The Answer My Friend, Is Blowing In The Wind - Snowy Owl
This young Snowy Owl is all in a flutter while standing fast against a good solid wind. The ground had an thin icy crust so there was no blowing snow, which I would have like to have.
Canon 7D with 500L f4 lens with 1.4 II extender, handheld @ 1/1250, f11, ISO 400, +2/3 exposure compensation.
Cropped for composition purposes and to format to a 12 x 16 frame.
Cheers,
Mike
Snowy Owl - Flight Of The Phantom
This Snowy Owl presents an unusal display of colours and background side-lit about 20 minutes before sunset.
Certain photographers do not appreciate incomplete birds - in this case, part of the wings are clipped - but I don't mind in certain cases. Incomplete birds are sometimes called portraits :-)
Canon 7D with the 500L f4 lens handheld @ 1/800, f4, +2/3 exposure compensation, ISO 400, no crop.
Cheers,
Mike
I'm Going To Make It! Snow Bunting
This Snow Bunting seems to be making a supreme effort to perch on the branch. They are not known as perching birds. We see them more often than not flirting from one part of a field to another and landing on the ground. But, when there is a will there is a way as you will see below.
Canon 7D with the 500L f4 lens mounted on Jobu scorpion ground pod @ 1/1600, f8, ISO 400 +1/3 exposure compensation.
With my painful, old wobby knees, lying flat with the Jobu scorpion pod mount has its advantages apart from shooting low on the ground.
This scene is a setup, what we call here in Quebec 'doing a perch'. The branch is placed in an approriate spot vi-a-vis the light source and background. The birds are enticed to approach using their favourite seeds and with a little luck and a lot of patience, hopefully they land where you want them.
Cropped for composition purposes to an 8 x 12 framing format. Behind the right wing, there was a hint of a far-off out-of-focus telephone pole which I clonned away. Background despeckled to reduce noise.
Cheers,
Mike
Joyeux Noël - Merry Christmas - Xrystos Narodyvsija
Snowy Owl - Taking Care Of Business
This young Snowy Owl leaves a little gift before taking off. This is a common behaviour seen in Snowy Owls and other species before flight.
Canon 7D with the 500L f4 lens handheld @ 1/800 f4, ISO 400, +1 1/3 exposure compensation.
The sun was low on the late afternoon winter horizon.
I'm getting old, my knees are in terrible shape, and the bulky winter clothing which I'm not used to yet this season destabalized me while getting this low shot. This caused my horizon to be off.
I had to crop a bit to correcet my horizon. Even after correction, it still could use some tweeking.
There is no particular framing size after crop and horizon correction because I doubt I'll frame this one for exposition :-)
Cheers,
Mike
Chasing That Female - Mallard Ducks
While waiting for more snow and colder weather to hit our region so that I can continue searching for Snowy Owls, here is a shot from my files. This is not counting all those Greater Snow Geese pics from this Fall on file, too.
These male mallard ducks seem to be chasing after a lone female in this shot.
Canon 7D with the 500L f4 lens with 1.4 II extender on tripod @ 1/1000, f5.6, ISO 400, +1 exposure compensation.
It's always difficult getting multiple birds in focus when using zoom lenses. The depth of field is often too shallow to capture all the birds in focus - that is why I'm happy with this shot.
With the ducks in a line, I cropped to my favourite 8 x 16 frame. About 5-6 water droplets removed.
Cheers,
Mike
Snowy Owl - Sneak-Peek On The Fly
This male snowy owl shot is an example of a bad shot gone good.
The owl was perched on a hydro pole and I snapped a few vertical orientated shots of him.
He caught me by surprise and took off while my camera was still in the vertical position.
To save the shot, I cropped away the wasted top and bottom of the image and formatted it to my usual 8 x 16 frame. The full width of the image is uncropped. The result is unusual, but dramatic.
Because the shot was taken at the end of the day - I reduced the cyan in the sky.
Canon 7D with the 500L lens handheld @ 1/400, f 4.5, ISO 400, + 2/3 exposure compensation.
