Posts in Category: video
7/6/2011: Song Sparrow Sings
They don’t call it a Song Sparrow for nothing! Few birds I know of sing with such absolute energy as the Song Sparrow. He tips back his head, opens his beak, and launches the song toward the sky. I know the dangers and failings of anthropomorphizing, but the Song Sparrow certainly appears to take joy in singing…and pride in being the loudest male on the patch.
Song Sparrows are everywhere this time of year within a mile of the coast, wherever there is a patch of Beach Rose clinging to the dune or the rock.
Canon SD4000IS behind the 20-75x Vario Eyepiece on the ZEISS DiaScope 85FL for the equivalent field of view of a 1700mm lens on a full frame DSLR, 1/640th @ ISO 125, f4 effective.
Processed in Lightroom for Clarity and Sharpness.
And here is a bonus pose at about 3500mm equivalent field of view. Followed by a snippet of video of this and a second bird.
4/13/2011: Sandhill take off, Wings on Wednesday
For Wings on Wednesday: If you are trying to capture a Sandhill Crane taking off, this is what you look for…the bird stretches in the direction of take off, and assumes what can only be called an intent posture. Then…
the head drops and you might be fooled into thinking the bird has thought better of it…but…
the next second, with run and a flapping of those huge wings, the bird is in the air. These three shots were taken with a small digital camera behind the eyepiece of a ZEISS DiaScope spotting scope, at the equivalent field of view of about 1800mm on a conventional full frame DSLR so tracking the bird was not easy. The final shot is at the limits of the auto focus of the camera through the scope.
Canon SD4000IS and ZEISS DiaScope 65FL. Kids and Pets mode for higher shutter speeds (1/1000th) which pushed the ISO up to 160. An effective aperture of about f5.0.
Processed for clarity and sharpness in Lightroom.
And here, from the same morning, is the video that shows a similar sequence. Also taken with the SD4000IS behind the eyepiece of the ZEISS DiaScope. You can see some heat shimmer in the air, even though this was just after dawn. The rapidly warming water gives off a lot of vapor in the dry upland desert air.
3/30/2011: Avocet Elegance, Wings on Wednesday
For Wings on Wednesday we have the the American Avocet, one of the most elegant of birds. It stands, often on one leg, with its classic coloring and long upturned bill…it feeds by sweeping that bill horizontally through shallow water (see video below)…altogether elegant.
This bird is at Famosa Slough in San Diego California.
Canon SD4000IS behind the new 15-56x Vario eyepiece on the ZEISS DiaScope 65FL spotting scope for the equivalent field of view of approximately a 3000mm lens. 1/500 @ ISO 125, f8.5 effective.
Processed for clarity and sharpness in Lightroom.
And the video. Also taken with the Canon through the spotting scope.
3/10/2011: Anna’s Hummer revisited
I posted several pics of this Anna’s in bad light last Friday, but I wanted to revisit it today in order to show off the video. One of the joys of digiscoping with today’s modern digital compacts is that you can shoot HD video with a flip of the switch. And, without further ado, here it is…the Anna’s Hummingbird video from Cabrillo National Monument, San Diego CA. Canon SD4000IS behind the 15-56 Vario Eyepiece on the ZEISS DiaScope 65FL
1/2/2011: GBH on a palm, viera Wetlands
I could not resist this Great Blue Heron on the palm top, among the fronds of neighboring palms…even though I knew it would be a soft image at best…the wind was blowing so hard and the magnification needed to fill the frame was so high that despite my best efforts there was going to be some softening due to camera motion. It was just such a classic composition. You can see what I was dealing with in the video below. I had to put the video through the heaviest level of image stabilization in Sony Vegas at that.
Canon SD4000IS behind the 15-56x Vario eyepiece on the ZEISS DiaScope 65FL for the equivalent field of view of a 4700mm lens, 1/1000th sec. @ ISO 125. Effective aperture f13.
Here it is pulled back to about a 3000mm equivalent.
And here is the video. I left the sound in, just for effect. 🙂
12/8/2010: Sandhills in Flight (Wings on Wednesday)
Okay, I know I said I was done with Sandhill Cranes last week…and I did break the series, but to be honest I have a lot more Sandhill pics from my trip to Bosque del Apache. And…since it is wings on Wednesday, and a I have little video to share, I could not resist. Forgive me. 🙂
The shot is not perfectly framed but I love the light on the wings! It was late afternoon in the last moments before the sun touched the horizon.
