Carl Zeiss Distagon T* 35/f2 ZF for today's self-assignment

Nikon D300s, Carl Zeiss Distagon T* 35/f2 ZF

I haven't done any still life for a long time and I guess it was time to do something different today. The recipe for this image was simple. I set this old 8 millimeter Univex cine camera on a rock with fossils, turned all the lights in the room off, and used two tiny LED lights as my light source. The background is a sheet of black foam board. Painting with light is something I wanted to try since I learned about it on a DTOWN-TV podcast. I thought a little alienation effect would look cool and so I tweaked the white balance in camera. The Carl Zeiss Distagon T* 35/f2 ZF is a perfect lens for a project like this. It is tack sharp and with its smooth manual focus I can easily fine tune the focal point. I bought the 35/f2 several years ago mainly for my landscape photography but I love it also for still life photography and architecture. The D300s was mounted on the tripod, the remote cable release was plugged in, and the camera was set to mirror-up mode. All this is mandatory so you can handle the long exposure without any camera shake. I experimented with many different settings. Above image was made with 8 sec., f11, at ISO 100. I really had fun working on this little self-assignment. I'm sure it will not be my last one during the coming long winter nights.

More important than any picture

Long-billed Curlew

You may wonder why non of my shots from the Bolsa Chica Wetlands is made on eye level with the birds. It would quite often make for a better, less distracting  background and sometimes for a more interesting image. Like almost all ecological preserves or areas that have a protected status Bolsa Chica has rules to protect the sensitive vegetation and the habitat of the critters. One of them is to stay on the trail and to respect closed areas. No problem, the trails are real wide enough to leave enough room for everybody, walkers, runners, bird watchers, and of course photographers with their tripods. The reason you can't go down to water level with your camera is that all trails around the laguna are a few feet elevated above the water and nobody is supposed to go down to the water. Signs are everywhere. The laguna has plenty of photo opportunities and I can't see any reason why not to obey the rules and risk the well being of the animals and vegetation. The protection of our nature is more important than any shutter click that someone could have made. I know, there is always a small percentage of people that say, one time doesn't hurt anything, or those who don't give a damn at all. I will not keep my mouth shut if I see people being ignorant towards the nature or just don't know any better. I may not always make friends this way but I have earned a few thank you's in the past for making them aware of existing restrictions. And this is why my pictures from Bolsa Chica, including this one of a Long-billed Curlew, are all made from slightly above. By the way, if you just stay in the parking lot along the Pacific Coast Highway, you may get some good low level shots, especially in the evening. The parking lot is only slightly above the water level. Unfortunately this time, as already reported, the rain stopped all shooting at 10AM.

Nature clicks #66 - Snowy Egret, the last click

Nikon D300s, Sigma 50-500, f/4.5-6.3 APO DG HSM

I like to come back to my shooting in the Bolsa Chica Wetlands, California about a week ago. I shot more than 50 images in less than four minutes of this Snowy Egret. It was right before the rain started and the light wasn't as good anymore as earlier in the morning. See my earlier posts if you want to know what I mean. However, the white egret against the not much reflecting water seemed to bear still the chance for a good shot. The wind was blowing quite strong already and gave the feathers a different look in every image. Most of the pictures were sharp. So which one should I choose?  It was the last one in the whole session that made the difference for me. In all other images the egret's yellow feet were hidden behind the rocks or only partly visible. Beside that the bird showed me its side profile and didn't move much. Not really bad but I was hoping for more. It is again the gesture of the bird that made my choice finally easy. You can tell this Snowy Egret was now on the hunt for foot. My presence slightly above didn't bother it anymore and the egret started even walking towards me. The click was made when the Snowy Egret came across the gap in the row of stones along the shore and its contrastive feet became visible.

Thanksgiving delight

Nikon D300s, Nikkor 24-120, f4

I hope you all here in America had a nice Thanksgiving. We spent the holiday with the whole family on the farm in Northwest Iowa. Thank you again Shelly, Shelby, Jessica, and Don for having us. We had a great time with outstanding food, fun, and good conversation.

This part of the state is very flat and landscape photography isn't always on my mind when we are there. The relative warm weather made it easy to spend some time outside and at the end of the day we were blessed with a gorgeous sunset over the neighboring farm. There was no doubt about that I would get the tripod out and shoot into the setting sun.

Nikon D300s, Nikkor 24-120, f4

Fifteen minutes earlier the sun gave the old barn a wonderful warm color. I love these old farm buildings and numerous images of this barn made it on my hard disk already during the last few years. My friend Dave Updegraff here in Eastern Iowa has an ongoing project and writes about it in his blog quite often. He shoots old barns and other farm related things and I'm sure he would like to point his lens on this one.

Nature clicks #65 - A Reddish Egret (I'm thrilled!)

Nikon D300s, Sigma 50-500, f/4.5-6.3 APO DG HSM

As I mentioned before I was not the only one up early in the Bolsa Chica Ecological Preserve last Sunday. It is always nice to shoot wildlife together with local photographers that are on their home turf. I learned allot about the species that were present and what and where to look for in the wetlands in general.

I was busy working the pelicans when I heard something croaking behind me on the other side of the bridge that crosses the laguna. I pointed at the egret standing in the water and everybody got excited. It was a Reddish Egret, a bird that is relatively rare to find. My books say that there are only about 2,000 pairs left in the US. I was told by another photographer that he had seen up to four in the laguna. However, it was a thrill for me to get my glass on a Reddish Egret, the first one I have ever seen.

