Seeing in Black and White

Photographed with Leica QR Monochrom

Today, I'm up at a nearby park here in the East Bay hills of the San Francisco Bay Area. It’s a great place to get away, and see some nature and it didn't take that long to get there. It’s just a simple process of grabbing the camera, one lens and going out to park and doing a little shooting.

This project is going to be a little bit different than the rest, since I’m not looking for a particular wildlife subject or landscape feature.  Today, I’m shooting in black and white.

You know, when you're out looking subjects to shoot, everything is fair game, but you kind of have to think in terms of black and white, you can't just shoot like you normally would because you no longer have color to help the viewer absorb that image. In black and white, you're looking for shadows, looking for light, you're looking for angles of light, and you're looking for textures.

We’re looking for lots of different things that are going to make our photographs stand out. Remember for your final images, for this shoot, we’re working in black and white. 

The most important aspect of this kind of shooting is in each image, you will need a true black and a true white – to make it indeed a black and white image.

Since it’s getting a little windy out here, wind is not a friend of audio recording, I’ll head back to my studio to talk a little more on how I got started in Black and White photography. 

My first introduction to black and white was also my first introduction photography and that was through my dad.  He had converted a walk-in closet; it was actually a closet in my bedroom into a fully functional darkroom.

He put in the plumbing, electricity, a small sink and a counter that held the enlarger. In retrospect, it was pretty cool. 

He would go in there from time to time. I never knew what he was doing but we were told never to open the door without knocking first and frankly, I never really paid much of attention. 

I was about eight years old and I started thinking, what IS he doing in there?  So one day I asked him, and he responded with a,  “Hey, why don’t you come in and watch.”

The process in those days with film was you would take your camera and his case he was using a 35mm rangefinder camera, he would throw in a roll of 35 millimeter Black and white film, and shoot away.

When he was done, he’d bring it in the darkroom, roll it onto a special roller. This part was done in total darkness, I mean total darkness, you couldn’t see a thing, So everything had to be laid out just so as you would fumble around in the blackness.  He’d feel for a pair of pliers to pry open the film canister and gently pull the film out.  Then he would fumble for the reel that he would roll the film onto, and then close the roller inside of a small light proof tank.  This rolling of film was a little tricky so he would practice with the lights on with an old roll of film that he didn’t care about to get proficient at it before turning off the lights and doing all of this in total darkness. 

Once the film was inside the closed tank, it was protected from the light and then he would turn the lights back on and process it.  He’d pour in a series of chemicals that were all precisely mixed, measured and heated to the proper temperature. 

Each of these chemicals were in the tank for a determined length of time. 

First was water to get the film wet, then the developer. The developer chemical interacted with the sliver halides on the emulsion of the film to reveal everything that was exposed to light.  It worked on all the levels of gray in a black and white image, revealing the photograph or essentially the negative. 

If you left the developer chemical in the tank too long, or if it was too hot, it would remove all the sliver too fast and you could end up with a clear piece of plastic or what would print as a black print. 

The next chemical was called a stop bath.  This wasn’t in the tank too long; it was poured in just to stop the developer from working.  Kind of like how you might put your hard boiled eggs into ice water to stop the cooking process. 

Lastly was a chemical called fixer.  This would solidify the image on the plastic film base, so it would be more durable.  Finally, there was a rinse to get rid of all the chemicals.  The film, or strip of negatives were then hung to dry.

This was by far the most boring part to an 8-year-old.  Just measured chemistry in and out of the tank.

Once the negatives were dry that’s when the fun part started.

The print making process could be done in “some” light.  Usually an amber light, not very bright but bright enough to see what you were doing. 

My dad would hold the negatives up to the light and squint to see which image he wanted to make an enlargement of.  Once determined, he would put that negative in a small tray that held it in place and he would put into the enlarger and project that image down on the tabletop.

It was here that he focused the negative image to be sharp from the enlarger onto a tray that would hold light sensitive paper.  Once everything was focused, the enlarger light would be turned off and a piece of light sensitive paper was taken out of the yellow box and slipped into the tray that was the perfect size for it.

I remember I had to stay back so as not to jiggle the tabletop while the paper was being exposed.

The enlarger was turned on and timed, so it wouldn’t be on too long.

This next part was the fun part, he’d slip that paper into the first of four trays and move it around with a pair of rubber tipped tongs. 

Magically, we’d watch the white piece of paper become a black and white image before our eyes. Most of the time it was a picture of me or my brothers goofing off in the yard.  A moment captured in time that we weren’t even aware of. 

Like processing film, the next tray where the photograph would go into was the Stop bath, to stop the development, the next one was the fixer and finally the last tray was the wash, where the print would spin around slowly from the gentle flow of water.  Once it was washed properly, the print was clipped to a wire my dad had strung over the sink, using a clothespin clip it and let it dry.

Once it was dry, you could handle the print, share it with other people or hang it on the wall. 

At eight years old, that really stuck with me. It was magical. That pretty much started me on my way loving photography.

At some point, I ultimately got my own camera and started shooting myself. Because of the simple economics of being a teenager, I shot black and white film because it was much less expensive to do than color images.  Also, since I always had access to a darkroom, I could process my own film and prints.  

Shooting all that film over the years in black and white, taught me to “See” in black and white.  And that’s what I encourage you to try to learn.

Today, everything that we shoot, whether it's a digital camera or iPhone, it's always coming out in color. So you're going to get distracted by the color, you may not be looking at the form, you're not always looking for composition, you're looking more at the color.

Most everyone likes a good sunset photograph; they can make our landscape images really stand out. However, a good exercise is to try to shoot a good sunset in black and white.

In order to pull that off, you would have to consider the clouds in the sky, the subject in the foreground, generally, how its composed. 

We will talk more after the break about “seeing” in black and white.

***

If you start shooting in black and white,  and learn to see in black and white, you will become a better photographer because you now have to consider all the aspects of a photograph and not just the color.

So today out in the park, I’m was looking for forms.

There are large bay and oak trees sprouting out of the ground  and twisting their way up to the sky. These are interesting forms to compose with. 

They each have a strong texture to their bark, and the lichens that are on the side of the bark, as well as moss, those are all giving me all kinds of different tones. 

Again, I'm not looking at the color, I'm looking at the tones. 

I've got some white in the in the lichens from a close-up view. And then it grades off and then I get some blacks that are in the shadows of the of the bases of the trees. I’m looking for sections that will render as whites and blacks. 

***

Today gave me an opportunity to shoot some nature photographs in black and white.  It presses me into finding details and things that will make the photograph, without relying on color to do the heavy lifting. 

I’m trying to SEE in black and white.  After a while, you will get this feeling.  You’ll look more for textures and the balance of gray tones. Even if you decide you don’t like black and white photography as much, seeing things this way will make you a better photographer.

**

One of the tools that can help with seeing in black and white is changing your camera’s picture mode to monochrome.   In the Sony cameras it’s under the “creative style” menu in the Nikon it’s in “Picture Control” in the Canon it’s called “picture style”.

