photoartflightBlack and White at Brigantine NWR
Posted on September 25, 2013
Here is a brief selection of birds from the Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge, Brigantine Division in Oceanville, NJ. Some are Summer visitors and the Snow Geese are Fall and Winter Visitors. Brigantine has a huge variety of birds & wildlife. Eagles, Ospreys, Egrets, Herons, shorebirds, gulls, terns, skimmers, rails, down to smaller birds. The birds here are White with Black (or Dark Brown). In bright light these can be a challenge to photograph and not blow out the whites and still retain detail in the dark areas. If they have black or dark brown coloring on them or a dark bird next to them, I capture in raw formats, depending on the make of the cameras. I usually underexpose slightly for the whites to retain details and open up the dark or shadow areas in the processing software. I use Adobe Camera Raw in Photoshop or Lightroom. Sometimes I will do additional processing for sharpening in Photoshop and I use NIK Color Effects to bring out some additional details in the whites. You have to be careful not to add too much and bring out noise. Brigantine looks like it is coming back after Hurricane Sandy hit last year. We like Brigantine because of the wide variety of Birds & Wildlife photography, Landscapes, Sunsets, Sunrises, Macro – Bugs & Flora, the list is endless.
Painted Lady Butterfly
Posted on September 11, 2013
I was by the plants along the edge of Gull Pond looking for Dragonflies at the Brigantine Division of the Edwin B. Forsythe NWR in Oceanville, NJ. I noticed the Painted Lady on the yellow wildflowers, thinking the orange of the butterfly worked with the yellow wildflowers and was trying to get an interesting shot. Then I noticed the smaller insect with similar colors on the same plant. It is an Ailanthus Webworm Moth. I waited and tried to get them both in a pleasing close composition. I was handholding my Canon 400mm DO with a 1.4X Teleconverter, with extension tubes, so it was tough to get them both in focus with the distance between them. With all the extension tubes, I had to raise my ISO to 1000, and I chose an aperture of f/9 with a shutter speed of 1/640 to get the most depth of field and still maintain a soft look on the rest of the plant, so your eye goes to the insects. Being patient did not pay off this time because the Painted Lady went behind the plant and then flew off, but I am still pleased with what I captured and had fun working the shot.
Peregrine Falcon at Edwin B. Forsythe NWR, Brigantine Division
Posted on September 2, 2013
Another location we like to photograph in is the Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge, Brigantine Division in Oceanville, NJ. We never know what we are going to find when we go there, it is more like a Treasure Hunt. There is an eight mile Wildlife Drive along with various walking trails. Each season brings different photographic subjects. We go mainly for the birds, but if it is a light day for birds, we can go on to deer & other mammals, turtles, landscapes, sunrise/sunsets, macro subjects – bugs, dragonflies, wild flowers or combinations of these. Part of the fun is you never know what you will find. This is an example of what we came upon. We were going down the Wildlife Drive and saw this Peregrine Falcon sitting on a post right on the edge of the Drive. We are used to seeing them flying around the refuge or off in the fields. They are also seen often sitting on the Osprey platforms when the Ospreys are not using them . We slowly drove closer thinking it would just fly off. It just kept looking at us as we got closer. Not wanting to bother him, we drove on the far side of the road. He never left and seemed like us being there was of no interest to him. We spent a couple of minutes taking some shots of him, but we were so close we got these portraits. We then moved on so not to bother him, but he was a great subject.
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