The photo was all T’d up, all I had to do was get down the slippery boardwalk to make the click. The warm colors of the thermal set against the cold blue sky just suck me in. Not the most powerful of photos, I still love it because in one click the warmth that comes from being in Yellowstone inside your heart hits the reality of the cold air freezing your finger tips. Perfect morning!
There are two types of photographs, memories, to me, those for the refrigerator and those that go out to the world. The difference being is those that go on the refrigerator and the personal memories, the ones where only we understand the inside story so for the most part, there is no story other than that inside knowledge. This photo goes on the frig and is here only to illustrate my point. Sharon and I love the fall because a group of birds always move through the property. One is the Spotted Towhee. We only have them for a couple of weeks but we celebrate it! This year they were around when we had a splattering of snow. This one photo sums that up great for us. But unless I told that story, the only real true attribute the photo has going for it is, it’s sharp. That’s not enough to share with the world so it’s only to go to the refrigerator gallery.
I had the itch to spend some time with my birds. So I set up the D850 / 800mm on a bird bath where I could work on the computer and shoot. I actually had a great time, photographed over a dozen species and made a couple of images I really like. What I love seeing in the photographs was the dramatic change in the light. Over the couple of hours, the light on the birds and the background really changed, changing the entire photo. What you see below is Cassin’s Finch, Red-breasted, White-breasted and Pygmy Nuthatch, male & female Red-shafted Flicker, White-headed Woodpecker, Evening Grosbeak and Stellar’s Jay. I just love my birds!
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Kent Pond
D850 / 70-200f4 AFS / TC-14eIII
So we were shooting at Kent Pond at this hillside across the pond that had great color and texture but the light was, nasty! Not only the light was high in the sky, it was shooting through the thinnest of cloud cover. It had a haze to it so I took the shot wondering if, if since it had a “haze” if Dehaze in ACR might not help. Whenever I have an “if” moment in photography, I tend to follow it until it blows up in my face, or has a promising outcome to move forward. Well …
Above you can see the outcome and it ain’t too bad! The bottom photo is what was captured and the top is the Dehaze afterwards. Like normal, whenever I use Dehaze I move the Blue Saturation slider down to desaturate the blur (HSL Panel ACR). But with this kind of light hitting the fall color, the Dehaze slider did a nice job. Who would have thunk it?
I’ve had a whole lot of folks ask about the D850 for wildlife photography. The honest answer is, I’ve not really had the time nor opportunity to truly photograph critters with it yet. It’s a valid question because, on paper, the D850 appears to be perfect. For example, I’ve always needed myself a minimum frames per second of 5.5FPS which the D850 blows by with 7 native and 9FPS with the MB-D18. Even better is the buffer which for all intent and purpose is endless (yes, technically there is a limit). After a week of focusing in on the backyard critters, I can easily say the D850 does a great job with wildlife!
I first went with a D850 / 300PF combo chasing squirrels around the wood pile. This small, light package was pretty darn easy and fun to shoot with. The rockin D850 AF system made shooting in the low light a snap which is really important in wildlife photography. With that checked off the list for first tests, I switched to the big gun and birds. With fall color quickly disappearing from our meadow, I set up on a bird bath for the birds coming in. White-crowns just showed up for fall so I focused in on them while saying fall in the photo. The first thing I noticed with the D850 on the 800mm was the balance. To really make that work for my style of photography, the MB-D18 needs to be attached. The balance on the rig as well as vertical firing button it provides is needed for my style of shooting. But when it comes to performance, the D850 rocked it. Many have asked if the D850 will be my main wildlide body. It won’t be because I not only love the D5, I don’t need those huge files for critters. Will I use the D850 for critters though? From time to time, you bet. Can the D850 be your main body for wildlife? Oh heck ya! With that choice, you’d never have to look back, but only forward to killer performance and images!
Clouds are such an easy subject to bring wow to your photograph. Now because clouds are so universal, everyone can relate to them. This can be a good or bad thing depending on how you bring them to life in your photograph. This is because we’ve all seen amazing cloud formations sometime in our life. The key here that many miss in their photographs are the relationship of the clouds with the earth. Remove the earth and they are just big white cotton balls and a lot of their drama and wow evaporates. So therein lies our photographic challenge.
This is where the landscape becomes so important to our clouds! The clouds need a visual anchor, a means to compare their size with something that we can relate to yet be so insignificant that visually we don’t give them any importance. This is where lens selection plays such a huge role in the photograph. Capturing the right slice of the earth and at the same time bring drama and importance comes down to focal length. Shooting with the D850, it was easy to capture minute detail in that small slice captured in this case using the 70-200f4 at 200mm and the 14-24AFS at 20mm. You can’t loose sight that the subject is the cloud and making sure your viewer knows that, use scale by focal length!
