Dec 12, 2013 | Wildlife Photography
So one of the aspects of winter I look forward to when the snow is falling at the home, are shorebirds on the beach. I just love shorebirds at the water’s edge! They make me laugh, they challenge my photography and they are fun to photograph. You can’t ask for more from a subject. Now is a great time to be on the shore looking for them. Some will have a tad of their summer plumage left making them looking just a tad special. You will have to first scan the water’s edge with bins to find the one or two individuals, but when you do, hot dogs. This a Short-billed Dowitcher I found last winter that is just such an individual. And once I find them, I work them just as long as I can.
The one thing you’ll notice that is the same in both of these photos is my point of view. I’m down in the sand at their level. It’s a favorite technique of mine I’ve used for decades. You’ll find a whole class on it here on Kelby Training in fact. These were shot with a D4, 600f4 w/2x using a Panning Plate. The benefit of getting down low are numerous. You can control the background, you can look them in the eye, you minimize the foreground and you make them comfortable so they come closer. And, it just feels good to lay in the sand like a kid again. So when the cold of winter starts to settle in, head to the beach with your long lens and have some fun with the shorebirds!
Dec 5, 2013 | Wildlife Photography
Yeap, that’s the outside temp right this moment at the office and I love it. And you guessed it, I’ve been tossing out the window boiling cups of water. Love that sound! But back to photography. This is a great time to be working with critters, especially big game and birds at a bird bath. Steam is a great source for interesting photographs. Steam can come from breath, hot springs or simply from a heated bird bath. You can photograph the breath like you see from the moose, or the collection of the steam on the critter like the Bison. When you see that breath or you see those frozen crystals on the fur, the viewer of the photo though in the warmth of their home, know it’s cold out and that’s the goal. But here’s the trick to this whole thing.
Steam, be it a vapor or frozen (when than it’s ice), the only way you can see it is when it’s against something dark. And that’s the trick to some, basic staple to me. Backgrounds! Backgrounds are everything but even more so in this situation. For example, there are no photos from my bird baths here to illustrate my points. That’s because not until this summer, could the backgrounds around my bird bath be manipulated to be dark. They’ve always been white snow so I’m racing to get this posted and back behind the camera to see if my plans work. But you can look at the left side of the Bison photo to see what I’m talking about. The frozen hot spring steam almost disappears with the white snow background.
Some are thinking, “That’s too cold for me!” Here’s the trick for that. First, shoot from the inside of your home. Next, shoot from the inside of your vehicle (what I did with the Bison). Lastly, limit your time outside (what I did with the Moose). Figure out what you need for DoF, Exposure and everything else and set that in the warmth of the home / vehicle and then when you head outside, you can wear thick gloves so all you need to do is be able to depress the shutter. Keep in mind that you’re not going camping in the -10 (but that is fun too), you do have that warm interior to get back to so make the shot while you can. Well, gotta get back to my bird baths. Stay warm out there!
Oh yeah … remember that breath you’re trying to capture and how it turns to ice at these temps? DON’T breath on your camera’s eyepiece, you’ll have the same problem to the point you can’t see. I use the Nikon DK-17A Anti-Fog Eyepiece to help with this problem.
Dec 4, 2013 | Landscape Photography
We woke up to a dusting of snow which by sunset, turned into about five inches. It’s now ten degrees and tonight it’s supposed to get down to -4, so things are looking good. And by the afternoon, the birds started to show back up in the feeders and bird baths. So we’re making progress. With all the big winds, the feeder protected from the wind was the most popular and sad to say, not even photographable. On the bright side, with all the activity at that feeder, our neighborly Red-shafted Flicker which normally feeds there decided to go to the other side to feed. Lucky for me!
I had the gallery all set up to go, D4, 800f5.6, SB-910 powered by SD-9 shooting through the Wescott Rapid Box Octa triggered by Pocket Wizard but there was this one little shaft of light, this one little glint in the eye that, well, I didn’t want to ruin with flash. I have the Function Button on the D4 programed to disengage the flash for just such occasions. And just when I got the lens trained on the Flicker, a Sharpie flew through the property which made the Flicker freeze (didn’t want to become a meal itself). This was important because even though the snow was bouncing what light that was available, my shutter speed was still only 1/6, f/5.6. I took some shots and then wondered if I could go tight on just the eye. I attached the TC.25e giving me 1000f/7.1 (1/5sec) and got one click off when the Sharpie left the yard. Seconds later the Flicker went back to feeding before I could move closer physically for the shot. So while I didn’t get “the” shot, at least we made progress in the right direction. Sharon’s grateful for the snow too, maybe now I’ll stop bouncing off the walls to shoot.