Cheers,
Mike
Dawn Ducks On The Draw
I'm still on my crack-of-dawn kick for photographing birds. The advantage here is of course, the unusual colours.
Here are a couple of mallards pass before the morning's first light.
Canon 7D with the 500L f4 lens handheld @ 1/500, f4, ISO 800, +2 1/3 exposure compensation.
Formatted to my usual 8 X 16 frame for exposition purposes.
Cheers,
Mike
Snowy Owl - My Day Is Done
This one scene involved a large investment in time added to the usual dose of good luck.
This male Snowy Owl greets the final moments of dusk on his perch. Not exactly up-close as desired by everyone, but how can I resist!
Canon 7D with the 500L f4 lens with 1.4 extender II on tripod @ 1/800, f 5.6, ISO 400, +2/3 exposure compensation.
Uncropped. A touch of contrast and sharpening applied.
Cheers,
Mike
Golden Boy - Snowy Owl At Dusk
This male Snowy owl was caught just before the sun set, giving him a golden glow.
Canon 7D with the 500L f4 lens with the 1.4 extender II on tripod @ 1/500, 5.6, ISO 640, +1 2/3 exposure compensation. No crop.
With the very low light and ISO 640, some noise is to be expected, but for me it is a good trade-off for the light obtained. The same goes for the distance to the owl - that will come with time.
All-in-all, a great beginning for a new season.
Cheers,
Mike
Morning Swamp Fog With Ducks And Friend
The Fall weather gives us certain opportunities to photograph ducks in the morning fog at the crack of dawn with colours that are just great!
Here, my friend Régean gets ready to photograph ducks into the sun as it bursts over the horizon and burns through the morning fog.
Canon 7D with the 500L f4 lens handheld @ 1/500, f32, ISO 400, -1 1/3 exposure compensation.
Not much done here - a bit of cropping for composition purposes and to frame as a 12 x 16, the usual corrections for contrast, etc.
Cheers,
Mike
Paratrooper Greater Snow Goose Showing Off His Size 12 Tootsies
Here is a classic daytime Greater Snow Goose pose, one that I never tire laughing at - in this case, with the added humerous expression on the face.
This Greater Snow Goose shows off his size 12 tootsies as he (or she) turns into the wind to break, lowers the landing gears and awaits for the landing as if on a parachute.
Canon 7D with the 500L f4 lens handheld @ 1/1000, f10, IS0 400, no exposure compensation.
Slight crop to straighten the bird.
Cheers,
Mike
Greater Snow Geese Mooning The Moon
It's hard enough photographing birds in flight - for some added fun, try catching them as they pass in front of a moon!
These Greater Snow Geese are turning into the wind and lowering their landing gear before entering the water where they will roost for the night. The moon wasn't totally full but hey, I'll take what I can.
Canon 7D with the 500L f4 lens with 1.4 II extender on a tripod @ 1/1000, f 13, ISO 400, - 1/3 exposure compensation.
Cropped for composition purposes and to eliminate an unwanted fourth bird and to format to a 12 x 16 frame. The late afternoon light gave a golden glow to the geese and the cyan sky hadn't yet taken on its magenta hue. As the moon rose higher in the sky, it presented with more detail and contrast, but by then it was too high for the passage of the geese.
One of the problems with this type of shot is either the moon or the birds will be in focus, and not both, because of the long focal length and relative lack of depth-of-field of the 500mm lens and 1.4 extender.
I would probably have had greater success in getting both in focus using a 70-200mm or 300mm lens, but at the cost of capturing the action farther away. In both cases, there is also the fun of co-ordinating the release of the shutter just at the right moment!
Ideally, I should have at least removed the 1.4 extender. I didn't do so, because I needed it for other shots of the geese as they arrived at tree-top level at a distance - that is the price to pay for trying to do two types of shots at the same time :-)
Cheers,
Mike
Crack Of Dawn Ducks
The Greater Snow Goose migration is in full force at the moment in our region, but there are other goodies to photograph at the same time.