While the viewfinder will obviously show you what you're looking at through the lens on a DSLR, when you shoot the picture and then look to see the image come up on the back of screen, that’s where it will be rendered in black and white.

If you are using a mirrorless camera that shows the screen in the viewfinder, that image will be in black and white as well as through the viewfinder. 

This is a big advantage for shooting with a mirrorless camera as it will really make you aware that you are shooting in black and white. Seeing your composition right there on the screen in black and white.

It is pretty cool to be able to see what you've just shot or about to shoot in black and white.  

Assuming that everybody is shooting RAW by now, you are going to have complete control over your image when you get to processing.

You can set your camera on RAW plus Jpeg and get the RAW un-processed version to work with and the monochrome Jpeg image to look at, if that helps.

If you are not shooting RAW, get with it.  The RAW file has so much more information in it than Jpegs do. RAW also gives you a wide amount of latitude in the processing of your images. 

If you are not sure you want to shoot RAW – do this simple test:  Use an empty formatted memory card, Go into your menu and go to “Image quality” section and set your camera on Jpeg normal mode and then look to see how many photographs your card will allow you to store on it.  Right that number down. In my camera’s case with the card I’m using, I can get 1400 images when shooting in Jpeg.

There is a possibility that your camera’s tally number will only show 9,999 – that’s because it can only show up to four digits.  You likely can shoot much more than 10,000 images depending on size of the card that you have installed. Right the number down anyway. Or use a smaller card if you have one, for this demonstration. 

Next, move your camera settings to shoot in RAW mode and then look at your number of how many images you can shoot.  That number will be quite a few less. My camera says I can only get 310 images. That means that the RAW files on my camera are more than FOUR TIMES larger than my Jpeg files.

Instead of looking at it, that you don’t get as many shots, I look at it as these RAW files carry more than four times the information!  More detail, more latitude more everything!

There are two downsides to shooting in RAW mode.  The obvious, that you will need more cards to shoot on, or larger cards.  And you will need to have something like Lightroom or Photoshop to even look at your images.

While jpegs are essentially universal digital photographs, a RAW file is just numbers.  You will need a program for processing your RAW files that can decipher what those numbers mean and produce a photograph for you.  My choice for RAW processing is Adobe Lightroom, but there are many out there to choose from. 

Now, back to the topic at hand.  If you shoot RAW, that file will NOT be converted into black and white but it will be full color when you open it in Lightroom.  You will convert it there.

Think about it like this:  If you just let the camera make the conversion to black and white in the Jpeg mode, you are going to be stuck with whatever the camera can process in a second or two.

If you shoot RAW, YOU will have the control to convert it properly into black and white using all the parameters that you want to use.

You don't want to be just using a JPEG that's generated from the camera, because all that camera is doing in the camera is just taking out the color.

And that's not a black and white, I see this all the time on social media, people are posting images that are not black and white,  they  are essentially pictures without color. 

And if you had to really label them, I would say they'd be gray and gray images, not black and white.

A true black and white image will always have a true Black and a true white. 

What we used to do in the darkroom to assure we were getting a true white and a true black is we would process an unexposed sheet of paper. That would be our white baseline.  This would be “paper” white.  On that particular brand of paper, it could get no whiter.

Next, we would take a piece of the same printing paper and bring it outside in the light to be exposed in sunlight for a while.  Then we would process that sheet of paper normally.  That would come out pure black.  That was our black baseline.

Then, on the prints we would produce, we would lay those two test prints over a print and move them around to see if the whitest white would find a match and if the blackest black would find a match.  That way we knew we had the full range of black and white. 

Today in digital photography it’s much easier, because we have tools built right into Photoshop and Lightroom to check if we have a true black and a true white on our images. 

Using the eye dropper tool and the info pallet in photoshop to find that zero rating for an absolute black and looking in the whites for a 255 to get that absolute white.  In lightroom, we can use the histograms and clipping warnings to let us know when we have achieved total black and total white in our images. 

As we process our images, we can make sure we are attaining the goal of making a true black and white image.  It really makes a difference because you'll see that the deeper contrast in your images that covers all the tonal variations. 

I suggest you think in terms of black and white, think of the tones that you're working in when you are out shooting.  

When I was outside at the park, there was kind of a thin overcast so I wasn’t really getting strong directional light. 

If I were shooting a portrait or something, overcast and soft light would be great because it would be a smoother transition from dark to light, making less shadows under the eyes and the wrinkles or lines in the faces would be less apparent. 

When you are out shooting in nature and focusing on just shooting black and white your shooting light options may be expanded quite a bit. 

As in color photography, shooting early morning and late afternoon is almost always the best.  And that also applies for black and white photography.  Not only is wildlife more active, but the lower light angle is better for showing off details that are visible but not as harsh. 

With wildlife, the lower angle of light will potentially light up the eyes of a critter where light from mid-day might just shadow the eyes from the animal’s brow. 

Landscapes are always better at sunrise and sunset as well, both in color and in black and white.

However, when you are shooting and seeing in black and white, you can take advantage of the direct overhead lighting in the middle of the day.  Where color images can come off as too harsh, the contrast provided from the light of the middle of the day might be exactly what you are looking for in your black and white images.

Many times, you're looking for contrast, some sort of contrast.  So don't let the time of day stop you from going out, just about any time is good for shooting black and white. 

And in fact, you can even shoot at night in black and white.  The advantage of shooting black and white at night is that with the higher ISOs needed, you won’t have to deal with color noise that can build up in the shadows. 

This noise and any other noise will be looked as grain.  That granular texture over the entire image and it’s even more apparent in the shadows. 

Grain was something that I always tried to try to avoid, when shooting in the black and white film days.  At the time, the best we had for speedy film was only 400 speed film or using today’s vernacular – 400 ISO.

If we wanted the ability to shoot in lower light, we would use a technique called “Pushing” the film.

Even though the film was rated at 400 we would shoot it at double or triple that speed say 800 or even 1600 and then compensate for the change by altering the development times or the chemistry itself. 

This gave us the ability to shoot in lower light.  We could then capture action shots at night, like a football game or such without using a flash. 

The lenses back then were not nearly as fast as that can be purchased today and with digital photography we have all those high ISO’s we can input whenever we need to shoot in lower light. 

While film didn’t give us much flexibility, nothing like we have today, it did teach us how to see in black and white.  Once you got used to planning your images knowing you only had black and white as an option, it forces you to compose better and plan for tones and shadows to tell the story. 

Once you learn how to process your images from the color digital file to good black and white files, dig into your archives and see if you have some images that might look good in black and white.  If you find some files where the color is off or not helping the image, convert it and see what you may have. You might find you can produce some gems that you had previously overlooked. 

If you get a chance, head over to my YouTube Channel and check out my tutorial on how to use Lightroom to create Real black and White images.  There I will step you through on how to make those conversions in Lightroom.

Next time you are going out shooting, set up your camera and turn on the monochrome setting and that way you can see how you are adapting to black and white imagery.  

