My 2011 christmas gift tip: Captured, a book by Moose Peterson

You may ask, why did he put this book out in the hoarfrost? Because I wanted to use the early rays of sun today to shoot this image and just making a snapshot inside the house didn't seem appropriate for this wonderful book. Yes, this is my 2011 Christmas gift tip for those of you who want to take a serious approach to wildlife photography. Maybe grandma is still asking you for another christmas wish or you may find tomorrow a gift card from a book store under the christmas tree.

Why is my book so wrinkled and looks beaten up? Because I got mine at last year's christmas already and I read it and looked at Moose Peterson's images over and over again. He shares his experience from over 30 years of wildlife photography with the reader and you can feel his passion about wildlife photography on every page of this book. Moose Peterson's stories are fascinating and exciting and are told by both, his prose and pictures. Did it make a master out of me? No, not yet, but it helped me to find out in what direction I like to head with my photography and it helped me to deal much better with the technical aspects of wildlife photography. If you don't find it under the christmas tree, go out and get you one, it will be money well spent.

Got the softbox out again

Nikon D300s, Sigma 50-500mm / f4.5-6.3 APO DG HSM, SB600 with softbox

One advantage of working from a home office is that the camera is always on-hand.  My D300s is mounted quite often to the tripod with the Sigma 50-500 attached, so I don't waste much time if I see anything interesting outside. We live in a wooded area and there are always at least a few birds around. During my lunch break today  I recognized that the birds came more frequently to the bird feeders than during the last few days with their relative mild temperatures. This is usually an indicator that we might get some snow and colder weather. Light was only good for 1/45s at 500mm and the maximum aperture of f/6.3. The birds, mostly chickadee, nuthatch, or tufted titmouse, were moving too fast for a sharp image. And this is when the speedlight-mounted softbox becomes really useful for some fill flash. I wrote about this little DIY-project some time ago HERE. I built this little softbox mainly for my bird photography in the winter. It allows me to shoot 1/250s, even on a day with gray overcast. The other benefit is that the colors turn out more vivid. 1/250s is still too slow to catch all the action, although it is fast enough to capture the birds during the moment when they rests briefly on a branch before take off to the feeders. Usually the chickadees and titmice stop only for about a second. They never become really motionless because the little branches vibrate under the impact of the bird. The light thrown at the bird from the softbox is subtle if you find the right setting at your speedlight. It may take a few shots before you like the results. Another good point for using the speedlight is that it can produce a nice catch light in the bird's eye that is away from the sun.

Nature clicks #68 B - Goldfinch, repeated

Another day with good and relative warm weather and even better light than on Saturday. I wasn't really happy with my Goldfinch pictures yesterday and today was my chance to give it another trial. I made a lot of clicks and experimented with different settings, including flash and softbox. It was just so nice to be outside in the sun and the birds were cooperative as well. :-) For this post I chose an image of a male Goldfinch, sitting on a branch of a dead cedar tree in the warm afternoon sun. No flash was used for this photo.

Nature clicks #68 - American Goldfinch

Nikon D300s, Sigma 50-500mm / f4.5-6.3 APO DG HSM

One bird we enjoy having here all year long is the Eastern Goldfinch, also called American Goldfinch. It is the state bird of Iowa since 1933. They are now in their winter plumage, which makes it sometimes a little harder to distinguish the males from the females. Today was the first day this week with some sunlight coming through the clouds. In addition we had a hint of snow on the ground from last night and that improved the light even a little more. I thought I can try it without the help of a speed light. At ISO 200 exposure was between 1/60 s and 1/90 s and that was not easy to handle with the lens zoomed to 500 mm. The birds jumped around very fast and I really missed getting a tack sharp shot today. Why do I show this photo anyway? Because I like the pose of the goldfinch and the overall light on it. It bothers me that the image is not sharp but tomorrow is another day and I may try it again… Enjoy the rest of your weekend!

Tool for file organization, maintenance, and analysis

It doesn't happen very often that I don't find the time for making any click during a whole week. Too many other things had to be taken care of during the last few days. I have to admit that I wasn't really sad about this because I found the time at night to do some maintenance in my picture data base. I'm a strong believer in a good file organization and I assign keywords to all of my images. Not only that finding a particular photo is so much easier, I believe it also helps me to analyze my work by comparing older shots with my actual creations. For instance, before I went in November for the third time to the Bolsa Chica Wetlands in Southern California I viewed my photos from the previous visits carefully. With a simple click in the keyword data base I can pull up every photo from a particular bird species. It helped me to see where I have room for improvement and to set new goals for the next shooting event in the same area.

During my nightly sessions this week I realized that I had neglected nature close up shots during our time in the Smokies this fall. A single click on the keyword "Fine Art" made me aware of this fact. This photo with the leaves in the crystal clear stream and the sun reflected from the minerals at the bottom of the creek was one of the few.

