Posts in Category: Merritt Island NWR
2/7/2012: Roseate Spoonbills Feeding, Merritt Island NWR
This is another feeding action shot using the Canon SX40HS and its built in digital tel-extender for 1000mm equivalent hand held. Roseate Spoonbills at Merritt Island in January are not quite in breeding plumage, but they coming in, and they are always highly colored due to the abundant shrimp diet. The warm afternoon winter sun of Florida helps too. This gentleman was making the most of the shrimp, as you can see from the fountaining water. Can you see the out of focus reed that extends from the lower left corner up across the bird?
The second shot shows just how rapidly they move while feeding. Note the bow wave.
And finally a shot just for fun, taken from further away, on another day, in another pond, with the Canon SD100HS behind the eyepiece of the ZEISS DiaScope spotting scope, for something like 2200mm equivalent.
Cameras as above. Program with iContrast and -1/3EV exposure compensation. 1) f5 @ 1/1250th @ ISO 160. 2) f5.6 @ 1/1250th @ ISO 160. 3) 1/500th @ ISO 200. f5.9 effective.
Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness. 2) cropped for composition.
2/6/2012: White Ibis Feeding, Merritt Island NWR, FL
Looking through my images from the Space Coast Birding Festival, I don’t have many shots of White Ibis. In fact, in retrospect, I didn’t see a lot of White Ibis: maybe a half a dozen birds total, scattered widely in the ponds at Black Point Drive. Other years they have been more abundant…but they are never present in the numbers of say, the Great and Snowy Egrets.
This mostly backlit shot is a good example of how implicitly I have come to rely on the exposure systems and dynamic range (enhanced as it often is, an is here, by special in-camera processing) in today’s digital cameras…cuppled, of course, with the post processing available in programs like PhotoShop and Lightroom. Not so long ago, and certainly back in the days of slide film, this would have been a very tricky exposure, especially with the birds in constant motion. Today I just frame and shoot. To me that is the essence of the Point and Shoot method. Let the camera do what it is good at…exposure…focus…white-balance…and stay concentrated on the behavior of the subject, or the changing light on the landscape, and make full use of the zoom framing tools today’s cameras provide.
The other thing that pops out here it the forgiving depth of field of today’s superzoom cameras. We have here the framing of a 1240mm lens on a full frame DSLR (840mm optical zoom, plus the Canon’s unique 1.5x digital tel-extender), yet the depth of field of 150mm lens. The extended depth of field of a superzoom can be a problem with macro and close up shots…but at the telephoto end it is a real blessing. To achieve this effect with a conventional DSLR and a long lens, you would probably need focus stacking…multiple images taken with different focus points and digitally combined for greater depth of field…which of course would be pretty difficulty with subjects moving rapidly across the field, like the Ibi.
Canon SX40HS as above. f5.8 @ 1/1250th @ ISO 125. Program with iContrast (for the dynamic range enhancement I was talking about) and –1/3EV exposure compensation (my standard setting for this camera).
Processed for intensity, clarity, and sharpness, with some fill light to further open shadows, in Lightroom.
2/3/2012: Palm to Infinity, Merritt Island NWR
Taking a break from birds today. This palm fond along the boardwalk behind the Visitor Center at Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge caught my eye for what the light was doing to shape…caught it and lead it a merry chase toward infinity down that spiral. I zoomed in pretty tight for emphasis.
Canon SX40HS at 260mm equivalent field of view. f5 @ 1/100th @ ISO 800. Program with iContrast and -1/3EV exposure compensation.
Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness. Cropped slightly on the left to eliminate a distracting element.
1/31/2012: Hard Day for Tricolors, Merritt Island NWR
There is nothing like a good soak in the bath when you are having a tough day. 🙂
This is a behavior I have never seen before. The Tricolored Heron at Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge had waded in deep for a bath. Generally when they preen and bathe, they stand ankle deep at best, and use their beaks to catch up water which is applied to the body and worked through the feathers. This bird seems to have submerged its whole head and most of its body. I saw it later, out drying on the shore, and it appeared to be fine. Strange.
Canon SD100HS behind the the 30x eyepiece on the ZEISS DiaScope 65FL for the equivalent field of view of a 2200mm lens on a full frame DSLR. 1/250th @ ISO 100. f6 effective. Program with iContrast and –1/3EV exposure compensation.
Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
1/30/2012: Pintails! Merritt Island NWR
The Northern Pintail has to be one of the world’s most elegant ducks, or so it appears to me. Ideally proportioned with with that silver bill and rich brown head (with its alert black eye) set off by the tall white collar and necktie, the silver picked up again in the body behind brown and black and sliver patterned wings, and then the jet black upturned butt with jaunty white trim…I mean this is a duck that has been designed!
And the closer you get the more elegant it looks. Turns out the silver of the body Is not silver but an intricate pattern of greys that resembles finger prints.
Coming or going: elegant.
Canon SD100HS in Program with iContrast and –1/3EV exposure compensation. 1) 1600mm equivalent field of view, 1/640th @ ISO 125, f4.3 effective. 2) 2500mm equivalent, 1/320th @ ISO 100, f6.9 effective. 3) 1600mm equivalent, 1/320th @ ISO 100, f4.3 effective.
Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
1/28/2012: Magic Kingfisher, Merritt Island NWR
The magical light of late afternoon, almost sunset, at Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge illuminates (in every sense of the word) this female Belted Kingfisher. This is the bird. This is the nature of the bird. This is the truth of the bird. This is whole bird and nothing but the bird. And, it is, I think, a beautiful image, just as an image.
