Maybe not so far between

Well, how should I begin this post?

I suppose that I could begin by saying that as of the middle of April, I know that my work schedule is going to change before the middle of May, but I’m not sure what my new schedule will be or when it will begin exactly.

As far as the weather, it’s been a rough month, just last weekend as I type this, I had to drive through another major snowstorm that dumped up to 8 inches of snow along the route that I drive for work. My first day off from work this week was a total washout, it rained most of the day. Yesterday turned out nice after a cloudy, cool, wet start to the day, and I managed a few images worth posting.

As I’ve said, it takes time to get a good image most of the time, but luck and being observant also has their place in the mix. As I was driving from the Muskegon County wastewater facility to the Muskegon Lake Nature Preserve, I noticed a loon in a small park that’s built into the median of a major road where the road crosses the Muskegon River. I returned, hoping for a good shot of the loon, but this was the best I could do because of the lighting.

 

Although it’s not very good, it’s still one of my better images of a loon. But, I hoped that if I hung around the area for a while, that I’d be able to do better. It was while I was standing behind a tree to stay out of the loon’s sight that I noticed these.

I was lucky that they flew into an area where the light was better, and that they turned back towards me slightly as I changed my camera setting from trying to do portraits of the loon to the saved bird in flight settings of the 5D Mk IV.

However, I didn’t do so well with the loon, so there’s no reason to put any more of the images of it that I shot in this post.

After I gave up on the loon, I went to the Muskegon Lake Nature Preserve, and near the entrance, I ran into a huge flock of yellow-rumped warblers. Here are my two best images that I got.

One reason that I’m including these is that they show the differences in coloration between the two subspecies that are most common in Michigan.

The other reason that I’m showing these is that something dawned on me as I watched these and the kinglets, which will come later.

With as many of the butter butts as there was in this flock, I kept kicking myself because of the poor quality of most of the photos of them that I shot. However, they never sit still for more than a few seconds, making it tough to get a clear view of them, acquire a focus lock on them, and squeeze the shutter release before they flit away again.

I have no idea how many of the yellow-rumped warblers were in this flock, it had to have been several dozen at least. A few almost struck me as I stood there trying to shoot photos of them. That’s when it dawned on me, evolution drives these small birds to behave the way that they do, only the fastest of them gets the food when they travel in flocks the way that they do.

I watched as two or more of them would dart out of the brush to catch insects that flew past them, and of course, only one of them would successfully catch the insect. Nature rewards the quickest among the flock as they compete for food.

It was the same with the kinglets, which I’ll get to shortly, only the quickest individuals were able to catch insects flying in their area, the slow birds went hungry, or had to work harder to find food in other ways.

It also doesn’t help that in the flocks of both species, the dominant males were also busy chasing other males away when one of the other males got too close.

Since I mentioned the kinglets, specifically, ruby-crowned kinglets this time, I spent over two hours shooting photos of them, while also observing their behavior. This is the best image of the day, technically, it was cropped only slightly.

I stood in one very small area near a willow tree as dozens of these little guys…

…and gals searched of insects. Only the males display the reddish-orange feathers on the top of their heads that give this species their name. Also, the males only show those feathers…

…when there’s another male nearby. I saw several of the males give the full display of the red feathers, but the only photos I got of them were as they either were hiding them again, or just starting to display the feathers as they prepared to chase the other male away.

Okay, you’re probably tired of these already, but here’s two more photos that show how quick this species can move. I was using the 5D Mk IV set to low-speed continuous shooting, which is five frames per second. I caught one of the kinglets…

… with the next frame being this, shot as quickly as the 5D recycles to shoot at 5 frames per second.

In the split second between frames, the kinglet had almost completed its turn. I had plenty of images of empty branches from my time spent trying to photograph them as even more proof of how quickly they move, along with olive-green blurs in other photos as they flew away between shots fired in a series.

Now, back to my observations of these two large flocks of small birds. As I said, the fastest of the flock were the individuals most likely to catch flying insects, so you’d think that traveling in smaller flocks would be better for the survival of the species. However, that many eyes looking for predators is an advantage to the flock, meaning more of the flock survives. Also, I can’t prove it, but it appeared to me that the frenetic behavior of as many of these small birds as were in the flocks actually caused some insects to take flight, making the insects easier for members of the flock to detect. I think that at least twice, when a dominant male chased another male, another member of the flock flew up to catch an insect that had been spooked from hiding by the males chasing each other.

It makes sense, now that I’ve thought about it, that many birds hoping up and down branches and flitting about must scare some of the prey insects into taking flight, revealing themselves to the birds that may have otherwise not seen the insects where they were hiding. It’s as if the birds are beating the brush to drive their prey out into the open.

I lucked out with the warblers and kinglets, I didn’t have to move around much because the flocks of each stayed in one small area much longer than I’ve seen before. That allowed my desire to get the best possible photo to work in conjunction with my desire to spend more time observing nature. While I wasn’t able to get the images that I wanted, I was able to spend more time observing the members of the flock that were out of camera range, so I consider the day a success.  I’m hoping that the way things went that day sets the tone for how I do things from now on. Slow down, work to get the best image possible that day, and learn from watching as I’m doing so.

