photoartflightPanorama of Cormorant Take-Off In Early Morning Sunrise
Posted on April 30, 2020
Still going through my Backup Hard Drives for interesting images to post because of the stay at home order in NJ. Also helps to clear images not needed anymore and makes it easier to find images I want. Supposedly they will be lessening the stay at home order soon! This is an early morning, quickly taken, 2 image Panorama of a Cormorant taking flight from some branches in the water. 2 images shot @ 800mm and assembled in Photoshop. I liked the Black Cormorant against the warm colors of the sunrise in the water. Below another Cormorant, different Snag & Day – The Celery Farm Natural Area, Allendale, NJ.
Another Cormorant, Different Snag, 2 img Pano, 400mm f/4 DO w, 1.4x Teleconverter
Roseate Spoonbills Splashing
Posted on April 17, 2020
I am still finding images to post from my backup files since we can not go out to even local parks here in NJ. These images are from a past trip years ago to J.N. Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge in Florida. These were fairly far out in the water along the Wildlife Drive. I was using a Sigma 300 – 800mm f/5.6 zoom lens @ 800mm (The Sigmonster as it was called.) With Heavy Duty Gitzo tripod, Wimberly Gimbel Tripod head & Canon 1 Series Camera Body – total weight ~25 lbs. But once setup you could certainly work an area and get great images from subjects near & far.
Waving Great Blue Heron
Posted on April 3, 2020
We were setup on the Wildlife Drive at this popular spot at J.N. Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge. It is a fairly wide open area with sandbars where birds tend to land and flock to. Plus a lot of activity in the water around it. A lot of people also fish here so it gets very crowded for photographers! Sometimes there are up to 40 or more people here photographing the birds. This Great Blue almost looks like it is waving to us. I also liked the Cormorant swimming by in the background. Image taken @800mm.
Wood Stork Preening
Posted on March 31, 2020
I am going through backup drives looking for images to post here since we are staying home during the virus outbreak. It actually gives me time to go through backup drives and clean out files that I do not need to make more space. Also I am finding images I have not worked on before. We saw this preening Wood Stork in the water along the Wildlife Drive at the J.N. Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge. I was using a Sigma 300-800mm f/5.6 zoom lens and the featured images was taken at 800mm. I liked the “splash of color” of the Roseate Spoonbill in the foreground.
Mute Swans
Posted on March 30, 2020
Here are a series of Swan images that I photographed years ago. Many are from a very small Natural Area near where I used to live. Since it had a small lake there were many times you could get nice frame filling images of them. I know many do not like Mute Swans, but I thought they were interesting photo subjects and were fun to photograph.
Red-Winged Blackbirds With Setting Sun
Posted on March 25, 2020
This image is a little different from a previous post as it is Red-winged Blackbirds flying out in the early evening against a setting sun. Image shot at 800mm.
Wood Stork Sunset Panoramas
Posted on March 18, 2020
I am going through images from previous trips to some of our trips to Florida. Here are a few panoramas of Wood Storks I photographed from the Wildlife Drive at J. N. Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge. I was using a Sigma 300-800mm f/ 5.6 lens, all @ 800mm. The Wood Storks did not move around to much, but the ducks were constantly moving about.
I first tried a 5 image panorama which is the featured image. Because they were moving around somewhat I manually aligned the images and used soft-edge masks to blend the images for the final image. Then I photographed a 3 image version again at 800mm.
Single image from 5 img panorama, Wood Storks @ 800mm
3 images panorama @ 800mm
Single image shot @ 318mm showing group of Wood Storks. Sigma 300-800mm f/5.6 lens
Roseate Spoonbill Tree
Posted on March 17, 2020
It was interesting to see this tree full of Roseate Spoonbills surrounding this White Ibis. The featured image was captured with a Sigma 300-800mm lens @ 800mm. It seems to be very helpful at J.N. Ding Darling to have a long zoom lens with a long telephoto zoom range. Many photo opportunities there are quite far in the distance. So instead of severely cropping your image you can frame a nice pleasing image to fill the frame with your subject. The Sigma 300-800mm lens was a huge & heavy lens and with a camera body was about 12 lbs. Add a Wimberly gimbal head & heavy duty tripod and you basically setup in an area and just work that area for a while. That is why I usually also carried another camera on my shoulder strap with a 400mm DO lens for faster moving subjects that flew close by.
Roseate Spoonbill, Sigma 300-800mm @ 631mm
Roseate Spoonbill 400mm f/ DO lens
Splashing Roseate Spoonbills, Canon 400mm DO lens, Canon 7D
Willet Shorebird – Eye To Eye with Prey
Posted on March 16, 2020
I came across this Willet looking for a meal at J.N. Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge in Sanibel, Florida. These are from a visit years ago. I was using a Sigma 300-800mm f/5.6 lens on a Canon 1D MkIII. These are all at 800mm. It caught a small reddish orange crab that seemed to only have one eye. It was trying to swallow it but as it was trying it lost its grip and was holding it by one leg. Then that leg broke off and the crab fell into the water. But it managed to catch it again and have it’s meal. I thought the crab got away but the Willet won in the end.
Osprey Hovering Before Diving
Posted on December 23, 2019
At the end of the year I go through my backup drives to cleanup and delete files no longer needed. I found this Osprey image taken years ago on one of those backup drives. This was taken at the Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge in Oceanville, New Jersey. Image taken with the Sigma 300-800mm f/5.6 lens @ 800mm. This was one of my favorite lenses back then. A beast to haul around, but once you were setup in an area, you could really get amazing results working that area for images. It did well with flying birds on a Canon 1D style camera body back then. Between the 1D mk IV body, heavy duty Gitzo tripod and Wimberly gimbal head you were over 20 pounds. So you did not roam around to much with this combo. But it was definitely a fun combo to use and produced extremely sharp images. For birds in flight it was great because you could zoom out to find them flying in the distance, then zoom in to get the shot. I do miss it from time to time but I make due with the 400mm Canon DO and Tamron 150-600mm lenses with teleconverters. Not as sharp as the 300-800mm f/5.6 Sigma, but close enough and my back appreciates the lighter load to carry.
More Sigma 300 – 800mm images below —
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