Fall Portrait - Snowy Owl
What can I say for this first of the 2014-15 season, the pose and colours say it all!
Merci, Pappy.
Mike
The Geese Of Autumn
This Greater Snow Goose is coming in for a landing on a light cloudy cold autumn day.
The line of white at the bottom of the photo is composed of geese which are in the water.
An advantage of a light cloud cover when photographing the white geese is that there is a more uniform palate of saturated colours, the whites are not washed out due to direct sunlight thereby showing more detail and you reduce harsh black shadows.
It's a mug's game, of course. Too many grey clouds renders everything dull.
Cheers,
Mike
Modern Moonies - Greater Snow Geese
The Fall Greater Snow Goose migration is in full swing in the Quebec City region.
Always a challenge, it's fun to try to capture the geese as they pass in front of the moon, which I managed to do late this afternoon.
This is a family of geese, two parents with their two 3-4 month-old goslings. Whether flying in line or in file, the geese usually fly with the parents on the ouside with the young in between.
Formatted to my 2:1 format to remove excess sky below and above the principle subject.
Canon 5D Mark III with the 500L f4 lens with the 1.4 Extender II, handheld @ 1/1000, f11, ISO 400, + 1/2 exposure compensation.
Cheers,
Mike
Autumn Heron
Taken with my trusty Canon 500L f4 lens with the 1.4 II Extender handheld.
I cropped it vertically from its original horizontal frame, and because of excess space above its head, I formatted to a 4/3 ratio instead of the usual 3/2.
Cheers,
Mike
Canada Geese At The Race Track
Formatted to fit my usual 8 x 16 frame.
And yes, there is a hybrid amongst the Canada Geese!
Crack Of Dawn Bittern
While waiting for Canada Geese before sunrise, I caught this guy just as the first rays of light hit it at the crack of dawn.
Canon 5d Mark III with the 500L f4 lens with the 1.4 Teleconverter, handheld at yes, 1/200, f5.6, ISO 1250, +4 exposure compensation.
As you can see by my settings, there was very little light, even less with the 1.4 Teleconverter attached, but I somehow managed not to shake too much for use at 1/200.
Small crop for composition purposes. Despeckle filter used to reduce noise.
Cheers,
Mike
Olympic Trials - Canada Geese
No digital zoom here, just the unwanted top third of the image cropped away horizontally.
Cheers,
Mike
Last Quick Peek At Dusk - Snowy Owl
Taken last February at sunset and now serves as a reminder that winter is not that far away.
But in the meanwhile, the Fall migration also brings great photo opportunities.
Cheers,
Mike
Airborne Squak Box - Canada Goose
Wood Duck A-Go-Go
Anticipation of an action due to observation helps in capturing ducks in movement. This duck was giving me signs that it wanted to take off, therefore I immediately pre-focused to wait for that "decisive moment" . . .
Canon 5D Mark III with the 500L f4 lens and 1.4 Extender II handheld @ 1/800, f 5.6, ISO 640, + 1/3 exposure compensation. Cropped for composition purposes.
Cheers,
Mike
Autumn Is Around The Corner - Canada Geese
The Canada Geese are back to their autumn staging site. Here, they takeoff early in the morning to fly off to their daily feeding ground.
Cheers,
Mike
Lunchtime At the Coopers
This young bird munches on its prey. The bird is covering its food to protect it against his siblings (called mantling, as photog friend Chuck Kling reminded me recently) who are more than eager to make off with it!
As usual when with these birds, the lighting situation was very poor. I unfortunately had to play clone-and-burn with portions of the background to remove overexposed white-patches that appeared through a few of the leaves and that were made worse by brightening up the image. As I don't normally do much background corrections, I can use more practice and experience.
Due to low light, the green-yellow reflections and tinting of the image was very strong. Although I did manage to reduce it, some still remains. My Canon 5D Mark III camera is a godsend.
Cheers,
Mike
Defensive Juvenile Cooper's Hawk
This young Cooper's Hawk spreads his wings to cover his food to hide it from his brothers and sisters while warning them off. A parent had just dropped fresh food for them and he was the first to make off with it.
Canon 5D Mark III with the 500L f4 lens handheld @ 1/400, f4, ISO 800, +4 exposure compensation.
Full-frame, no crop. Although it doesn't appear as so, there was little light available which explains my camera settings, These fledglings, who left their nest a couple of weeks ago, are readily approachable and simply ignore you.
Cheers,
Mike
Two For The Price Of One
Two Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers share a wood post in search for a suitable location for feeding.
They were found on a friend's property while photographing Blue Birds.
I'm not too pleased with the annoying diagonal line crossing the background,but beggers cannot be choosers.
