We see it, or rather don’t hear it when we go to our favorite meadow. It’s a sound of spring that means something to me but is slipping away. If you’re wondering what I’m talking about, here’s a piece that tells some of the story. This CA Red-legged Frog, a listed species is one that is in trouble and I would truly hate to see it disappear.
OK, you made the choice to pull out the flash (congrats) and you have all the numbers dialed in and you’re getting the results you want (perfection!). That in itself doesn’t make all things rosey! Not even in fact, you still gotta do that thing, storytelling. Here’s one of my favorite birds of the tundra, the plain ‘ol Dunlin. The plain ‘ol Dunlin is anything but plain in its breeding duds, it’s spectacular! While I didn’t find any of its nests this trip, we did find some of these gorgeous little birds on a dark and cold morning. So whole set up (which we were getting faster at setting up after all the practice) came out: Gitzo 5561SGT w/ Wimberley Head(w/ RRS Quick Release mount attached) is the Nikon 800f5.6 AFS (w/TC800-25e) and with the SB-900’s (powered by SD9) light going through a BetterBeamer all being held to the head with a Wimberley F9 Flash holder. And after that, many when they see that image appear on the LCD sigh and think the photography is all done. But it’s not! The top photo is BORING!!! It’s a colorful bird in horribly gray water. I wouldn’t put that on my wall. There’s no life to the photo, there’s no character, just no storytelling.
How do you tell the visual story? Oh man, that’s a more difficult question to answer than how to use the flash as far as I’m concerned! Why? Because we all tell stories differently. For me, I have this long past history of working with Dunlin in Churchill at the nest. I remember all to well all the time watching them land in the grasses and then spending hours determining where they were going to “mouse” to which would be the nest. Than with that info, trying to get the photo of them on the nest. Now if all of this is Greek to you, it means you have some basic biology to learn and that’s the best answer to the question, how do you tell the story? Knowing basic biology helps in so many ways and storytelling is one of the biggest. So the bottom photo to me is much more entertaining, much more eye pleasing and more of a storyteller. Dunlin are always in the water, 365 because that’s where they have to feed. But they are only in breeding plumage for a short time and that time, they are in the grasses. And in the grasses, the viewer gets the hint of why they have the dramatic plumage change. So while the flash brings to life to those colors, I feel you gotta tell the story of why those colors.
What do you do when you’ve gone to the Arctic to photograph birds and it’s snowing? That one little element, light, is just not happening. You can’t stay in bed, you gotta do something about it and that something is, flash. I hate flash! It’s a royal pain in the ass to set up and lug around, I don’t care how you do it. But, what are you going to do, you need the light. Well, we had that situation more than once so the flash was dragged out. First understanding why flash. If you look at the photo above, the Yellowlegs looks dull. Yes, you could fix this in Photoshop and very easily these days but for me, that is just not an option. I want to do it in camera so than you have to ask what’s the problem that you want to fix? The issue is the color cast, the bluish-dull light on the Yellowlegs. This is caused by the overcast, clouds, snow increasing the color temp beyond AWB ability to deal with it. You can shoot AWB A3-A6 which will warm up the scene, but it’s not the same as good light. If you want to bring in that kiss of light to bring to life to the subject and you want to do it in camera, than you’ve got to bring in that flash. Damn!
The reason I’m bringing this up because when I posted the above photo, I received some emails asking how I got the “bright” Yellowlegs on a snowy day. The mechanic of the shot is Gitzo 5561SGT w/ Wimberley Head(w/ RRS Quick Release mount attached) is the Nikon 800f5.6 AFS (w/TC800-25e) and with the SB-900’s (powered by SD9) light going through a BetterBeamer all being held to the head with a Wimberley F9 Flash holder and just listing all that stuff is a pain, setting it up is murder when your hands are numb. OK, I’m over that so now it’s time to actually make it all work.
Fist, be sure to set the zoom on your flash to 50mm. Next is to Align the flash beam with the subject. The F9 flash holder wants the flash to be pointed straight out but we’re focusing 20-25′ right in front of us. You have to point the flash DOWN to take the narrow beam we’ve created to hit the subject. You want learn the position back at home when it’s not mission critical by setting all this up (oh boy) and focus on a wall 20-25′ away and then take photos adjusting the flash until it hits the point you focused. Lastly, you need to set the ambient / flash exp comp. The D4 / D600 / D7100 rock here because they have Custom Setting e4 which permits the ambient exposure to be separate from the flash. Since I use that, all I did was dial in -1 on the SB-900 and shoot. And here’s the rub, it’s easy for me to say, it might be hard for you to do and that’s normal! Flash is a pain and I hate it but it’s a tool we gotta embrace for those times when it’s the only answer. In the final application, the viewer can’t see the flash, the photo doesn’t look like flash was used. We want the flash to just remove the color cast, the dull look. We don’t want to look like the subject is in the headlights of a vehicle. That melding of light is what all this hell is all about!
