Posts in Category: p&s 4 wildlife
9/5/2011: Eastern Phoebe with a Point and Shoot
Generally, when you see digiscoped pics of birds (images captured with a Point and Shoot or one of the new Mirrorless Reflexes, or even a true DSLR, behind the eyepiece of a spotting scope) they impress because they are frame-filling shots of birds…or extreme close-ups of heads of larger birds like herons or egrets. The thing about digiscoping is that it gets you, with relative ease, close…very close. Those who practice conventional long-lens photography with a DSLR have to work a lot harder to fill the frame.
For this shot, digiscoped with a Point and Shoot, I made no attempt to fill the frame. This is an environmental shot showing the bird in habitat, attractive to me because of the posture of the bird…the phoebeality of the portrait. This image also shows that you do not have to fill the frame to get feather detail with a scope. If you click the image and look at it in the larger sizes on my Wide Eyed In Wonder smugmug site (controls are at the top of the window), you will see that there is a lot of detail beyond what a normal view can show.
A few moments later, the bird flew in closer and perched in the shadows of a pine.
This is a much more typical digiscoped shot, and it has a lot of pheobeality too…but the main impression depends on image scale. This is close. The bird as you see on your monitor is at least 3/4s life size, and if you look lager sizes you can see it considerably larger than life.
Nikon Coolpix P300, 15-56x Vario eyepiece and ZEISS DiaScope 65FL. 1) approximately 1150mm equivalent field of view, 1/320th @ ISO 160. f4.7 limited by the camera. 2) about 2000mm equivalent, 1/125th @ ISO 220. f5.5, limited by the scope. Program in both cases.
Processed in Lightroom for Clarity and Sharpness.
9/4/2011: Question Mark: the Butterfly Bonanza Story continues. Happy Sunday!
Happy Sunday.
Yesterday I started the unexpected Friday Butterfly Bonanza story, and displayed a Mourning Cloak. Now, Mourning Cloaks are certainly spectacularly special, in-and-of themselves, but what made Friday even more special was the presence of two new (to me) butterflies in such numbers. The Question Mark above was the other abundant butterfly around the bush of unknown attraction along the Kennebunk Bridle Path. As I mentioned yesterday, the Question Marks were much more difficult to photograph, since they sit, most of the time, with wings folded. This particular Question Mark was, at least for a moment, fanning slowly, and I managed, by holding the camera one handed at arms length above and well to one side of my head, to get an angle that shows the wings to good advantage.
What follows is a more typical shot of a Question Mark, on the right side of the branch, balanced by a Mourning Cloak on the left. The two white marks on the back of the forewing on the Question Mark, are, by the way, the marks that give the butterfly its name.
Another shot of the QM with wings open, though in more challenging lighting.
And, just because I can not resist celebrating such abundance of beauty, another Mourning Cloak shot.
All with the Nikon Coolpix P500 out near the end of the usable zoom in Close Up Mode. Programmed auto. Processed in Lightroom for Clarity and Sharpness. Precise EXIF data can be seen by clicking the image and choosing “Show Details” at the top of the window.
So it is Sunday, and my Sunday thought has to do with such unexpected beauty right in my backyard. I had seen photographs of both these species, but I was not, honestly, even aware that they occurred in Maine, and certainly not in the numbers I saw on Friday, and certainly not in Kennebunk. Blessings abound.
I am also thankful this morning to see that a combination of Federal and Local conservation agencies and organizations have “officially” protected and intend to manage my favorite pocket sanctuary…the little section of the old trolley bed known as the Kennebunk Bridle Path where it passes along and through Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge lands beside the Mousam River near its mouth. There is even a new interpretive sign where the trail crosses Rt. 9. This little stretch has become my go-to place when I want a few moments to an hour (or two) of good things to see and smell and be around…and perhaps a photo op or two thrown in. It rarely disappoints. The place itself is as unexpected and as blessedly unlikely as the butterfly bonanza of Mourning Cloaks and Question Marks I found there on Friday. I do give thanks.