In fact, if you set your camera up to shoot both raw and Jpeg, when you load them into Lightroom, you will get the color RAW file that you can convert and you will be able to compare it to the jpeg that the camera made the conversion and you will no doubt see the big difference when you make the conversions yourself. 

***

In the next episode of the Nature Photography Podcast, I’m going to be heading to a place where black and white photography is king.  I love it there and we will talk more about black and white photography. 

Until then, this is Terry VanderHeiden your host of

Winter Photography Success

I love how it’s so quiet when you are outside, just after a fresh snow. While many people would head indoors, photographers want to get out and photograph in this environment. But how do you dress to protect yourself from the cold and how to do handle your gear when shooting in the winter.

That’s what this episode is all about, preparing for winter photography. Let’s get started.

I'm Terry VanderHeiden your host of The Nature Photography Podcast. You can find this podcast wherever you listen to podcasts, Spotify, Apple podcasts, it’s in all the main podcast players. This episode is going to be a little different. I am also doing the same episode over on YouTube. if you want to watch it with video, you can find it over at my YouTube channel, Terry VanderHeiden. I'll have links in the show notes.

In this episode, we going to cover winter prep for photography from head to toe. Literally.

So when you are out in the cold weather you need to protect yourself. Not only can it be dangerous, but it can just be uncomfortable. And when you are uncomfortable, you won’t stay out shooting very long.

Before we start I'd like to put out this disclaimer. Everything that I talk about, except the gloves, I personally researched, purchased with my own money and use to make my winter outdoor photography easier and more comfortable. Now this is what I do for cold weather, you may have some better ideas, so be sure to let me know any suggestions you have for working in the cold. You I can email me at terry@imagelight.com.

At the top, I use a wool lined knit cap. I found this one that has a slight bill to it and it works pretty good at keeping snow and rain off my glasses. The most important part is that a good hat will keep you warm. A lot of heat loss can escape from the top of your head, so a good hat is mandatory. Get something that you can pull down to cover your ears when it gets really cold.

Now I happen choose to use my brain cells for creating photographs and not for growing hair… so an extra wool liner on my head is helpful.

Sometimes when it’s not that cold, I’ll use the liner under my wool cowboy type hat. This wide brim of this hat is great for keeping the rain off my face and I can also use it as a shade when looking through the viewfinder.

The ones that I use are made by a company called LiteFelt. Spelled L-I-T-E. F-E-L-T

These are comfortable to wear for long periods at a time in both the cold and in the summer months. I’ve tried some other similar products. one hat I have has a satin brim on the inside and I don’t care for that as much because the satin kind of cold against my skin. But if you have more hair than I do, it may not be a problem.

This type of wool hat is great because you can roll it up and pack it and it comes back to shape in no time.

Next is face and neck covering. A good first choice would be a Balaclava. Not to be confused with Baklava (the Greek pastry)

The Balaclava covers your whole head and neck and is long enough to tuck down into your shirt. They are usually made of a stretchy fabric that you can pull down to expose more of your face if you want. To find them, Just do an internet search for Ninja Clothing, you I'll find them.

Another product I use is called turtle fur. I bought mine at REI – but I am sure there are others available out there. The one I use is kind of like a fabric tube that goes over your neck.

This has a couple of layers of fabric and keeps my neck warm and especially keeps the wind out from blowing down inside my jacket. This is what you want.

The next product is a good outwear jacket. There are tons outdoor jackets to choose from, I use a rugged jacket that provides some cold protection and water protection. Mine is from Carhart. That is spelled C-A-R-H-A-R-T-T (two T’s) if you want to look-it up on-line.

I bought a jacket that is bit more roomier so that if I needed to cover equipment under my jacket or wear a vest, I can.

I do wear a vest. Currently I have a Patagonia down vest. Bought as well at REI.

Down, as you know comes from geese, and valued for its light weight, (light as a feather) and its crushable. Great for pulling out of pack to get some instant insulation.

The down traps pockets of warm air close to the skin, keeping the warm air in and cold air out.

The numbers that are associated with down, 900 fill, 600 fill are more of a designation of the “quality” of the down than how warm they will keep you. Essentially, the higher the number the less down is required to keep you as warm. A higher down number means less down, which will mean less bulk, so it will be lighter and easier to pack.

The down WEIGHT that you may have seen on outerwear means how much down is actually packed into the product. So, if you have a good fill quality number 800 and above, and a high amount of gram weight, say 200 to 300 grams, that will yield the warmest possible product.

But be careful, and consider that you may be upping your bulk when you go for that type of heavier outerwear.

Under the vest I wear a long sleeve flannel shirt, either a regular flannel shirt or occasionally ones that are fleece lined. The fleece lined ones are the warmest flannel shirts. These are great if you are hopping out of the car to shoot, or if you are just going to stand around waiting for the light.

If you are going to do any hiking that would work up a sweat, choose layers of clothing that is not cotton, as cotton doesn't wick away sweat very well. A better choice for hiking might be wool and synthetic materials that dry faster and move perspiration away from the skin.


Under my main shirt I like to wear a thin mock turtleneck that is actually from the golf industry. I like the FootJoy ProDry Performance Golf Mock. This is made from a polyester blend fabric with a little bit of spandex added in.

It has sweat wicking properties, so if you do perspire hiking to a location, the moisture will be pulled away from your skin. The idea here is that moisture is quickly pulled away from the skin and transferred to the other side of the fabric. Thereby keeping you warm and allowing the moisture to dry away faster.

Layering is the key to cold weather photography clothing. More layers create barriers to trap air and insulate the body in a better way. Also, you can remove clothing as you need to, to keep comfortable.

After the break, we will talk more about getting yourself geared up for winter photography.

***

Next up and very important is keeping your hands warm. Just like all your extremities the farther out you go from the body, the more chance they will get colder faster. Plus, you are using your hands to touch other cold things like moving snow and grabbing icy tripod legs.

There are two schools of thought on gloves. First you can get two pairs of gloves. One thin pair called liner gloves, that goes under the gloves, then a bulkier pair that goes over that. With the thought that the thin gloves will give you more dexterity on the dials of your camera.

There is another solution, and that is getting photography gloves.

These photography gloves were sent to me by the “Vallerret” company. The version that I have are called the “Mark Hof 2.0” – they also make a version that is a bit heavier called the “IpSoot” if you are in extreme cold weather.

What makes these gloves special is the thumb and fingertip of each glove has an opening to easily expose your fingertip and thumb to get true dexterity for camera controls.

They also thought ahead and placed small magnets in the gloves to secure the glove tip out of the way while working with your exposed fingers.

Just open up the fingertip, do what you need to do and close it up after you are done.

This also eliminates the need for gloves that are touch screen conductive finger gloves when you want to operate your smart phone or touch screens on your camera.

I’ve used Touch screen gloves before and they work some of the time, but not consistently. So, these finger exposing gloves are better because of the true touch control that you have.