With this image, I'm once more into my extreme-light kick with these ducks on the fly at first light. I love the heavily contrasted low-light found at this time of day.
Canon 7D with the 500L f4 lens on tripod @ 1/800, f4, ISO 640, +2 2/3 exposure compensation.
Cropped for composition purposes and to eliminate the head of a third duck behind the Green-winged Teal. The first duck's focus could be better, but considering it was not on the same plane as the second and the poor depth-of-field due to the f4 and lack of light, I'm not expecting perfect sharpness with total absence of noise with these light conditions, therefore I'm happy enough for this kind of shot.
Cheers,
Mike
Salut Marielle Et Daniel . . .
This is an odd title for my Greater Snow Goose pic, but there is a reason.
One of the pleasures of bird photography is the presence of good friends and the meeting of new ones.
I met Marielle and Daniel at a top-notch Greater Snow Goose photography site today, and Marielle asked me to say a hello via my site - as simple as that!
Canon 7D with the 500L f4 lens handheld @ 1/1000, f7.1, ISO 400, +1/3 exposure compensation. This image was shot using .jpg instead of .raw - I was running out of memory. I did say this is a top-notch site with tons of opportunities!
The light situation was difficult today. The light changed constantly due to variable cloud cover. Added to that, you have to be carefull with these white birds as you shoot a burst while the bird rapidly goes from blue sky then crossing the horizon to a darker background. It is very easy to blow out the whites, and the automatic focus of my Canon camera has the bad habit of losing focus when going from sky to horizon.
Slight crop for composition purposes after the horizon was straightened. The white bar at the bottom of the image, believe it or not, is composed of geese in the water! I ran a blur brush to even things out.
For this shot, I was trying to get a face-on shot with the Fall ochre vegetation in the background. I think these are much more interesting that pure sky shots, but hey, I do take those, too.
Cheers,
Mike
They Don't Call Me The Great Blue Heron For Nothing!
They Don't Call Me The Great Blue Heron For Nothing!
I've been on a kick concentrating on early morning or late afternoon light for my bird photography. Here is an example of what non-standard lighting can do.
Canon 7D with the 500L f4 lens with 1.4II extender @ 1/1250, f5.6, ISO 400, -1/3 exposure compensation.
Very slight crop for composition purposes, and a small patch of light rose colour clonned out on the upper left of the image. The usual despeckling after sharpening of the background.
Cheers,
Mike
Get Out Of My Way, Dude! Mallard Duck
I just love the complimentary background colours with this dynamic crack-of-dawn duck shot.
Canopn 7D with the 500L f4 lens handheld @ 1/800, f4, ISO 400, +1 2/3 exposure compensation.
Formatted to my usual 8 x 16 frame for my next exhibit next month before it was optimised for web use. No fancy treatment - just a bit of background despeckling after sharpening.
The Snow Geese are beginning to arrive at Cap Tourmente nature reserve. For the moment, they are mostly the older single geese that arrive before the mass with their young. These older and single geese stay in the St. Lawrence River on the tidal banks.
When the families arrive shortly, the hungry young - grey in colour - will hopefully lead their parents into the fields for feeding - as they were used to in their breeding grounds.
It is here in the fields, with the crimson-coloured autumn cliffs as a background that the geese will provide the best photo opportunities.
The breeding season was great with a very high 29% increase of the flock!
Cheers,
Mike
Post-scriptum: Today, Tuesday September 27 was a great photo day at Cap Tourmente. Not only was the conjunction of birds, light, poses and backgrounds exceptional, but the first families of Greater Snow Geeses to land and feed off the fields of the reserve arrived - aboput 100-200. I don't know how my poor knees held out!!
The last couple of days has seen the goose count rise from 8,000 to over 17,000, but these for now still spend the day in the river!
Mike
Bald Eagle
I haven't had much luck with Bald Eagles in the past - the opportunities here are not that great.