9/3/2011: Mourning Cloak
Yesterday was a bumper day for butterflies. I went out to do some digiscoping (capturing images through my spotting scope with a point and shoot camera. I have a new camera and it takes practice to overcome the limitations). Along the way I came upon a medium sized bush beside the Kennebunk Bridle Path that was the center of attraction for about 15 Mourning Cloaks, and maybe 10 Question Marks…plus a few small woodland moths. Actually I am totally uncertain as to the numbers since
I could never determine if the butterflies were coming back to the bush after leaving…or if they were being replaced by others. I had never seen either butterfly species, so a single specimen would have been a delight…but this was awe inspiring. I spent the better part of an hour observing and photographing…trying, of course, to catch open wing shots of both species. The Mourning Cloaks sit with wings open or fanning, so they were pretty easy, but the Question Marks sit with wings folded, and only occasionally fan, and I spent a lot of time trying to hit the shutter button at just the right second to catch open wings.
It was so much fun!
I plan to stop by that bush today to see if they are still using it as a rest stop (or whatever they were doing).
Nikon Coolpix P500 in Close Up mode (with the default zoom setting overridden). 1) 669mm equivalent field of view, f5.7 @ 1/400th @ ISO 160. 2) 235mm, f5.1 @ 1/200th @ ISO 160.
Processed in Lightroom for Clarity and Sharpness.
9/2/2011: Bugs on Stone, Rutland Water UK
In my one all too short walk around to the far side of the Visitor Center lagoon at Rutland Water, I found that the stone of the path seemed to attract a lot of bug life. They were not particularly cooperative. I suspect that the path carried the vibration of my foot falls well ahead of me, and the bugs were up and away while I was still out of zoom range. Eventually I caught on, and stood and waited just out of reach until the bugs rose and settled closer to me. The waiting game.
We have here, if you take the word of a novice at bugs in general and certainly a tourist among British bugs (not a good idea), a Gatekeeper, a Common Blue Damselfly, a Common Darter, and a Speckled Wood. Each image is linked to a larger version on Wide Eyed In Wonder.
Nikon Coolpix P500 in Close Up mode, with the default zoom setting overridden. 1) 403mm equivalent field of view, f5.6 @ 1/640th @ ISO 160. 2) 810mm, f5.7 @ 1/640th @ ISO 160. 3) the same. 4) 538mm, f5.6 @ 1/320th @ ISO 160.
Processed in Lightroom for Clarity and Sharpness. All but 3) cropped for scale.
8/30/2011: Juvenile Semi-Palmated Plover
Perfect light, a cooperative bird, a new camera, and my ZEISS DiaScope 65FL spotting scope. Life is good.
I went out to the beach early yesterday morning to see what hurricane Irene had left us in the way of birds. It looks to me like Plovers stacked up here…they were present in good numbers…including a Black-bellied Plover, which is rare on our beaches. And we had half a dozen each of Great Blue Herons and Great Egrets. We get both here in those kinds of numbers, but not all together and not on the same day. We were out at the edge of Irene’s diminished track as it came up through New England so these are likely birds who rode the winds out from the interior to safety and relative calm on the marshes behind the beach.
There were a several of these Juvenile Semi-palms feeding along the shore of the little tidal creek where it passes under a bridge. I set up about 40 feet above them, in the strong morning light, and practiced with my new Nikon P300. (The Nikon P500 has done so well by me that when it became time to replace my digiscoping camera I felt safe in getting a close sibling.) This shot shows the full potential of the camera. If you look at it on Wide Eyed In Wonder (click the image) you can view it at much larger sizes to see all the detail. It was taken through the 15-56x Vario eyepiece on the ZEISS DiaScope 65FL. The camera was at about 77mm equivalent and the scope at about 30x for an equivalent field of view of about 2300mm. 1/500th @ ISO 160. Programmed auto. The effective f-stop was around 6.4, limited by the objective of the scope.
Processed in Lightroom for Clarity and Sharpness.
