Jun 7, 2013 | Wildlife Photography
Left the house at 05:15 to spend some time down at the river. Being near the base of 10,000 foot peaks, it takes a little while for the sun to actually kiss the river. I went early because you just never know what might be around. This morning, I was greeted by a very small group of White Pelicans. Now they are a shy bunch this time of year, nesting seems to just put them on edge. I knew that on the flats where you can see a Lady Bug approach, there would be no “sneaking” up on them. So as the motto goes, “Go out without your longest lens, you’ll comeback short!” I headed out with my stand bird rig: Gitzo 5561SGT w/ Wimberley Head(w/ RRS Quick Release mount attached) is the Nikon 800f5.6 AFS (w/TC800-25e) and D4 with Di-GPS.
I had just gotten everything set up and closed the door of the truck when I made the first shot. Their expression made me feel like I’d caught them in the act…the act of what I’ll leave to your imagination. With the “cool” predawn color I shot in AWB because I wanted that blueish cast to their white plumes and knew the color contrast of their bills (male has the “bump”) against the green of the river bank, you couldn’t help but see them in the frame. I then walked perhaps 10-15′ and put the rig down because I could see they were uncomfortable with my approach. I made than made a serious of second shots and than they lowered into the river and let its flow take them down around the bend and away from me. I didn’t push them, I let them float down and away before finishing my approach and actual target species for the morning. But it was cool to be rewarded again for getting up early and on site. Nature, she’s cool! mtc
Jun 4, 2013 | Wildlife Photography
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.
Jun 4, 2013 | Wildlife Photography
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!
May 22, 2013 | Wildlife Photography
The Dipper is just the best entertainment! They are a panic in feathers 365 as they go about their daily routine. They were once called Water Ouzel but their named was changed which more reflects their basic biology. They are constantly “dipping” as they peer through the water looking for their food under its surface. Add to this mix a fledgling along with double clutching and it’s non-stop fun!
So the photographic challenge is first and foremost the water. The creek is full to the brim with the winter runoff so getting close physically for the most part if not possible. If the Dippers come to you, fly to your side of the creek, you have a chance otherwise you need big guns to get a decent size image of this fist size bird. I’ve shot here with the 300f4, 200-400VR2, 600VR2 and now with the 800AFS w/TC-25e all with success. I normally have flash for fill because of the shadows but didn’t this day. One problem with flash with all the water is the spray and mist. It’s floats in the air and often is between the flash and the subject. The flash freezes it making the image full of white orbs which are really visually distracting.
This bottom photo is the one I wanted, how’d I get it? The problem is the light gray plumage against the light colored rocks. I wanted that wide open mouth and frantic wing beats of the food begging so needed a dark background with just some light on the fledgling. Lower light levels with a moving subject means you risk an out of focus photo because of slower shutter speed. But slower shutter speed communicates the frantic beating of the wings as the fledgling begs. So I watched the parent and the fledgling. The fledgling spent a bunch of time in the sun, can’t say I blamed it. When the fledgling moved back in to this dark corner of the creekbed I didn’t take my eye off of it because of the darkish background. Luckily there was some reflected light off the water onto the fledgling. Having seen the parent come and go to feed with heartbeat speed, I knew I’d have just a moment to make the shot. With the slower shutter speed, I knew I’d get the wing beats, it was just that mouth that was in question. As the parent flew towards the kid, you see what transpired and by letting the D4 rip, captured one tack sharp frame (the 800mm is freakin sharp!) of the moment. You could sum it all up with my general wildlife photography philosophy, combining biology with technology…with a big dash of passion gets the shot!
May 21, 2013 | Wildlife Photography
So there we were after breakfast on our Mono Lake Weekend at the falls. Now the falls have had American Dipper nests since the creation of the Sierras. Knowing that, I took the 800AFS with me to the falls. For the first time, I had the dedicated TC-25e attached which makes the 800mm a 1000mm f/7.1. I figured my friends the Dippers who I’ve been photographing in this one location since 1982 would be the perfect test zone for this combo.
What I didn’t expect was the Dippers would already have fledge 1 kid and working on double clutching. Or the fact that the 800mm/TC-25e combo would be for freakin sharp! Not only sharp, but in these conditions it would focus blazing fast on the D4. OMG, I was in pig heaven! After helping a participant on our Weekend, I would use the lull time to stand at the 1000mm and watch the fun of the Dippers which was catchy, most of the Weekenders got into photographing them as well. Why not, they would practically land on your shoe! What you see here is what I saw and photographed.
The adults spent most of their time going in and out of the nest (the top frame). Their nest looks like a igloo made out of moss. Then every 10-15min, the adult would grab a grub (they get by flying underwater) and would feed the fledgling. Normally I would use a flash to light up the shadows but I didn’t think I would really be spending much time with the Dippers. Well, I was wrong but couldn’t go get the flash. So I waited until the white water would work as a reflector. The 1000mm worked beautifully, the creek really ripping and the Dippers were really active and as you might have guessed looking at the blog title, what you see here isn’t all of the story. You’d be guessing correctly, mtc.
May 17, 2013 | Wildlife Photography
Push! Just so we start on the same page, you can photograph your critters any way your heart says works. You like that click, than you are doing it the right way. There will more than likely be a point in time when you just want something more, spread your wings as it were. It’s at that moment in time you need to start pushing your photography. How do you push? You do it one foot at a time: right foot, left foot, right foot, left. In this case, the first step I recommend you take in photographing shorebirds is, gettin down!
Getting down works wonders to clean up the background, but we’ve got to do something with it. We want that clean background to make the subject pop so that’s the start, but we want to push our photography a bit further. Shooting with a D4 / 600VR2 w/TC-20e3 (damn sharp converter!) the combination of focal length and being flat on the sand makes the Marbled Godwit visually pop. It’s then we push, push the shutter release looking for that gesture!
The top image is the safe shot. It’s the one taken when there is little or no movement. It’s the safe shot because if the subject is not moving in the low light, than you have a sharp image. With wildlife, the eye at the very least has to be sharp. Then you go for a the little more riskier shot, when the Godwit start the sewing machine action looking for food. But I’m going to encourage to go beyond that, risk it all and look for that gesture when the shorebird walks and does sewing machine! In low light, this is a lot of action to freeze but can be done. This last frame with beak down and legs crossed is what I like to go for. It’s a real simple click when you look at it but then, there’s a lot going on. But makes it happen is the clean background making that gesture pop. In pushing your critter photography forward, look for the gesture.
