photoartflightHouse Finch In Top Of Tree
Posted on May 7, 2018
This House Finch was busy looking around from its high perch in the top of this tree. It kept singing and looking around. I had to crop quite a bit as I was using a 400mm f/4 Canon DO lens with a 1.4x teleconverter and it was a very tall tree! The House Finch was fun to watch while it was singing away.
Moon Over Captiva Island, Florida
Posted on March 10, 2018
After I finished photographing the sunset on Captiva beach and was on my way back to the condo, I noticed the moon was fairly bright. It was not a full moon, but I took a few shots anyway and liked how clear the sky was there. I am still going through images I shot there months ago, but will eventually get through them all.
Tundra Swans FlyBy
Posted on February 19, 2018
When we were at the Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge in New Jersey, photographing the large groups of Snow Geese, this group of Tundra Swans flew by. Unfortunately all the large groups of Snow Geese and Tundra Swans were very, very far out in the water. Usually you see multiple large groups of Snow Geese taking flight. On this trip there were a few flying in and out, but no large groups taking off all at once. It was still nice to get out and take some photos.
Weathered Feather Panorama
Posted on February 16, 2018
While taking a walk at the Audubon’s Plainsboro Preserve in NJ, I was looking for some photo opportunities. Plainsboro Preserve is almost 1,000 acres with a variety of trails and an almost 50 acre lake. Because it is a large area, most birds are distant, but you never know what you might find. It also seems to a have a lot of Beavers, so you see their handiwork (felled trees with their tooth marks) all around the areas near the water on the Preserve.
I found this weathered feather along the path and thought it looked interesting. I took 2 images, handheld with a 300mm f/4 IS lens with a 1.4X teleconverter. I like this Canon lens for an all purpose Walk Around lens. It is sharp, image stabilized, focuses fairly close on its own, very hand holdable, fairly lightweight and sharp. So I use this lens quite a bit for when I am just taking a walk with no idea of what I might photograph. If you carry extension tubes with you, you can even get closer for a very close, almost macro lens.
I used Photoshop to combine the two images, which most of the time works well! You just have to give enough of an overlap so it seems to be more accurate in lining the 2 images and automatically blending the final image. Every once in a while you might have to do a slight touch up.
Bald Eagle On Snag At Sunrise
Posted on February 14, 2018
This is a double header. A Bald Eagle early in the morning, Plus a colorful Sunrise! This combines a couple of the reasons I enjoy photographing at the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge outside of Cambridge, Maryland. Shot with a Canon 400mm f/4 DO lens with a Canon 1.4X teleconverter. The Eagle was backlit, so I exposed for the sky, then opened up the shadows in Adobe Camera Raw.
Bald Eagle Twelve o’ Clock High
Posted on February 12, 2018
I was going through images I have not worked on and found a series from the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge in Maryland. One of my favorite locations with colorful sunrises & sunsets and the largest concentration of Bald Eagles in the Northeast in the Winter months. In the warmer months there are still a large number of Bald Eagles but not as many as in the Winter.
It is fun to see them flying around the Refuge, often interacting with each other.
Yellow-Crowned Night-Heron Hanging Out In The Shade
Posted on February 6, 2018
I was walking down one of the paths early in the morning at the J.N. Ding Darling NWR. It was pretty dark on the sides of the path under the trees and mangroves. I heard Ibises moving in the lower branches of trees and in the mangroves but were mostly hidden by branches. Plus it was extremely dark to get a photo. Then I noticed this Yellow-crowned Night-Heron out in the open, standing under the branches. It was still very dark because the branches were blocking the rising sunlight. The Heron did not seem to be bothered and did not move, so I took a few shots and moved on. It was so dark where the Heron was, my shutter speed was very very slow, so I shot a series of bursts and purposely underexposed to get my shutter speed up. I did not want to raise my ISO, because the Canon camera I was using gets more “noise” at higher ISO’s. It was easier to work on sharpness later. I was using a 300mm f/4 lens with a 1.4x teleconverter giving me f/5.6 wide open. I have more success with having less noise from not using a high ISO, and under exposing a little and then brightening my image in Photoshop. Then adding a “high” pass sharpening technique in Photoshop and blending it in.
Mute Swan Closeups with Reflections
Posted on February 4, 2018
Continuing from a previous post. These are a series of images when the Swan swam up to where I was standing. I had to take off my 1.4x teleconverter and even back up to get the whole swan in the image for the featured image and the first one below. The last two were with the 400mm Canon f/4 DO lens with the 1.4x Series III teleconverter as they were a little farther out but still swimming towards me.
Mute Swans Feeding
Posted on February 3, 2018
We had gone to the Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge, in Oceanville NJ, to see what we could find for photo subjects. We were looking for large groups of Snow Geese, but along the way on the Wildlife Drive, I found 2 Mute Swans feeding in Gull Pond. With the early morning warm light giving a nice warm color on the White Swans.
They were far out on the pond, but kept getting closer as I was photographing them. It was hard to get photos where one did not have a head under water. It seemed like they alternated, when one was up, the other was down.
Finally got a few when they both had their heads above water. Canon 400mm f/4 DO lens with a Canon Series III 1.4x teleconverter.
They kept coming closer. It seemed that they were not bothered by me being there. Next post will have a closer series of images.
American White Pelican Panorama
Posted on January 10, 2018
Another Group of American White Pelicans photographed along the Wildlife Drive at the J.N. Ding Darling NWR in Sanibel Florida. This was a 5 image panorama, handheld, shot with a 300mm f/4 lens, with a 1.4X teleconverter. When doing a pano like this, do not use auto exposure, especially with white subjects, because the exposures can vary, giving you different exposures which are harder to blend together. You then have to try to balance all the exposures before assembling the pano. Most people use a tripod for doing Panos, but I tend to do more handheld. The Pelicans are still moving, even slightly, so I still have to go in to the layered Photoshop file and erase some of the moving overlaps before the final “blending. The auto features usually works fairly well for the final “flattening” of the layers in your file. The hardest part is choosing which “mode” of auto align to use in Photoshop for the initial lining up of the layers. You might have to try a few of the choices and see which one works best for your subjects. It has a lot to do on the angle you are to your subject and also the focal length of the lens you are using. In Photoshop, under EDIT, go to auto-align. Then you have a few choices. It is a trial and error to see which method works best for your image. Auto align usually works fairly well, but sometimes “Cylindrical” works well for what I shoot also. It really depends on the focal length of the lens you are using and the angle you are to your subjects. Then go to Auto Blend to “blend” them together. The other choice here is “Stack” which is used for combing a set of images you shot for more depth of field, for a sharper image across a wider area, in simple terms. Under Auto Blend also check on the Box – content aware fill transparent areas of your merged files. This fills in empty areas with what Photoshop thinks is missing, and works fairly well. This happens more with wider angle lenses because of the changing angle of horizons, skies and foregrounds have different perspectives as you are shooting from left to right. This comes in handy especially if you are hand holding your camera or shooting with a wide angle lens. Also Once you flatten your image, I sometimes crop from the top and bottom to make a better “composed” image. Sometimes shooting panos, you are shooting “Taller or Wider” than you want your final image. So cropping in helps the composition. The above is just a simple overview of shooting panoramas, you can find lots of info online.
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