I use Adobe Lightroom for organizing my photos since four years now (version 3.6 was just released a few days ago). It's library module with all the features for searching, selecting, and file handling is awesome. Lightroom has many strongholds that I like but the library module is one of the best tools in my digital darkroom. If you have someone who is still asking for your Christmas wish, hey, here is a gift idea… ;-)

Landscape texture with the Sigma 150mm / f2.8 APO EX DG HSM

Nikon D300s, Sigma 150 / f2.8 APO EX DG HSM

I like when a landscape picture goes beyond the usual postcard look. It is sometimes easy to get carried away by just snapping the skyline picture, that clearly shows where the click was made but is exact the same photo everybody shot there before. During our vacation in and around the Great Smoky Mountains we spent some time in the Pisgah National Forest along the famous Blue Ridge Parkway. During one of the numerous stops along the parkway I saw an opportunity on this mountain slope. I really like how the reflected light from the tree trunks creates vertical texture on the different colored bands of trees. It may not be seen on a postcard but it is definitely the direction I like to move with my landscape photography. I wrote some time ago about using the Sigma 150mm / f2.8 EX DG HSM for landscape shooting (here) and this was another good opportunity to use the potential of this very sharp lens. It is the only one in my photo bag that allowed me to isolate this patch of trees across the valley.

Nature clicks #67 - Surprised to see a loon

Nikon D300s, Sigma 50-500 / f4.5-6.3 APO DG HSM

It hit me by surprise during my recent visit in the Bolsa Chica Ecological Preserve in Southern California when I saw a loon among the pelicans, cormorants, and grebes. Their breeding grounds are far north in Canada and in some of the northern states in the US. I have seen them in Minnesota and Wisconsin before but never in their winter plumage.

This Common Loon was in fierce competition with some of the other birds about the fishing rights in the laguna. Making a click wasn't as easy as it looks. The loon was under water for most of the time and it was hard to predict where it would show up again. It also preferred the southeast side of the bridge we were standing on, and that means I had to shoot against the low sun in this early morning hour.

None of the fights about the best hunting spots lasted very long. The laguna has an abundance of food and that's why so many birds migrate there for the winter. This Western Grebe had just swallowed a fish and it didn't take long before it went for the next one.

Waiting for the big reflector

Nikon D200, Sigma 50-500 / f4.5-6.3 APO DG HSM

Before someone asks, no we didn't get really much snow yet this winter, except for a few snow flakes last night. They quickly melted away later this morning. This photo is from February 2010, when we had  lots of snow and the White-tailed Deer came really close to the house in desperate search for food. If it comes to driving nobody likes the snow but if we talk about wildlife photography, I at least wish we would have some of the white stuff on the ground. This photo tells the story why I have such weird thoughts. Snow is an excellent natural reflector and it bounces the light up and makes shots like this one real simple.

New layout, more space for images

Clingmans Dome, Great Smoky Mountains,   Nikon D300s, Nikkor 24-120 / f4

It was overdue. It always bugged me that the size of my pictures in this blog was so small. Sure, 620 pixel at the long side is big enough to see what the image is about, but I know my blog is the #1 showcase for my photography and I like to push the compromise between file size and display quality towards the latter.

Another reason I expand the space here is that I like to streamline my workflow. The blog is not the only place where I publish my images. I have my galleries hosted at the Pbase website and I also show some of my pictures at the German Fotocommunity. At all these websites I use about 950-1000 pixel length for my photos. The idea is to use 900px for all three from now on. This still leaves me the chance to add a white border around an image without exceeding a length of 1000 pixel. Because of the black background in the German Fotocommunity I like to add a white border and they will automatically downsize your image if it goes beyond the 1000px limit. The automatic downsize goes along with a big loss in quality and I don't want that happen.

Finally I added a share-button for any of the social networks out there or for sharing by email, just in case you may like something you find on this blog ;-) To make a long story short, I hope you will enjoy the new format here, despite the fact that it may take a few seconds more to load the website. Thank you for stopping  by!

Different approaches

Mingus Mill, Great Smoky Mountains, North Carolina

One of the best things of digital photography is the fact that it gives you the chance to approach a subject differently from an artistic point within an extreme short period of time. Both images of Mingus Mill in the Great Smoky Mountains are from the same RAW file. The first one doesn't hide the fact that it was taken these days and it epitomizes the old mill as an historical building, worth to preserve, and worthwhile to visit, especially during the colorful fall.

Both images: Nikon D300s, Nikkor 24-120, f4

The second one emphasizes the structure and want make you believe it was created only a few years after the old mill was built (Okay, forget my watermark in the lower right corner… ;-) ).

In most instances I know already when I press the shutter release button how I want the picture be seen. Nevertheless, sometimes it turns out totally different while I work with an image in post processing. In this matter I knew the colors of the leaves would give a nice contrast to the building but I also saw the potential of the structure for a good B&W image (even if I used a sepia tint here). For me, there is not really a better or worse. It is just a matter of mood and my opinion about which one I prefer may change every minute. Do you like any of them? If so, which one do you like more and why? I like to hear from you! :-)