Posts in Category: p&s 4 wildlife
1/23/2012: Green Heron on the Hunt
After two days of shooting in Florida, first at Viera Wetlands and then at Merritt Island, I have a lot of bird pics to share. This Green Heron was intent on the hunt. It would freeze in these ungainly positions for up to three minutes, strike (and usually miss), and then adopt a new pose. I watched it for about 15 minutes and in that time it got three small minnows. Not an easy way to make a living.
It was not easy to photograph either, being deep in reeds, and, from the best angle for showing the bird, against the light. Still I persisted, using both my digiscoping rig (Canon SD100HS behind the eyepiece of a ZEISS DisScope 65FL spotting scope) and the Canon SX40HS with various settings of the digital tel-converter.
For the next shot I walked down the dyke to get to the sun side of the bird, but the reeds were even more obstructive.
The sun really brings out the green in the Green Herons wings and highlights the yellow framing.
The next shot is with the Canon SX40HS using full optical plus 2x digital tel-converter. With the smaller camera, and without the tripod of my digiscoping rig, I was able to work closer to the bird.
And finally a shot of the business end showing the bird’s concentration, again with the digiscoping rig.
1) Digiscoped with the Canon SD100HS behind the eyepiece of the ZEISS DiaScope 65FL for an equivalent field of view of 840mm. 1/1000th @ ISO 200, f2.8 effective. 2) Digiscoped at 840mm equivalent, 1/640th @ ISO 160. f2.8 effective. 3) Canon SX40HS at 1680mm equivalent (840 optical plus 2x digital tel-converter), f5.8 @ 1/400th @ ISO 200. 4) Digiscoped at 2100mm equivalent, 1/200th @ ISO 200, f5.8 effective.
Processed in Lightroom for intensity and sharpness.
1/23/2012: Hooded Merganser, Viera Wetlands
As I have mentioned before, the Hooded Merganser is my favorite duck (or duck like bird at least). I like the bold color contrast and the flaring crest and the bright orange eye. I like its active nature…always on the move and full of energy. Of course the reasons I like it are exactly the reasons it is a hard bird to photograph, especially to digiscope (to photograph through the eyepiece of a spotting scope). The Hoody offers one of the most difficult of exposure problems. Pure white and jet black in a pattern. And it moves way to much and too fast to track easily in the narrow field of a spotting scope.
So I am always in my element at Viera Wetlands (Rich Grissom Memorial Wetlands at Viera). Viera Wetlands is a “municipal wetlands”…a waste water treatment plant that uses marsh and pools in the final stages of treatment, and which has been converted for easy access for birders. Since my last visit a year ago, they have even built a road that takes you directly to the entrance, bypassing the water treatment plant buildings. Viera is great for bird photography…certainly among the top two or three spots for Florida waders and wintering ducks, and one of the best spots nationwide. It is especially good for digiscoping as you can pull to side of the dyke roads anywhere and set up your tripod in front of or behind the car in relative safety. And the birds are very cooperative. They are secure in the habitat and will allow you to do your thing while you do yours as long as you stay on the dyke.
And that includes the 30 or 40 Hooded Mergansers that are there on every visit in January. They favor a pond near the entrance, but one that you can only reach by traveling the full circle of the one way access road. They are generally in close, feeding within 50 or 60 feet of the foot of the dyke. I spent a half hour, two different times around the loop, digiscoping them…or attempting to do so. And I got my best shots to date.
Canon SD100HS in Program behind the 40x eyepiece on the ZEISS DiaScope 65FL spotting scope. 1) and 2) 2450mm equivalent field of view, 1/500th @ ISO 100. f6.7 effective. 3) 4500mm equivalent, 1/200th @ ISO 100, f12 effective. 4) 2900mm equivalent, 1/250th @ ISO 250, f7.9 effective.
Processed in Lightroom for Sharpness.
1/18/2012: Cedar Waxwings
I ran one of this set of Cedar Waxwings from last Saturday on Google+ for #songbirdsaturday. They were taken at Roger’s Park in Kennebunk, Maine, on a day of ice coated snow and intermittent sun. I love the silkiness of the Waxwing’s feathers and intensity of the colors.