Kingfishers at Merritt are not easy. They do not sit. And indeed this lady posed only long enough for one burst of 6 or 7 shots before she was away down the channel and gone from sight. The only way I got this was because she was sitting right across the channel from the tour road. I glided up in the car, paused in line with her, cranked the Canon SX40HS zoom out to full optical, switched on the 2x digital tel-extender, and shot a burst at 1680mm equivalent, hand held, out the open passenger window of the car. I did not even dare to shut the car off, so most of the shots are spoiled by vibration. I got two or three sharp shots though. This is my favorite.
I have to say (though I have probably said it before) that a shot like this with a Point and Shoot Camera should be impossible. A hand held shot at 1680mm equivalent should be impossible with any camera. I am simply amazed the the Canon SX40HS pulls it off. This image will not stand up to pixel-peeping (a full resolution, one image pixel to one screen pixel, will show processing artifacts aplenty), but at normal viewing or printing resolutions and sizes it looks, to my eye, very good. I am happy to show it off.
Canon SX40HS as above at 1680mm equivalent field of view, f5.8 @ 1/200th @ ISO 250. Program with iContrast and –1/3EV exposure compensation.
Lightly processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
1/25/2012: American Bittern, Merritt Island NWR
At least once on each visit to the Space Coast Birding and Nature Festival I try to get out to Merritt Island and Black Point Wildlife Drive in late afternoon, just before sunset. The light comes in at an angle that works magic, and the birds are beginning to settle for the evening, often closer in to Drive than anytime since dawn. Yesterday I was able to make 2 loops of the drive in the afternoon, the second after 4PM. Beautiful light! As I approached one of the major ponds, where most of the resident waterfowl are currently hanging out, there was car pulled over and a couple of birders apparently looking into the hedge row that separates the ponds. What’s up with that? Of course I kept my eye out as I inched past the stopped vehicle. I saw what they were looking at and did a quick jog to the side of the road myself (far enough forward of their car so that others could get by.)
I could not get out of the car fast enough. There was an American Bittern (okay so the title and the picture gave it away already) standing, posing, in the afternoon sun, out in the open, along the back edge of the channel between the road and the pond dyke, less than a 100 feet from us. This is something pretty rare to see. I shot off a couple of bursts with my Canon SX40HS just to get the bird before it moved in out of sight…but when it showed no signs of moving, I got out my tripod, scope, and digiscoping camera and set up in front of the other birder’s car. The Bittern struck its sky-high pose and held it while I framed it variously with the zoom on the Canon SD100HS behind the scope.
What an absolute blessing! Beautiful light, amazing bird (only the 4th I have seen). Of course between the two cars now, we attracted some attention, and all too soon there were 6 or 7 cars making an obstacle course of the Drive just there, not to mention birders and tripods. I worked the bird for 15 minutes or so before I took pity on tourists out for a late afternoon Black Point drive, packed my tripod and scope away and moved on. If I had not had a dinner engagement, and the traffic pressure had been less, I could have watched that Bittern for an hour.
Canon SD100HS in Program mode with –1/3EV exposure compensation behind the 30x eyepiece on the ZEISS DiaScope 65FL. 1) 1368mm equivalent field of view, 1/320th @ ISO 160, f3.7 effective. 2) 1200mm equivalent, 1/320th @ ISO 160, f3.2 effective. 3) 3400mm equivalent, 1/100th @ ISO 160, f9 effective.
Processed in Lightroom for intensity and sharpness. Some color adjustment on 1) to match the tone of the other shots.
I got a few more shots (Kingfisher in great light among them), but the American Bittern made the drive and the day!
4/20/2011: Full Alert, wings on wednesday
Great Blue Herons are one of my favorite birds to photograph. They have great plumage. They get into interesting shapes. And they are easy! They pose. This bird, caught looking at Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge in Titusville Florida, held this unlikely pose (unlikely unless you have spent much time with Great Blues) for long enough so that I had no trouble catching it, even in the limited field of view of my digiscoping rig. There is a lot of tension in the shot, highlighted by the light in the bird’s eye, which is rotated forward to look along the bill. Something certainly had this bird’s attention.
Very careful observers will see that I was shooting through reeds, and there are two in the far foreground, so out of focus as to be little more than a shadowy wash of color, which cross right at the bill.
Canon SD4000IS behind the eyepiece of the ZEISS DiaScope 65FL for the equivalent field of view of a 1200mm lens on a full frame DSLR, 1/1250th @ ISO 125, f4 (camera limited).
Processed for intensity and sharpness in Lightroom. Cropped for composition.
3/1/2011: Ibis
Just a really quick post at the airport on my way to San Diego. A very dirty White Ibis from Merritt Island NWR in FL.
Digiscoped with the Canon SD4000IS and the ZEISS DiaScope.
2/25/2011: Mixed Waders!
One of experiences I enjoy most at Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge can’t be digiscoped. You need a wider lens to capture the sometimes large groups of birds, like this group of mixed waders under the Eagle Nest Platform on the back side of Blackpoint Drive. There are four species here: Great Egret center: Snowy Egret left, right, and back; Little Blue Heron (white phase), to the left of the Great Egret; and White Ibis on the Great Egret’s right.
An even wider view. This kind of thing is common in Florida, and you see even bigger groups, but for a boy down from Maine twice a year, it is always a treat!
Canon SX20IS at 1) 190mm equivalent field of view, f5 @ 1/400th @ ISO 80 and 2) 43mm equivalent field of veiw, f4 @ 1/640th @ ISO 80. Programmed auto.
Processed for intensity and clarity in Lightroom.