You can get these gloves at their web site, photographygloves.com, remember to order a size that is a little larger than their sizing guide says, for a better fit.

Now that you are covered from the waist up, you need to cover the rest of your body.

With pants, you want to start with something warm, like a thermal long john that covers you down to your ankles. You can get these in all kind of materials, but stay away from cotton on that base layer against your skin. I also use lined pants for colder areas or if I’m just going to be standing around a lot. This is where you can REALLY get cold, just standing around.

Over these pants you can cover them with water resistant rain pants or snow pants. This layer will keep you from getting wet. And getting wet is the problem since it takes much longer to get dry in cold weather.

On the bottom of my pants, I use gaiters. These gaiters snug around your calves, go under your hiking boots and actually can secure to the front lace area of your boots. But more on that in a minute.

These gaiters allow you to trudge through the snow and not get snow down into your boots. Snow in your boots is the killer. Having wet feet will ruin your outdoor shoot faster than anything.

Speaking of boots, I use waterproof boots made by Merrell. Mine I got as well at REI, and these boots start with a Gore-tex outer shell. Gore-tex is a very popular water proofing fabric and what makes it special, is its breathability.

Gore-tex fabric has in the middle of it, a very thin membrane that has over nine billion pores per square inch. These pores are 20,000 times smaller than water droplets. So, water cannot pass through this membrane. However, these pores are 700 times larger than water vapor, which allows water vapor to escape.

When you are perspiring, you generate this vapor. If it wasn’t allowed to escape, it would build up and turn into fluid. Fluid next to your body will get cold and consequently make you cold.

Some waterproof shells are Kind of like if you wrapped yourself in a plastic wrap. You would indeed keep water out, but you would also trap 100 % of it on the inside next to your skin.

So anything Gore-tex is great to have on. The only downside about GoreTex is its somewhat pricey, so it can get expensive to be completely decked out in Gore-tex. There are other breathable products that are out there other than Gore-Tex, but this is the most recognizable brand.

These Merrill boots also have a tiny hook built in near the front of the laces and that is where the gaiters we talked about earlier can hook on to. This secures the gaiters to cover your laces on your boots. So when shopping for good hiking boots, take look and see if they have a hook or some other provision for attaching gaiters.

On your feet look for a warm pair of socks, and I often use a liner pair of socks to aid in keeping the feet dry. Consider your socks when it comes to sizing your boots, as thicker socks may require you to go up a size in your boots.

On the bottom of your shoes, I recommend Snow Tracks. Or something like it. I consider these chains for your shoes. They attach with flexible rubber and the little metal spikes on the outside dig into the ice. I just keep these right in the door of my truck, so I can slip them on as soon as I step out of the vehicle. Because slipping ice while carrying camera gear is never fun.

Another option to wearing snow pants, gaiters and spiked hiking boots, is getting a good pair of chest waders. These offer good insulation against the cold and water proofness.

These, of course, are from the fly-fishing industry and the pair I have is from Reddington.

When wearing waders, you are waterproof up to your chest. So, trudging through snow, water tall weeds, just about anything, you are protected. This makes it a great year round tool to have access to.

Most waders go down to a neoprene booty and over that you slip on Wading boots. Mine are from Simms and I bought the boots that I could attach tiny, metal studs to the bottom. This gives you great traction though ice as well as river bottoms.

When you are looking at wader boots there are couple of things to consider.

First is the fit. You will be in these for long periods of time, and likely hiking with them on. So get a good pair that are comfortable and lightweight. Consider that they will be going over a thick neoprene booty, so you may have to get a size or two larger than normal.

There are a couple of options with wader boots. Since this product is going to be used year-round, Not just in the snow. You can use them to get all your water level shots in streams, rivers and lakes.

All were boots drain well as that is the design but It’s the sole of wader boots that make then different,

A very popular type of sole for wader boots is felt. It’s so comfortable, it feels like you are walking on a plush carpet. White they don't do good in snow, they grip really well on slimy river bottoms.

The problem with felt boots, is that they are outlawed in many states. That is because the felt takes time to really dry out and organisms can live on the soles of the those boots for quite some time.

The fishing industry has traced back the transfer of harmful organisms from river to river to the soles of felt wading boots. Which means, many states will not allow them in their water ways.

The solution is to do what I did, get the rubber soled boots that can accept the metal studs.

The only drawback to the metal studded boots, is that you can’t go walking into a store or a home that has floors that will be damaged by the metal studs. So, if you want to go inside, you will need to take off your boots and sometimes your waders as well.

A solution to that problem to get a second pair of boots, and don't put the metal studs on that pair, that way you can slip on the regular boots over your wader booties and then move about unrestricted.

There you have it. You are all dressed and ready for winter’s harshest weather. Now, let’s talk how to deal with your equipment.

Most professional and semiprofessional cameras and lenses are water tight, but check with the manufacturer before you subject your camera to the elements.

They sell little camera rain jackets if you are photographing in high moisture areas. These can completely protect your camera and lenses if need be. I have some, but I seldom use it.

If its snowing while I am shooting, I just drape a towel over the camera and lens to keep it mostly dry.

It probably goes without saying that you want to be careful about changing lenses and memory cards while out in the elements. Maybe going back to your car to dry off and make a change is the smartest way to go.

One of the cold weather issues we deal with is less battery life in the cold. Don’t be surprised that your batteries will deplete sooner than you are used to while in cold temperatures.

This is an easy fix, just bring along extra fully charged batteries and keep them in a pocket close to your body to keep them at a comfortable temperature until you need them.

Another battle that occurs only in the cold weather is condensation.

If you breath on your viewfinder, it can fog up.

While There shouldn’t be a situation for you to breath condensation on the front element of your lens, but it can happen. So, bringing along lens cleaner cloth is a good idea.

Condensation can also build up on your equipment from going in and out of a warm car or hotel room. A couple of thing to protect against that is to keep your car as cold as the outside by not running the heat and leaving the windows open when you can. You will likely be dressed for the cold, so that shouldn’t be a comfort problem.

When you come inside for the day, leave your camera bag zipped up and leave it that way until everything comes up to temperature. The condensation will form on the outside of the bag first and that’s okay.

If your tripod has been in an out of the snow or water, make sure to extend the legs fully and stand it up in your room to fully dry out. That way moisture doesn’t collect in the joints or tightening connections. You can also take your tripod completely apart if you think you need to get to dry it out even more so.

Planning ahead is the best way to go. Make sure you have the right lens on before you go out. This is not always ideal, but if you are going to shoot scenics in the river, have your wide lens attached. If you are going out to shoot foxes in their winter coats, bring just your camera with a long lens attached.

Make sure your batteries are fully charged and you have an empty clean memory card installed and ready to go.

Winter can be a great time to get out and photograph. A lot of times, animals are more interested in their next meal than worried about you standing over there with a camera.

The winter will also minimize how many people are out photographing nature just because it takes more preparation to go out and many people don’t want to put the time in. That means less people in your background or scaring off wildlife while you are out there photographing.