Now then, my last series of images, maybe.

Good light, with just enough shadows under each layer of feathers to highlight the separation between the feathers, helps make this one a keeper. I wish that I had been a little closer, but because there’s nothing close to the crane directly behind it, the crane really stands out from the water behind it.

I got even lower for this next one, but that may have been a mistake.

I included this one because both cranes were calling at the same time, and to show how large they are when compared to the Canada geese in the foreground. However, because I got down even lower than in the first image, now the houses more than a mile away across Muskegon Lake become a distraction in the image.

This last in the series is to show how the cranes use their long beaks to probe for food.

I have decided to add a few more photos to this post after all. Here’s a hermit thrush eating sumac drupes…

…so I can add this species to the list of species that I’ve seen eating them…

…and I added these to pass on a tip that I’ve learned, mostly on my own.

One thing that I’ve heard over and over again is to protect the highlights when shooting photos. In most cases, and in other genres of photography, that’s good advice. But in wildlife photography, when the subject is against an extremely bright background, forget the highlights, get the subject exposed correctly. As soon as I saw the thrush where it was, I went up plus 2 on my exposure compensation because of how bright the cloudy sky with the sun almost directly behind the thrush was. Yes, the highlights, the sky, are blown out, even after trying to recover them in Lightroom the best that I could, but otherwise, the hermit thrush would have been a black silhouette and you wouldn’t have been able to tell what species of bird it was, or make out the fact that it was eating the sumac drupes.

These next two images are of species common to me and appear often in my blog, but a good image is a good image.

I know that this next bird is a female, because I saw her working on her nest. She’s built her nest under the boardwalk at the Muskegon Lake Nature Preserve for at least three years that I can recall, so she’s at least that old, and it was like seeing an old friend again. She’s appeared in my blog more than a few times over those three years.

When I shot these next three photos, I wasn’t sure if I’d ever use them or not, but I’ve decided that the subject may be interesting to some people. In other parts of the country, and the world for that matter, you see photos of how they clear the roads of massive amounts of snow. In some areas along Lake Michigan, blowing sand becomes more of a problem than snow.

The sand is then trucked back to the beach…

…where a bulldozer spreads the sand out to rebuild the beach.

It’s a sure sign of spring when they clear the roads and parking lots at several of Michigan’s state parks of the sand that has covered them over the winter.

Since I’ve already gone overboard in this post, I may as well add this experimental photo as well.

In the past, I would have tried to get all three of the flower clusters in focus, and I would have failed. This time, I tried to use the limited depth of field at close range to add some depth to the image so that it looks more three-dimensional. You can see the progression of the flower clusters, even though the two clusters in the background are out of focus, while the most advanced of the clusters is in focus. And, because of the angle that I shot this image at, along with the shape of the prominent cluster, I do think that the experiment worked, that this image doesn’t look flat. My composition could have been better, but in my defense, I was chasing the flowers around while there were wind gusts above 30 MPH that day.

I’ve never tried to use depth of field and what’s in focus versus what’s out of focus to create depth in an image before, that’s something that I’ve learned from watching videos where the experts critique photos sent in by viewers. I suppose that selective focus is the reason that I like the photo of the male kinglet perched on the chain link fence that’s above this, the out of focus fencing closer and farther away from the kinglet help to give that photo some depth.

I didn’t mean for this post to be this long, but that’s how it goes sometimes. I also hope that I’ve gotten my settings correct to allow comments to my blog once again.

That’s it for this one, thanks for stopping by!

April 27, 2019 | Categories: Birds, Hiking, Nature, Photography, Photography tips | Tags: Birds, Nature, Nature photography, Photography, Photography tips, Photos | Comments Off on Maybe not so far between

Fewer and farther between

First of all, I hope that I have gotten the settings correct in WordPress for this post, I thought that I had for my last one, but it didn’t allow any comments, sorry.

While I was taking a break from blogging, it occurred to me that my blog had become very boring, and hardly worth the effort it took to continue putting out new posts that were essentially the same posts over and over again. I’ve been going to the same few places, shooting the same few species of birds for the past couple of years. The only thing that changed from post to post were my thoughts on photography and photo gear, which most people find boring.

One of the reasons that I kept returning to the same locations every week is that those locations give me the best chance of shooting enough photos to fill a blog post during my two days off from work each week, rather taking a chance that I would miss doing a post now and then as I learned a new location.

In addition, trying to shoot enough photos to fill a post quickly often put me at odds with one of my goals, getting the best possible photos that I can. That became very clear to me a few times during my break from posting, as I would be sitting somewhere in hopes of getting a great photo instead of rushing from place to place, shooting a wider variety of fair photos as I typically do. That became very clear to me a few weeks ago as I sat waiting for a pileated woodpecker to move to a place where I had a clear view of him in excellent light, instead of settling for a shot through the branches that were between myself and the woodpecker. If he had moved just a few feet higher on the tree he was investigating, I would have gotten my very best image of that species to this date. But as I sat there, the thought that I was wasting such good light by waiting kept repeating itself in my head the entire time, so I gave up waiting and moved on, which was probably a mistake.

