Category Archives: Uncategorized

Minimalism in Nature

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Went for a walk in one of my favorite nature areas in New Jersey yesterday morning, Mahlon Dickerson Reservation in Jefferson.  Optimistically, I had a wildlife lens mounted, and my macro flash unit also ready to go for smaller critters.  However, no opportunities like that materialized for me.

I noticed a bare sapling near the mostly frozen stream’s edge, and originally thought I’d isolate the entire sapling against the simple background.  I shot a few broader frames, but felt they all lacked any prominent shapes or visual guidance.  I zoomed in a bit with my zoom lens and also my tripod to see how this small single branch with a nice diagonal orientation and prominent juttings could possibly fill the frame.

I liked the frame, but the remaining problem was one unsightly rock just barely jutting from the ice’s surface.  Next step was locating a leaf in decent shape, and using a stick to push it into position to mask the rock.  Little did I know, the now juxtaposed leaf would become my favorite part of the shot.  A polarizing filter was also necessary to remove glare, especially since a small layer of melt water was sitting on top of the ice and reflecting sunlight and the surrounding trees.

New Jersey Nature Photo

Branch, Ice, and Leaf

Tamron 18-270mm VC lens @ f/16, 1/20s, ISO 200 on a tripod mounted Canon 50D.  Mirror lock-up and camera timer used to maximize sharpness.

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Julia

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We do get a decent variety of butterflies in the warmer months here in New Jersey, but I always get jealous of the vivid tropical butterflies that I see from the warmer states and tropical countries.  I was fairly successful in shooting some of my target species in Florida, and so here is a Julia, one of them:

 

Florida butterfly photograph

Julia

 

Photo taken handheld with the Tamron 90mm VC macro lens mounted on a Canon T2i Rebel camera.  An aperture of F/8 yielded very high sharpness, and acceptable depth of field for a fairly flat subject.

 

 

 

Uncommon wildlife encounters

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I have no problem photographing the ordinary and trying my hardest to make it look flattering, but every once in a while you stumble upon an animal or scenic opportunity that you feel very lucky to have encountered.  That’s how I felt when I discovered a group of young American Alligators calling for their not too distant mother.  I assumed I would have plenty of opportunities to photograph adult Gators on my Florida trip, but didn’t dream of a golden chance like this.

Baby Gator in Wetlands

Young American Alligator

Telephotos for Landscape Photography

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I typically shoot landscape/scenic photos with pretty wide lenses (somewhere between 10mm and 40mm), but in this case the stand of trees I wanted to isolate was a bit too far away for lenses of that category.  Having a lens arsenal that includes a medium telephoto helped eliminate most of the distracting foreground foliage, and halted the need for walking through mud and swampy areas.

Trees in the Fog

Morning Fog at Big Cypress

This particular shot was taken with a tripod mounted Tamron 70-300mm VC lens, zoomed to 200mm.

Nature Photography in “bad light”

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I think there really is no such thing as “bad light” in nature photography, as long as you are able to think outside of the box.  This recent photograph of an Airplant in Florida was taken while the sun was fairly high, and also a bit behind the subject.  Typically, this is an undesirable ambient light angle as the illumination of a subject is very uneven and will cause high variations in dynamic range, which in turn will probably blow out some of the highlights and block up the shadows.

Florida Airplant

Manatee River Airplant at Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary

I find this lighting angle difficult to utilize, and implausible in some scenarios.  However, it can yield some nice dramatic photos with a little experimentation.  In this instance, the sunlight has “kissed” or highlighted mainly only my target subject but caused most of the frame to fall into shadow.  Perfect for an isolating effect.

Sunset over Wetlands, Loxahatchee NWR

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I just flew back home to NJ from Florida yesterday morning and I have lots of files (hopefully good ones to sift through.  I will be uploading new images from the trip regularly to http://flickr.com.com/davidraymond but I hope to provide some commentary and technique on individual photos on here as well.

Here’s one sample landscape image from the trip to take a look at it, meanwhile I’ve got to get back to the RAW file processing!

Florida Landscape Photograph

Sunset over Wetlands

Tamron Lens Arsenal for Upcoming Florida Trip

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Weather permitting, I will be flying out of New Jersey to South Florida on Saturday morning in an attempt to capture as many aspects of nature as possible.

Tamron Lenses

Tamron 70-300 VC, Tamron 90mm VC Macro, and Tamron 10-24mm

 

Utilizing Tamron’s line of professional grade lenses (SP), I should be ready to tackle scenery, details, and wildlife.  All I need now is mother nature to cooperate!

Self-portrait with Strat

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I dusted off my Alien Bee’s AB800 strobe to prep for some portrait work, draped my black muslin over my backdrop holder, manually pre-focused my 17-40mm lens (very small working conditions), and was happy to come up with this self-portrait.

DRB 2013

Self-portrait with Strat

I’m actually sitting on an unseen stool here, so that was what I prefocused the lens on.  I thought I’d try a pretty stark sidelighting angle with the AB800 angled slightly downward on camera left to create a “masculine lighting effect”.  I do have the diffused beauty dish adapter, so I left that mounted on the AB800.  I’m happy that there was not much light spilling on the background, which helps contribute to the somber and mysterious mood of this image.

One of the best parts of shooting on black is not worrying about background exposures!

 

 

For the birds…

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This was one of my favorite recent bird photos. Getting a sharp close photo of any songbird is usually somewhat of an accomplishment, but capturing one doing something “cutesy” can be especially endearing.

NJ Bird photo

White-throated Sparrow

This photo was largely the result of right time, right place. But composition-wise I knew I wanted a bit of negative space on the right side of the frame, so the image would not appear too crammed. I went with an aperture of F/7.1 to pull some of the vegetation into focus as well as ensure decent sharpness throughout the bird’s body.

Solutions…

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I know this is a ridiculous looking photo, but this is actually my own image, and a setup that I do use from time to time. A great amount of my nature photography is wildlife based, and wielding a super telephoto lens around through the woods and wetlands means having a dedicated tripod with a heavy duty head. That is fine and good, but I hate being limited while I’m exploring, and feel a bit naked not having an easily tripod mountable macro or all-in-one lens to fall back on too.

Stacked DSLRs

Super Telephoto and Macro Lens Solution

Pictured here are two of my Canon DSLRs, the top camera with my Tamron 90mm VC macro lens is bound to my Canon 500mm f/4 setup via a Gorillapod Focus (portable tripod). Granted there are plenty of opportunities for the whole combination to swing and sway, yet I am still able to get some macro shots from the top camera using low ISO speeds for maximum image quality.

Note that I don’t walk around with them bound together like this, as it isn’t entirely stable. Generally I sling the big tripod + big lens over my shoulder, while wearing the smaller camera with Gorillapod connected to it around my neck. I connect the 2 setups only when I am going to shoot with the top camera.  It ain’t foolproof and it ain’t pretty, but sometimes it does what I need it to do.

If you have a better solution, please let me know!