. You may also notice that a branch comes right out of the bird’s head. Shooting from a window does not leave much room for a different position. It is the hint of warm light in combination with the cold snow in the background that tells a story about survival in the winter here in Iowa. It is the visual story telling that I saw in this scene and that made me grab the camera and make the click. If this would be a bird I have never photographed before, I would probably introduce it in my Iowa wildlife gallery. But we have the Mourning Doves here all the time and the picture that will replace the existing one has to be better in any way.

2013 – Looking back, part 5

 

The key for wildlife photography in my opinion is getting close to your subject. This is quite often easier said than done. If you followed my attempts over the years to get close to some Sandhill Cranes you know what I’m talking about. Yep, I got them, but almost every picture was cropped because these very shy birds like to keep a distance between themselves and the avid photographer. The breakthrough came in 2013, when I used a kayak and a lot of time to approach the cranes in the backwaters of the Mississippi River, not far from home. The cranes that stay here during the summer come back to their resting places for the night usually after sunset. Well, that fits my working schedule pretty good but shooting a 500mm lens from a kayak in low light bares a challenge that isn't that easy to overcome.

The images of wild Sandhill Cranes were an accomplishment that I’m very happy about because they were made from a close distance. I love those birds and you can bet that adrenaline rushed through my veins any time I was able to press the shutter release… (see my posts about the Sandhill Cranes in 2013 by clicking HERE and HERE).

2013 – Looking back, part 4

 

I hope you don’t mind if the retrospect of 2013 goes for a few more posts into the new year. I know, the world turns fast but I like to share with you what got accomplished in 2013 and try to determine where I like to head with my photography endeavors.

This image was made in June of last year, and it is just one of many photos made that day. It was the first time that I had the feeling to come a little closer to virtual story telling in my wildlife photography (see the original post from June 2013 by clicking HERE). What a blast it was to watch the American White Pelicans in their collective effort of catching fish in the Mississippi River. I have never seen this before with so many pelicans doing it together (20 - 25 birds). Another reason why this session at the river was important for me is the fact that I didn’t have to crop most images. Get it right in camera is always the goal but I still can’t make this claim for all my photos I show here in the blog. Why is this important? Well, try to make an 18” x 12” print (and I don’t call this a big print!) with a photo that got cropped by 30 - 50%. The quality is just not acceptable because the lack of detail. Most may not see this in a photo with 900 pixels at the long side, like they are downsized here for the blog, but the hour of truth arrives after revealing the prints made from a heavily cropped image. “I haven’t cropped much!” is definitely something I like to say at the end of 2014… :-)

New Year Wish

 

The New Year started the same way as the old one ended, with lots of snow coming down and cold temperatures. I had a technical glitch with some software yesterday, so this post is actually a day late. I like to thank all of you who followed my blog in 2013 or just stopped here once in a while. Thank you for your encouragement, your comments, and your “Likes” at Facebook or in my other galleries. I’m happy you are out there and inspire me to keep writing this blog. Our wildlife and environment needs utmost attention in a world of unlimited exploitation of resources and I hope this blog can still create some awareness for the beauty that is out there and that needs our protection. Joan and I wish all of you a wonderful year 2014.

2013 - Looking back, part 2

 

I can’t let my annual review go by without showing you a photo of a Bald Eagle. These magnificent raptors are here in Iowa all year long, but during the winter, when the Mississippi is frozen, they come down from Minnesota and Canada in big numbers.

I didn’t even have to browse through my archive and look for photos that were made earlier this year during the last winter. These two images are from today. The weather conditions, and more important the light, were just right for going after the eagles today. I counted about twenty birds at the lock and dam #11 in Dubuque. Twenty five miles south in Bellevue, at lock #12, I found the same situation. I enjoyed watching the Bald Eagles and of course, I wasn’t the only one who tried to make a photo of these wonderful birds.

This eagle is about to become an adult. It takes four years before they loose the white mottling on their feathers and develop the pure white neck and tail.