Cape May - Skimmers and Light

From http://natureandwildlifephotography.blogspot.com/


Cape May is a hot spot for bird watching during fall migration. The way the state tapers off to the cape/point of New Jersey acts like a funnel where birds follow the land south and end up there, running out of coast/land and then momentarily stuck to think it over.

According to the local bird watchers who are in the know, approximately 80% of the birds that pass through the cape are immature/juvenile birds. The main reason being it is easier to migrate south 100% over land, avoiding the Delaware Bay and the water crossing. Adults know enough to take the easier inland route, while the first year birds don't. These young ones can cross but they have to stop and think about it, and then muster up the courage to make the trip over the open water.

In 2009 I made a couple trips to Cape May and this year I did 6 or 7 trips (multiple days each trip). The migrating hawks and falcons, and little birds / song birds (passerines) are most people's favorites. And they are mine too, except for the black skimmers, they are so fun to watch, and offer such great chances.



Last year I shot the skimmers a lot at sunrise and sunset and this year I did the same. Trying to get the flock and some nice light together is what makes them extra special. The skimmers might sit on the beach most of the day doing next to nothing, but around sunrise and sunset they are full of action.



As the fall season passes most of the early skimmers to leave are mature ones. By November the flock of black skimmers in Cape May is mainly juvenile birds.




Birds of Prey
This year I finally got to experience what the big big push of birds is like - seeing hawks and falcons on the frequency of seconds, not minutes or hours. Seriously. All this year it was just a couple of the days I was there, and one especially, when the action was just crazy.

The best days I had were a day or two after a storm passed through, with the backside of the weather creating winds out of the ~west which groups up the migrating birds along the coast. Perfect.



Next year I am going to visit lots again, and I will try to focus more on the migrating birds of pray. It is (too) easy to split time between them and the skimmers. Most of my visits this year were in October, and next year I am going to go a bit more earlier.

--50--

Original content posted at http://natureandwildlifephotography.blogspot.com/

Nikographer.com / Jon

Chincoteague NWR, Fall 2010

From: http://natureandwildlifephotography.blogspot.com/

A couple weeks ago I had my most productive visit to Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge in Virginia.

The thing that set the visit apart was the morning encounters I had with some herons and egrets.





Color and good light makes normal things special, and great things extra special.

I've taken lots of heron and egret photos but really just about none when there was such magical light. Two things combined - the sun was rising behind me a bit, and there was a touch of fall foliage in front of me. The two combined to bathe these birds in light and color.





Shooting at Chincoteague can be a little tough, mostly because lots of people go there, and they are often tourist types that see someone or some thing and stop and all get out at once. On the day I got these shots that happened a couple times and I left and came back hoping the birds that all flew away would come back - and it sort of worked.

While there I also saw the roughly 1000 snow geese, and a few skimmers, hawks, falcons and some shovelers and other ducks...

Original content posted at http://natureandwildlifephotography.blogspot.com/

Nikographer.com / Jon

Hide and Seek - Cape May NJ

From http://natureandwildlifephotography.blogspot.com/

My plan to hide a bit and have hawks or falcons land near my at the beach in Cape May worked.

I managed to get a handful of shots of this kestrel eating a dragonfly.






And this Video:

Original content posted at http://natureandwildlifephotography.blogspot.com/

Nikographer.com / Jon

Bodies, Glass, and Making Images

I have very few hobbies, and in the past 5 years photography has gone from something I do with a point and shoot every awkward once and a while, to something I eat, sleep and breath probably more than most folks.

Averaged over 5+ years I shoot about 200 images a day - I haven't updated that stat in the past 6 or 8 months, but it has to be consistent and around 200 still. In 5 years I've past a few hundred thousands shots and hundreds of outings. It is that persistence and repetition that makes more and more things second nature.