Also, trying to shoot enough photos in one or two days to fill a post has been taking the enjoyment out of simply sitting and observing the nature around me. Since I’ve been on my blogging break, I have spent more time sitting and observing instead of rushing around trying to shoot more photos. This photo came about because I was just sitting and waiting.

If you’re feeling a bit down and need something to cheer you up, there’s few things better than watching bufflehead in action. They look to be completely out of control as they land as they use their wings and feet to steer, and once on the water, the show often continues.

I wasn’t able to photograph any of the antics of the males’ courtship displays, but I have in the past, and that is quite humorous also, but video would be a much better way to show that than still photos. However, still photos work fine when capturing a bufflehead on take off.

 

 

 

This seems like the place to switch over to some of the boring photography talk, as just as when I upgraded from the Canon 60D to the 7D Mk II and found that what I learned using the 7D improved the images that I shot with the 60D, what I learn using the 5D Mk IV is helping the images that I shoot with the 7D.

I was using the 7D because I thought that the bufflehead would take flight, and the 7D is still better for action photos than the slower 5D Mk IV. But, they didn’t take off, instead, I got my best photo to date that shows the beautiful colors of the male bufflehead’s head. However, I can still do better if I can get closer, use the 5D Mk IV, and get the light exactly right.

When it comes to photography, I’m still watching an occasional review of the newest gear coming on the market, not that I’m interesting in upgrading any of my gear now, but to stay current and to have an idea of what’s coming in the next few years.

I have taken to watching videos where the “experts” critique the images sent in by viewers, and I’m finding them helpful in my being able to improve my images. I put experts in quotes because not every one who does such videos is a true expert on the types of photography that I do most. A great example of that is Jared Polin (Fro Knows Photos) because he doesn’t shoot wildlife or landscapes. He does occasionally review those types of images, and he states up front that they are outside of his expertise, but I still find his comments and suggestions helpful. A good image from any genre is a good image, and learning how to better tweak my images in Lightroom is helpful, no matter which genre of image is being tweaked.

I find it very helpful to see so many more images shot by others than I would otherwise see, unless I was able to join and attend the meetings of the local camera club to get feedback on my images. I’m thinking that later this year, after I have my leftover medical bill paid, of taking a one on one session offered by the local camera store that includes feedback on my images along with pointers on how to improve my images.

I know that it’s mostly that I need to put more time into each image, although not always. I spent close to an hour to get these next two images, using my macro lens, an extension tube, and my homemade macro lighting rig.

 

It didn’t take me as long to get this…

…but it did take me a few tries before I got that one. I wish that I could have found a better background, but I did the best that I could.

So, it’s been another week since I worked on this post as I’ve been working out how to say what I want to say in fewer words than I typically use.

Not only do I want to change the way that I blog, I want to change the way that I approach shooting photos for my blog, and for that matter, the subject matter to some degree.

My posts were getting to be all the same, and I’m tired of posting crappy photos just so that I can say that I saw a certain species of bird while I was out.

Even if I get a technically good photo of a species…

…doesn’t mean that it was a good image of that species…

…when one shot under poor conditions showed the bird’s markings better.

Getting better images is going to require more time along with shooting more photos to sort through until I finally get the images that I desire.

I also want to take the time to photograph different aspects of nature photography, such as this image.

I suppose that you could add these to that list as well.

 

What it all boils down to is that I’d like to get more creative by shooting differently than I do now.

If only I had been a few seconds quicker as the swans swam under the bridge I was standing on.

I could continue to shoot and post images like this…

…but I’d rather shoot images like this if I could get into a better position so that I wasn’t shooting through a small opening in the brush between myself and the grackle.

I’d like to have the time to document changes as well, even if these aren’t nature photos.

You can see the progress that’s been made in tearing down this old coal-fired power plant in the past year.

But never fear, when I get good images of a bird, even a species that’s common and that I’ve posted many photos of, when I catch one singing its spring song…

…I’ll still post a photo…

…or more…

 

…because hearing the birds sing brings me a great deal of joy.

And, when I get better images of a species…

…I’ll post them as well.

Two last thoughts before I end this.

My work schedule will be changing in the next month, I have no idea what my schedule will be yet. I won’t know my hours or day(s) off until it’s my turn to bid on the runs left after the higher seniority drivers have bid on the runs the company that I work for has.

My other thought is that I’d like to add a fish eye lens to my kit someday. The earlier photos of the white pine at night weren’t quite what I wanted because my 16-35 mm lens isn’t wide enough to get the effect that I was going for in the way that the branches spread out from the trunk of the tree. I think that the addition of a true fish eye lens will work well for nature photography for close-ups of flowers and other similar subjects.

