I had a ton of fun this summer photographing hummingbirds. The thought crossed my mind to use the “slow motion” video mode in the D850 for the first time and record their flight in and out of the feeders. This was a helluva learning experience for me. For example, while it’s obvious, at the time it didn’t occur to me that shooting at 1920×1080 30p x4 sound wouldn’t be recorded. Duh! So while shooting stills with the D5 / 180-400, I had the D850 / 70-200f4 just running. I came back with 1TB of video from this experiment, yikes! I edited it down for a little fun. You can see some of my Hummer stills here at my AZ Bird Portfolio. Enjoy!
“Moose, help … I suck at B&W!” That email came in this past week and echoes what many others ask seeking help with the most romantic medium available to us. The help these folks are asking for is not so much in the post-processing, but “Seeing” B&W when they are looking at a scene and through the viewfinder. There are many ways you can TEACH YOURSELF to see in B&W, here’s the current method I’m suggesting to folks.
the full spectrum version of above B&W
Standing up on Steptoe looking over the spectacular Palouse, the pallet of colors is, gorgeous! Taking in visually all those colors and condensing them down to just shades of black and white mentally when we see ALL colors is the challenge. Having done this process for nearly fifty years and having an amazing teacher when I started out, it’s real easy for me. You can get yourself there by providing yourself a visual guide you can look at real-time.
Head into your Picture Control settings and switch to Monochrome. This is NOT FOR THE FINAL capture but to help you pre-visualize the final capture (shoot a B&W to remind you of the look you liked, but I do my B&W conversion in post from full spectrum image). You can see the settings I’ve dialed in. The most important is the last menu above where you have the Filter effects. I suggest you put the camera in S Advance firing mode and take one photo for each color filter. Then look at the images on your LCD. Hold the camera up so you can see the LCD and the REAL scene and start to compare what you see in both views. Look at highlights and shadows and the tones in between. Keep doing this over and over again whenever you’re out shooting and the thought comes across your creative conscious, “Would this work in B&W” and start to teach yourself to see the answer. Then, take it one step further.
Head into the digital darkroom and launch Nik Silverefex II and start clicking! Yep, you’re just playing while at the same time looking at the effect your playing with has on your image. Click on the prepackaged recipes on the left and look at the Global Adjustments being changed on the right. Then when you get it basically dialed into what you like, click on the Color Filters below (from the old Polycontrast days of the wet darkroom) and watch the changes in your image. Do this over and over again, teaching yourself to SEE how the shades of black and white change and YOUR preferences, likes and learn them. I wish this was the last step in the process, but this is just the first and most important to learning B&W. It will take out much of the struggle and make the rest of your learning easier. The one setting and slider though you’ll never find which is the most important, romance, is something you must apply from the start and carry it through until the very end!
It started long ago, a tradition from back in film days and thankfully it’s continued this summer. Alvin Sr. is an Allen’s Hummingbird and at the end of most summers, fledgling Allen’s come to our feeders in good numbers. But not every year do we have ones with the character of the original Alvin. This year’s crop of hummers have been a bit funny, I think in part because of the heavy days of wildfire smoke and our warmer temps. Things started to settle down this past week and when it was all done, well, there was Alvin Jr! He’s quite a character even chasing the Mtn Chickadees that come near “his” feeders. Finally, I got some Alvin time in and he’s a hoot to work with!
With the smoke being the heaviest in the afternoons, I changed up my shooting to the AM. There is a small window of time when the light comes in and backlights the perch I’ve got stuck in a Justin Clamp. The piece of Manzanita that I select for the perch has to have its own character as well as be small in diameter. I then left my tripod set up in the location I will eventually place the camera rig so he could get used to it. He instantly perched on the tripod so the break-in period was short! With that, I just need to attach the rig and shoot.
I changed the rig up this year shooting with the D5 / 180-400VR (@560mm) rather than the 300PF in the past. I did this for a couple of reasons. First is I just used the 180-400VR at Madera Canyon with great success. Second is while the 300PF can focus a couple of feet closer than the 180-400VR it’s too close for the hummer’s comfort range. With the 180-400VR I have more focal length at that comfort distance and therefore a bigger image size.