Nobody wants to be uncomfortable for very long. So, having the proper clothing and gear will a lot of times, give you a scene all to yourself.

So be prepared and get out there in the cold and wet weather to do some spectacular photography.

Episode 0010 California Sea Otters

We are driving into Elkhorn Slough National research reserve located near the Monterey Bay in California, with the hopes of getting a glimpse and maybe some photographs of the California sea otters.

Wow, there is a whole raft of them just back floating out there, getting some sun.

  It’s no wonder a group of sea otters  are called a “raft” of sea otters.  

They kind of look like a floating blanket of fur, bumping into one another as they drift around.

They kind of do this spin move where they roll over a few times and then they end up right where they started floating on their backs.

Let’s find out more about the California Sea Otter so we can take, better photographs of them. 

****

If you didn’t know, The California sea otter is considered a keystone species and it is still on the endangered species list. 

One interpretation of a keystone species means, for instances, the health of the sea otter is a good indication of the health other species in the nearby ecosystem. 

Here, the sea otter eats sea urchins and other small crabs and snails that feed on the Giant Kelp.  

If the sea urchins for example, go unchecked, so much of the kelp forests can be consumed, that nothing else can live there.  

So, by the actions of the sea otter, it stabilizes the kelp forests to help them thrive and give a much-needed home to many other organisms. 

In estuaries, like we are at, the otters keep the eelgrass healthy by consuming crabs. 

 This is a little convoluted but stay with me on this.  The otters eat the crabs which then allows the crab’s main diet, the sea slug,  to thrive. 

The sea slugs are good for the eelgrass because the slugs eat the algae that builds up and coats the eelgrass. 

And if the algae were to go unchecked, the eelgrass would smother from being too covered with algae.  

Finally, the eelgrass is needed by many, many other fish for, hunting their food and for shelter. 

***

The California sea otter numbers around 3,000 and are found mostly in the central coast of California.  They are having a hard time expanding their numbers in this limited area. 

There is just so much food that can support families of otters.

One of the problems is that when the sea otters try to make their way north to expand their populations, they fall victim to white shark attacks along the coast of Northern California.

It sounds creepy and  you can’t help but thinking of the JAWS movie with sharks thrashing around consuming all the sea otters.

So the otters seldom every travel far in the open ocean coast line so they stay where they are safe in and around Monterey bay.

A solution is being formed to possibly “transplant” some California Sea Otters to the San Francisco bay.  Where they might be able to thrive in the relative safety of the bay.  

Not everyone is happy about that proposal since the crab fishing industry if pretty important to the San Francisco bay, and the fisherman think that adding otters would take an unnecessary toll on the crab fishing.

This idea of transplanting is not too far-fetched as the California Sea Otter once thrived in the San Francisco bay, about 200 years ago. So, we shall see if they are given that chance to make San Francisco home again.

*****

As you watch the sea otters when they are feeding, they dive down to the seafloor and grab a crab or urchin.  The come up to the surface and use their bellies as a table and consume their meal.

 Many times, you will see them also bring up a rock to help crack open a crab or a clam to assist in cracking open their meal. 

The fur of the sea otter is super thick. 

 The sea otter doesn’t have a layer of blubber to keep warm in these cold waters, it only has its fur.  

The sea otter’s fur is considered the densest fur in the world and measures a million hairs per square inch. 

As a fur comparison, the average house cat has about 600,000 hairs on its entire body!

Its because of this amazing fur that the sea otter was almost hunted to extinction.  From mid 1700’s its estimated that the sea otter numbers were about 300,000. A ban on hunting them was put into effect in 1911 and now their numbers now hover around 3,000.

This substantial fur leads to lots of grooming.  

When photographing them, you can almost always watch them groom themselves. The grooming helps coat the fur with natural oils and fluff it with insulating air bubbles. 

Another way the sea otter stays warm in cold water is to constantly eat. 

They consume about 25% of their body weight each day.  Which is really quite a bit.

That’s similar to a 150-pound person eating 40 pounds of food per day.  

This excessive eating is because of their very high metabolism.  All this eating, and metabolism keeps their body temps at about 100 degrees – thus keeping them warm.

After the break, we will talk about how to photograph the California Sea Otter.

****

Ideally when photographing sea otters, get as low as you can to the water level.  They are a protected animal so you can’t get too close to them so a long lens is what you want to use.

A friend of mine made me a ground pod.  It is essentially a large frying pan with a short post built into it.  On that post is a threaded bolt that I can attach my Wimberley Gimbal and to that I can attach my longest lens.

This allows me to get on the ground with my gear, and look through the lens, about as low as I can get.  The pan shape lets me move side to side or forward or back on something smooth like sand.

The down side is I’m lying on the ground. It helps to have some pads to lie on.  I got my pads at Harbor Freight for under $10.

No matter what pads I have I still have to get up, which I guess is the price of getting down low. 

A low angle will serve you well with a lot of wildlife photography.  Getting down to the wildlife’s eye level is great way to give a more intimate view.  Kind of like what kind of angle the wildlife sees every day. 

With sea otters, you don’t have a lot of choices, since they are a protected species, so any angle should be great.

If you can get them interacting with each other that is always a plus.  I like to watch just about any wildlife for a while to see what they do.  Eating, grooming and sleeping are all activities that the otters are great at.

Let’s talk a little about Depth-of-Field when photographing animals like this. Since you are using a long lens, the DOF will likely be rather shallow.  Meaning if you come across a raft of sea otters floating on their backs, one may be in focus and the others, in front and behind the subject will start getting soft.  Possibly even the subject’s face will be in focus and his meal, resting on his belly will be out of focus. 

You only have a couple of options when it comes to increasing your depth of field.  One is to move your aperture to a higher number.  Instead of having it at f/2.8 or f/4 try moving it to f/11. f/16 or f/22. 

 Having enough light is usually your battle with this sort of move, but luckily, shooting otters is a daytime activity. On an overcast day, you might have to move your ISO up a bit, but it shouldn’t be a problem.

Be aware of the trade off with aperture and shutter speed.  When you make your aperture smaller (a larger number) your shutter speed will have to be slower.

Again, our subject matter, the sea otter, makes it easy on us in that they are not usually moving around too rapidly. So, you can get away with a slower shutter speed if need be. 

However, you don’t want to go too low, combined with your longer focal length of your lens, that you start getting blurry images. 

Remember that if you are using a 300mm – you should be shooting at least a 1/400th of a second.  And that’s if you are on a sturdy tripod.  

I tend to error on the side of a faster shutter speed like in the 1/1000th or faster.  If you are hand-holding, then you should go with even a faster shutter speed. 

Anyway, you cut it, sea otters are a blast to photograph. They are cute, furry, don’t move around too much.  They involve themselves in busy activities and interact with each other.  These animals are worth planning a trip around photographing them, if you happen to know where they hang out.

Monterey Bay, in California is the best place to start.  

However, the same animal, can be found on the Russian east coast, British Columbia, Alaska Mexico and Japan. 