The lens I have in mind will focus down to 6 inches from the sensor plane. meaning that the front element of the lens can almost touch the subject and still get it in focus. A fish eye lens does distort reality, but it would also allow me to get more creative in my shots of flowers, fungi, and lichens, due to the extreme depth of field that comes with such a lens. I tested the lens that I have in mind out in the local camera store, and I can control how much it distorts reality by using Lightroom to control the distortion. Who knows, ultra-wide nature images may end up being the niche that I’m looking for.

That’s it for this one, thanks for stopping by!

April 12, 2019 | Categories: Birds, Hiking, Nature, Photography, Photography tips | Tags: Birds, Nature, Nature photography, Photography, Photography tips, Photos | Comments Off on Fewer and farther between

I’m back, but for how long

Note:

I had started this post with the title “I’m back and fully recharged” thinking that is how I would feel by now, but that isn’t the case. I still like the idea of sharing some of the photos that I shoot if they’re particularly good, or show some form of animal behavior that I and other may find interesting. However, I’m not sure at this time if I want to reengage in the grind of blogging on any sort of schedule. There are many reasons for this, which I’ll explain in detail in a future post, but for now, this will have to do.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Okay, I’ve on my blogging break, but I thought that as I went along, I’d jot down a few notes along the way.

My first note is that on January 26th, I noticed that it’s staying light a little later in the afternoon, which cheered me up a little.

However, that was just before the first of what maybe many brutal cold snaps hit the area. As I type this, the temperature is -9 F (-23 C) and we may finally get back above zero tomorrow. It was a miserable week for work, with almost constant lake effect snow creating very slippery roads and close to zero visibility at times. In addition, the trucks and trailers often didn’t handle the cold very well either, I’m really glad that this week is over with.

As bad as it’s been in Michigan, the surrounding states have been even colder, because they don’t have the wind coming over Lake Michigan to warm the air at all, but at least they’ve seen some sunshine in the cold, and haven’t seen the snow that we’ve gotten. I’m not sure if ten to fifteen degrees warmer is worth all the snow that’s fallen here in Michigan this past week though.

We’re forecast to get a shot of warm air above freezing next week, but that will probably mean fog from the melting of the snowpack on the ground, and limited visibility again, I hope not.

Needless to say, I’m not going out in this weather to shoot any photos, which is a shame in a way, as there are some beautiful scenes to be photographed because of the snow and cold. But, I’ve had enough of dealing with driving in the snow and working in the cold, I’m staying home catching up inside where it’s warm.

Well, another week has come and gone. Yes, it has warmed up, and that brought the fog that I was worried about, creating difficult driving conditions for work this past week. We also had an ice storm, with almost an inch of freezing rain falling in the area where I live. Once again, it created some beautiful scenes that would have been worth shooting photos of, but I was working during that time frame. I would have loved to have been able to go around at night, capturing how pretty the trees and other things covered in ice were if I hadn’t been working at the time.

Before I forget, during the cold snap last week, a pipe froze in my apartment again, sending water into my kitchen and dining area again. I was lucky this time, I was home when the water started leaking, so I was able to call maintenance before any real damage, other than to the drywall, was done. It’s one of my days off from work as I type this, and I’m waiting for the drywall repair people to show up to repair the damage. I don’t have to be here while they work, but I may as well stay home, as there’s a miserably cold rain falling outside today.

I do have some good news, my request for the second week of October off for my vacation has been approved, so I hope to return to Michigan’s upper peninsula to shoot the scenery there while the leaves on the trees are in full fall color at the time. I’m really looking forward to that!

Another week, and another foot of snow, we’re over 5 feet of snow for this winter now. This coming week looks cold, but calm for a change, with only a little snow, that will be a welcome change. Truth is, I try to forget what the weather has been like since I began my break from blogging, as driving through heavy snow every night for work has been taking a lot out of me. Along with that, we went another 7 days straight with 0% of possible sunshine, yuck!

Despite a less than ideal weather forecast yesterday, I did venture out to Muskegon just so that I wouldn’t get too rusty when it comes to taking photos. It did warm up yesterday, but the rain and fog that had been predicted held off, and I even saw a few minutes of sunshine. It was a welcome sight to say the least, but my eyes reacted to sunshine like a mole’s eyes would, and I had trouble seeing well in the brightness of the day. Even though it was hard to get around due to deep snow, I did shoot a few photos, nothing special, but it was good to get out with a camera again.

I’m going to put two of the photos that I shot in this post, not that they are very good, but for other reasons. I like this one of mallards taking off because it shows how the male closest to the camera is pushing off from the water as he explodes into flight.

Look at that leg extension, I had no idea that their legs were so long.

I’m also including this one, just because it reminds me of what an almost sunny day looks like, and because it reminds me of everything that I need to do in order to shoot even a so-so landscape photo.

I know that there’s plenty of wintry weather left to deal with, but it was nice to get outside on a warmer day when my fingers didn’t stiffen from the cold as soon as they were exposed to the air outside. And, it was really nice to see a little sunshine, even if it did last for only a few minutes.