The goal of my shooting Alvin Jr. is more a character portrait then inflight shot. This means I use natural light rather than setting up the SB-5000s which makes it easier. The only downside at this moment is I’m getting Alvin Jr. use to my presence so I’m shooting remotely. With the WR-R10, I’m standing back about 15′ from the rig and when Alvin Jr. comes in, I fire. But I know it’s Alvin Jr. cause like his predecessors, he seems to like to give me directions! mtc
Sierra Crest Mammoth Lakes captured by D850 / 24-70VR
Sunsets can stop us dead in our tracks! I remember not too long ago how a whole beach of folks stopped to watch the setting sun, its splendor simply couldn’t be ignored. So it is no wonder photographers want to preserve that moment photographically. With that being said, ever noticed how many sunset, or sunrise for that matter, photographs simply don’t measure up? This could be your own impression of your photograph or the lackluster response from others. Ever wonder why that is, why when sunsets can stop folks in their tracks, your photo is, blah? Could it be you’re a moth?
Sierra Crest Mammoth Lakes captured by D850 / 24-70VR
You’ve heard the old saying, “Attracted to a flame like a moth.” We are really no different than a moth with our attraction to a bright light source and that often blinds us to the rest of the elements that need to be in the frame. The first and biggest one is emotion! Everyone on the planet, photographer or not has a sunset that brings back special, emotional memories. That’s the first hurdle our sunset must meet. Then there are the colors which many obtain in post by cranking up the saturation. Not your best solution. You’d be better served to get the White Balance in the camera and let its sensor do all the heavy lifting for you. In this case shooting with the D850 / 24-70VR, I set the WB manually to 9k. Lastly and perhaps the most important is you need to have a clean black. Then, me being me, I look for the financial hook and in this case, the top photo with Hwy 395 in the lower right corner makes this a great stock photo making easy sales. The morale of the story, sunsets are great subjects but take your photograhs to the next level by not being a moth!
Back in 1988, we went on our first hunt for the Elegant Trogon. With Brent in a backpack on my back, in the cool of the morning, we hiked up that canyon. Far off in the distance, we could hear its call ever so faintly. Up we went along the trail but it eluded us that week, never ever getting a glance of it. It would be another thirteen years before I would get glass on one with only one click being somewhat decent. And so it would be until last month.
The Elegant Trogon is a rare bird in North America where its northern range stops at Madera Canyon, SW Arizona. Over a foot long with a 16″ wingspan (big bird), its colors and rarity are what drives birders nuts trying to catch a glimpse of this gorgeous bird. Your best bet of finding them is in spring when the male’s loud call rings through the forest giving away its location. You would think a bird this big, this colorful would be easy to find in a forest. You’d be mistaken.
Then we have this male who was disparately wanting to fall in love. It was late July and he was still seeking a mate, pathetically calling in the canyon nearly all day long. The call is a loose term as his call sounds like a dog bark more than any birdsong. It echoes through the canyon and when calling in your direction, you have no problem locating its source. This massive bird nests in abandoned woodpecker nests and when the female is within a short distance, he sticks first his head into the cavity and calls, then he gets in the cavity out of site and calls more. This male had two nesting sites to offer his potential mate. One in a telephone pole and the other in a more typical Sycamore tree.
By the end of the week, our male (I say that cause we were pulling for him to find love) finally seemed to have attracted a female to the area. She was calling back to him and on two occasions, we saw her come close to the proposed nest cavity. The male would fly up and down the canyon calling and the female would be a distance behind him. This elusive bird afforded us on two occasions opportunities to captured some clean shots but otherwise, it was just a dash of red and green as it flew through the canopy. I can say that at least after thirty years, I finally got glass (D5 / 800mm) on the Elegant Trogon!
Every fall, Sharon and I start prepping our meadow for the next spring. We’ve been doing it for decades and depending on the snow and winter showers, it’s either ok or, wow! This year was wow and in late July we call it the nursery. That’s because all the baby rabbits, squirrels, chipmunks, grouse, quail and other critter make the flowers of the meadow quiver with all their activity in it. We love it. About ten days ago though for the first time, this big Mule Deer buck arrived and quickly the blossoms of our carefully loved meadow began to disappear. After a week of coming out and talking to him, he stood his groun munching long enough to get some glass on him (D5 / 180-400VR). Now we have had does a lot, a couple of yearling bucks, but never a big boy like this so it’s been quite a treat. And the meadow, well I guess it won’t be so wow for long but it’s worth a buck!