Canon 5D Mark III with the 400mm 5.6 USM lens handheld @ 1/640, f5.6, ISO 400, +1 1/3 exposure compensation. Cropped for composition purposes at a 4/3 format. I had put aside my 500mm lens to give my old 400mm a try for the Blue Birds.
Cheers,
Mike
Ready Or Not, Here I Come - Blue Birds
I prefer catching these birds in flight without the nesting box, but I made an exception here due to the dynamic scene and interaction presented. Although I do not normally approach natural nests, the birds in this nesting box in a friend's yard are used to his comings and going.
This is a very late-in-the-evening situation, minutes before the sun set behind some trees, and my camera settings reflect this.
Canon 5D Mark III with the 500L f4 lens handheld @ 1/640, f4, ISO 800, +2 exposure compensation. Minimal crop for composition purposes, and a bit of dodging of the hungry nestling.
Cheers,
Mike
EXPOSITION d'art champêtre: Village en arts
Vous pouvez visionner un vidéo/entrevu de notre participation de l'exposition de l'année passée en suivant le lien (entre 16:47 et 23:08)
http://www.tvcb.ca/index.php?vID=3582
Golden Glow - Fox Pup
This cute young fox pup gives a final pose for the day. The golden glow is due to the last few minutes of light before sunset.
Canon 5D Mark III with the 500L f4 lens handheld @ 1/800, f6.3, ISO 400, +1/3 exposure compensation.
Cheers,
Mike
Tale of a Tail - Cooper's Hawk
No great tale to tell here, but it is a good-looking tail!
Cooper's Hawk caught in a late afternoon/early evening low light.
Canon 5D Mark III with the 500L f4 lens handheld @ 1/200, f4, ISO 1600, +3 exposure compensation.
Cropped for composition purposes.
Cheers,
Mike
Get Out Of My Way - Blue Birds
There's lots of early-morning traffic coming in and out of a Blue Bird nesting box as one parent brings in food for the young while the other parent blasts out with a fecal sac for disposal.
Canon 5 D Mark III with the 500L f4 lens with 1.4 Extender II on tripod @ 1/1000, f5.6, ISO 400, +1 1/3 exposure compensation. Cropped in for composition purposes.
Cheers,
Mike
Blue Bird Bugged Out
This Blue Bird transports breakfast on the fly.
Canon 5D Mark III with the 500L f4 lens with the 1.4 Extender II on tripod @ 1/1000, f5.6, +2/3 exposure compensation, ISO 400.
This is an early morning shot, with the greens of a background treeline very saturated.
This is a 50% crop - not easy to get them on the fly in focus if too close with a long telephoto lens. The longer the lens, the less depth of field therefore the less chance of a decent focus even if you do manage to get the full bird in the frame. That is why I tend to keep a little further back and crop in.
Cheers,
Mike
Tongue Action Portrait - Fox Pup
Canon 5D Mark III with the 500L f4 lens handheld @ 1/800, f10, ISO 400, +1/3 exposure compensation.
Cropped in slightly for effect.
Although my slight cropping clipped away some of the ears, I find the closer result far more dramatic because the point of interest of the shot is on the eyes and tongue.
Cheers,
Mike
Sunset Shinanigans - Fox Pups
The golden colours of dusk come into the fore as these two young fox pups play.
Canon 5D Mark III with the 500L f4 lens handheld @ 1/800, f7.1, ISO 400, +1/3 exposure compensation. Very slight crop for composition purposes.
Cheers,
Mike
Cute As A Button - Fox Pup
Canon 5D Mark III with the 500L f4 lens handheld lying down @ 1/500, f5, ISO 640, + 1/3 exposure compensation.
Full-frame no crop, although I did tilt the image about 1-3 degrees and used the free transform tool to stretch the resulting small white space created in a corner.
Late afternoon shot with a light cloud cover in front of the sun which explains my lower shutter speed and higher ISO settings than normal.
Cheers,
Mike
Dance Partners - Fox Pups
These approximately 5-week-old fox pups enjoy playing with each other in a carefree manner in a warm spring sun.
Canon 5D Mark III with the 500L f4 lens handheld at 1/800, f7.1, ISO 400, +2/3 exposure compensation.
Cheers,
Mike
Osprey Artistic Spray
Some of my photographer friends call me the King of Ca-Ca because of my humerous shots of birds doing their thing.
Here is my latest such photo - I've a reputation to maintain!
Canon 7D with the 500L f4 lens with 1.4 Extender II on monopod @ 1/1000, f6.3, ISO 400, +1 exposure compensation.
Although I had my preferred 5D Mark III with me, I used the 7D for that extra 1.6 crop factor to zoom closer to the perched bird. The disadvantage is the increased background noise as compared to the superb 5D, but I used the despecking filter in Photoshop to reduce it.