Gear
In 5 years I've now bought 5 bodies (d70s, d200, Fuji S5, D300 and D300s) and even more lenses but nothing huge until 2 years ago I got the 200-400mm f/4 VR lens.

The 200-400mm lens is pretty sweet and I've meant to do a review / write up, but Thom (ByThom) has one that is way more detailed than I could make and he's right on. Very good lens, struggle with converters and is weak at long range optically.

But with that and all of my other gear, I've always managed to take images with whatever I have that I like, that keep me going, motivated to learn and keep trying.

This is with a D70s and 70-300 G lens, with one off camera flash, through glass at the zoo.


With lots of time and work, and gear, I broke down and got a 500mm f/4 lens. It should be a big leap gear wise / optically over the 200-400mm. I plan to hand hold it often - and have been actually working out in an effort to hand hold the 200-400mm longer and with less strain, and the 500 is just a pound or so heavier. (If I end up carrying both around at the same time I might just need a formal Gym Membership).

Skimmers at Sunrise - Fuji S5 w/ 200-400mm f/4 vr:


Always want more, and don't blame the gear - every setup is capable of producing amazing images be it a Holga or a Hasselblad.

Probably one of the biggest things I've focused on in the past 12 or 13 months is learning to see and understand light, sunrise and sunset, and how that is key to images that aren't "Normal" or "Average". The good light is not at mid-day when it might be easiest to head out for some shooting.... Sunrise or bust.

Original content posted at http://natureandwildlifephotography.blogspot.com/

Nikographer.com / Jon

Not just clicks but photos

From: http://natureandwildlifephotography.blogspot.com/

Nature and Wildlife Photography is a strange thing in a way. It takes so much trial and error, repetition, exploration, and discovery to move forward and learn and see things. Then capturing meaningful images is another thing, and doing it in a way that others will also appreciate the nature/wildlife of it, that too takes time.

Luck is certainly one way to make that all happen. Luck is a major part of things, you can't usually wake up and know that wildlife will do something, and you can capture it, with any certainty. It just doesn't play out that way. But if you get lucky, many things click and can lead to images.

Planning, research, and making circumstances that embrace luck is another thing though. Being ready to be lucky will make for much more *good* luck.

Since there's no film to buy, and with dSLRs you can click-click and see what you've got, and move on... You have to pursue things with a passion, try and try, and get what you get, and try to learn and just be more prepared next time. And take risks, not standing on a cliff's edge, but trying something new, a new location or new technique, etc.

With time - I've learned to really look forward to each new season in the mid-atlantic area. There's always something new just around the corner and as Fall is only a month on, the future always seems to hold something worth looking forward to, something to plan for, strategize for, and hopefully make great new images as a result of the process.







-J

Original content posted at http://natureandwildlifephotography.blogspot.com/

Nikographer.com / Jon

Play the Seasons and Learn

From http://natureandwildlifephotography.blogspot.com/

You can't fight it, you have to go with the flow. Let the salmon go up river to their death, struggling to survive, but as a photographer - learn the seasons, research the places, scout them, make friends, make visits, and over time get to know places and what works best.

I guess in a nut shell that's what I've been doing for a few years or more. Traveling mostly a hundred miles this way or that way, and when it works well either learning about a location or getting some good and new images - and on the really good days both. A day with learning but no stand out images, that's still got to be counted as a success.

Cape May New Jersey is sort of my new favorite place. Last year I went a couple times, but this year I am even more in to it.



Having gone to spots here and there at Cape May and tried sunrise or sunset at a few spots I now have more info and more local knowledge. The folks that live nearby, or visit lots, they know what's up - and it can largely be a matter of asking, and also trial and error.

The hawk landed on that fence post - I was just 20 feet away, and when I moved the camera over and started to shoot he saw me and flew off a moment later. That brief encounter, what it really highlighted for me was - hawks will do anything and land and then scan the area - IF they aren't spooked off to begin with. I was there already, but when I moved and focused on him, THAT bother him.

