Aug 31, 2016 | Wildlife Photography
The Satin Bowerbird is one of the quirkiest birds you’re going to find on the planet! Lets start with its name. Satin is pretty obvious, their plumage color radically changes as light strikes it going from black, black to the most amazing brilliant blue. Now “Bower” might be throwing you and that refers to its crazy love shack that it creates. The male Satin Bowerbird creates this crazy stick, two wall structure and maintains it for nearly nine months of the year. Part of that structure is the “front porch” which is a collection of more sticks along with anything blue it can find. Before man showed up, it would be blue feathers from other birds. But with man came plastic so now you can find any kind of blue plastic you can imagine. Now if you want to drive a bowerbird nuts, place a piece of his blue inside the actual bower structure. He can’t get it our fast enough! Now all of this is for one purpose, to attract the female who he will mate with for only a few seconds and then out she goes as the male tries to attract the next to his bower.
This particular bower isn’t that far from the main lodge at O’Reilly’s. When it was first shared with us, we were told it had just been destroyed by another bowerbird. Later that day when we walked by it, the bower was present again. Indicating it was active, we stood there to photograph it and within a short time, the male was indeed putting the finishing touches on the bower. Over the week, we saw the bower come and go many times, being destroyed most of the time by the Australian Brush Turkey which just went through being a turkey. It never seemed to phase the Satin Bowerbird, it was just like, all part of a day in the life of a bower. The best part was watching all the care the male put into the construction of the bower. He would come in with his stick, carefully place it in the structure then using only his bill, push it into place and into the ground. The whole time, he had an eye on the canopy overhead looking for a female. One time he saw a female and man, did he turn on the charm. As you can see below, he picked up a flower (where it got that from is still a mystery). Now he has no song, sounds more like his loosing his stomach when he calls. He puffs up, does a kind of dance, points to all his blue “stuff” on his porch and hopes a lot. We never saw any mating but we saw him try a lot. It’s a helluva a biological strategy for getting lucky!
Getting the photograph you might think is a challenge but actually with today’s technology, it’s not. The photographic problems are, shooting in a dark forest a dark subject that is constantly moving. Since you’re shooting through the forest limbs, branches and debris, you have to find an avenue through it all to actually see the bower. A long lens with a narrow angle of view is key, I went with the 800mm. With it being dark, you gotta use a higher than normal ISO, I went with 800, to have a shutter speed that would prevent ghosting since you’ve gotta use flash. I turned to the D5 / SB-5000 because iTTL is so important in the exposure. To meld the ambient light (so important in these photos) with the flash (essential in these photos), I dialed in -.07 in the D5 (for the ambient light) and -3.0 for the flash (also dialed via the body). That combination is what is bringing life to this crazy bird who when it comes to love, is as smooth as satin!
Aug 24, 2016 | Wildlife Photography
The very first morning I caught just a couple of frames and that was it. They were those kind of frames which give you a taste but leave you wanting more. And in this case, the frames were in mixed light of an unique individual so I couldn’t instantly key out the bird. And it wasn’t one we’d seen on our previous trip to O’Reilly’s. A day went by before we saw another individual and this time, had a long look and photographed a typical individual and I knew in the viewfinder was a Grey Shrike-thrush. It’s actually a common species, not that hard to see nor photograph if you know where it hangs out. But I was already hooked so I went into my normal mode, making the common, uncommon.
The quest for the uncommon photo that told its story started with knowing the stage I wanted to set for my star. I wanted to speak to its living in a dark rainforest. With this idea, I started off by selecting the gear, D5 / 800mm / SB-5000 for this reason, the background. The odds were I would be shooting up into the canopy. I wanted just a squeak of light coming through the canopy and that meant a long lens with a very narrow angle of view (didn’t need long lens for subject size, its a big bird that gets real close). Since I was in a dark rainforest and shooting up into the light, flash was a must. Here the D5 / SB-5000 do a beautiful job, just brilliant if, if you dial in the right numbers to meld the light. In this case, those numbers were -0.7 exp comp in the body and -3.0 exp comp in the flash (dialed in via the body). With the stage set and technical out of the way, I just needed the star to perform. What you see is very natural biology as the Grey Shrike-thrush turn their head to listen to the noises of the forest. I just happened to luck out to have all the stars align to make the click while it was doing just that. I had to come home with the shot and I did since it hooked me the first day!
Aug 19, 2016 | Wildlife Photography
Ghosting is an old term when it comes to wildlife photography. It refers to when there are two “images” of the subject in one frame. It is caused when shooting with flash using an shutter speed too slow so it captures the ambient light exposure of the subject along with the frozen image captured by the flash. The rule of thumb is, a subject has to appear in the frame for 1/4 of the exposure time to register (100% to be captured completely). Now I’ve used ghosting creatively for wildlife for a long time. Prime example is to illustrate the drilling action of a woodpecker. Here’ in the rainforest at O’Reilly’s, I’ve been trying it to communicate the activity of some of the birds, like this Eastern Yellow Robin. They are such a delightful little bird, but all so busy. In this case, shooting with the D5 / 300PF / SB-5000, I used ghosting to show its constant activity as it flits about the forest. Is it perfect? Na, I’m still working on it as it’s not an exact science as the light levels are constantly changing in the forest. But I keep working on it because otherwise, I’ll never get it perfect, or close to. But I do like using ghosting as an effect.