Cropped a bit for composition purposes and a few annoying branches were cloned away.
Cheers,
Mike
Spring Lust Is In The Air - Greater Snow Geese
Mating Greater Snow Geese.
Canon 7D with the 500L f lens with 1.4 Extender II, handheld @ 1/1000. f11. ISO 400, -2/3 exposure compensation.
Cropped for composition purposes. Background despeckled after sharpening.
Cheers,
Mike
Osprey - Target Spotted
This Osprey just spotted breakfast and is in his initial turn before his dive.
I used my older Canon 7D to get some more range due to its 1.6 crop factor.
Canon 7D with the 500L f4 lens with the 1.4 Extender II on a monopod at 1/1000, f5.6, ISO 640, + 1 1/3 exposure compensation.
Cropped for composition purposes.
Cheers,
Mike
Balancing Act - Osprey
With the arrival of migrating Ospreys, we have the annual opportunity to catch these superb birds in action, in this case, the bird with a fish in one claw and the branch in the other.
Canon 5D Mark III with the 500l f4 lens with 1.4 Extender II on monopod @ 1/1000, f10, ISO 400, +1 exposure compensation for the sky.
This is a crop to eliminate many unwanted branches and the tree trunk, although it would have been okay to include them.
Cheers,
Mike
Street Brawl - Greater Snow Geese
It is not uncommon to see members of a family of Snow Geese attack members of another family. These disputes for territory last but a few seconds with little or no harm done.
But, in those few seconds, very dramatic poses can be captured on camera.
I used my Canon 7D instead of my 5D Mark III for the session, because I though I needed the extra 60% reach of this 1.6 crop camera versus my full-frame. The extra zoom reach was great, but did I ever get a shock when I saw how much noise there was in the .raw files as compared to the 5D Mark III! I hadn't used the 7D in a while and forgot about how much cleaner the 5D Mark III is. It's a trade-off, and most of the noise is reduced post-processing.
Canon 7D with the 500L f4 lens with 1.4 Extender II handheld at 1/1000, f10, ISO 400, -1/3 exposure compensation. Small crop to level the horizon. My usual processing, but I did apply 3% of the cooling filter 82 to reduce an overly warm photo.
Cheers,
Mike
Encounter With The Sun - Canada Geese
I'm often on the lookout for birds passing in front of the sun or moon when conditions are right.
Here, two Canada Geese pass in front of a setting sun which was surrounded by clouds, leaving a sort of hole. This was the best one from a burst of about 6 shots. As I tracked the birds, as soon as I start seeing the sun in the view-finder, I close my eyes to protect then, and hope that the follow-through and auto-focus does the trick. Never look at the sun directly through the lens.
Canon 5D Mark III with the 500L f4 lens with the 1.4 Extender II handheld @ 1/1000, f40, ISO 800, +2 exposure compensation. Slight crop for composition purposes. A multitude of mini sensor dust specks cloned away.
Cheers,
Mike
Spring Arrival - Canada and Greater Snow Geese
With the my winter Snowy Owl season over, my camera is now turned towards the spring migration.
Don't worry, I've lots of Snowy Owl photos in my archives and I will be posting new ones throughout the summer, both for your viewing pleasure and for my nostalgic well-being.
These Canada Geese are on the move. In the background, you can see white blotches which are in fact a line of Greater Snow Geese feeding in the field.
Canon 5D Mark III with the 500L f4 lens with the 1.4 Extender II on monopod @ 1/1000, f8, ISO 400, +1 exposure compensation. Cropped slightly to properly level the horizons.
Many of my photos on this day suffered from a background distortion due to the rapid evaporation of humidity by a warm sun. In the best of situations, this can give the impression of a painter's brush-stroke. This one here isn't too bad, although many others are almost unusable.
Cheers,
Mike
Northern Harrier On The Prowl
It was a windy day and this otherwise skittish bird had to fight a headwind to avoid me once I was spotted. This gave me another precious second or two to rattle off a series of shots.
Canon 5D Mark III with the 500L f4 lens with the 1.4 Extender II @ 1/1000m f10, ISO 400, +2/3 exposure compensation. Small crop for composition purposes.
Cheers,
Mike
Snowy Owl - All Dressed Up For The Winter Ball
This Snowy Owl taken just before sunset looks like a princes with her finest winter coat ready to go out to some high-class posh event. It's hard to beat the late afternoon winter colours.
Canon 5D Mark III with the 500L f4 lens handheld @ 1/1000, f5.6, ISO 800, +1 1/3 exposure compensation. Small crop for composition purposes.
Cheers,
Mike