Muskegon, December 6th, am I spoiled? Part II

This post is a continuation about a trip that I made to Muskegon on December 6th, in which I asked myself if I’m spoiled by all the wildlife that I’m able to photograph. My answer was, yes I am spoiled.

That plays into some of the reasons that I’m not able to get the quality of images that I would like to be shooting.

That may need some explanation. I went to Muskegon, and I was up to at least 14 eagles when I stopped counting eagles. It’s too easy not to work very hard at getting good photos when good subjects are so abundant, even if I seldom see those subjects in situations that would lead to great images. I assume that great photos will just fall into my lap if I go there often enough, but it doesn’t happen that way. Relying on luck is not the way to success, it’s like playing the lottery in hopes of getting rich.

Another easy way to excuse my poor images is to blame the equipment, thinking that if only I could afford the best of camera gear, that my images would become that much better. Yes, and no.

When I research how the good wildlife photographers get the photos they do, I see that they are often using a camera and lens combination that cost nearly four times what I have invested in all my photo gear combined. That is, if they’re not photographing captive subjects. 😉

Even some of the people who I bump into in the Muskegon area have lenses that I can only dream of owning someday. On the day when I was able to get fairly good images of a peregrine falcon…

Peregrine falcon

…a person I was talking to was using a Canon 600 mm L series lens, which retails for $12,000! That lens alone cost twice what all the gear that I have combined has cost me. Even if I could afford that lens, I probably wouldn’t buy it, I’d rather spend the money taking extended vacations to shoot more photos. Besides, what good is the best equipment if I don’t know how to use it, or I forget to prepare for the photo opportunities that it’s a safe bet will come my way?

That’s where being spoiled by being able to see birds and animals that most people never see becomes a handicap in a way, like I said earlier, I assume if I go to Muskegon often enough, great photos will just happen, and I don’t think of the ways that I could improve my photos as I’m shooting them.  And, because of how often I’m able to see rare birds, and my desire to add to the list of rare birds that I’m able to photograph, I lack the patience to sit and capture the moment that would result in a spectacular image.

The snowy owl is a perfect example of that. Due to the circumstances, I couldn’t get as close to the owl as I would have liked, so I knew that I would be cropping the images that you see here. I sat there watching the owl, and occasionally shot a few more photos if it looked as if it was going to do something besides sit and soak up the sunshine.

Snowy owl

These may look like repeats of the same photos as in the last post from Muskegon, but they’re not. Wanting to make sure that I had good photos, whenever the owl moved at all, even if it was just fluffing its feathers, I shot more photos.

Snowy owl

After about twenty minutes of watching the owl, this is the way that I was beginning to feel about sitting there.

Snowy owl

I did sit up and take notice when the owl turned into the wind to check out something that it had heard.

Snowy owl

I was getting bored sitting there, I wanted to go searching for something new to photograph, and I shouldn’t have been.

I should have been thinking of ways to get even better images of the owl, such as trying the 1.4 X tele-converter behind the Beast (Sigma 150-500 mm lens), but I didn’t. I should have gotten the other camera body that had the 300 mm prime lens and tele-converter on it ready for action photos, but I didn’t. So when the owl did take flight, I was totally unprepared, and not even paying much attention to the owl by then, so I missed the shots that could have been the great ones. I lack the patience to sit in one place for very long, watching one perched bird, even if it is a snowy owl, for me to capture the special shots.

Well, that and who knows what I’ll find next to photograph, especially in the Muskegon area. The lure of seeing something new to photograph limits how long I am willing to sit in one place hoping to shoot a great photo. In some ways, starting the My Photo Life List project has been a mistake of sorts as far as my ability to sit and watch one bird is concerned.

I’m more concerned with seeing and photographing new to me species of birds for that project, and less concerned with sitting in one spot photographing a species that I have already gotten reasonably good photos of for that project. I need to strike a better balance between finding new species, and getting better photos of species I’ve already done.