Aug 18, 2016 | Wildlife Photography
O’Reilly’s in the the Australian Rainforest, flash has been an essential tool to bring color alive! The Regent Bowerbird is a prime example (above). The male takes 3-4yrs to have that satin black nd yellow plumage, a color combo you can’t help but see. But in the overwhelming dark and green light of the rainforest, without flash kissing it, the colors would be lost to the camera and out photographs.
Here’s a before and after of an Australian King Parrot to help illustrate my point. I’m not using flash because the ratio of light is harsh (I’m not fillin shadows). I’m using flash to bring to life the amazing color and in some part control the background. Shooting with the D5 / 800AFS / SB-5000, I have dialed the exp comp in the body down to -.7 and in the flash, -3 stops! I don’t want you too see the flash, I want the background to be a elegant stage for my subject. We need to meld the light, ambient and flash, to make our subject pop and tell it’s story. The flash in this case is right in the hot shoe of the camera. Not the most ideal spot but putting it on any kind of bracket sticks it up in the air further catching it on limbs and vines. But since the flash is just kissing the subject, it’s not creating any shadow so placement works fine using the shot shoe. The one thing I can’t rave about enough though is just how simply and beautifully the D5 / SB-5000 work together producing such a beautiful light. It’s so gorgeous, you can’t see it as it brings out deep forest color.
Australian King Parrot
captured by D5 / 800AFS
Aug 16, 2016 | Wildlife Photography
Superb Fairy-Wren
captured by D5 / 800f5.6 AFS
Our first twenty-four hours at O’Reilly’s has been simply brilliant! Now part of the giggle is the top photo is of a male Superb Fairy-Wren which is one of my all time favorite birds! And the first day we had a whole bunch of opportunities with them. Why do I like them? Just look at that head! Seriously and that’s not even using a flash, that’s just how they look. Brilliant, simply brilliant!
Grey Wagtail
captured by D5 / 800f5.6 AFS
The cool thing about the Superb Fairy-Wren is you can be out chasing some other bird and if you are getting skunked, the Wren appears to save the day. I came to Australia with a list of birds I wanted that, well, I didn’t do so well with on my last visit. The Grey Wagtail is one of those. The one thing that has become so overwhelming obvious to me is the amazing improvement of the gear since my last visit. This is a prime example of how the D5 / 800f5.6 AFS grab focus so bloody fast in the lost light situations. That’s not important just for the obvious reason, sharpness, but permitting you to find the subject in the viewfinder and follow it until you want to go click. Both of these birds are about the size of your thumb, incredibly small. Both are real fast little dudes and that along with size makes them a real &%*#)@ to find and follow through the viewfinder. But that’s the fun and makes the reward just that sweeter when you make the click. There are so many stories already, dying to get them all out. The challenge is finding the time and internet to get them out. mtc.
Aug 11, 2016 | Wildlife Photography
You’ve heard me say it many times, backgrounds are everything. In wildlife photography, we should be aware of that background for its pluses and minuses. The background is the stage we create to show off the star, our subject, and use the background to tell its story. That’s a real challenge and a lot to ask from something, show off something and not get in its way in the process. It’s one reason why wildlife photography is so challenging because we can’t control the subject to put it in front of the best background when we want it. This whole issue intensifies when we narrow our subject down to birds. This is when you start hearing, darn that twig!
Just like all wildlife photographers, I run into this same issue. When I started out 40yrs ago the only option was to get it right in the camera. I still rise to that same level of perfection which is why I shoot with the D5 / 800f5.6 AFS. Optics to control the background. That was the solution I found I liked best and still like best for controlling the background. The 800mm and its very narrow angle of view, especially when you add its 1.25x teleconverter and you go out to 1000mm. But guess what at times, I still say, darn that twig.
I’ve put up four photos here that show those times when you might say, darn that twig. So after you get that long lens to control the background and your start understanding that even with that long lens, there are times you’re still going to say, “darn that twig,” you gotta ask yourself, “what’s wrong with that twig anyways?” Seriously, who made the rule that you can’t have a twig(s) in the background? Isn’t that twig part of the subject’s world and if you’re telling the subject’s story, is not having that twig changing its story? Yes, I have made some bad jokes when I see a photo with a twig “skewing” a bird because in that case, the twig is simply not helping the storytelling. But there is a happy medium which is why I posted these four images when it comes to twigs in the background. So what I’m suggesting is that you don’t freak out about twigs, don’t feel you need to resort to Photoshop or peer pressure to remove it, and use it instead to tell your story. Because you might then say in an enthusiastic voice, darn that twig!