Today, we’re back to clouds, occasional light snow, and a biting wind, so I’m back to hibernation again.

Well, another week has gone by, and we’re getting closer to spring. You wouldn’t know that if you looked outside here where I live though, but at least we didn’t receive much snow and we even had a bit of sunshine this past week.

Both to get ready for spring, and to use up a gift card from B&H Photo before it expired, I purchased several small items that will make my life easier as far as carrying and using my camera gear.

One of the items was a quick release strap system so that I can quickly and easily remove the strap from the camera during times when the strap isn’t needed. This will come in handy user a couple of different circumstances. One is when I’m birding from inside my car, such as most of the time at the Muskegon County wastewater facility. I keep two camera/lens set-ups on the passenger seat as I look for birds, one set to shoot portraits, the other to shoot action scenes. I can’t tell you the number of times that I’ve grabbed one of the cameras, only to have the camera strap get tangled around the shift lever, the parking park handle, or something else in the vehicle, causing me to miss shots. Now, I can remove the strap while I’m moving, and when I exit my car, I can quickly re-attach the strap for carrying the camera.

Another circumstance when the removable strap will come in handy is when shooting landscapes on windy days when I have the camera mounted on my tripod. Having the strap blowing around in the wind has caused camera shake in the past, so I usually end up trying the strap to the tripod once I’m getting ready to take a shot. Now, as I’m moving around looking for the best place to set-up the tripod, I’ll have the strap attached to hold the camera as I set the tripod up, and once the camera is mounted on the tripod, rather than tie the strap up, I can simply remove it.

In my last real post, I explained that I had added a quick release system to the macro lighting rig I came up with, and that it works quite well. Similarly, I’ve purchased an Acra-Swiss compatible clamp and attached it to a Manfrotto quick release plate so that I can use my long lenses which have the Acra-Swiss plates attached for use on my gimbal head equipped tripod on my Manfrotto tripod that I use for landscapes. I could explain why different tripod heads work better for some subjects than others, and how the adaptor that I came up with works, but that would be boring.

What all of this week’s update is all about is that I’m content with the gear that I have now, and that I’m refining how it all works together.

Well, another week, another miserable week as far as work is concerned. It included snow almost every night, the worst night was that of the big blizzard of 2019, the worst conditions that I’ve run into as a truck driver. I’m not even going to describe how bad conditions were, because I just want to forget that night and move on.

The forecast for this coming week isn’t much better, with near record cold predicted, but hopefully it will begin to warm up after that.

The good news is that last Friday was the nicest day of the year so far, and I took advantage of that to get out and enjoy it while shooting a few photos. The day started out frosty, but few of the images that I shot during that timeframe are worth posting, so this is the only one that I’m including.

Later, I noticed a few large snow drifts, and shot photos from various angles and distances, and I settled on this one as the best of the lot.

I was astonished by how much slight changes in the composition of the scenes dramatically changed how good the images appeared to me, changing by only a few feet made far more difference that I thought that it would. That’s something that I’m constantly reminded of when shooting landscapes, a genre of photography that needs more work on my part. But at least I did try different angles and compositions for a change, to get at least one good image.

I saw only one or two eagles at most, I guess that the time has come for the flock that had spent the winter there at the Muskegon County wastewater facility to break up, and move to their respective home territories, despite the fact that there’s still plenty of winter left. The breeding adults I can understand moving already, as it’s the time of the year for them to rebuild their nests, and begin laying eggs soon. I’m not sure why all the juveniles also left, maybe it’s so that they have time to stake out territories of their own.

I did find a few snow buntings, and once again, I tried to get an excellent image of one, but I failed.

It’s frustrating in some ways, funny in others, how much time and effort that I put into getting exactly the shot that I want when it comes to certain species of birds, or other subjects, but those images never come to fruition.

On the other hand I guess that I’m lucky when it comes to other subjects.

That was shot with the 400 mm lens on the 7D Mk II body, because I thought that the owl was about to take off. I spent well over an hour with that owl, working my way a little closer from time to time, and I did get this image.

And of course, I shot plenty of other images of the snowy as well, here’s two more.

By the way, these were shot with the 100-400 mm lens, 2X tele-converter, on the 5D Mk IV and cropped only a little.

I still haven’t gotten “perfect” images of a snowy yet, but I do pretty darned good, if I do say so myself. It helps that this one wasn’t squinting in the sunshine all the time like most of them do.

Well, it’s now the month of March, and not much has changed, it’s still cold and snowy here. In fact, we came close to setting records for how cold it was this past week. However, I can’t stand being cooped up inside, so I ventured out on a horrible day for photography last week.

I think that a few birds are beginning to return north for the summer despite the cold, and they were a sight for sore eyes even if the light was horrible.

I like these next two despite the poor light, I wish that I could get the ducks to space themselves out like in these when the light is better.

Maybe someday.

Also, from the bad photos of interesting bird behavior files, I have these.

When I saw the bluebird open its mouth, I kept my finger down on the shutter release.