The first two are at 1680mm equivalent field of view, using full optical zoom on the Canon SX40HS (840mm equivalent) plus 2x digital tel-converter function and the last shot was at 1260mm equivalent using 1.5x digital tel-converter. All are hand held out the window of the car. Program with iContrast and –1/3EV exposure compensation.
1) f5.8 @ 1/250th @ ISO 100. 2 and 3) f5.8 @ 1/400th @ ISO 100.
Processed in Lightroom for Intensity and Sharpness.
12/21/2011: Black-bellied Whistling Ducks
The Black-bellied Whistling Duck is a big, colorful duck…goose sized really…and there is nowhere better to see them than the Rio Grande Valley of Texas. This is Edinburg Scenic Wetlands World Birding Center in Edinburg Texas. Edinburg Wetlands is one of my favorite spots to digiscope birds (take pictures through the eyepiece of my spotting scope) and Black-bellied Whistling Ducks always make good targets.
The final shot is not digiscoped but it shows off the pink feet. It was taken at 1260mm equivalent with the 1.5x digital tel-converter on the Canon SX40HS.
1) and 2) Canon SD100HS behind the 15-56x Vario Eyepiece on the ZEISS DiaScope 65FL spotting scope for equivalents of about 4000mm and 1500mm. ISO 100 at 1/80th and 1/200th.
3) Canon SX40HS at 1260mm equivalent (840mm optical x 1.5 digital converter). f8 @ 1/1250th @ ISO 800.
Processed in Lightroom for Intensity and Sharpness.
12/17/2011: Sharp-Shinned Hawk, Bosque del Apache
One morning at Bosque del Apache, having got to the refuge early but without a car, I shouldered my tripod, my spotting scope and the tiny Point & Shoot I use behind the eyepiece, along with my binoculars and my ever-present super-zoom Canon and walked out along the center, two-way, road on the tour loop. Even though I was on foot they insisted on giving me a receipt at the toll house to prove I was official when I flashed my Duck Stamp (Migratory Bird Conservation Stamp in actuality…every birder should buy one! and not just because it gives you free entry to all National Wildlife Refuges). I found Cranes along the road and got some good shots in the early light (which perhaps you will see one of these days)…but the best bird of the day came when I was (very) foot weary and almost back to the Visitor Center.
I had just turned out of the refuge road onto NM Route 1 and was walking along the wide verge between the pavement and the brush when a hawk came up off the ground 50 feet in front of me and went by me at waist level. It was small, so I was thinking Kestrel, and I was also thinking “too bad I was not looking more carefully…it is surely gone now.” But I turned anyway, and scanned the brush along the edge of the pond.
What do you know? There it was, perched on the back side of the brush about 60 feet from me again.
Figuring it would not sit there long, I sat the spotting scope down and pulled out my Canon SX40HS. All in all the super-zoom is a lot faster getting on the bird and getting off those quick shots. And I have come to trust the 1.5x and 2x digital tel-converter settings on the Canon to give me decent hand held results out to 1680mm equivalent. So, I worked by way into the brush just there to see if I could get a clear line of sight to the backside where the hawk sat. It was a Sharp-shinned…a small male…not much bigger then my first guess Kestrel would have been. And, indeed, there was a marginally clear shot.
It was tricky focus but the auto focus on the Canon was up to it. I keep the Canon set to continuous, which, with a fast Class 10 SDHC card, gives me something near 4 frames per second. I shot a burst at full optical zoom (840mm) then clicked in the 1.5x digital converter and took another burst (I have the converters set on my short-cut button). Between those two bursts the Sharpy turned its head just enough more toward me so that the sun, coming in from the side, caught the eye and lit the orange iris like an LED. One more click of shortcut button and I got off a burst at 2x, or 1680mm equivalent. The top shot is one from that burst, the second shot is from the 1.5x burst.
Sometimes you just get blessed beyond any deserving.
Canon SX40HS in Program with iContrast and –1/3EV exposure compensation. f5.8 @ 1/200th @ ISO 125.
