I captured this image of an American Wigeon few weeks ago. I was on my way home from work and had planned to stop at this location to see if birds were holding in this area. There were quite a few of them gathered in salt water marsh pond along the road between Titusville, Fl and The Merritt Island Wildlife Refuge Visitor’s center. I caught this bird taking a bath. I chose this shot in the sequence because of the amount of water droplets in the air.

Camera specs: Canon EOS-1D Mark IV, Canon 500mm lens with a 2X extender  (1000mm), ISO 400, f/8 aperture, 1/1250th sec. shutter speed, manual mode.

regards,

Jim

Bath Time

We here that a lot in football. A play is reviewed to make sure the call on the field is correct. The results are usually introduced by the referee saying, “Upon further review, the play is…….” I feel this same way about the Faded Glory image. I really had not planned to do anything with the base image except the HDR. That all changed after I posted the base image. I had several people tell me they preferred the realistic approach to the HDR. I have had people tell me they like the HDR best. I prefer what I refer to as the jazzed up approach – HDR. However, when people speak I try to listen.

I went back and took another look at the base image. I applied some noise reduction – applied a couple of Topaz Adjust 5 preset effects to it. I followed some advice from my friend and mentor , Milton Heiberg, on toning down the brightness in the clouds and grass, plus I put my own touch by adding some structure to the clouds. The results are shown below. I really like the realistic effect results. However, the one I printed is the HDR one and it is absolutely killer with the matting and frame I chose for it!

Regards,

Jim

Faded Glory Base Image - adjusted

I had a request for the base image of the old houde in the previous post. this image was the middle image of the five shot sequence discussed in the previous post. this image has not had any adjustments from what was shot in camera.

Give me your thoughts and comments………….

Regards,

Jim

Faded Glory Base Image

I learned a lesson the hard way a few months back. I was out with a mentor taking landscape photos. With landscape images, nothing moves very quickly so generally you don’t have to worry about shutter speed. I was engrossed in the landscape moment becoming one with the surroundings when a doe and her two yearlings came out of the woods and into the shallows of the water. They proceeded to dance, prance, and play. I immediately went from photographing landscape to animal action photography. Unfortunately, my shutter speed on my camera was too slow to not have a motion blur on most of the images. What I learned that day was to have your camera setup for action photography.

The morning I was out capturing the sunrise, I anticipated that we would have birds in flight coming into our camera range. I had an aperture setting at f/8. I was checking my histogram on the LCD for my setting. I bumped up the ISO to 1600 to have a shutter speed of 1/640th of a second. So when the bird landed in front of us, I had already set a shutter speed fast enough to get the bird with little or no motion blur even in the low light conditions.

On this morning I was using my Canon EOS 7D with the Canon 24-105mm lens @ 105mm. I was shooting in aperture priority mode with a +0.3 exposure compensation. All of the colors in the frame come from reflections of the sky in the water.

Regards,

Jim

Sunrise Gull

What in the world are “Peeps”. In this case,  am not referring to the little marsh mellow little chicks that are so popular at Easter. What I am referring to are the squadrons of little bitty birds that you may encounter buzzing a shore line at the beach or along a saltwater marsh. I refer to them as LBBs (little-bitty beach birds). When I was helping Milton Heiberg with his popular Space Coast Birding festival Photography field trips, one of the things we were looking for were the “Peeps”. Our search would begin after the sunrise photo shoot. We would look along the shore line of The Mosquito Lagoon as we drove on Bio-Lab Road in Merritt Island Wildlife Refuge. Unavoidably, that means that you are shooting into the rising sun. At best, you could hope for is a cross directional sun light.

With a group of people with multiple cars, “Peeps” are prone to fly once people get out of their vehicles. Of course they fly a short distance away but out of reach of your camera lens. Then you hop in your car and chase them again, only to have them fly back to where you were two stops back. All of that said, I was thrilled to get the two images I included in this post.

I was at the end of the group on the last day of the workshops. As the four cars in front of me pulled away, a squadron of “Peeps” swooped in. The client riding with me and I were able to get out of my car and enjoy the experience. Based on these images, I think these are some kind of Plovers. A common Plover is the Semipalmated Plover.