I thought that it may be going to sing, but I was wrong.

Many species of predator birds swallow their prey whole, then hack up the indigestible parts of the prey in the form of pellets, I didn’t know that songbirds did the same thing when it comes to the seeds inside berries that the swallow whole.

But this series of photos show that they do, and the bluebird acted as if it wanted me to know that by depositing the seeds on the branch in front of it.

It’s kind of gross in reality.

But there you have it.

It was one of those days when all color seemed to be sucked out of everything, and I tried to capture that in this image.

Yes, it’s still so cold around here that ice fishermen are still out on a lake as large as Muskegon Lake is. I wish that I had found a composition that showed the bright red of the fishing shanty better, but that was the best of all the attempts I tried.

A quick stop at the Muskegon State Park beach produced this image.

From there, I went to Duck Lake State Park to shoot these.

That’s a “dormant” ice volcano, when the wind is strong enough, it blows the lake water up under the ice, which rises to accommodate the added water. Eventually, the weight of the ice is enough, it falls again, pushing the water up through these ice volcanos. One of the days I’ll have to shoot a video of it as it happens, it was too calm on this day.

These next two are simply the best that I could come up with as far a landscape images this day. Nothing special, just practice.

 

I’m hoping that it gets above freezing tomorrow, with some sun, which would be very welcome!

Woo hoo! It looks as if spring is finally arriving here in west Michigan! It may not look that way though from the photos that I shot last week, but it was the nicest day of the year so far up until then, and we’ve had several even nicer days since. I shot more snow and ice photos than birds…

…and even this “bird” photo was more about the sun on the ice than the gulls.

Scenes like this next one won’t be seen around here until next winter…

…I hope, but that applies to most of the photos from last week.

 

I went from Muskegon State Park north to Duck Lake State Park to shoot the rest of the images from the day.

This ice formation looked to me like a giant sea turtle trying to pull itself out of the icy water of Lake Michigan.

So, as I looked around for other interesting ice formations, I shot the “turtle” from many angles.

I also tried a few black and white images.

 

But mostly, I shot the ice turtle on such a great day.

 

 

 

 

 

With the bright sunshine, no wind to speak of, and warmer temperatures, it was the first day this year when it felt pleasant to be outside.

By the way, we’ve had almost as many minutes of sunshine the past week as we had all winter long going back to the first of November of last year, it was most welcome, believe me.

It won’t be as nice today when I go out to shoot photos, as there’ll be intermittent rain showers and possibly a thunderstorm or two moving through the area. In fact, it will be a wet, sloppy mess today, but the temperature will be warm enough to go without a parka or even a jacket if it gets as warm as the forecast says it will be. Plus, many species of birds have begun to arrive as they’re anticipating spring as well, and it will be great to see and hear them again after such a long, drawn out winter as this one has been.

It’s been a couple of weeks since I’ve added anything to this post, for the reason in the note at the start of this post. This one is too long already, so as I said earlier, I’ll explain my current feelings on blogging in my next post.

That’s it for this one, thanks for stopping by!

March 31, 2019 | Categories: Birds, Hiking, Nature, Photography, Photography tips | Tags: Birds, Nature, Nature photography, Photography, Photography tips, Photos | Comments Off on I’m back, but for how long

Welcome 2019, but time for a break

Well, so far January has been a little milder than an average year here in West Michigan, however, sunshine has been as rare as ever so far this winter. I’m also having difficulty in finding birds other than eagles to photograph, and I’m not entirely sure of why that’s the case. Some of the reasons are that I’m no longer shooting photos of birds that are really out of camera range, in dreadful light, or that refuse to pose for me. Also, I’ve made what for me is a huge investment in very good cameras and lenses, so I’ve been extra cautious with that gear to protect it all from the winter weather. I’m thinking of purchasing a good quality point and shoot camera that I can carry in a pocket to take with me while walking through the woods. I’m afraid that I won’t be able to afford one until next winter though, since my purchases of the Canon 5D Mk IV and the 24-70 mm lens have left my bank account drained.

I am, however, shooting plenty of images of eagles in action, which I’ll get to in a while here. First, I’m going to start with an image that I shot at sunset on one of the few sunny days that I can remember so far in the new year.

I started with that one because it fits the header of my blog better than this version of the scene…

…which I much prefer over the first version.

By the way, besides purchasing the full frame 5D Mk IV and the two wide-angle lenses that were upgrades over the crop sensor versions I used to use, I’ve also purchased a new backpack to hold all of my full frame gear, along with another holster bag that’s large enough to accept any of my camera bodies with the battery grips and tripod quick release plates attached to the cameras.

One of my 60D bodies was slightly damaged while I had it in the old backpack, and I didn’t want the same to happen to any of my newer gear. I searched long and hard to find the right bags for me this time, and I found ones that I really love. The backpack holds any of my cameras comfortably and safely, along with my lenses and other accessories needed. It’s also very convenient to access whatever body and lens combination that I choose to carry in the top of the backpack, it stands up on its own, and I only have to partially unzip the bag to get to the second set-up. If I need an item stored lower in the bag, all I have to do is lay the bag on its back and unzip the rest of it. It also has dividers that have padding on both sides of a rigid center so the backpack is much more resistant to being crushed and my gear damaged than the one that I use for my crop sensor gear.