The bird was at eye level to me which was a bonus.
Canon 7D with the 500L f4 lens with 1.4II extender handheld @ 1/1000, f6.3, ISO 400, +1 2/3 exposure compensation due to the sky. Once reduced to 72ppi, I had to eliminate some halo between parts of the bird and the sky.
Cropped in about 30% and formatted for a 12 x 16 frame. Oversaturated sky tonned down. I'm not happy about the less than 100% focus of the eye, therefore this will probbaly not be printed at the intended 12 x 16. I'll just have to do better next time.
Cheers,
Mike
Do You Want A Bite? Great Blue Heron
This young heron has put a bite on his catfish supper in the dying light at the end of the day. It took a while, but yes, he did manage to swallow it.
Canon 7D with the 500L f4 lens handheld @ 1/800, f4, ISO 400, -1/3 exposure compensation.
Cropped vertically for a 12 x 9 framing. A bit of blur brush applied to background after sharpening the burn brush applied a bit to the left lower corner - pretty straight forward.
Many thanks to a friendly unknown photographer who shared his find with me!
Cheers,
Mike
Here I Come - Black Duck
Canon 7D with the 500L f4 lens handheld @ 1/1000, f4.5, ISO 400, +1 exposure compensation.
I had to crop a part to the right of the duck to properly compose the image. Slight tilt of the image to level it. Two small water droplets on the right clonned away. Formatted to my usual 12 x 16 frame.
Cheers,
Mike
Snowy Owl Patrol At The Crack Of Dawn
With summer streaking by, it's time for me to post a nostalgia shot of my favourite bird, the Snowy Owl. I also have to dig into my files to prepare for another exhibit next October.
The light is just magnificent with either the rising or setting sun when photographing birds. This one is formatted for an 8 x 16 framing. It will be printed directly on canvas.
Canon 7D with the 500L f4 lens handheld @ 1/1250, f4, ISO 400 +2/3 exposure compensation.
Cropped to frame at 8 x 16. A bit of out-of-focus vegetation clonned away. With the aperture wide-open, there was a restricted depth of field which naturally blurred both fore and background.
Cheers,
Mike
Merlin Falcon On The Hunt
While photographing a Great Blue Heron yesterday evening, my photog collegue, Patrice Allibert, caught sight of this female Merlin perched just to the right opf us.
Canon 7D with the 500L f4 lens with 1.4II extender on tripod @ 1/1000, f5.6, ISO 400, + 1 exposure compensation.
The first few frames were quickly taken without my extender, and I risked taking the time to slap it on quickly. I was lucky that the bird was perched on a tall branch sticking out of water, with the far bank way behind her - this assured a nice uncluttered background.
Cropped in about 40% to my usual 12 x 16 format. A tiny portion of the tip of the lower branch cropped away because it was curling upwards and was distracting. A touch of halo on this optimized web version blurred away on the branchs and bird's back after reducing to 72ppi. Despeckled the background after sharpening to reduce background noise. Slight dodging of the eye.
Cheers,
Mike
Shake It Up Baby! Male Bobolink
This male Bobolink gives us a bit of the old "shake it up baby" of Beatles's fame.
Canon 7D with the 500L f4 lens with 1.4II extender on tripod @ 1/800, f5.6, ISO 400, +2 1/2 exposure compensation.
Cropped for a 12 x 9 frame - basically the left and right of the shot was cropped away for the vertical look. If I kept the image horizontal, I would have set it off centre.
A plant in the lower right corner where my signature is was clonned away. Eye slightly dodged. Background despeckled aftre sharpening.
Cheers,
Mike
Retreat At Dusk
This Great Egret, the first of the season at Cap Tourmente, leaves its feeding ground to find a night roosting refuge.
Canon 7D with the 500L f4 lens with the 1.4 II extender on a tripod @ 1/800, f6.3, ISO 640, +2/3 exposure compensation.
Slight crop to place the bird at a rule-of-thirds position. A few of the more larger and whiter insect spots removed. Background despeckled after sharpening.