Canon SX20IS at 560mm equivalent. F5.7 @ 1/640th @ ISO 640. Sports mode.
Processed in Lightroom for intensity and clarity.
And now the video. Also SX20IS work.
12/6/2010: Prairie Dogs (Mammals on Monday)
In what has to be one of the oddest instances, Bosque del Apache spent some Our Recovery Dollars at Work building a Prairie Dog town…or maybe the PDs moved in by themselves, but Bosque certainly added some improvements and built a nice little access point and parking lot for visitors.
I have to admit, if you know nothing about PDs, they are cute. Sort of the North American equivalent of Meerkats, only without the movie and the TV show. (They just need an agent!)
The last photo here is the first taken, on a morning visit to the town…but as you can see, the morning light comes in from behind, making photography somewhat difficult. I went back in the afternoon for the shots above, but by afternoon most days the wind is well up, and it fairly sings through the tripod legs. I had to stand between the wind and my rig, to keep the scope from blowing over.
Canon SD4000IS behind the new 15-56x Vario eyepiece on the ZEISS DiaScope 65FL. All were out there in the 2500 to 3000mm equivalent range. The top two are are at 1/1000th at ISO 250, and the bottom one is at 1/640 at ISO 125. I think I had the camera set to Kids and Pets for the top two, which explains the higher shutter speed and ISO.
Processed for intensity in Lightroom. Actually, the last shot required more substantial processing, with a mix of heavy Recovery and Fill Light.
And here is a little video. This was so bouncy and shaky with the wind that I have to pull out the heavy guns here too, and use Vegas Studio to stabilize the video before it was watchable. You can still see a lot of wind shake. The sound track, which I have muted, was nothing but a steady wind roar.
12/5/2010: Bosque Sunrise!
Happy Sunday!
It is absolutely essential, on every trip to the Festival of the Cranes at Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge in New Mexico, to get out at least one morning for the dawn fly-out. For one thing November dawns under the mountains along the Rio Grande in New Mexico are spectacular, and for another, the spectacle of the geese rising in streams and leaving the ponds where they spend the night can be breath-taking, awe inspiring, thrilling. It makes the alarm clock and being out before breakfast worth it. It makes numb fingers and icy feet worth it. It makes, dare I say, life worth it.
It can be, for many people, a true life-changing experience…and opening of the eyes to unsuspected beauty and unexpected possibility…which fundamentally changes the way we see the world.
You can spot the first-timers by the light in their eyes, by the grins, by the voluble and visible delight as they troop back to cars and heaters and cooling coffee. But at least half the crowd (and we are talking several hundred, sometimes 500 or more, people gathered each dawn during the festival) are returnees…people who by their manner have seen this all before, and have come back one more time to feed something in their souls that responds in the Bosque dawn. Many of these folks, like me, have been coming to Bosque in November for 20 years or more, and still we are out at least one morning before sunup to catch the fly-out and the dawn. It is essential to our souls.
Church should only be so good!
Canon SX20IS at 560mm equivalent, f5.7 @ 1/640 @ ISO 160.
Processed in Lightroom.
And here is the video.
11/30/2010: Sanhills 1
Part of the attraction of Bosque del Apache NWR is the spectacle factor…14,000-20,000 Sandhill Cranes as they mass around the refuge, early and late, are simply impressive. They are big, noisy birds. When you see several thousand of them in field below the mountians in the clear warm light of New Mexico’s autumn, it is, well, worth seeing. Unfortunately, even video does not quite capture that aspect of Bosque. Photographs and video are good enough to make you, maybe, want to visit Bosque…but they will not prepare you for the experience of being there! Which is a good thing.
Canon SX20IS at 1) 140mm equivalent @ f4.5 @ 1/800th @ ISO 80, Landscape program and 2) 560mm equivalent @ f5.7 @ 1/640 @ ISO 100. Landscape program.
Processed in Lightroom for intensity (see the page link above).
And a bit of video.
11/18/2010: Snow Storm (goose)
From Texas to New Mexico: Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge. Snow Geese. Sunset. A storm of wings against the blush of sky. I still have lots of birds from Texas left to share, but I can’t resist this from the first day at Bosque. Not that everyone who ever visited a Snow Goose wintering ground doesn’t have one just like it…but still. (I seem to remember a Steve Creek shot from a few months ago.)
Canon SX20IS. 560mm equivalent @ 1/125 @ ISO 800. Programed auto.
Fill Light in Lightroom. Blackpoint right, added Clarity and Vibrance. Sharpen narrow edges preset.