photoartflightBald Eagle Guards @ Blackwater NWR
Posted on July 25, 2024
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
Another 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.
Snowy Egrets From St. Augustine Alligator Farm
Posted on December 3, 2020
Because of the Covid 19 restrictions we have not traveled from home. I was going through images from a trip last January to Florida. The images used here were taken at the St. Augustine Alligator Farm & Rookery. It was a Great photo destination and they seem to cater to photographers. With a membership, they offer early hours to photographers& it can get very crowded in some of the areas. The Rookery area has a boardwalk going through it above the water & the alligators. It attracts a lot of photographers because there are so many nesting birds in the trees in the Rookery. The alligators provide protection to the birds’ nests in the trees above the water & the gators. I also saw quite a few birds walking on the shoreline by the alligators. I guess they are well feed since they seemed to leave the birds alone. I was using a Tamron 150-600mm lens on a Canon R which was a perfect combination to photograph there. I Since you are in a large gated boardwalk area it was nice to not lug too much gear around with all the photographers, tripods & other visitors. Usually I do not like photographing in commercial wildlife areas, but it was a nice area with nice people running the Alligator Farm. These are images I did not post before. The featured image was taken @ 600mm with the Canon R.
photoartflight 