So, that was a couple weekends ago. What happened a few minutes later was a group of ~15 birders came up to the spot near me, and walked up and started looking around. Needless to say, no more hawks landed on the fence.

A week later I was back and it was like ground-hog-day, but I had just a little more info. I was at a similar spot along the dune and the hawks were all over the place, and migrating, and flying mostly south.

What I tried differently was to not be in a spot so often traveled by people. It was still pretty close to the beach, at a dunes spot, and basically equally good for hawks.

Here's the spot I picked and how I setup with some cover. Having shot a few places where I just made the seemingly minor choice of picking some cover to try to blend in with, it really made a difference.



The thing about shooting raptors flying by close and fast though is that shooting from a tripod - that's not so good. I couldn't move around and adjust fast enough. I wound up hand holding most of the time. I'd rest the camera and lens on the tripod, and then when something was approaching I'd hand hold the camera and get ready...



What actually happened next THREE TIMES though was I was too hidden, I blended in too much for my own good. Last year I got a camo coat, and hat, and have wrapped my lens in camo too. So, THREE times at this *other* spot a hawk landed on the fence post, so close that by the time I reached for the camera and began to adjust and move to just begin to PREPARE to take a shot, the hawk was so spooked by my new found presence that it took off before I even came CLOSE to getting a shot. Three times. Once the hawk was just on right of that tall grass perched on the fence maybe 4 feet from me and the camera.

Sigh.

So, I tried to learn from that, expect things, and plan and move around differently... It didn't quite work out, but I think if I had done what I did later during the earlier encounters, it could have worked. So, for me, I learned and will try new things next time.

-

One of the great things about this time of year and Cape May also is that there are so many knowledgeable and friendly people there. In just a few visits this year, I really learned a bunch already. I will still basically say much of the bird IDs I tell people are "guesses" because I know I have so much more to learn, but, with hundreds of raptors passing by, often per hour, I kind of feel like I know more every day of every visit I'm there.



Taking time to blend in, dress right, move slowly, and predict things is something I've picked up more in the past 2 years I'd say. It's like being a hunter... The input influences the output. If you don't know what you're doing the best you can hope for is being lucky. But there more you know, the more you can predict, the more you can steer chance in your own favor.......

Find spots and go with the seasons, learn the lay of the land, patterns, and NEVER be afraid to get info from a local or fellow visitor.

-Jon

Original content posted at http://natureandwildlifephotography.blogspot.com/

Nikographer.com / Jon

Cape May - Skimmer Sunrise - Shot Details

From http://natureandwildlifephotography.blogspot.com/
I took this one a little after sunrise when the sun hid behind some clouds for a moment.



Shooting at sunrise (or sunset) really makes for a much better starting point for nice images. The low angle and shadows or side lighting can't be beat. And the warmth of it, and orange light is way better than any mid day light might be.

The bulk of the editing done on this shot were two things. First I cloned out a person that was along the shore and distracted from the light and birds. The eye just wanted to go to it. The second thing I did was to clone out the birds that were partial and along the top edge of the shots. They too seemed to be distracting. There were about 4 or 5 of the bird parts, and the parts you could see weren't enough to make an entire bird out of...

I recently commented that editing (and cloning, etc) for content was something I didn't like or do much. In the case of this image I was ok with it. I don't consider myself a purist on things like this. What ever seems to work or what my eye wants is what I go with. But as a rule I guess, I don't shoot and then edit with a mindset of "hmmm, I wonder which parts I should clone out?" That's not how I shoot/edit.

Original content posted at http://natureandwildlifephotography.blogspot.com/

Nikographer.com / Jon

Chip! Chip Phillips!

This guy rocks. I don't know who he is yet, just found his flickr stream, but he's top notch and has some amazing photos. I couldn't help but blog a few and spread the word.

This photo is a master piece in my humble opinion. It has light, depth, levels, the eye is just overloaded with wonderful things to view and ponder and enjoy!