With Alaska being the largest range with some 73,000 sea otters living up there. 

So they are out there, so go find them and have some fun photographing them. 

Episode 0009 Grand Teton Wildlife

In this episode, we talk to Kevin Taylor of the Teton Science Schools. Kevin, a professional wildlife guide in Grand Teton National park and has been for 18 years. You can contact the tours at 307-733-2623

Listen to his insights about the wildlife that people come to this park to see and learn how to better find wildlife on your next photo trip.

Female Moose at Grand Teton National Park

Hawthorn Berry, a great food source for bears late in the year at Grand Teton National Park.

Black Bear eating Hawthorn Berries to fatten up for hibernation.

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The beaver, considered a keystone species for the work that it does, benefits so many other species.

Grizzly Bear 399 and her four cubs , October 2020 - Grand Teton National Park

Episode 0008 Close Up Photography

As wildlife photographers, we probably pass by hundreds of possible subjects every day and we don’t even give them a second look. Fascinating creatures, hunting, eating and surviving, right under our noses.

I’m talking about the world of Close-up photography and photographing insects. 

With close-up work, the subjects are boundless. Especially when you are talking about insects.  They are easy to find in just about any season, the only catch is, they aren’t the easiest wildlife subject to photograph.  You can’t call them to your shooting spot, they don’t take the same path for water every evening and a guide is not going to help you much, you have to track them down yourself. 

Hi I’m Terry VanderHeiden your host of the Nature Photography podcast sponsored by Image Light dot com.  In this episode, I’ll give you some tips on how to start in Close-up photography, what equipment you will need and how to overcome the challenges of working very close to your subject.  

As always, we will take some time to talk about our subjects, the insect, and learn a little bit about them and how we can take better Close-up images of them.  We want to represent their habitats and struggles in their daily lives, for the people who view our images. 

Let me start by giving you a little history on how I started out making close up images. 

When I got started in photography, the first thing I wanted to photograph were things in Close-up.  I found it deeply interesting to see the detail in things we never paid attention to.  The texture in a football.  The detail in coins, the scratches and the marks that were made on all kinds of surfaces from leather to porcelain. It was fun for me to create an image and then quiz my family as was to what the subject was when all they had to go on was the section of the image I shot in Close-up.

Since I grew up on a small farm, wildlife was everywhere.  When I started to look close at things, there were even more subjects than I could ever photograph. 

After doing a little research at the library (yes, this was before the internet) I realized that I needed to move the lens away from the film plane in order for me to focus closer to my subject.  They had the same tools we have today that were called extension tubes but a more versatile device I saved up for, was a bellows.   

A bellows contraption was essentially an expandable black fabric box that sat on a rail system.  They still sell these things if you are so inclined to get really close to your subjects.  I would thread on the lens on one end, and then attach the bellows to the camera body. So, this would extend my lens away from the camera, and it allowed me to get very close to my subjects. 

The bellows would extend about 6 inches in length and fully extended I could shoot things up to 8 to 1 in a Close-up ratio.  Truly Macro photography by definition.

For true macro photography, you have to have a magnification of 1 to 1 or beyond. Otherwise everything else is considered Close-up photography. Not that it matters really, but so you know one to one means that the magnification is the actual size on the sensor of your camera.  

Since a full frame sensor these days in horizontal position is typically 24mm tall by 36mm wide. 

To achieve 1:1 on an image your subject has to be actual size.  Let’s take a US quarter.  This coin is just about 24mm tall.  To photograph it at 1:1 (actual size) you would have to fill up the frame from top to bottom with the quarter.   That close and closer is true MACRO photography.  

Suffice to say most of us will be doing Close-up photography which will be plenty to learn without getting into macro photography. 

Now back to my bellows set up.  On our farm, we had commercial bee hives, so one day I decided to take one of the stock honeycombs laying around and use it as a background. 

These honeycombs are pre-made so the bees don’t waste time and energy building the honeycombs, they just start filling them up with honey.  

This makes a hive that much more productive when the beekeeper is harvesting honey. 

The honeycombs also make a great patterned background to use in photography. 

One of the things we learned, was that insects don’t move around near as fast if they are cold. So, the simple solution is to capture your subject and put it in the refrigerator for a short time to “chill” them out, so to speak. 

Since I was using this long bellows system, the downside was that it took a lot of light in order to make an exposure.  I couldn’t afford an electronic flash in those days so I used high intensity halogen reading lights to light up my honeycomb set.  

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In order to make it look real, we poured a bit of honey on the honeycomb, got a good focus and then went to the refrigerator to get our subject. 

We gingerly placed the subject on the honey and started photographing. What we didn’t plan for, was that the high-intensity lights were going to quickly warm up the set AND the subject. 

  We also didn’t think it all the way through, because we used a hornet instead of a honey bee, which when warmed was pretty ticked off as us and spent the next half hour chasing us around the bedroom.

Even though my first big experiment with close up photography went a little sideways, I was hooked and I’ve been shooting close up subjects ever since. 

For those of you just starting out with Close-up Photography, I will go over everything you need equipment-wise, to get started, as well as some tips for having success right out of the gate. For the listeners that already have experience with Close-up, I’ll go over some advanced techniques that will really push your Close-up Photography to the next level.

We’ll get started with this, right after the break.

When you are starting on Close-up Photography you are going to need some specialized equipment.  If all you have is a beginning camera kit, the first piece of equipment you can get to begin with are Close-up filters. These are simple filters with a magnifying glass that allows you to focus closer on smaller subjects.  They simply thread on to the front of your existing lens and they change the working dynamics of say a normal lens.

While they do allow you to get close up to your subjects, the quality of the glass in these filters is not the best, so you might lose a bit of quality in the final image. This is a budget option for photographers starting out to see if they even like close up work. 

The next most inexpensive item is a set of extension tubes.  These are barrels that look like lenses but there is no glass in them. They are built to put directly on to your camera body, like you would a lens, then you attach your existing lens to the end of the tube. 

A lot of times they are sold in a kit of three, that give you different lengths.  They can be used one at a time or stacked together to move your lens farther from the camera body. The farther you can get your lens away from the camera, the closer you can focus.

So, photographing a simple flower, you can’t get close enough to fill of the frame with the petals. However, when you put on an extension tube, you can focus nice and close and only choose to show the center of the flower if you wish. 

The drawbacks of an extension tube are mainly that you lose infinity on your lens or the inability to shoot distant objects.  So, you can’t just put the tube on and shoot anything you want.  You can only be shooting Close-up subjects when using an extension tube. 

The next step up for equipment is a macro lens it can also be called a micro lens.  That’s what I use.  This lens is the most versatile lens in my bag, in that you can use it to focus closely, in many cases down to one to one or use it for portraits or use it for creating a landscape.  It’s probably the first lens I’d take if I was limited for some reason to only one lens. I highly recommend them.

