Tag Archives: Canon

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.

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!

Technique: Framing a sunrise

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A fairly basic photo, but hopefully it has enough going for it to make viewers look twice.

First of all, I went to a section of the beach where I anticipated possible foreground elements to create a multi-dimensional image. I set my alarm so that I’d have some time to spare before first light came above the horizon, made sure I had my essential camera gear, grabbed a flashlight, and made the short drive over to the beach.

NJ Shore sunrise photo

Gnarled Tree and Sunrise

I walked past this interestingly twisted dead root as soon as I neared the beach, and made a mental note that I could try to incorporate it into my scene. I continued to scout around for a few minutes after that, but realized that I probably wasn’t going to be able to beat the character of the root.

I set my tripod to a pretty low level so that the widest part of the root would not converge with the horizon for this frame, and I will admit to snapping off a vertically extending portion of the root to make sure it would fit into the photo. Another important part of this photograph is the sunburst effect, which I know is generally best achieved with my lens/DSLR combo at an aperture of F/22. I’ve found that having the sunburst disperse across a solid object to help amplify the effect, and I knew that I wanted to frame the sun within a portion of the root to further draw the viewer’s focus to the sun itself. That took some fine movements of the tripod to get things just right.

I also shot some horizontal frames before the sun came above the horizon, and will upload and possibly discuss those later this week.

Right Place, Right Time

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Sometimes it just pays to be lucky in photography, and that’s pretty much how I came across this wildlife photo opportunity. Anticipating possible action, being prepared, and visualizing how to maximize the opportunity are also very helpful.

Salamander eating

Red Eft and Earthworm

I like to do my photography rounds with two camera bodies ready to shoot and two distinctly different focal lengths. Generally, I will have either a macro lens or a wide angle lens on one DSLR and a longer telephoto lens (400mm) mounted on the other camera. Currently, no all-in-one zoom or all-in-one camera can match the image quality attainable using specialized lenses as standardized charts and personal experience have taught me.

How else can you be prepared? Remove the lens caps in advance, leave your DSLR switched on (they go into convenient standby mode anyways), and have the camera settings attuned to the current ambient lighting situation as best as possible. A formatted memory card and extra batteries are a must for me as well.

Maximizing the opportunity:
Let’s talk about this particular shot. I did not immediately realize there was a tiny amphibian chowing down in front of me as I don’t have superhuman vision, but once I did I knew that I wanted to get in as close possible to emphasize the action, to allow my macro flash setup to illuminate the key elements, and to eliminate the need to crop my final photo and waste valuable megapixels of the image. Cropping reduces the maximum print size of an image, and also emphasizes imperfections like noise (film grain).

Luck?  Well you’re one your own with that one.

Using a Neutral Density Filter to Enhance Motion

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This photo was taken on an overcast morning so a slow-ish shutter speed was inevitable. However, I really wanted to emphasize the motion in the flow of the water, so I mounted my 3-stop neutral density filter which allowed for a shutter speed of 8 seconds at F/16 ISO 100. The lens used was my Tamron 18-270mm VC, at 18mm.

New Jersey Scenery Photo

Rockaway River and Footbridge

Long exposures like 8 seconds are a matter of taste, but I love the painterly effect it can give. I find that the majority of ND filters on amazon are decent quality, and I usually don’t spend much more than $20 on mine.

On Snake photography…

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I find it’s hard to take a great snake photo. One of the main issues is that there elongated body shape is not naturally conducive to the aspect ratio of a photograph, unless you are shooting panoramas. My personal opinion is that going in close for just a headshot of wildlife often yields great detail, but may also remove artistic longevity from the final image. Alternatively, it is very difficult to compose a compelling wideangle photograph of most wildlife for a variety of reasons. One being that their habitat is often simply too cluttered to create a compelling frame. Another reason is obviously that most wildlife is generally on the move, so you aren’t typically going to have the chance to to compose something grandiose.

Snake

Black Ratsnake; juvenile

I am fairly satisfied with this photo, because the snake coiled in a way (striking position) that allowed me to get close enough to eliminate a largely distracting background. At the same time, I was not only lucky enough to get a bit of its body in the frame, but I was also able to shoot a frame where the snake’s head was in profile. This was also difficult as this wary and aggravated snake really did not trust me to take its eyes off of me for very long.

Quack!

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As winter quickly approaches, my mind always drifts towards the migrant ducks that congregate near Long Beach Island in New Jersey. Some of the challenges include isolating a single bird amongst their groupings, trying to predict where the diving ducks are actually going surface, and dealing with the very slippery jetty you have to walk out on.

Harlequin Duck

Quack!

I like this intimate view of the Harlequin Drake because you get a nice view of his intricate patterns, and the very comedic value of a cute duck with his mouth agape!