I’ve considered either making or purchasing hides, or as we used to call them, blinds, and try staying hidden in one to get the great images, but I doubt that I could sit still for very long.

There have been a few days each of the last two summers when I’ve gone to Lost Lake in Muskegon State Park and hiked back to the observation deck there by the lake to use it as a hide. About half an hour is all I can sit before I start wandering around the area chasing dragonflies or looking for wildflowers. That is, unless I nap there, and I’m not going to shoot many great photos while sleeping, other than the ones in my dreams. 😉

It’s much more interesting to me to chase the smaller birds around in hopes of getting a good photo of them. It’s the “thrill of the hunt” as it is in progress that keeps me focused on one bird at that time. I can hold the Beast (Sigma 150-500 mm lens) up and heave it around following the smaller birds around as they flit from place to place in search of food for as long as it takes for the bird to make a mistake and allow me a clear photo of it.

Male northern cardinal

But photos of small birds seldom make people “oooo” and “aah” over them.

If there are action shots to shoot, I can sit in one spot and shoot away for as long as the action continues.

Female mallard in flight

Northern shoveler landing

Northern shoveler landing

Northern shovelers landing

Male northern shovelers in flight

Male northern shovelers in flight

Female northern shoveler in flight

You may be thinking that these are pretty good, what’s this guy complaining about? Well, I tend to remember my failures more so than my successes. I had two major failures on this trip, one because of my forgetting to switch off the Optical Stabilization of the Beast, one because my 60D body with the Beast on it doesn’t auto-focus fast enough for what I was trying to shoot.

First, my failure, I saw a rough-legged hawk flying almost straight at me.

Rough-legged hawk in flight

The hawk began hovering nearly directly over my head, so I got the camera body all set as far as exposure and switched to the high-speed burst mode of shooting, but since I had the lens pointed nearly vertical, the OS of the Beast caused ghosting in every one of the nearly 100 photos that I shot before the hawk moved off.

Rough-legged hawk in flight

When the hawk did move off, it wasn’t very far, and it landed, but the heat waves coming off from the bare ground spoiled this image.

Rough-legged hawk

Now then, for the camera failure, I saw a red-tailed hawk being mobbed by crows, and the hawk flew right past me in an attempt to shake the crows off from its tail. I started shooting, but the auto-focus system of my camera couldn’t keep up with the hawk, notice that each of these photos gets a little sharper as the hawk slowed down to land.

Red-tailed hawk landing

Red-tailed hawk landing

Red-tailed hawk landing

I zoomed out a little for these, as one of the crows made one last pass at the hawk.

Red-tailed hawk attacked by a crow

Red-tailed hawk attacked by a crow

Red-tailed hawk attacked by a crow

Then I zoomed back in to catch the hawk looking at me as if to ask why the crows were picking on him.

Red-tailed hawk

One good thing is that if I have some good light to work with, my portraits of birds are getting better most of the time.

Great blue heron

Canada goose

Male northern shoveler

Now then, we interrupt this post for a news flash! I did a dumb thing this afternoon, I went to the camera store to check out a new Canon 7D Mk II and also a 400 mm prime lens with doubler behind it, now I can’t stop drooling. What a camera and what a lens!

To begin with, the 7D Mk II will auto-focus if I use the Beast and the 1.4 X tele-converter, giving me an effective focal length of 700 mm. With my 60D bodies, I have to manually focus, and the images were only sharp if they were shot at close range. Here’s what the 7D, the Beast, and the Tamron extender can do together, shot through a dirty window.

700 mm, 1/320, ISO 6400

The 7D will also auto-focus if I use a 2 X tele-converter behind the 300 mm prime lens I already own.

600 mm, 1/1600 sec., ISO 400

The 7D won’t auto-focus if I use the 400 mm prime lens and a 2 X tele-converter behind it, but here’s what I got manually focusing.

800 mm, 1/800 sec., ISO 4000

And, I got this shot inside, handheld at 800 mm and a shutter speed of only 1/100th!

