Weekend Wildlife

Spot the mouse!

An uninvited, but not unwelcome, visitor has made a home near our bird feeders this weekend. When we got home on Saturday afternoon, I looked out of the window to see if there was anything around. Nothing in the trees, so I scanned the floor for movement and spotted something. I was sure I was seeing things to start with, but there definitely was movement, which turned out to be a little mouse! I'm fairly sure it was wood mouse, but not completely certain. Apologies for the picture quality, it was taken through a closed window.

Wood mouse?

We also made it for our usual wander around our local patch. With all of the strange and very wet weather we've been having, the water meadows have been more 'water' than 'meadow' with fast flowing streams crossing the path in various places, causing some erosion of the path (and funnily enough, I'm teaching about erosion this week to my year 8s, talk about a real-life example).

Shortly after we had entered the path, we were surrounded by bird song, and flitting through the branches were long tailed tits, a large gang of them. There are a number of low and fallen trees near one of the streams; these beautiful little birds were taking advantage of the cover and high water level to bathe and preen. We watched them, spellbound, until we were startled by a very loud and manic screech of jays the other side of the path, possibly startled by the kestrel that had bolted overhead. We were out a little later than usual, so we did not see the full compliment of birds we would normally see, but we did glimpse a roost of magpies, and came out of the watermeadows to witness the sunset over the road.

Flock of roosting magpies

Erosion of the path due to rain water

Sunset

Bird watch & Bird box

For the past two years I have taken part in the RSPB's Big Garden Birdwatch, and I have also run the Big Schools' Birdwatch at my school. You can see the species that we saw this year here as I recorded them in my nature diary.


















I was super excited this year, as I had 22 students from years 7 - 9 take part, and more who came to see me a little too late. I made sure that I had established bird feeders just before the summer holiday to provide a variety of food for the birds to try to ensure that there was more to see this year than last year. We were lucky, instead of miserable drizzle and the few birds that we spotted last year, we had a beautiful clear day, and good views of lots of different birds. Although, I'm sure that there was a robin that waited until we had all turned our backs to come and have a nibble.

I was also lucky enough before the summer to purchase a bird box with integrated webcam, and it was attached to my lab, with a permanent video feed, in the last week of January. Only a week later, and I'm happy to report that we have already had some visitors! Two blue tits, presumably a pair, have been regularly checking out the box (every day this week), much to the delight of the classes I was teaching at the time. My tutor group and I decided that we should keep a diary of when they visited the box to see if there was a pattern; so far it's been anywhere between 8 am and 11 am. I just hope they decide to make it their home for the spring!

One of the blue tits that visited during the Big Garden Birdwatch, 26th January 2014

My Local Patch

Sunday 2nd February 2014

Walking around our local patch can always present some surprises. In the past we have seen a kingfisher on one of the streams, we have seen large flocks of magpies some 30 - 40 strong, we have witnessed low flying pairs of herons gliding overhead, and a terrified kestrel flying straight at us below the tree branches. At other times, we have a relaxing stroll, enjoying the familiarity of our surroundings and the sights and sounds of our usual residents.

View across the water meadows from the path

On entering the pathway off the A140, as always, we were surprised at how quickly the sound of traffic died away and we get absorbed into the apparent wilderness of the water meadows. The trill sound of a startled moorhen invisibly announces our arrival into its realm. On glancing towards where the sound has come from, we see some tiny movements low in the reeds, and are rewarded with the sight of a pair of tiny wrens. The air is filled with bird song, some we can identify, others we cannot. We can hear the loud and argumentative calls of blue tits, the 'teacher, teacher' songs of the great tits (it always feels like a few of the kids we teach have spotted us), and the musical chattering of gold finches. 

Robin singing

As we walk, we hear the territorial but beautiful songs of any number of robins, and see the white wing and tail flashes of a large group of chaffinches. We glance across the river to identify the cause of an almighty racket, and realise that it is, of course, a very vocal jay. A heron rewards us with a high fly-by, and it always feels that no sooner have we entered this magical place that we are heading home, over the bridge and into the dense trees. We hear the call of a stock dove, and spot a potential woodpecker nest hole to be checked out later in the year.

Possible woodpecker hole?

But we are soon reminded where we are when the houses and waterworks come into view on either side of us and suddenly out we burst onto concrete path and road. No daredevil squirrels overhanging the road high above today.




On arriving home, we realise that the bird food we put out only the previous day has gone down significantly, and, in an ironic twist, we have had more more birds and a greater number of different species than last Sunday when we took part in the Big Garden Birdwatch. Today, our visitors have included: a gold finch, our usual pair of blue tits and great tits, a coal tit, a pair of collared doves, a dunnock, a magpie and so many starlings. Yesterday, we also had a pair of stock doves. It seems the natural winter food stocks must be coming to an end. 