For both images, I used a Canon EOS-1D Mark IV, Canon 70-200L f/2.8 with a 2X extender @375mm. I used Aperture priority with +/- 0 exposure compensation. Aperture was set at f/11 to increase the focal plane. The ISO setting was at 1600. Again, these images were back into the sun. The reflections in both images really add to the interest of the capture.

Post processing was in Photoshop using NIK Color Efex Pro presets. The ones I used most often are Tonal Contrast and Enhanced Details.

Regards,

Jim

Peeps!

Jeepers Peepers!

Thought I would create a little video to show you some of the wildlife and nature images I have captured over the last few weeks. I may come back and post some of these on an individual basis. If you see something you like let me know and I’ll be sure to cover it.

Enjoy…..

Jim

The 15th Annual Space Coast Birding Festival wrapped up yesterday (Monday, 30 Jan). I assisted Milton Heiberg with photography workshops on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. The workshops were early morning to catch the sunrise, So I was up at 4:30 am each day. That certainly booted me out of my routine. There were a total of 35 attendees for the workshops. 36 would have been the maximum. It was difficult at times to keep the group moving along because there was so much to photograph. Each day presented its own challenges and rewards. Each day was different.

Also, Friday there was a reception and fundraiser at The Downtown Gallery in Titusville. That is the gallery where I am the featured artist this month. The reception was from 5-9pm and there was a steady stream of people for the entire time. I thank all of you that attended and especially those of you that purchased prints. There was a raffle for someone to go out on a half day photography field trip experience with me. The winner of the raffle is Pat Deen. Congratulations Pat. All proceeds from the raffle and fundraiser goes to The Merritt Island Wildlife Refuge Association.

Since our workshop days began with a sunrise, I thought I would include one here. I’ll be posting additional workshop photos later. I must admit, the last three weeks have been a time of abundance for my photography.

The image below was Sunday morning’s sun rise. The image is an HDR composite of three images. I used my Canon EOS – 7D, Canon 24 – 105mm lens @ 24 mm, ISO 400, f/8, and, Aperture Priority mode. The exposure brackets were -2.0, -.7, +.7. I imported the bracketed images into Photomatix and selected one of the presets that best reflected the moment. The HDR approach allows you to see details in the foreground. Typically it would be dark because the exposure is set for the sky and water.  The color in the sky disappeared very quickly and never fully engulfed the sky like the previous sunrise post.

If you have any questions about any of the above, contact me to schedule your own photography workshop experience.

This morning I left the house early. No, I wasn’t eagerly rushing to the office cube farm. I wanted to catch the sunrise. I will be helping out with some sunrise photography workshops this weekend so I have shifted my sleep schedule to get up a earlier than I normally do. Gator Creek, Merritt Island Wildlife Refuge, is just a short detour on the way to work. There is a spot where you can catch the sunrise and not include any elements of man. I have included two photos….. one with ducks and one with no birds. I really tried to capture the structure and texture of the clouds.

Camera specs: Canon EOS-1D Mark IV; Canon EF 24-105mm f/4 IS @ 47mm; ISO400; 1/50th sec shutter speed; f/11 aperture; manual mode. Minor cropping in the second image. Both images processed using NIK Color Efex Pro.

Regards….. Jim

Gator Creek Sunrise

Gator Creek Sunrise 2

These are the birds that teased me into getting hooked on photography. About 6 years ago, a group of these birds first visited our storm water retention pond. I wanted to photograph these (and other)  ducks in flight. Now, these types of ducks can be found on the pond most anytime of the year. Right now, there are quite a few around the pond (100+). Our littlle pond is 5 1/2 acres in size.

In the past week, a family of 5 has been visiting our dock. They were there this morning so I decided to document the visit. This is one of the mature ducks in the family. The ducks are fairly comfortable with people being close as long as you move slowly and quietly.

Camera specs: Canon EOS-1D mark IV, Canon 70-200 f/2.8L IS II w/2X@285mm, ISO 800, f/11, 1/1000th sec. shutter speed, manual mode.

The duck is standing on the dock railing. The lake with its reflections is the background.

Let me know if you have any questions or comments.

Regards,

Jim

Black Bellied Whistling Duck on the Dock