800 mm, 1/100 sec., ISO 6400

You’re probably thinking that these images aren’t that great, but I was giving the camera and lenses the torture tests, much higher ISO settings than I can get good photos with currently using my 60D bodies at extreme focal lengths and very slow shutter speeds for the most part.

The first thing that I noticed is that both the Beast and the 300 mm prime lenses I have were sharp at all distances when using them on the 7D body. The differences that they show when used on my 60D bodies has to be due to the body, and not the lenses. I shot quite a few photos close, mid-distances, and far away, and the Beast didn’t go blurry past 100 feet as it does on my bodies, nor did the 300 mm prime go soft at mid-distances. I had stopped trying the 1.4 extender behind the Beast, the results were too poor. Not with what I saw from the 7D today, I’d have no qualms using that set-up for birds like the snowy owl in good light at any distance.

Even with the 2X extender behind the 300 mm prime lens, it was sharp at every distance, and I didn’t have to play games with the focus to get the images sharp as I do now. With the 1.4 X extender, it was also sharp at every distance that I tried.

But the real shocker was how much better the 400 mm prime lens that I tried out is than either the Beast or the 300 mm prime lens. If you remember, I flipped back and forth between the 300 mm and 400 mm prime lenses for months, and purchased the 300 mm because of how close it can focus. I hate to admit it, but I should have purchased the 400 mm prime instead, maybe I will some day.

First, I have to save up for the 7D body first, maybe I’ll find out once I get it dialed in for my existing lenses that I’ll have no need for the 400 mm lens.

I see that I’ve been prattling on again, not making much sense. What my trip today all boils down to is this, the auto-focusing system of the 7D is head and shoulders above my 60D as is its high ISO/lower noise capabilities. Just what I need for shots like these.

Northern shovelers frolicking

Northern shovelers frolicking

Northern shovelers and a male mallard frolicking

Northern shovelers and a male mallard frolicking

Northern shovelers and a male mallard frolicking

Northern shovelers and a male mallard frolicking

Or this one.

Northern shovelers in flight

I’m really geeked at the idea of using a 7D Mk II next spring, so much so that it would be all that I could write about right now, so for now, this is the end.

Mallard rear ends in flight

That this is it for this one, thanks for stopping by!

December 20, 2014 | Categories: Birds, Muskegon County Wastewater Facility, Muskegon SGA, Nature, Photography | Tags: Bald Eagles, Birds, Hawks, Hiking, Nature, Nature photography, Photography, Photos, Snowy Owl, waterfowl | 27 Comments

Muskegon, December 6th, am I spoiled? Part I

This post is about a trip that I made to Muskegon on December 6th, and I have to ask myself, am I getting spoiled by all the somewhat rare birds that I see so often? Maybe the better way to phrase the question is am I getting spoiled by everything that I see in nature that few people get to witness in a lifetime?

Seeing a bald eagle isn’t as rare of an occurrence as it used to be here in Michigan, but how many people ever see seven eagles together squabbling over a kill?

Seven bald eagles together

Or, as in my last post, get photos of bald eagles, a golden eagle, snowy owl, snow bunting, rough-legged hawk, and a red-tailed hawk all in the same day, no matter how poor the quality of the photos were.

And speaking of my photos, I was thoroughly disappointed in the quality of them in my last post, except for the heron in flight, and most of the photos that will appear in this post.

Warning: One of my long-winded rants is to follow!

As you know, I’m planning to purchase a Canon 7D Mk II early next year, in hopes that it will improve my images. To make sure that I’m making a wise purchase that will actually help me to improve my photos, I have been watching some online video reviews of that camera. That may well lead to another rant, but I’ll stick to just one right now.

One of the videos that I watched was titled something along the lines of “Photographing wildlife using the new Canon 7D Mk II”, so I thought that I would find it helpful, not really.

It turned out that some guy who worked for an online photography magazine, and didn’t seem to know much about photography, joined one of Canon’s paid professional wildlife photographers with pre-production versions of the 7D Mk II.