I use a 105-mm micro lens as part of my Nikon gear, (for some reason Nikon calls them Micro lenses not MACRO lenses.)  A 105mm lens helps with the subject to the front of the lens distance.  When I have the lens all the way racked out,(one to one) my distance between the front of the lens and the subject is about 4 and a half inches.  With shorter micro lenses, like the 55 mm, all the way racked out, you have to be only an inch or two away from your subject for full magnification.

You can probably see how being only an inch away from your subject, that happens to be a skittish butterfly, could be problematic.   This is why a longer macro lens is easier to work with.  I know that Nikon makes a 200mm Micro lens and I assume other manufactures have lenses that are comparable.  

These lenses work the same but the longer the focal length the longer the working distance can be. 

The biggest problem with doing Close-up Photography is the lack of depth of field.  The areas that are in focus when you are shooting with extension tubes or a macro lens are VERY narrow.  The closer you get, the less depth of field you will find.  

When you are photographing an insect, the front of the face may be in focus but the rest of the insect drops out of focus very fast. 

This causes two problems. First is the capture.  There you are, your macro lens is almost all the way racked out on full magnification, you are 5 inches from the honeybee sitting on the flower.

As you lean in, any slight movement from you, the bee, the flower being moved in the breeze, the bee’s face falls in and out of focus. It can be hard to be in the right position for a capture to have the favored spot of the honeybee in focus. 

To combat this, we usually will move our aperture to a tiny hole, maybe f/22 or f/32 to have a more extended depth of field. Though it’s hard to see it through the lens, but when you look at the completed exposure you will see much more of the honeybee is in focus. 

Whenever you are shooting a wide depth of field by adjusting your lens to f/22 or smaller, then your second problem rears its head.  

You need a lot of light to shoot something at f/22.  If you are trying to make a capture where you subject just crawled under a leaf, then even being in the bright sun won’t help you. The shadows are just too dark to shoot at f/22 and have a speedy enough shutter speed to hand hold or stop an insect’s slight movement. 

Obviously, you could boost your ISO but everyone knows that when you increase the ISO you are introducing noise into the photograph.  Noise, will make the image not look as sharp, and in some cases, could seriously damage the final image. 

My rule of thumb; is only to increase the ISO when you HAVE to.  This is one of those cases where you may not need to raise the ISO to get the exposure you want.  More on this, after the break.

When you don’t want to increase your ISO but you may need to, in order to get the shot, consider using the electronic flash.

One of the big drawbacks of using flash is that, by nature, the light it produces drops off very quickly. So, trying to use a small aftermarket flash for shooting something at any distance after 10 feet, is pretty futile.

However, in close up work, the flash is only a few inches from your subject, so the light fall-off is not a huge problem. 

Can you use the flash that pops up on top of the camera?  Yes.  

Can you use a flash that you attach to the camera’s hot shoe? Of course. 

Let’s go outside and find a subject or two and see how this flash idea works.

I’m outside at a public garden and it seems to be teeming with insect activity. Namely honeybees bounding from flower to flower. 

I’m using my flash on a camera connected to a hot shoe on top of the camera and I have lowered my shutter speed to get more ambient light to blend in the background. 

As I get really close, I’m getting some weird light fall-off from the flash. It seems to only happen when I’m really close.  I believe that it is the flash casting a shadow caused by the front of the lens. I have a workaround for that.

To solve this flash problem, I picked up a flash that is perfect for close-up, it’s a ring flash. This unit attaches to the front of the lens so it can never create a shadow from the lens because of its right in front.

The brand I bought is called Nissin MF18 – this has some nice features to it, but the best part for me is that it divides the ring into two sides.  Each side is independently ratioed.  Which means I can put more light out of the right side and have the left be just a fill-in or vice-a-versa.

Being that it’s a ring light, the light covers a nice wide area, and with the ability to manually input independent power to either side makes it quite versatile. 

Set up was a snap and I could start shooting right away since it has TTL, Through the lens metering. It will fire the flash and shut it off when the exposure is right, all before the shutter closes.  Really nice.

This is a very easy set up to use and you will get some great Close-up shots with just adding a ring light to your arsenal.

Next up, how do we deal with that pesky shallow depth of field?  Stacking, of course.

If you haven’t heard of the focus stacking concept, this is how it works.  You shoot a shot with your focus on the front of the subject, then the next shot with the focus change slightly to get a little deeper into the subject.  

You create a series of images with only the focus changing.  Then bring all those images into a computer software, like Photoshop and merge only the sharp images into one fully sharp final image. 

I happen to use a software by Heliconsoft – called Helicon Focus.  This stand-alone product works with Adobe Lightroom so can export out a series of images right from Lightroom and return to Lightroom a finished version. 

There is a word of warning here, when doing extreme Close-up images, you are likely to use 20 to 100 images depending on how much coverage you are looking for. 

While the software does a really good job of aligning the images, you are better off to be working with a sturdy base like a tripod or at least a monopod. 

Another product that Heliconsoft sells is called the Helicon FB tube.  This is a small extension tube that works with your macro lens to automatically change the focus in tiny increments.  This makes focus stacking very easy.

Some camera’s now have this feature built in to the camera where they will change the focus in small increments for focus stacking, but this FB tube really works great. 

Let’s go outside and I’ll give you my step-by-step work flow to focus stacking.

Alright so we are outside ready to do some focus stacking.  I’ve chosen a flower this time as my test subject.

The camera is on a tripod, the FB Tube is attached to my camera and my 105 micro from Nikon is attached to the tube. Since the FB tube acts as a slight extension tube, I have lost the ability to focus on infinity, but I have gained the ability to focus a little closer.

When you are getting ready to compose for a focus stack, you need to consider that the software will arrange the images to fit, so if you start too close, something might get cropped out in the final image. My recommendation is to compose a little wider than normal so you can crop in after your stacked image is complete. 

 Your camera is stable, now make sure your subject is stable.  If the subject is a flower or and insect on a flower,  even a slight breeze can move this setup greatly while under close magnification.  Be sure to anchor the flower somehow.  Maybe a clamp to your tripod to a clamp on a stick.

I use a very cool tool called the Plamp 2.  It has a clamp on one end that I attach to my tripod leg, then it has a segmented snake arm of about 20 inches that ends in a very small adjustable clamp.  I can use this device to clamp a stem of a plant to keep it from moving during the shot and the end clamp is so delicate, I don’t harm the plant during the shot.

The plamp 2 is made by the Wimberly folks and this product can be picked up at their web site tripod head dot com. Well worth it.

Since I am stacking the image, I need to be on manual exposure.  I want all the exposures to be the same when I bring them into the computer. If they are off a bit, they will all be off by the same amount, which would be easy to fix as I shoot only RAW images all the time.

If I am using flash, I want to make sure that the flash has recycled properly between flashes to keep the exposure consistent.  So, I don’t want to shoot too fast. If I’m not using flash, I can put my camera up to the highest frames per second and the FB tube will keep changing the focus with each shot.

To start a stack, I shoot a photo of my fingers in front of the lens.  That way I know this is a new stack when I am looking at these in Lightroom. 