Nature clicks # 64 - Brown Pelican performance

Nikon D300s, Sigma 50-500, f/4.5-6.3 APO DG HSM

Here are a couple more pictures that show how great the light was for short periods of time last Sunday at the Bolsa Chica Wetlands. The Brown Pelicans are one of the many reasons why I like to go to this place.

Nikon D300s, Sigma 50-500, f/4.5-6.3 APO DG HSM

These majestic birds are fun to watch. One minute they just swim slowly in the laguna and a moment later they go up in the air and dive furiously head first into the water. It is a breath taking spectacle when they perform their hunt for fish. I had the camera with the Sigma 50-500 on the gimbal head mounted to the tripod but that was not the best way to shoot them in flight. Handholding would have served me probably better.

Nikon D300s, Sigma 50-500, f/4.5-6.3 APO DG HSM

A new adventure at the Bolsa Chica Wetlands

 Bolsa Chica Wetlands at 6:10AM

Hi folks, I'm still in Southern California. Work related events have prevented me from shooting the last few days. However, today I had planned to spend all day in the Bolsa Chica Wetlands again. Click on the "Bolsa Chica" tag below if you want to see my older posts about this nature preserve along the Pacific coast. I got up really early this morning because I wanted to be there before sunrise. The weather forecast had predicted rain for today but at 6AM it still looked like that we would have a chance to get some early sun light. I was only the second photographer on the wooden bridge that goes over the laguna and that is ideal for shooting in both directions. At this time of the year thousands of migrated birds are in these wetlands and from my previous visits I knew that the light can be gorgeous so early in the morning. Me and several other photographers have been finally not disappointed and we were able to shoot until 10AM before rain and heavy clouds set an end.

Western Grebe

I want to start with this image of a Western Grebe that is right out of camera, except for the usual contrast enhancement by tone curve and the necessary sharpening process (as always I shoot RAW only). The Western Grebe is not so difficult to focus on because of its contrast around the eye. That doesn't mean all images were sharp but it really helps to focus, especially in this early morning "killer light". More to come…

Nature clicks # 63 - Red-breasted Nuthatch, a rare occasion

Nikon D300s, Sigma 50-500, f/4.5-6.3 APO DG HSM, Nikon SB600

I  try to develop my style of wildlife photography into a direction where "feeder pictures" don't play a role anymore. But ones in a while comes the opportunity to make an image of a bird that we see very rarely around our house. Can you really blame me for breaking my rules in a matter like this? We live in Eastern Iowa since almost exactly seven years now and have seen the Red-breasted Nuthatch (Sitta canadensis) only occasionally during migration times. The only picture I was able to make several years ago was from far away, and of course at one of our bird feeders. Its white-breasted cousin is here all year long and so we are always thrilled if the Red-breasted Nuthatch shows up.

Being home only briefly between two business trips I did not have the time to try more and get a picture away from the feeder on the balcony. I'm glad I took the shots of this wonderful bird. Soon the nuthatch will migrate further south and I don't even know if I may get a second chance after my return from Southern California (thats where I write this post) in  about a week.

By the way, in my home country Germany I have seen its relative, Sitta eurpaea, quite often and they both look very similar. However, the stripe pattern around the head is different.

The picture above was made against the sun and the bird was actually in the shade of the feeder. A little bit fill flash helped here to deal with the circumstances.

I hope you like it, even if it is just a "feeder image"…;-)

Nature clicks #62 - Downy Woodpecker, another trial

A few days ago I published a picture of a Downy Woodpecker here in my blog. As longer I look at this image as less I like it. Why is that? The light was sufficient, the bird is well placed in the frame, and the image has a decent sharpness. It is the gesture of the bird, the fact that the Downy looks straight at me and you can't really see the shape of its bill.

 To make things worse there is some suet of a nearby bird feeder around its bill. Maybe you think there is nothing wrong with that, but I finally do not like it. The good news is we have so many Downy Woodpeckers in the woods here that the chances are good to make another image more satisfying. A few days after the first shot I tried it again and this time I like the outcome much better. The position in the frame is similar, exposure and sharpness are good, and the bird has a nice catch light in its eye. And yes, its bill stands out and there is no suet around it…

Nikon D300s, Sigma 50-500, f/4.5-6.3 APO DG HSM

Approach with dramatic light

My flight from Houston, TX to Chicago, IL today was not very exciting until we approached the O'Hare airport. I had the new Nikon D300s with me and worked my way through the manual in order to learn more about some of the features that I hadn't really used yet. The sky was bald blue and boring during the whole flight and except for some test shots over the wing of the airplane I didn't make any interesting clicks. When we reached Chicago I saw huge clouds moving in from the west. It looked like we would fly over a mountain ridge. As always, the window was not clean and it wasn't easy to find a shooting angle without reflections from the dirt on the glass.

We couldn't approach the airport directly and had to fly a few circles over Lake Michigan. Clouds were everywhere and the views were very dramatic. This is my favorite shot, with the sunlight reflecting on the wing and the little sun spot on the water of the lake. During touchdown on the runway it was heavily snowing. It seems winter has finally arrived in the Midwest...