They didn’t go to some wilderness location to shoot actual wildlife, they went to an animal ranch where they shot semi-tame mountain lions and wolves. They were out at mid-morning, with great lighting, and first a handler brought out a mountain lion and fed it treats to keep it performing for the photographers, who didn’t have to worry about bad lighting or the big cat running off. Next up, another handler brought out two wolves, and fed them treats to perform for the photogs, who were just a few feet away from the “wildlife”. The longest lens the photographers used were 70-200 mm.

I was thinking, that’s not the real world as far as wildlife photography that I know and do, any one can shoot good photos under the conditions that were shown in this video.

That video isn’t the only one that I’ve watched where the “wildlife” photographers were shooting in a controlled environment, another example is that many of the great images of raptors are shot at rehab centers for the raptors. The photographers can use a short lens, stick the camera right in an raptor’s face, and shoot away. They have the bird positioned for the best possible light and background, so of course they get great photos.

In fact, the more that I try to learn how the experts get such great photos, the more that I learn that most of them shoot in at least somewhat controlled circumstances these days. I think that I read or heard of one award-winning wildlife photographer being “busted” for having shot many of his images at zoos.

Well, I really don’t see much difference between shooting at a zoo, a raptor rehab center, or an animal ranch were trained wildlife is trotted out to perform for photographers.

So, the question is, how can I attempt to get photos of equal quality when I’m chasing totally wild critters as they go about their business? I can’t, although I’m always disappointed in that. I suppose that I’ll always be trying, even though logic tells me that it’s a losing battle.

However, that brings up something else, the dichotomy within myself. On one hand, I want to shoot the very best images that I can, on the other, I love watching wildlife in “action” and capturing those moments to share with others who never get the chance to see what I do.

Here’s an example of that, how many people have seen a bald eagle slip and fall on the ice? Watch the eagle on the far right.

Bald eagles, one chasing a scrap of food blown in the wind

Bald eagle fall down, go boom

(Yes, I know that I used poor grammar in the caption, it’s from the old Tweety Bird cartoons)

Notice all the other eagles watching the one fall.

Bald eagle getting up after falling

Missing from those still photos are the sounds that the eagles were making, I swear that I heard a few snickers coming from the others as the one crashed on the ice. 😉

Okay, that may be stretching it, but the eagles were very vocal, especially in this next sequence. In the flock, there was one adult, with the rest of the eagles being juveniles of varying ages. I think that the juvenile eagle with the kill was one of the adult’s offspring, and that the adult tried to chase the other juveniles off in this series.

Seven bald eagles over a kill

Notice the postures of the other eagles.

Seven bald eagles over a kill

Seven bald eagles over a kill

The adult was using the wind to provide most of the lift to keep it airborne, it hardly flapped its wings at all.

Seven bald eagles over a kill

It then let the wind take it backwards…

Seven bald eagles over a kill

…where it made a very graceful landing on the ice.

Seven bald eagles over a kill

Seven bald eagles over a kill

I also had photos of the adult skating across the ice by spreading its wings and letting the wind blow it across the ice, and a series of one of the other juveniles attempting to chase the one with the kill away from the food. But, the question is, how interesting would people who read my blog find those photos, when there are so many of the same flock of eagles?

Another question is, how could I improve those photos? Well, I could have gotten the white balance correct for the conditions at the time. Those were shot just as daylight was providing just enough light to let me shoot those with the Beast (Sigma 150-500 mm lens), and the images were not cropped at all. I suppose that I could have cropped a little, but the main point was all the eagles together on the ice.

At least I got the white balance better on those than my first shot of the morning, an eagle flying over a flock of several thousand Canada geese.

Canada geese with bald eagle flying overhead

In my defense, I had anticipated a sunny morning, so I had my cameras set to sunny for white balance, and didn’t have time to switch the setting in time to capture the eagle over the geese. All that ice didn’t help either, turning everything blue, I suppose that I may have been able to fix that with software, we’ll see in a few months. This is one time when setting the white balance to auto may have been the best choice, as I tried both the cloudy and shade settings, and everything still looks too blue because of the early morning light on the ice. And, since it was daybreak as I shot the flock of eagles, the light was changing rapidly, as you’ll see.