Stock dove

FoCal - Focus Adjustments on D4 part 1

 As with just about any nature/wildlife/bird photographer I am always hoping/trying for better focus.  I've tuned many of my camera+lens combos using the AF-Fine Tune / Manual Adjustment.  I've tried using a big printed Sign as a target as well as a printed target positioned at an angle.

A couple weeks ago I bought FoCal (on the recommendation of Andy), the computer assisted focus tuning software.  In a nutshell, you connect the camera to a laptop running this software, setup a test target for shooting, and then with the software (sometimes plus some manual intervention during the tests) you run tests and the camera takes test shots, the software/laptop analyze the results and then the software recommends an optimal AF Fine Tune setting.

The following example results are from my first few test runs, and before I learned all the possible things you can adjust in the test software to improve results.  These additional settings w/ the Pro Version include increasing the ISO to make sharper (higher shutter speed) test shots, as well as target optimizations which improve test results across photo samples.

The D4 tests are my camera and a few lenses.  The D300 and D7100 are my brother's cameras with his 80-400mm.

D4

 

D300

 

D7000

The software worked pretty well, even given that I didn't know all the options available w/ the pro version (ISO and optimization).  It was often able to establish a curve across the test focus shots, leading to a good recommendation for AF fine time value.

Here are the results in a table:

Camera	Lens	Quality of Focus [QoF]
D4	105mm	1450
D4	14-24mm	850
D4	500mm	1025
D4	50mm	820
D4	200-400mm	1370
D4	80-400mm (#1)	1270
D4	28-300mm	1180
-	-	-
D300	80-400mm (#2)	730
D7000	80-400mm (#2)	620

While the D4 is a great camera, and I am happy with those initial results, it is interesting to compare the QoF/Quality of Focus results.

I was surprised that the 14-24mm scored so low relative to the other results.  My tests were not perfect by any means so, a new set of tests might show it performs better.

The gear I have has performed fairly well over time.  I've tried lots of things to make it work - tripod, higher ISO for higher shutter speeds, AF-fine tune, etc.

The results that are odd and seem out of place are my brother's results from the D300/D7000 w/ 80-400mm (his lens).  These results were lower than all of my results w/ my D4.  My brother's had concerns over focus and sharpness.  While it is tough to compare focus results of a D4 to a D300 or D7000,  I had better results with my 80-400, as well as my D7100 (results not shared here).

I'm very interested in what other people have recorded for the 80-400mm lens, as well as their D300's and D7000's.  Please post your results for QoF in the comments.

Over the next couple months I plan to test my 80-400mm on my brother's bodies.  And I plan to test his 80-400mm on my bodies.  These will provide some good tests to compare.
















I'm also going to re-run my tests at higher shutter speeds via higher ISO settings.  This is part of the FoCal pro options.

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

Nikographer.com / Jon

Diamondback Terrapin and Luminosity Masks

Here is the beginning of my post.
Northern Diamondback Terrapin in Maryland....

I learned a new post-processing technique today - luminosity masking.

Here's my posted and edited version of the image.

 

And here's a little gif showing the difference between the LR base edit I did and the final PS edit with the use of luminosity masking to bump of the mid tone contrast and to add sharpening (USM) to just the meaningful areas (inverse of L-mask).

 The video I happened to watch that explained the technique is here.  Some good stuff in there!





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

Nikographer.com / Jon

Osprey Using Every Feather! p.s. I like Feisol.

This year has been pretty good for photographing osprey.  It started in Florida on Blue Cypress Lake, and that was off the hook.



But it has been even better here in Maryland.  A friend shared a couple spot of his and that turned in to a good spot I've visited a handful of times, and another spot I think he didn't know about, but that is nearby.  It's potentially even better!

So that leads me to the reason for this blog post.  Another cool osprey photo!



So here it is.

I've got a 500mm f/4 lens and need a big sturdy tripod.  The Gitzo tripods that are amazing are also $1,000-$1295.  I have spoken to some friends about alternative and one friend in particular recommend I buy one Feisol. 

I got a nice big one from Feisol, and in short it was what I needed, but I ran in to a few issues with it.  Over the course of about a year I had some problems and Feisol stood by their product, repaired it more than once, and just this week completely replaced the tripod.  Given the issues I had this is what I was hoping for and I am now once again a fully satisfied customer of theirs.

The history of my problems with my tripod date back a year or two.  The first thing that happened was one of the legs didn't seem to adjust correctly.  It would not stay tightly locked in like the other two legs, so it would droop sort of.  I could tighten it, but it would quickly get loose again.  To fix this Feisol replaced the entire top metal plate/structure and they reglue the carbon fiber legs to this new top plate.