If there ever was a photographer that I noticed, and was like wow, and thought for a moment....



This guy is about LIGHT.



I kind of want to shoot at sunrise and sunset or not at all after seeing these images.

Check out his flickr site and be amazed like I have been so far. I can't wait to explore some more.

Original content posted at http://natureandwildlifephotography.blogspot.com/

Nikographer.com / Jon

Birds Fly South

http://natureandwildlifephotography.blogspot.com/

It's that time of year. It has to be. In just 2 days I saw 2 hawks flying overhead while I was driving. And not in the place or area I'd expect them, just in residential areas right off 2 lane roads.



Hawk mountain had a 1,000+ Broadwinged Hawk day yesterday, Cape May had a 100+ American Kestral/hr day after a storm this week. I even saw 5 ducks at my local little pond for the first time in ages. There's been a kingfisher and a green heron there, but no ducks until this week.

I even have seen a handful of flotillas of Canada Geese flying generally southish.



If you are looking for volume of subjects, variety like no other time, this is it. Tons of birds are flying south right now.

I wouldn't consider it snow goose time until late November, and December.



Right now it's raptors, hawks, falcons, eagles, owls, and little birdies like warblers, sparrows, all those kinds of birds and hundreds more!


Sunrise isn't so early anymore,
and sunset isn't so late.
It's not hot out.
It's not cold out.

Do you like to complain? There's nothing to complain about now.

I'm going shooting!

nice shot

Original content posted at http://natureandwildlifephotography.blogspot.com/

Nikographer.com / Jon

Chincoteague NWR, VA pt2

From http://natureandwildlifephotography.blogspot.com/

What's neat about shooting at Chincoteague is getting to see some new behavior.

On a previous trip I was watching the herons and egrets and noticed how the gulls group up with them. The gulls don't seem to bother the herons and egrets much but they do key off of them - some times stealing their catch. What was interesting to watch though was how the gulls imitate the snowy egrets. The egrets will use their feet to stir up the bottom and get critters to reveal themselves. I saw a gull using its feet in the same way, it had to have learned it from the herons and egrets.

Shooting across from the visitors center out near the beach is surprisingly good. I would have thought the traffic or other visitors might detract, but it worked well.



I have this low LL Bean chair, it sits about 4 inches off the ground and makes for a nice seat to use and stay low, and off the sometimes wet/muddy ground.



One thing that I try to avoid is shooting from head high, tripod high, for no reason. Often I will collapse the legs on my tripod to the shortest height and then sit down, or I will extend the legs just slightly and kneel or crouch. I've only gone in to a full horizontal shooting stance a few times, but getting that low makes a difference. The two main things are the angle is more intimate, being closer to the subject, and the other thing it does is makes me less imposing - so I am not towering over a 1 feet subject standing 6 feet tall. Staying low can make a big difference like this. A couple of trips about at Chincoteague I slid closer to a group of herons and got within 20 or 25 feet of them. THey knew I was there but over time I slowly got closer and didn't trigger their fear and they stayed put, hunting, unbothered. When I was done shooting and stood up - every bird flew away. Many came back as I walked away, but that just shows the contrast of standing vs. sitting and the way birds might respond.

This Redish Egret had just caught and ate a crab - and then proceeded to stick its head underwater so it could slowly look for the other bits (legs and claws). It was neat to see and the undisturbed water made for some nice reflections...

Original content posted at http://natureandwildlifephotography.blogspot.com/

Nikographer.com / Jon

Chincoteague NWR, VA

From http://natureandwildlifephotography.blogspot.com/

I've now been something like 5 or 6 times to Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge in Virginia.

It is a pretty cool refuge - with pools and areas protected from the coast, as well as the beach right up on the Atlantic Ocean. In the summer it is a hotspot for beach goers and folks looking for wildlife too.