This is one of those bad photos that I love, the eagle with the kill decided that it had enough of the other eagles trying to take its food away from it, and took off hoping to find some peace and quiet. As all the other eagles were taking off, one was left standing on the ice watching the others as if asking “Hey, where is everybody going?”.

Bald eagles taking off

The eagle with the food was soon followed by two other eagles…

Bald eagles in flight

…then three…

Bald eagles in flight

…and eventually, the entire flock.

Bald eagles in flight

The one with the food landed, and the squabbling began all over again.

Bald eagles fighting over food

These next two images, while very poor, show how brave, or foolhardy, a crow can be.

American crow walking past an eagle

I’m not sure, but I think that the eagle is the golden eagle, but the light was too poor for me to be able to make a positive ID. It doesn’t matter, either species of eagle could have had the crow for breakfast if it were a mind to. So, how did the crow know that it was safe to walk that close to the eagle?

American crow walking past an eagle

I drove over to the Swanson/Laketon fields in hopes of finding some snow geese, no luck there, but there were four more eagles there as this poor photo shows.

Four bald eagles in a field

I know that these four can not be part of the flock on the ice, there’s no way that they could have flown past me without my having seen them. Besides, I shot poor photos of one of those four flying past me, coming from the opposite direction of where I had left the flock of seven just a few minutes before. So, that’s thirteen eagle seen so far, the seven fighting for food, the eighth on the ice, out of the frame, the eagle with the crow walking past it, now these four. But still, no photos that I would consider to be very good at all.

While at the Swanson/Laketon fields, I shot my favorite silo to capture the mood of the morning in a HDR image.

Sunrise near Muskegon

The 14th eagle of the morning let me shoot a few better photos, this is the same eagle on the same fence post as in my last post.

Bald eagle

Bald eagle

Bald eagle

You may be able to tell that I had to shoot with the eagle between myself and the early morning sun, and that I moved around, trying to get the best light and background. You may also be able to tell that it was a bit windy.

Bald eagle

As I was shooting the eagle, a huge flock of starlings flew past, resulting in this horrible photo.

Starlings in flight

My only reasons for including it is to show what I saw, and when I returned to photographing the eagle, I could tell that it was unhappy about being upstaged by a flock of starlings.

Bald eagle

Then, it gave me my best photo ever of a bald eagle in flight, sort of. These two have not been cropped at all.

Bald eagle in flight

Bald eagle in flight

Just my luck! This eagle has chosen a fence post that borders the county landfill as one of its favorite places to perch, and when I catch the eagle in flight, it’s with the landfill in the background, sigh.

That gets back to how I began this post. On one hand, I had eagles up the wazoo, up to fourteen at this point, and I saw plenty more over the course of the day. But, as the day went on, it was too difficult to keep track of which ones I had already seen, and which ones were “new”, so I stopped counting.

On the other hand, I saw fourteen eagles and got only fair shots of one of them, with bad lighting and background. I could have easily gone to the Blandford Nature Center, where they rehab raptors, and shot great images there without having to work for the photos.

I also tend to forget that most people never see fourteen (or more) eagles in a year, let alone one day, but that’s Muskegon for you. There are several breeding pairs of eagles in the Muskegon area to begin with, then, as the inland lakes begin to freeze over, the eagles that reside in those areas migrate out to the Lake Michigan shoreline so as to be able to find fish, their favorite food.

Some of you may remember a post I did a few years ago in the spring, when another photographer and I watched nearly three dozen eagles in action, fishing a small patch of open water on Mona Lake. I try not to become jaded, but after a while it becomes “Oh, another eagle, I want to see something new”. That’s probably a bad thing, but it does say a lot about the comeback that the eagles have made here in Michigan. It’s no longer a surprise to see one anywhere, anytime. It’s not even unusual to see several of them together any longer.