Processed in Lightroom for Intensity and Sharpness.
12/14/2011: Cedar Waxwing, Wildcatter Ranch TX
Cedar Waxwings always fascinate me. I don’t see them that often…once or twice a year…but their chatter, which is right at the top of my aging hearing…puts me on full alert. A small flock was moving through Wildcatter Ranch in Graham Texas on my bird walk last Friday, and I was able to catch this one perched well in the sun. The other thing I love about them is the super fine, silky feathering.
I like the eye in this shot…with just enough definition in the black mask to be satisfying.
These shots are with the Canon SX40HS at full optical zoom plus 2x tel-converter for an equivalent focal length of 1680mm, hand held. Pretty impressive results from a Point and Shoot.
Processed in Lightroom for Intensity and Sharpness.
12/10/2011: North Texas Meadowlark
As I mentioned, I am in North Texas for a few days (headed home today), helping with a training for ZEISS Sports Optics, which was held at Wildcater Ranch near Graham. Yesterday afternoon, after most folks packed up and headed back to Dallas and home, I had some time to do a little birding on the high bluff where the ranch restaurant and conference center is located. It is early winter here (they had snow on the ground when we arrived) but I found an interesting mix of birds…Cardinals, Cedar Waxwings, Juncos, Eastern Bluebirds, Yellow-rumped Warblers, and Goldfinches prominent among them.
The meadowlarks were alternating between feeding on the ground and perching high, in trees and on the power line that crossed by path. I could not catch them on the ground, but I managed a few shots when they went up high.
And I can’t resist putting in this chance shot…the last in a sequence. This is a crop for composition.
Canon SX40HS at 840mm optical zoom plus 2x digital tel-converter for 1680mm equivalent. Program with iContrast and –1/3EV exposure compensation.
Processed in Lightroom for Intensity and Sharpness. (Some additional local sharpening on the last shot.)
12/7/2011: More Sandhills, Bosque del Apache NWR
While we are on the subject of Sandhill Cranes…
There were only about 5000 Cranes down yet while we were at Bosque in November. Only is completely relative. Even 100 Cranes in a corn field is impressive. While shooting these I was switching back and forth between my point and shoot behind the ZEISS DiaScope and my Canon SX40HS, using the superzoom for flight shots and the digiscoping rig for portraits. These are all digiscoped shots.
Canon SD100HS behind the Vario eyepiece on a ZEISS DiaScope 65FL for focal lengths ranging from 1200mm to 4000mm equivalents.
Processed in Lightroom for Intensity and Sharpness.
12/6/2011: Cranes in Early Sun, Bisque del Apache NWR
I posted a sequence from this same morning a few days ago, taken as the sun was rising behind a bank of cloud on the horizon. Eventually the sun got up above the clouds and spread across the empondment and the birds. It was, as is often the case in New Mexico in November, a clear crisp light with a good deal of warmth to it. It made the Sandholl Cranes look particularly alive.
Canon SX40HS. 1260mm,1680mm, and 72mm equivalents. Program with iContrast and -1/3EV exposure compensation.
Processed in Lightroom for Intensity and Sharpness.
12/5/2011: Cranes in Flight
One of the attractions of Bosque del Apache is the number of birds in flight on any given day. I have already chronicled the geese from this year’s visit in a post last week. Today we will take a look at the Sandhill Cranes. Sandhills are a truly prehistoric looking bird…especially in flight. Heavy bodied, with huge wings (spanning 8 feet), their flight is ponderous, and never more so than when they come in for landing. Still, there is a beauty and a grace common to any flying creature. They might be heavy, but they are still creatures of the air.
At Bosque they are often framed against the mountains or the cottonwoods, which adds to the effect.
And as the sun sets, the Cranes are moving to their night roosts in the ponds and provide spectacular silhouettes against the darkening sky.
Canon SX40HS at various settings between 700mm and 1260mm equivalents…in Programed auto, with iContrast and –1/3EV exposure compensation.
Processed in Lightroom for Intensity and Sharpness.