Compared to Blackwater NWR the mix of animals if very different in the summer. Blackwater has lots of eagles and osprey, and some herons. Chincoteague has the ponies (!) and a couple eagles and a few osprey, but most of what I saw were herons and egrets of many varieties. Things like Little Blue Herons, Redish Egrets, Snowy Egrets and Cattle Egrets are in good numbers, and of those many I've never seen at Blackwater. Something about being right along the coast makes Chincoteague have more and different birds I think.



While I've seen a handful of Black Skimmers there, I heard that over on the "NASA beach" there's like a billion. Which I would guess translates in to actually thousands, but I don't know. From what the person said it is only accessible by NASA employees. :/



In August I got some shots of the Cattle Egrets working from the backs of the Ponies! It was pretty darn cool to see. I need to review the images again and post one to flickr, they're ok but so far I wasn't super jazzed about any one image based on composition, details, behavior, etc. But here's a preview where an Egret is jumping off the back of the pony and heading to the ground to catch something. The egrets hunt for the critters that the ponies reveal as they walk around.




I'm still learning the refuge and the ins and outs, and what works best and when - both time of day and time of year.

One of the challenges is that it is pretty crowded, so it is tough to have a quiet and controlled encounter. The Wildlife Drive is open to foot and bike traffic all day, and then also car traffic after 3pm. The wildlife drive has proven cool, but I don't think I've gotten ANY of my favorite shots from there, except for a few skimmer shots. Most of what I like has been taken along the road to the beach or adjacent to the beach itself.

I'm sure the wildlife drive is better in Fall with more migratory birds there, and less people traffic. Many people I've spoken to talk about visiting in Fall and NOT summer. I like to explore and come up with those rules myself - so I visited a few times this summer, and did ok, but now hope to do even better in Fall...

-Jon

Original content posted at http://natureandwildlifephotography.blogspot.com/

Nikographer.com / Jon

A Photo Edit - Black and White Red Fox

From http://natureandwildlifephotography.blogspot.com/

I've meant to do more posts like this one. A quick take on the edit techniques used to process an image. Doing this for a straightforward image with little edits doesn't offer much. But for many images that I make there's a decent distance between what the camera captured, and how I've interpreted it, edited it, and then produced the final image.

Here's a composite with the final image on top. The bottom two images are from the raw file and are the basic images, reset to defaults in Lightroom and then color (default) and grayscale.


One of the main problems with the source image was it wasn't that sharp. It was the sharpest of the bunch from the encounter, but at 1/30th of a second at f/4, and a mix of handheld and resting on my car window/beanbag - it was hard to get a sharp shot.

color/default-raw


The sharpest part is his nose, and the DoF falls off pretty quickly. As a straight color image his eyes and attention are gripping but the image itself isn't refined enough in my opinion. The above is overly flat due to no processing, but shows signs of animal behavior and intent and that'x what drew me to the photo/moment.

Default/Grayscale


Switching to grayscale removes color and distraction, and elements that might make the mind wander. Color is a strong element on its own but for this image I really wanted to narrow the scope of it to just the fox. Converting to black and white, even though I have black and white on the brain lately, was probably a very justified move.

OK - so that's the setup. That's what I had to work with. I had seen the fox and due to the low light was shooting at pretty slow shutter speeds and wide open. My personal preference is to shoot wide open at ISO 400 and SLOW shutter speeds and let the cards fall where they may on sharpness. I don't always stick to this rule, but I try to avoid shooting at any ISO above 400. There's something about my D300 and D300s that ISO500 or beyond, just make me concerned regarding noise.

Anyway... I've been reading a book. I got it probably a year ago and just picked it up again. The book is Vincent Versace's "Welcome to Oz". In it he describes using Photoshop to turn a source image in to an artistic vision, an interpretation, something where the source file is just the starting point.

I highly recommend everyone listen to this podcast with Vinny (as I hear he's called).