Still, the photographer in me wants far better photos than any that I have gotten to this point, and I tend to forget that it was just over a month ago that I shot some really good photos of two eagles.

Juvenile bald eagle

Sorry, I had to throw that one in to remind myself that I do shoot good photos from time to time.

I know that I’ve done several posts along the same lines as this one, bemoaning the fact that the critters and weather don’t often cooperate in ways that would enable me to shoot better images more often. It’s also something that I struggle with as I’m choosing which photos to save and put into my blog posts.

I could put more emphasis on just posting very few, but higher quality images….

Snowy owl watching a bald eagle flying overhead

…for how many people have seen a snowy owl, let alone one watching a bald eagle soaring overhead. I deleted the photo of the eagle, as I’ve posted enough of them already, and it wasn’t very good.

I did shoot a few videos on this trip, the “goose explosion” in my last post was one of them, here’s another, of the snowy owl.

I removed the 1.4 X tele-converter from behind the 300 mm prime lens for that video.

Here’s the flock of eagles from earlier, as shot with the Beast.

All my videos seem to share three common elements, the wind, the sounds of geese honking, and the need for improvement on my part in shooting video. 😉 Add a fourth thing to that list, most of my videos have been rather boring. All the owl did was turn its head back and forth, and the eagles were taking a break from their fighting while I shot the video of them.

However, that ties into my rant about wildlife photographers that shoot under controlled conditions, there wasn’t an animal handler just out of view tossing treats to either the eagles or the owl to keep them within range of my camera. I never know what’s going to happen, or when it’s going to happen.

Snowy owl yawning

And, when it does happen, the critter may be moving at the time, resulting in a slightly blurred image.

Snowy owl yawning

By the way, that was the second snowy owl of the day, here’s the first, shot at very long-range and cropped as much as I dared to.

Snowy owl on ice

So, am I spoiled? Yes I am! I live 45 miles from a place where I can watch over a dozen bald eagles, see at least two snowy owls, and all the other wildlife that I’ve posted photos of over the past few years. I’m not as spoiled as the “wildlife” photographers who shoot captive critters though, and I’ll probably never be able to match the quality of their photos.

However, I still have a long way to go in improving my photography skills. I try to analyze things that I did right, and things that I did wrong after every photo outing that I make, even my daily walks around home.

One thing that stands out about this trip is that I need to think ahead more, and be better prepared. I have two camera bodies, and two fairly long lenses, but up to this point, I’ve been using both set-ups the same way to account for the differences in performance between the Beast and the 300 mm prime lens as far as how sharp that each lens is at different distances.

One thing that I did right, when I first saw the second snowy owl, was that I shot a few photos in jpeg using each camera set-up. Then, since the owl wasn’t going anywhere soon, I switched over and shot RAW using the Beast for all the rest of the images, in anticipation of being able to edit my images in the future. What I should have also done was to set-up the second camera body to shoot action photos in case the owl had decided to fly away, which you know that it did eventually. But silly me, I still had both set-ups dialed in for portraits, so when the owl did fly away, I only was able to get one fair shot of it.

Snowy owl in flight

I was sitting there in my vehicle watching the owl as it looked around…

Snowy owl

…fluffed itself against the cold wind…

Snowy owl

…and did some preening…

Snowy owl

..and I sat there just watching it, rather than getting ready for what I should have known was going to happen, leaving me with photos like this one.

Snowy owl in flight

If I had set-up the second body to shoot the owl when it flew off, I could have gotten a much better image, as I did here.

Northern shovelers landing

To be continued…..

That this is it for this one, thanks for stopping by!

December 12, 2014 | Categories: Birds, Muskegon County Wastewater Facility, Muskegon SGA, Nature, Photography | Tags: Bald Eagles, Birds, Hawks, Hiking, Nature, Nature photography, Photography, Photos, Snowy Owl, waterfowl | 24 Comments