Cheers,
Mike
Snack-Time At The Cooper's
This young Cooper's Hawk has just received a snack delivered by mom.
Canon 7D with the 500L f4 lens on monopod @ 1/400, f4, ISO 1250, +2 1/3 exposure compensation.
As you can see by my settings, this was a very dark scene. But, because of the play of the light on the tree trunk and branch, I found it hard to resist taking my chances with sensor noise and upping the ISO to 1250.
Slight crop to format to my usual 12 x 16. The far background to the right blurred away, although it might look a bit too plastic - I think that I can improve it by desaturating the blue. Background despeckled after sharpening - despeckling was my sole method of noise reduction for this pic. A little boost in vibrancy and contrast, and voila, all done.
Thanks again to Chuck Kling for your helpful info.
Cheers,
Mike
PS: I corrected the original posted image by desaturating the right upper sky background as suggested above - much better.
Bluebird Of Happiness - Male Eastern Bluebird
This male Eastern Bluebird leaves his nesting box to search for more insects to feed his young nestlings.
Canon 7D with a 500L f4 lens with 1.4 II Extender, handheld at 1/800, f5.6, ISO 640, +2 exposure compensation. Taken late in the afternoon.
Here, because of my handheld shakiness, the bulk of the image was high to the right. Therefore, the tail was close to the edge, as was the top of the wings. I don't often do this, but I did reconstruct a bit of background to give more space for the top of the wings. I did this by extending the canvas and clonning in the extended portion. Formatted to my usual 12 x 16 frame.
I clonned out a thin splinter of wood from the nesting box behind the bird's claws.
Background despeckled after sharpening to reduce noise. I also gave a quick blur brush pass to the background to reduce it further.
Thanks to Henri-Paul and Francine for the access to their home and property.
Cheers,
Mike
Early Morning Golden Girl - Mallard Duck
For me, the best light is either early morning or late afternoon.
Canon 7D with the 500L f4 lens handheld @ 1/800, f4, ISO 400, +1 2/3 exposure compensation.
Minimal work for this one. Cropped to centre for my usual 12 x 16 frame. Face slightly lightened. Background despeckled after sharpening to put more emphasis on the duck - and that's it.
I had no problem with horizon leveling contrary to my last couple of image :-)
Cheers,
Mike
Water Games - Common Grackle
On a hot day, seek out water puddles to catch birds at play. A setting sun helps with the light.
Canon 7D with the 500L f4 lens handheld lying down @ 1/800, f4, +1 exposure compensation, ISO 400.
This one was a little more complicated to format due to my horizon being tilted while shooting lying down.
Image had its horizon corrected. I had to transform/skew the bottom right corner to bring it back onto the canvas without losing the reflection. Cropped to fit my usual 12 x 16 frame. A bunch of water spots clonned away. The pupil of the eye could have benefited with a touch-up to reduce impression of softness.
Cheers,
Mike
A Drop In The Water - Mallard Duckling
This little fella links his reflection with a drop of water from its beak.
Canon 7D with the 500L f4 lens plus a 1.4 II Extender handheld @ 1/1000, f5.6, ISO 400, + 1/3 exposure compensation.
The low late afternoon setting sun gives nice contrasty lighting. Cropped for a 12 x 16 frame, horizon straightened, a whole bunch of annoying white reflection circles clonned away, eye slightly dodged. Background despeckled after sharpening.
Cheers,
Mike
A good friend commented privately that he had a preference for a more leveling of the water.
This was one of three options that I had when I leveled the image to begin with (I did take this image with a heavy lens lying down flat on the ground).
I could level based on the water, based on the line of yellowish vegetation, or crop in to eliminate the reflection and have the yellowish vegetation for the base of the image.
I opted for the second option – and even there, the leveling could have been a touch better. Even so, because the levels of the water and vegetation are not parallel, it’s a no-win situation.
As a fourth option, I suppose I could have applied some Photoshop skewing transformation technique to render both lines parallel.