The holster bag is large enough to comfortably and easily hold a second body with an attached lens, and a second lens if needed, or my flash unit and other accessories for the flash if I’m planning on shooting macro images. It is also stronger than the holster bag that I had been using, along with being large enough to hold the camera bodies that I use now with all the accessories attached to the bodies.

Toward the end of last summer, or possibly early fall, I showed a photo of a rig that I came up with to hold my flash unit in place while shooting macros.

At the time that I shot that photo, I had to remove the tripod quick release plate from the camera body that I wanted to use the lighting rig on, then screw the rig to the camera body. That was a pain to do each time, so I purchased a quick release clamp that’s the same as on the head of my tripod, so now, I can quickly clamp the lighting rig to any of my camera bodies I choose to use, then just as quickly, remove the lighting rig from the body to shoot normally.

That has worked so well, that I’m planning on coming up with a similar set-up that will allow me to use any of my camera and lens combinations on both of the tripod heads that I use.

News flash:

But, rather than bore every one with what I have in mind, I have an announcement to make.

I think that it’s time for me to take a break from blogging for a while again. Over the years, I have taken several such breaks for several months each time, and they do me a world of good as far as content and motivation for continuing to blog.

There are several reasons why I’m choosing now as the time for a break, the weather and the lack of subjects to photograph, along with my computer.

First the weather and lack of subjects to photograph. It’s turned extremely cold here in Michigan, so cold that schools have been closing due to the wind chill on some days. I love the camera gear that I have now, and don’t want to risk damaging any of it by exposing it to cold that is well below Canon’s recommendations as far as temperature. Then, there’s the almost constant lake effect cloud cover that comes with the cold. We have one grey overcast dreary day after another when the weather pattern sets up as it is now, along with copious amounts of lake effect snow that makes driving a difficult task. I have to put up with it for work, I’d rather not have to do the same on my days off from work. And, I’d rather not go back to shooting poor photos just to fill my blog posts with after I’ve worked so hard to improve my skills to the level where I’m at now.

I’m also having trouble finding birds other than eagles to photograph, which I said earlier. I should include gulls and crows along with eagles, but frankly, I have enough photos of gulls already, the same with crows. For over a month, I’ve had trouble finding even the most common of smaller birds such as chickadees and cardinals to try to photograph, and I’m not sure why that is. I’ve gone to my favorite spots for smaller birds and not seen so much as a feather during this time, and I’ve seldom even heard a bird in the distance.

Then, there’s the situation with my computer, which is an iMac. About two weeks ago I decided that it was time for me to update the operating system to “Mohave”, Apple’s latest and supposedly greatest. When the upgrade was finally installed, it was like starting with a brand new computer, most of my settings had reverted back to the default settings. The upgrade also caused Keychain, the Apple app that stores passwords and the like so that you don’t have to remember them every time you sign on to a web site to have been emptied, so I had to go to every web site that requires a password and sign in as from scratch, then store those passwords in Keychain once again.

Fortunately, I save all my passwords in a text file, so that task wasn’t too bad, but then another problem popped up. I found that my Email was going to all different folders than the way that I had the system set-up to handle incoming Emails, they were going everywhere with no rhyme or reason to which folder they were going to. It took me a while to track them all down, and send them to the correct folders. I guess that’s what I get for trying to be organized.

Then, once I had all the Emails in their proper folders, another problem popped up, this one has to do with WordPress and my ability to comment on or like posts from other bloggers. This seems to be based on the themes that other bloggers use, there are some WordPress sites that I have not been able to successfully log into at all since I did the OS update. For other WordPress sites, I have to log in both to leave a comment and then log in again to like the post, and even then, the system doesn’t always work as it should. I could go on, but I’ll sum it up by saying that it’s been a mess.

Oh, and one other thing, since I did the upgrade, neither Lightroom or Photomatix work quite as they should, and they will not work together at all the way that they used to. This means that processing the few photos that I’ve shot lately has taken much more time than it should have. This is really problematic for me, as I’m using the standalone version of Lightroom which is no longer supported by Adobe. I doubt if Adobe will upgrade the version of Lightroom that I use, they want to push every one into their subscription version that requires a monthly fee to use.

I was planning on switching over the subscription version eventually, probably later this year, but it looks as if I’m going to be forced to do so ahead of my schedule. That version is affordable, but it was an expense that I was trying to put off until I had the entire hospital bill from two years ago paid off before I made the switch. I only have a few more payments to make, so the end is in sight as far as that bill is concerned, and by taking a break from blogging for a while, it will be helpful to my wallet as well.

Anyway, time for a few photos, these were all shot last week, when there was a rare sunny (for the most part) day.