Dec 3, 2013 | B&W Photography, Landscape Photography
The entire gang from our Yosemite Adventure wanted the shot of the tree over the rock. I said Olmstead Point was the place to go. Once there, they said, “Where’s the tree?” so i turned and pointed up, up the mountain. And before you could say Half Dome (which we shot at sunrise), up the hill we went. Two folks unknown to me until we got down, had sever fear of heights. But when it comes to getting the photo, even that didn’t stop them from climbing to the top as well. I went up with minimal gear, D4, 18-35AFS & 16Fish knowing two things, I wanted the big vista and was shooting B&W (also, I was going up so less was more!). In the background is Clouds Rest & Half Dome, so this is the lang of big vistas and B&W! The dome behind Olmstead Point itself is a picture rich area so we shot all the way up and all the way down. With the sun just coming over the horizon, it offered us many great opportunities, this is just one of them.
This dome is polished smooth from the same glacier creating Yosemite Valley. The pines that find a crack to germinate and grow all have great character. This is one of the larger ones so the combination of it and granite, well make for a photo. So with the 18-35AFS attached shooting at 18mm, I bent down and took the shot. It’s truly one of those, “I was here shots” at best. Boring! I knew that there was a photo here, had to get it out. What was it lacking? First was the sun, it wasn’t helping. Close the lens down to f/22 and then move so it was just peaking through the tree, we’d get the starburst. OK, with that I can change position and use the shadow as a line for the eye to move through the frame. To do that, I need to go wider so the 16Fish replaced the 18-35. OK, making some improvement but we can do better. OK, gotta nice boulder, small but it works. Lay on the granite face, get close to the boulder in the left corner (knowing I was going to light it in post) and move so the sun was peaking through the tree and wham, a photo was born. There are those times when you know there is a photo but the first click just doesn’t work. Those are the times when you gotta dig down and ask yourself what’s not working and do the dance. Because your heart knows a photo exists, you’re in there somewhere.
Dec 3, 2013 | Wildlife Photography
Like my good friend likes to say when we’re out shooting but there is nothing to shoot, “We’re sucking dirty pond water!” And that’s how it is right this moment at the office with NO snow! I have the new shooting gallery all set up and ready to go, D4, 800f5.6, SB-910 powered by SD-9 shooting through the Wescott Rapid Box Octa triggered by Pocket Wizard but not ONE bird to point it all at!
With no snow, there is plenty of free water, the main attraction for birds in the winter (free water is water that is not frozen). At the same time with no snow cover on the ground, there is plenty of food that’s easy picking. Lastly, the weather hasn’t brought the birds down in big numbers so the bottom line for Moose’s photographing birds from his desk is, sucking dirty pond water.
You might be wondering why there’s flash in this formula. One of my favorite shots is of this dirt common Cassin’s Finch (making the uncommon out of the common). This male’s red cape comes to life in this bluish light of snow by the kiss of flash. The Octa is to make the light source much bigger than the subject so YOU don’t see the light. It’s big and soft which matches the falling snow. Oh snow, please, snow!
Dec 2, 2013 | Aviation, Landscape Photography
When you’re out shooting, you have two options, shoot or don’t shoot. Since I put a high premium at being out, I see it as we only have one option, shoot. That means that if the weather sucks, finding photo opps priority hasn’t change. Nothing drives me more nuts that when photographers say, “if only the weather was better.” Since we have no control over it, it is like all variables we must cope with once we leave our homes to go shooting. The huge down pour I talked about in Worst Weather post left a tremendous amount of water on the ramp, go figure. So even before the sprinkles had stopped, we were out shooting. With gray skies, it’s time to look down, not up.
Armed with the D4, 18-35AFS & 70-200VR2, Jake & I started looking for those shots not otherwise possible on a good weather day. The first photo is all Jakes, he saw it as I was looking for just the “clean” shot. I had blinders on. The reflection of both the B-17/clouds was so much better than reality (no hangar) is why reality is smaller in the frame than the reflection. i waited for the crowd to have the design element and color combo that you see before I took the shot. Had to wait for a couple of boys jumping in the giant puddle to stop as well (I wanted to join them). The photo of the B-29 came from the stories from my dad of the planes on the ramp at Clark during the war and the giant culverts along the ramps to drain them off from the constant down pour.
Now in the perfect world with the perfect weather for whatever you had previsualized, these photos probably would not have been on your shot list. The sunrise surely hadn’t unfolded as we planned by any measure but that’s how it goes. But then again, the images we came back with were in reality more of one of a kind from an otherwise common subject. And whenever you can take the uncommon of the common, there are good odds you’ll come out ahead. So when the weather isn’t exactly what you had planned, head out just the same with an open mind and make the most of the light at hand.
