photoartflightAnother Blackwater NWR Bald Eagle
Posted on February 21, 2024
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.
I am back And Have lots of Bald Eagle & OspRey Images to Post
Posted on February 1, 2024
I broke my ankle & with rehab it took a while to get back to a somewhat normal routine & posting on the blog. Before my accident I had taken lots of Osprey & Bald Eagle images to Post. So here is a first batch of images from before my accident.
Golden Eagle Vs. Bald Eagle
Posted on February 11, 2023
I was going through my backup drives to clear out images I do not need and came across these images of a Golden Eagle going at a Bald Eagle at Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge in Maryland. We had seen comments online that there was a Golden Eagle that was staying around the Refuge giving visitors a good chance of getting some photos. I probably posted some before but I re-adjusted some of the images for more detail and better color. All Images were taken with a Canon 400mm DO lens with a 2x Teleconverter giving me a focal length of 800mm on a Canon 1Ds MkII. With the 2X Teleconverter my f/stop wide open was f/8 so I stopped down 1 more f/stop to get a little more detail.
Reddish Egrets At J.N. Ding Darling NWR
Posted on December 18, 2022
I am going through my Hard Drives cleaning up & removing images I do not need. But as I am cleaning up disk space I am finding images that I could use on the blog. These 2 Reddish Egret images were from a visit to J.N. Ding Darling years ago. The Featured Image was taken with a Canon 1D mkIV with a Canon 400mm DO lens @ f/4.5, 1/250 sec. The Courting Dance was interesting to watch and went on for about 1/2 hour.
Blue Dasher Dragonflies
Posted on September 10, 2022
Dragonfly season will soon be ending but here are a series of Blue Dasher Dragonfly images from a series of different outings. The Featured Image was taken with a Canon 400mm DO lens on a Canon 1D mkIV, @f/8, 1/400 sec.
Twelve-Spotted Skimmer Dragonfly Images
Posted on July 6, 2022
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.
Osprey FlyBy @ Blackwater NWR
Posted on July 2, 2022
A series of images of a close Osprey flyBy at the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge in Cambridge Maryland.
All images were taken with a Canon 1D mkIV with a 1.4x Teleconverter.
A Series Of Blue Dasher Dragonfly Images
Posted on June 30, 2022
A series of Blue Dasher Dragonfly images taken over a few years. The Featured Image was taken a few years ago and is a 2 image focus blend with a Canon 400mm DO lens on a Canon 7D and a small amount of Fill Flash to brighten the shadows. Subject Dragonfly was 16.7 ft away. When using Teleconverters I usually set my f/stop 2 stops down from wide open for a little more depth of field for sharpness but still have a smoother background. So using my 300mm f/4 lens with a 1.4x teleconverter the lens wide open would be @ f/5.6 because of the teleconverter. So I would set my f/stop @ f/11. If I was using my 400mm f/4 lens with a teleconverter I would probably stop down even more but not always.
Birds Settling Down At Sunset @ Ding Darling NWR
Posted on June 18, 2022
A couple of colorful sunset images of birds settling down for the evening. I am going through my array of Back-Up Drives making room for newer images and discarding ones I do not need. But along the way I am finding interesting images to post here. Also I am just selecting the best images when I was shooting a series of the bird flying in, etc. then deleting the extra files. The images here were taken many years ago. We were on our way out on the Ding Darling NWR Wildlife Drive as we passed these groups. The Featured Image of the Great Egret landing was taken with a 400mm DO Lens on a Canon 7D @ 6:48. The Group of Wood Storks was taken from the same spot but more to the right 3 minutes later @ 6:51 because I was waiting for a better grouping as they were moving. The distance to both groups were 236 feet according to the Adobe Camera Raw data. Then we had to get going to leave because they were closing and wanted everyone out.
Black Skimmer FlyBys & Skimming @ Brigantine Division
Posted on June 17, 2022
A series of images of Black Skimmers flying and skimming from previous trips to the Brigantine Division of the Edwin B. Forsythe NWR in Oceanville, NJ. The Featured image was taken with a Canon 1D mkIV with a 400mm DO lens & 1.4x Teleconverter
photoartflight 