Cheers,
Mike
I'm Punching My Ticket Out Of Here! Osprey
This Osprey decided it was time to leave its perch.
Canon 7D with the 500L f4 lens and 1.4 II Extender on monopod @ 1/1250, f10, ISO 400, +2/3 exposure compensation due to the sky.
It's always hard for me to format these types of shots due to the extra wing length.
For the purpose of web placement, I chose a more squarish format. If for print, I would probably format to a 4/3 frame.
Apart from cropping for framing and the usual corrections (contrast, ect), no other major changes made to the image. After reducing to 72 ppi and sharpening, I despeckled the background to reduce noise and blurred away a touch of halo between wing and sky. Oh, yes, almost forgot, I desaturated and lightened the blue of the sky.
The first branch on the left is a little annoying and it is possible to clone it away, but hey, that's life.
Cheers,
Mike
Rising Sun With Snow Geese - Cap Tourmente
Just past 5 a.m. at Cap Tourmente this morning with a new rising sun and lots of Greater Snow Geese.
The weather had been terrible for photography the past week, and the time is drawing near before the geese depart for the final leg of their migration north, so we take what we can get.
Canon 7D with the 500L f4 lens with the 1.4 II Extender on a monopod @ 1/8000, f45 (yes, 45 and not 4.5), ISO 100, - 3 exposure compensation.
Cropped to fit a 12 x 16 framing format, a bit of sharpening and signature added, and voila, no tricks just nature's magic!
I would have wished for the geese to be closer, but they were not taking requests today - perhaps another time.
Cheers,
Mike
Wake Up, It's Morning! Greater Snow Geese
Nothing beats spring light at the crack of dawn!
Canon 7D with the 500L F4 lens with 1.4 II Extender on monopod @ 1/800, f5.6, ISO 640, +1 exposure compensation.
Cropped to a 12 x 16 format. One small blade of vegetation cropped out. Background despeckled after a small dose of sharpening to reduce noise.
Cheers,
Mike
Snow Geese Bathing In The Spring's Sun's Rays
Just because I haven't added many images to my site recently doesn't mean that I haven't been active hobbling with my wobbly knees in the field.
The last few weeks have been busy with the arrival of migrating Snow Geese. The geese are presently at their peak at Cap Tourment nature management reserve before they continue their migration north.
This one was taken last night just before the sun set below the horizon. The geese flew past and under the sun's rays. The photos taken at 5:30 in the morning at dawn were equally breathtaking!
Canon 7D with the 500L f4 lens with the 1.4 II extender, on a tripod @ 1/1000, f5.6, ISO 640, +1/3 exposure compensation.
Image tilted to level the horizon, then cropped to fit a 12 x 16 format.
Yes, for the purists, there is image noise, but I will leave it there - in my view, it adds to the texture of the image.
Cheers,
Mike
Northern Shovler Shoves Off
This guy heads for the hills after a dispute with another male.
Canon 7D with the 500L f4 lens with 1.4 Extender II handheld at 1/1000, f13, ISO 400, +1/3 exposure compensation.
Cropped in a good 35%. Background despeckled after sharpening. Not my best shot as concerns image sharpness, but I like the action pose.
Now if only we can stop getting late winter snow storms in Quebec City so that spring can really set in . . . !!
Cheers,
Mike
Dynamic Face-off - Snow Buntings
The time for winter birds has come to an end with the arrival of warmer weather and melting snow.
Canon 7D with 500L f4 lens on Jobu gimbal mounted on the Jobu Scorpion ground pod @ 1/1600, f13, ISO 400.
Cropped for an 8 x 10 frame.
Cheers,
Mike
Balancing Act - Snowy Owl
A little bit of a balancing act after this Snowy Owl landed on its perch.
Canon 400L f5.6L lens handheld @ 1/5000, f6.3, ISO 200, +2/3 exposure compensation.
Cropped to fit a 12 x 16 frame, backgrouind despeckled after sharpening.
Cheers,
Mike