Some of the concepts he talks about are how the eye moves through an image - light to dark, high contrast to low contrast, etc, etc..... Things that make sense but not what you might be concerned with when processing an image where you are really trying to (for me anyway) showcase a subject (often an animal) and show to others what you see.

So - here's the final black and white edit. This was done in Lightroom, and I used the adjustment brush a few times with different levels of lightening and darkening.



A few key edits I did were to darken the image and edges, and brighten the eyes and his nose. I also darkened the original bright spot on tht http://natureandwildlifephotography.blogspot.com/e right. Having done that edit, I removed some noise in PS with D-fine, and added my logo.

It's fine to want to get it all right in camera and I shoot for that too. Heck I shot jpg for like 3 years! Now that I shoot RAW and manual mode I strive for getting the source file as good as possible. However there's often much more to an image than that.

Let me know what you think. I'm not looking to stir up the purist's who'd capture it in camera and do NO edits ever... What do folks think about editing images to enhance and convey, and make an image become an artist photo?

-Jon

Original content posted at http://natureandwildlifephotography.blogspot.com/

Nikographer.com / Jon

Always be shooting and creating

From http://natureandwildlifephotography.blogspot.com/

While I will occasionally take a short break from either shooting or posting, I generally like to always be active and shooting and harvesting images.



This past long weekend I was very active and drove 600 miles plus, and visited 6 different places including 3 refuges, the DC Zoo, Rennfest and Susquehanna River.

I think I must have taken more than 3 or 4 thousand images. Given that amount of shooting it becomes a lot easier to have stuff to work with and find what looks best, what worked well, and process and post something.



Part of what keeps me motivated is a desire to always have something new to post and share.

This time of year, in between summer and fall - I am trying to hit as many spots / places as possible to check in with locations and see where they are during the changing seasons. In past years I'd try to make it to a couple locations very frequently and now I am trying to cast a wider net. Going some place super frequently has its benefits as far as learning the location and specifics. But now I am doing more than that, and often will also do over night trips to extend my reach - for example like visiting Chincoteague NWR.



I can't wait for fall to kick in to full gear.

-50-

Original content posted at http://natureandwildlifephotography.blogspot.com/

Nikographer.com / Jon

Black and White Photography

From - http://natureandwildlifephotography.blogspot.com/


Black and white photography is nice right, but color is so much better! Well, hmmm.

These days we all shoot color. There's no "film" in the digital world anymore, and they don't make "black and white cameras" - so that's just how it is. Color.

But really, black and white can be even stronger than color. In a way it is like the power of still over motion pictures. Movies convey more info, but a still image is less and therefore more refined, the data is more concentrated on the message or specific moment, or mood captured.

I am new to thinking in black and white. I did shoot black and white film in school and did the development myself, but that was forever ago.

A handful of times I've found B&W images or digital conversions to be the way to go. Often it is for Gorillas or Giant Pandas at the zoo.










A week ago I was listening to a podcast or something and I decided to make a change to my camera, to how I shoot and maybe how I see.

On my D300s I enabled monochromatic mode, while set to RAW+JPG. This has a couple of nice benefits. Shooting RAW still allows for everything I've been used to - full color images, RAW processing, etc. But it also makes the back of the camera images all visible in black and white. And it saves a copy of the black and white iamge as a JPG.

I think I'm going to leave it like this for a while. Maybe even try to turn it in to a project. The going vertical project from a number of months ago was fun and helped kick me in a different direction, and helped me to think and see just a little differently. I shoot both ways, but restricted my posting for about 50 shots in a row to vertical only.

The effects of trying to see and shoot in black and white might be even more beneficial. Good color can make an ok image better, but if it were better to begin with the color might set it over the top. Black and white. I'm hoping it raises my composition skills, and gives me a better eye.

We'll see. Stay tuned.

-Jon

Original content posted at http://natureandwildlifephotography.blogspot.com/

Nikographer.com / Jon