8/29/2011: The Bee and the Bokeh
What makes this image interesting to me, beyond the fact that I like bees and flowers, is the bokeh. I especially like the receding diagonals of the brown stems, and the way they create kind of ceiling for the frame, and the well out of focus flower head in the lower left corner that echoes the slope of the daisies. Even the two strands of barbed wire turn to eye-leading graphical elements rather than distractions when defocused as much as they are. And I love the contrast between the smooth background and the wedge of well focused yellow and green that fills the right of the frame. I wish I could say I carefully planned the shot that way, but honestly, I was attempting to catch and frame the feeding bee, and the rest of it just fell into place…with a bit of a compositional crop from the right to get the bee off the static center of the frame.
Nikon Coolpix P500 at 538mm equivalent field of view, f5.7 @ 1/320th @ ISO 160. Close Up mode.
Processed in Lightroom for Clarity and Sharpness. Cropped from the right for composition.
8/26/2011: Manicured English Morning
While at the British Bird Fair we stay at the Greetham Valley Golf Club and Convention Center about 12 miles up the hill and over into the next valley from Rutland Water. As you might expect the landscape is rather on the manicured (not to say manufactured) side…it is, after all, a golf course. Still, of an English morning, or evening, before or after the golfers, it has its charm. Especially when capped by an outrageous midlands sky.
And, since the landscape is already sculpted to please the eye (and the nine-iron), all a photographer has to do is frame and expose.
Nikon Coolpix P500 at 23mm equivalent field of view, f5.6 @ 1/1000th @ ISO 160. Program with Active D-Lighting.
Processed in Lightroom for Clarity, Sharpness, and impact.
And, you only have to turn around to catch the Brown Hare bounding. (I cheated here. The Hare is a shot from the evening before…but they were out behind me on the morning too!) You might imagine, if you like, that the Hare is in charge of the manicure.
P500 at 810mm equivalent field of View, f5.7 @ 1/500th @ ISO 160. Program with Active D-Lighting.
Processed in Lightroom for Clarity and Sharpness.
8/25/2011: Peacock Butterfly, Rutland Water UK
Somehow the Peacock butterfly is all the more striking for being British. It is such a surprise, at least to me, to see this large, showy butterfly in the mild marshes and meadows of old England. Here it is feeding in the rushes and cattails along the edge of Rutland Water, on the unfortunately named Devil’s bit Scabious, right behind the Optics Marque at the Great British Birding Fair. What a treat!
It was not easy to photograph, as it hung back well into the rushes, where it was always partly obscured, making both framing and focus very tricky…and since the wind was blowing hard enough to keep everything in constant motion…but with the Nikon Coolpix P500’s long equivalent zoom, I was able to reach out to it for a few keepers.
Nikon Coolpix P500. 1) 810mm equivalent field of view, f5.7 @ 1/100th @ ISO 175. 2) 466mm equivalent, f5.7 @ 1/160th @ ISO 160. 3) 810mm equivalent, f5.7 @ 1/125th @ ISO 160. Program with Active D-Lighting.
Processed in Lightroom for Clarity and Sharpness. Cropped slightly for scale and composition.
8/24/2011: Ladybird, Ladybird, fly away home.
It was a bumper year for Ladybirds in England (or Ladybugs as we call them here in North America). This is evidently a good thing, as the native species are threated in England by the Harlequin Ladybug, an invasive imposter. I found Ladybirds all along the trails around Rutland Water.
Just for fun you might want to take a look at the wiki on Ladybird, Ladybird fly away home. The history of the nursery rhyme and speculations as to its meaning are interesting.
Nikon Coolpix P500 in Close UP mode. 1) 32mm equivalent field of view, f3.7 @ 1/100th @ ISO 160, 2) 263mm, f5.2 @ 1/200th @ ISO 160, and 3) 32mm, f3.7 @ 1/320th @ ISO 160.
Processed in Lightroom for Clarity and Sharpness.
8/18/2011: Ebony Jewelwings
As I mentioned in a previous post, on a recent explore at Emmons Preserve in Kennebunkport, the Ebony Jewelwings were super abundant and super active. We have two males and a female here, the males resting from the incessant aerial combat over the stream.
Nikon Coolpix P500 at 500mm equivalent field of view, f5.7 @ 1/320th @ ISO 160. Close-Up mode. This is a full-frame, uncropped shot.
Processed in Lightroom for Clarity and Sharpness.