Bald Eagle Posing @ Blackwater NWR

I am going through old images that I did not have time to work on when I was still working. Here are a couple of Bald Eagle images taken years ago at the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge in Maryland. All images were taken with a Canon 1D mkIV with a Canon 1D 400mm DO lens with a 1.4x Teleconverter.

Bald Eagle In Flight, 400mm Canon DO lens, 1.4X Teleconverter, Canon 1D mkIV

Bald Eagle Guards @ Blackwater NWR

One of my favorite subjects to photograph are Bald Eagles. I have found them in a variety of locations, even a nesting pair in a Shop Rite Parking lot. But my Favorite place for photographing Bald Eagles is the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge in Maryland. Many times you see them just hanging out along the Wildlife Drive and they do not seem to be bothered by your presence as long as you do not get too close, so I use a Canon 400mm with a 2X teleconverter or a 150-600mm lens with or without Teleconverters.

Bald Eagle along the Wildlife Drive, Canon 400mm,, 2x Teleconverter for 800mm, Canon 1D MK III

Bald Eagle along the Wildlife Drive, Canon 400mm,, 2x Teleconverter for 800mm, Canon 1D MK III

Bald Eagle along the Wildlife Drive, Canon 400mm,, 2x Teleconverter for 800mm, Canon 1D MK IV
Bald Eagle In Flight, 400mm DO lens, 2x Teleconverter, Canon 1DmkIV
Bald Eagle along the Wildlife Drive, Canon 400mm,, 2x Teleconverter for 800mm, Canon 1D MK IV

Another Blackwater NWR Bald Eagle

Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge (NWR) is one of my favorite places to photograph. As I have written in other posts here Blackwater NWR is a large NWR so many of the photo opportunities are far off in the distance. So you have to have long telephoto lenses to capture many of the Birds & other Wildlife you come upon here. After photographing at Blackwater for more than 15 years I have come up with ways to get interesting images of distant birds & wildlife. The Featured Image was taken with a Canon 1D mkIV with a 2X Teleconverter. The Canon 1D mkIV sensor has a 1.3x crop factor so with a 400mm lens & 2x teleconverter the actual focal length is more like using a lens with a focal length of 1040mm. If I want more reach I would use a Canon 7D with a 1.6x crop factor and with a 2x Teleconverter focal length is ~1280mm. I am testing how these actions work with my 150-600mm with a 2x Teleconverter for 1920mm. Also I have made Photoshop actions to up-rez images even more with very successful results. I have also added some other lenses to try these Photoshop actions on.

Bald Eagles From Blackwater NWR

A series of Bald Eagle images from a few trips to the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge near Cambridge Maryland. The Featured Bald Eagle Image was taken with a Canon 1D MkIV with a 400mm DO lens & 1.4x Teleconverter.

Bald Eagle FlyBy, Early Morning, Canon 1D mkIV, 400mm DO lens, 1.4x Teleconverter
Another Bald Eagle FlyBy, Early Morning with sun rising, Canon 1D mkIV, 400mm DO lens, 1.4x Teleconverter
Another Morning Bald Eagle FlyBy, Canon 1D mkIV, 400mm DO lens, 1.4x Teleconverter
Bald Eagle In Tree Along Wildlife Drive, Canon R, 150-600mm Tamron Lens @ 600mm
Bald Eagle Portrait Version, Canon R, 150-600mm Tamron Lens @ 600mm
Immature Bald Eagle In Tree Along Wildlife Drive, Canon 1DmkIV, Canon 400mm DO Lens, 1.4x Teleconverter
Bald Eagle on Nest At Blackwater NWR Along Wildlife Drive, Canon 1D mkIV, Canon 400mm DO lens, 2X Teleconverter

Twelve-Spotted Skimmer Dragonfly Images

A series of Twelve-Spotted Skimmer Dragonfly images taken with a Canon 400mm DO lens with an Extension Tube added for closer focusing on a Canon 1D mkIV. I was also using a Canon 600EX-RT Flash with a Better Beamer Flash Extender for filling in the shadows & to get more detail on the Dragonfly. All images are full frame, not cropped. I was shooting @ f/8 or f/11 for a smoother clean background.

Damselfly & Dragonfly Season is Starting Soon

It will not be long before we start seeing Dragonflies & Damselflies here in NJ. These are some of my favorite photo subjects. The images here were taken years ago at my pond at my old home. These were taken with an old 200mm Canon FD Manual focus macro lens adapted to a m43 Panasonic GH2 Camera or a Canon 400mm DO Lens with extension tubes for closer focusing. FOV of the Canon FD lens on a m43 body gave me the equivalent of a 400mm Macro lens. The Featured Image is a Damselfly with a raindrop on it’s head.

Damselfly Side View, 200mm FD Canon Lens, Panasonic GH2
Blue Dasher Dragonfly, 400mm Canon DO lens with an Extension Tube for Closer Focusing, Canon 1D mkIV

Soaring Swallow-tailed Kites

On one of our trips to Lake Woodruff National Wildlife Refuge in Florida we saw quite a few Swallow-tailed Kites flying above us. They were fun to see soaring as we were walking the trails. Usually they were really high up in the sky or far off in the distance so we never got good images of them. But the images here are from one visit when they were soaring right above us near the parking lot. They were still really high above us but I thought they were still interesting images. All images were taken with a Canon 400mm DO lens with a 1.4X Teleconverter on a Canon 1DmkIV.

Sunrise & Sunset At Blackwater NWR

A series of sunrise and sunset images from a previous trip to Blackwater NWR near Cambridge, Maryland. The Featured Image was taken with a Canon 400mm DO lens with a 1.4X Teleconverter.

2 Image vertical stack of a Blackwater NWR Sunrise, Canon 24-105mm lens @ 105mm
Blackwater Sunset, 7 Images, 400mm DO lens, Canon 1.4X Teleconverter, 1D mkIV

Mergansers Swim-By In Late Afternoon Warm Light

I was going through some of my Backup Drives to clean-up unneeded files & found this 2 image panorama of 4 Mergansers swimming by in the warm late afternoon light at the Celery Farm Natural Area in Allendale NJ. The image was taken with a Canon 1D mkIV with a 400mm DO lens with a Canon 1.4X Teleconverter .

Blackwater NWR Snow Geese 28 Image Panorama

These images are from a trip to the Blackwater NWR in February 2017. The original panorama image is made from 28 images, shot handheld from left to right. The final image @300 ppi is 248″long x 10.3″ high. I was using a Canon 1DmkIV with a 400mm DO lens with a 1.4X Canon Teleconverter. The featured image is reduced so much to fit the featured image format that I broke them down below into 6 individual images so you can still see some of the the detail in the full 248″ image. Posting size in this blog really reduces the sharpness in the images but hopefully they hold up somewhat.

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Section 6