Posted on September 24, 2013
I was going through some of my old files and found this series taken with my then new Sigma 300 – 800mm DG f/5.6 zoom at a local Nature Area, The Celery Farm in Allendale, NJ. These were some of my first images with this lens and I was quite pleased with the results. It was a challenge to get shots of the Herons flying, especially close in with a 800mm lens. I found zooming out a little to find them in the viewfinder, then zooming in for the actual shot worked well. It also helped that the Great Blue Herons are a LARGE and fairly slow flying bird. It was a fun day watching them fly around the small lake and interacting with each other. A little bit about the Celery Farm. It is a Nature Area right in the middle of densely populated Northern New Jersey. It is a little over 100 acres with a small lake and a path around the lake. The path is a little over a mile long. a few years ago there was a large variety of birds present. The last few years it seems to have quieted down some, but is still a nice quiet area to photograph nature and wildlife.
Posted on September 14, 2013
We enjoy going to the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge outside of Cambridge, Maryland. You never know what you will find, so it is like going on a treasure hunt. It is a large refuge, so even though there are large numbers of birds & wildlife, some might be far out in the distance for photography. Long lenses are good to bring here, but if you are patient & observant you can find a lot of photo opportunities. Blackwater has a Wildlife Drive plus walking trails. It is known for its large population of Bald Eagles and also has some Golden Eagles. It has one of the largest populations of Bald Eagles on the East Coast, which nearly doubles in the Winter months. In the Summer months Ospreys return and quite often you see them interacting with the Bald Eagles. Also look for a variety of Harriers, Herons, Egrets, Swans, Ducks, Pelicans, Snow Geese, etc. Here are a few Eagles, Osprey and a Harrier.
Category: Birds, Blackwater NWR, Cambridge MD, Blog, Favorite Locations, Photo Tips, Uncategorized, Wildlife Tagged: Blackwater NWR, Canon Cameras, eagles, harrier, osprey, Raptors
Posted on September 13, 2013
Often while I am out in the field, I notice great cloud formations. So instead of photographing landscapes, I go for Skyscapes. They can be very dramatic and more fun then the landscapes I was thinking of when I started out. Sometimes the sky is just so dramatic you cannot not photograph them. Any lens seems to work well for this, depending on the effect and composition you are thinking of and the amount of obstacles in your way. Sometimes I use just the single frame for my composition. At other times, I shoot a panoramic series to stitch together later. I usually manually make my own in Photoshop, but there are many programs you can use to automatically do this. Photoshop can do this also, some friends use PTgui, but there are many you can use and there are some free ones you can download. Many times when I am out with a long telephoto on my main camera, I carry a Panasonic point & shoot camera that can shoot raw files along with a panorama crop. This also works well for skies. The examples here were photographed with a 24 -105mm to 400mm. For a single capture, I sometimes crop to a panorama format. If I use a series of images for a panorama, I zoom out to 75mm – 105mm to limit some distortion when combining them. I zoom to the height I like, then shoot a series horizontally for the length I want. Also use manual exposure so the frames all have the same exposure so it is easier to combine and overlap without variances in density. Depending on the clouds, I have also done vertical panoramas, that also give a unique & different look. Also try different crops, wider to tighter to see which ones you like better. If printing them, the crop depends on how large you are printing them. The larger you go the different the crop looks. Skies and cloud images are also great to use as a background in ebooks or books to put other photos on top with text, makes it look more interesting than a white page . So if it is a slow day out in the field remember to look up.
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