This worked great at first.  Then I started to run in to problems with the legs and the reglue.  I was frustrated when things happened again but Feisol stood by their product and took many reasonable steps to make things right.  But I had more than one additional issue/incident.

Finally, most recently, Feisol did me a solid.  I sent in my tripod with a leg that needed reglueing, and due to the repeat issues, they sent it back to the manufactuer to assess and repair.  They had tried to repair it here in the USA and it didn't work.  So, they sent it overseas and to my amazement today, I got a brand new tripod in return.  It is nearly the same model, but with the additional no-spin leg technology for when the legs are loosened and extended.

I really didn't expect it, but did previously hope for it.  A new replacement to my ~$600 tripod came in the mail today.

They did the right thing by me, and it was what I was hoping for.  I am sure that the way I use my gear stresses it more than some and maybe more than many - be it on the beach in the blowing sand or over my shoulder and carrying a 500mm and D4 during a hike.  Feisol stood by my purchase, and I have to stand by them and say they did their best to stand by their product.

-Jon

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

Nikographer.com / Jon

Nikon D4 - Auto ISO (Fav Feature)

I've been shooting with the Nikon D4 now for about 9 months or so. Some of the cool features are:

1. Auto-Bracketing with gaps between shots of up to 3 stops.  You can shoot for an HDR, and in 3 exposures get either -2, 0, +2, or even as much as -3, 0, +3.
2. Bonus feature when bracketing is if you use the timer setting enabled, when you click the shutter for the first time it will take all the shots for you without having to depress the shutter again.
3. Being able to toggle the focus modes, and focus point count from outside the menus is nice.  It took a bit to learn but now it is easy to recall how to adjust things.
4. ISO adjustment is pretty straightforward with the D4, and the addition of being able to toggle Auto ISO on and off from the switches and dials works well.  You can enable/disable Auto ISO by holding the rear-ISO button and then turning the Front sub command dial.

And there it is, my favorite feature of the D4: Auto ISO.

The way I have come to use it is in two modes: Aperture Priority and Manual Mode.

Auto ISO in Aperture Priority works as you would expect - you set the aperture and the shutter speed changes depending on the available light and value you've set for Auto ISO and minimum shutter speed.  I have this set to 1/focal length.  So at 200mm it tries to maintain 1/200th of a second.  And at 500mm it tries to maintain 1/500th of a second.  As with normal Aperture Priority mode, the EV adjustment will tweak the brightness of the exposure up or down as it is adjusted + or -EV.

The down side to Aperture Priority is all you get to control is the Aperture.  And indirectly you can control the shutter speed if it gets low so that it will roughly match your focal length.

This will work with many cameras that support Auto ISO, but it works very well with the Nikon D4 since it allows greater control of how Auto ISO engages (focal length) and how clean the higher ISOs are.  I have my max ISO set to 10,000.  That's a pretty big number, and the image quality will suffer some, but in light that is that low, the ISO is upped and the camera does its job trying to get a sharp image based on focal length.

What I've described so far is great, you set the Aperture and the minimum shutter speed based on focal length (plus some EV adjustment) and the camera does the rest.

Here's how I really like to use Auto ISO though:  I shoot in Manual mode!  In manual mode I set the shutter, and the aperture.  The Auto ISO will NOT enforce the focal length adjustment since the shutter speed is manually set.  But it will cap the ISO at the max that has been set.  The exposure will also be adjusted to + or - EV even though the camera is set to manual!  The camera will operate like it does in aperture mode where EV is taken in to account, unlike in regular manual mode. 

In Auto ISO and Manual exposure mode I control the shutter, the aperture and the exposure bias via the EV adjustment.  The ISO will fluctuate up and down to meet the intended exposure.  The ISO will be adjusted both up (as expected to boost sensitivity) and down (to not blow things out).  This might be a bit unexpected, but it will allow you to go from say manual ISO at 400, to enabling Auto ISO and the resulting exposures might have ISO from 100 to 10,000! 



What this then allows is for in normal to mixed light, you can get the camera to operate at the cleanest ISO possible.  In manual mode with Auto ISO, the only thing the changes is the ISO, and it will go to the lowest value that attains the proper exposure.  And if the conditions change greatly, so will the ISO (up the max already set).

Here's another example of full manual with Auto ISO enabled.  This is shot at 1/60th of a second at f/13 and the ISO auto adjusted to ISO 140.  For these shots what I really wanted to control is the shutter speed to get a good pan, and then the f/stop to get more DoF (so focus would be more forgiving at slow shutter speeds).

That's it, probably my favorite feature of the D4 - AUTO ISO!

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

Nikographer.com / Jon