This series shows an adult eagle chasing a juvenile…

 

…and the gyrations that the eagles can make in flight.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

These next two show how cold and windy it’s been lately, cold enough for the ice to get quite thick, and windy enough that waves were able to break the ice up and throw it on shore.

 

 

These two show a small part of the flock of gulls that soar over the landfill looking for scraps of food to eat.

 

At least there was some sun before the lake effect clouds rolled back in. However, not even the 5D Mk IV captured the colors in the sky the way that I hoped that it would.

Going back to the day when I shot the sunset seen earlier, I shot these photos.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I think that I made the most out of what little sun we’ve had around here.

 

 

 

Since this will be my last post for a while, I may as well throw in a few more photos.

 

 

 

 

Okay, I think that’s enough for now, in fact, enough until I return from this short break in my blogging. Not only has the weather taken a turn for the worse, with bitterly cold temperatures forecast for over a week, but this will also give me time to catch up with other things in my life that I’ve been putting off.

I should be back to blogging on a regular basis again towards the end of March, at least I hope that it warms up by then. In the meantime, I’ll do a few more posts of individual species of birds in the My Photo Life List project, but I won’t publicize them, and they will be posted with no comments or likes allowed. Those posts have never been very popular anyway, so I doubt if any one will miss them or the ability to comment on them.

Oh, one more thing, I doubt if I will be commenting on other people’s post for the time being either, at least until there are software updates that allow me to do so without the hassles that I’m facing when I try now. Sorry!

That’s it for this one, thanks for stopping by!

January 25, 2019 | Categories: Birds, Hiking, Nature, Photography, Photography tips | Tags: Birds, Nature, Nature photography, Photography, Photography tips, Photos | 33 Comments

2018, a look back, and ahead

It’s getting close to the end of the year, so I suppose that it’s time to take a look back at a few of the photos that I shot this year.

It’s been a big year for me as far as how much my skill as a photographer has improved. In selecting the photos to put in this post, I’m including subjects that I rarely photograph just as a change of pace as much as I can, along with photos that I shot this year that taught me a great deal as I shot them.

Even at the beginning of this past year, I was shooting and hoping that I’d get a photo good enough to post here in my blog. Looking back at the photos that I posted from January, I see that there weren’t many, mostly due to the weather, but also because of a lack of subjects to photograph.

 

Those two aren’t bad, but I could do so much better now, especially the one of the eagle in flight, that it’s apparent to me now how much my images have improved this year.

February of 2018 was also cold and snowy as I remember…

…but there were a few sunny days…

…and being a bit bored by the lack of subjects to shoot, I began experimenting more, using my 16-35 mm lens to shoot a flock of gulls in flight.

March brought the first flowers of the year…

…along with a couple of subjects that I rarely see…

…which may not be all that bad.

As I remember it, April was also well below average as far as both temperature and sunshine…

…so I expanded the range of subjects that I shoot to include these night scenes from downtown Grand Rapids, Michigan, where I live.

I also learned a good deal about macro photography as I shot the following image.

I had shot many good macro images before that one, but it was one of the first warm days of the year, and I was laying on the ground to shoot the dandelion flowers when the bee landed near me. Not being in any hurry to move, I played around with the camera and lens settings, and also put an extension tube behind the macro lens.

May of 2018 was our first warm month of the year, in fact, it was as if some one had flipped a switch, and we went from winter to summer in just a week or so. With the quick flip in the weather, the birds migrating north were in a hurry to reach their destination, so it seemed as if they all passed through the area in only a week or two. It was in May as I was shooting migrating warblers that I decided to upgrade from the crop sensor Canon 7D Mk II to the full frame sensor 5D Mk IV, based on the images that I shot one dreary day.

The 7D Mk II is a fine camera when there’s enough light for it though, as these images show.

And, since it will shoot 10 frames per second, I still prefer it over the 5D when shooting action images, such as this one.

 

 

And, I was still working on my camera settings and techniques to shoot birds in flight.

June brought more flowers, and I began to work on improving my images of them.

Especially when it comes to adding extra light with my flash unit to get good sharp images without any harsh shadows present in the images.

I also discovered an osprey nest about an hour drive from where I live, so I visited it a few times to get this image of a male osprey returning to the nest with what’s left of a fish after he had eaten his share of it.

I also increased the number of landscape images that I was shooting to work on my skills in that genre of photography.

The time that I spent at the osprey nest and at the Muskegon Lake Nature Preserve helped me to hone my images of birds in flight to the point where they are nearly as good as my images of perched birds.

 

July of 2018 saw me trying my hand at more night photography, in this case, the fireworks on the 4th.

Even though most of the landscape photos that I shot over the summer weren’t good enough to post in my blog, I continued to plug away at improving my skills.

And, with all the time that I’d been putting into improving my bird in flight images, it was time to tackle one of the hardest birds to photograph in flight.

I also continued to work on my macro photos when time permitted, both insects…

…and flowers.

August is when I purchased the Canon 5D Mk IV, and I was stunned by the increase in its dynamic range over the crop sensor cameras I had been using.