A really common bird in the lower 48 is the Greater Yellowlegs. Like nearly all shorebirds we see in the winter, the Yellowlegs is a gray, drab bird that the vast majority of the time get ignored. Gray and tan is, gray and tan. But once they get up north to their breeding grounds, they are simply spectacular! So whenever we see them, we get out of the van and set up the gear. Setting up the gear is a ritual we all now do in our sleep. You do it that much since you can’t drive down the dusty roads with it set up to go. It only takes seconds (unless you’re using flash than add a couple of seconds) to get Gitzo 5561SGT w/ Wimberley Head(w/ RRS Quick Release mount attached) is the Nikon 800f5.6 AFS (w/TC800-25e) and D4 in place to shoot.
One of the really cool things shorebirds do up in Churchill in spring is to top the small Spruce trees. Be it to get a view of their territories, rivals, potential mates or predators, up they go. The thing of it is, they don’t have the feet to perch so it’s a balancing act the entire time. That’s where the fun begins. This is when the motordrive really helps.
And then are those times when you have a cool scene but not the greatest light. That’s when the SB-900 / BetterBeamer / SD9 comes out. You lose your motordrive because the flash just doesn’t have the power to keep up with motordrive, so you have to pick your shots. You gotta watch and when you see the preening or just standing up, you know a wing stretch is coming. You either take off your teleconverter (which means you keep the caps in your pocket all the time) or move back so when the wings go up, you don’t cut them off. Moving back lower your flash power so I go with the removing of the teleconverter which means you now have power for two shots rather than one. But no matter where you are, when you stop and roll down the window, you will hear the Greater Yellowlegs calling. Who I think of as the official greeter of the north.
What is it about Churchill birds that excites me so? What is it about Churchill birds that get’s me up early and keeps me up late? What is it about Churchill birds that has me standing in snow with my hands numb taking technically bad images of a species I have already in my files? It’s the celebration of life you see in every square inch that is the tundra in Churchill. I don’t know if you’ve watched the news of late, or have friends critically ill, or know of someone who is really hurting, but it’s a part of life that for us all at some times, get’s pretty heavy. Then there I am standing in heaven watching these cool little birds doing their spring thing through a lens with really no honest problems other than being nuts. Here’s a couple of clicks from tonight at The Ponds of a Red-necked Phalarope doin his thing. Not great clicks by any stretch but we photographers see lots on both sides of life and we tend to put ourselves in places and in front of things most others are not as fortunate to do. Why do we do it? There are lots of reasons but I tend to think it’s really pretty simple once you cut through it all. It’s a celebration of life!
Oh my..so far behind in stories from the far north. There is a movie being filmed, in Churchill, now, of all things (Midnight Sun is the title) so the bandwidth is like zip so impossible to blog last 36hrs and I’m bursting at the seem to the point that the first sentence I get to type is this massive run on sentence so I think I’ll catch my breath!
I so wanted to improve my Hudsonian Godwit images and what was one of the first shorebirds we found? Yeap, Hudsonian Godwits, a mated pair. Hot Dogs! So, with the D4, 800 w/TC800-24e attached, we started our approach about 80yards out. To break the ice or as I think of it, break the jinx, I shoot a ways out. I also do this to let the subject get use to my coming. Once I take some shots, watch the subject, I start to slowly move up. It’s about now I start getting excited about the possibilities.
With a mated pair, where she goes he goes especially at this point when there is no nest. So we first saw the female, the paler of the two. I no sooner said, “It’s a female be on the watch out for the male” when the male popped out. That beautiful brick red breast is simply spectacular so click, click, click we went.
And so we continued. We would move up closer, click, click, click. We would move up closer, click, click, click until we got to the distance desired and we could work the pair. They were very much in love which meant they totally ignored us. That was great! I was able to blow away my previous images of Hudsonian Godwits. I posted on Facebook & G+ (a couple of nights ago before we lost the internet) that I really like. I wanted to post those leading up to that shot to give you a little of what it took to get that final shot of the male I really like. There is sooooo much more to share, will as the internet allows.