I then take a pair of tweezers or an edge of a card that I suspend just in front of the subject to get my first focus on. That way I know that my stack will start in front of where my subject is and eventually will come into focus.

Once that is done, I start shooting.  I keep shooting until I am way past my finished focus line.  I can always toss out images that I don’t use when I am selecting the images in Lightroom to send on to the stacking software. 

You don’t have to have an FB tube to do this kind of work, you can always manually change the focus each time. The FB tube just makes it easier. 

The best part of using this focus stacking method is that I am now shooting at f/6.3.  I do this for a couple of reasons.  I don’t have to shoot at f/32 to maximize my depth of field. With stacking, I can get everything in focus that I want.  Also, I have found that f /6.3 is the sharpest f/stop on this lens.  Lenses vary but usually, the sharpest part is about two stops over wide open. 

Shooting at a wider f/stop lets in a lot more light.  So, my flashes don’t have to use too much power so they can fire more rapidly. And I can easily bring in more of the natural background without having to lower my shutter speed too much.

So that is the primer on close up photography, contact me if you have questions, you can always reach me through my web site – image light dot com. 

Episode 0007 Wild Turkeys

Check out the podcast episode right here!

It’s unmistakable.  The sounds of the wild turkey.  Especially during the wild turkey breeding season. 

 You are listening to the Nature Photography Podcast sponsored by Image Light, I’m Terry VanderHeiden your host this week, as we take look and listen to the wild turkey.

These large birds are generally very plentiful across the US and at certain times of the year, the wild turkey can be very easy to find and photograph and other times it will be like trying to track down a ghost. 

Like all wildlife photography, understanding the selected animal’s behaviors first will make a much more enjoyable experience when you try to go out and photograph them. With turkeys, you just have to find them when they are, shall we say…distracted. 

In California, the turkey hunting season is usually from late March to early May and then again for about a month mid-November to mid-December.  

While I know as photographers we are not out hunting these birds, but in a way, we are.  We’re just not killing them and putting them on our tables to eat.  But we are stalking them, out in the wild, so many of the techniques are transferable. 

For many game animals, hunting season can be the worst time to be photographing a specific animal. Take for instance the wild moose in Maine.  I went there once in early October specifically to photograph moose.  We frequented ponds where they had been seen feeding, game trails, and many areas that were off the beating track.

The only moose I saw the whole trip, were the ones strapped to the hood of some hunter’s pick-up truck.  Yes, I decided to go photograph Moose during the hunting season. 

Lesson learned, don’t go stalking moose during hunting season… for two reasons.  One, most of them will scatter toward the hills the first time they see their buddy get dropped standing next to them.  Moose are smart animals that can move really fast. They can run at speeds up to 35 miles per hour, which means when they need to get lost, they can do it quite quickly. They also have great endurance in that they can swim up to 10 miles without stopping. 

And two, who wants to be out in the woods, carrying just a camera, while your competition are carrying powerful rifles. If you do go out to photograph animals during hunting season, be sure at least wear vibrant orange outerwear to help keep yourself visible. 

The exception to this rule of photographing in hunting season is stalking your wildlife in either state or national parks or look for them in populated cities where hunting is not allowed.  In the case of turkeys, they can be found in many rural landscapes we found ours at a local golf course, but more about that later. 

The hunting season for turkeys signals to us when the turkeys are easiest to find. Making this time the simplest time to photograph them.

In the southern parts of the United States, turkeys start their breeding season in February and as you find yourself farther north, the season can start up to as late as May. This has to do with increasing daylight hours that trigger sex hormones in the male birds, called the Toms.  The weather conditions will dictate this as the colder weather will stave off their interest in the hens until it gets a bit warmer. 

During this season, the Tom’s are trying to amass their own harems of hens.  This is when the gobbling sounds are at their peak.  And Tom’s are at their most vulnerable.  

It’s their sex drive that makes male turkeys not think straight and in some cases, you can get them to come running right to you.

Some simple calls that you can get at Bass Pro Shops will do the trick, but there is a learning curve. 

The idea here is that you are trying to make one of two calls.  First, is a call that sounds like a female turkey that is looking for a big, strapping Tom. It’s kind of a purr that says to the male turkeys, that they are looking for a mate. 

 The second one is a gobbling sound that tells other Tom’s that somebody else is in their territory and trying to make time with one of the members of his harem.  This sound makes them come running as well but this time with fury in their eyes. 

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There are hundreds of turkey calls available for as little as a couple of dollars up to $150 each.  These sounds all do something just a bit different from the next and Turkey hunters will tell you that having a few different calls is the way to go.  That way you can switch it up to get the reaction that you are looking for.

For starters, the most inexpensive calls are the mouth calls.  If you remember us talking about mouth calls in an earlier episode on how to photograph coyotes, you can get mouth calls for lots of different species and there are several for turkeys.  With the turkey mouth calls, these are again a half wafer type device that you place in the roof of your mouth, and depending on how you place your tongue or how the air gets expelled through it, it can make different sounds. 

The upside to these are that you can easily carry these in your pocket. So, whenever you need to call a turkey you are ready to go.  Also, if you have to hike a long way to get to your turkeys, it’s one less thing to carry.  Another reason mouth calls are desirable is while you are using them you can keep your hands free to operate your camera. 

The downside is that it takes some practice to get good at them, to make them sound correct.

Here is how a mouth call sounds.

Another version of a call is a friction plate apparatus.  On this product, you use a supplied pencil-like device and scratch sounds out on this specially built resonating crystal plate that has a wood resonator on the bottom to amplify the sound. 

These take some skill in the art of calling in Turkeys but once you learn how to do it, you’ll have them running right at you. 

Here is what a slate call sounds like. Again, you are trying to imitate the sound of a hen that is on the market, looking for a Tom. 

Lastly, there is a box type of calls.  These are generally, handheld, wooden narrow boxes that have a lid attached. The sound is created by pivoting the lid across the box slowly or with a rhythm. The sound is magnified by the hollowed-out section of the box.  

 Here is a sample of a box call.

This is the easiest Turkey sound to make as it takes very little practice to learn to make these sounds using a box call. Just slowly move the lid across the resonating box and you are communicating with turkeys. 

After you get a turkey call and start working with it, how do you know that you are making authentic sounds?

One of the best ways to know that you are making accurate sounds is to download a Turkey call app. There are a few iPhone apps on the app store for Apple iPhones, they are full of turkey sounds and most of them are free.

These apps will list the sounds along with samples of the sounds that you are striving to make so that when you practice, you will be making the sounds that get the turkeys to respond the way you want.

Before I forget, let me give you a few notes about using calls for calling in animals for photography.

First off, you can’t use calls to lure any ANY animal to you in a National park.  It is also forbidden in many state parks. It’s considered “harassing” the animals. So, make sure you know where you are when you are using your calls. 

Also, using electronic calls can be forbidden in some areas. It strictly outlawed for hunting but then again, we aren’t hunting the turkeys.  Be smart about it, don’t be annoying to the people around you and you should be fine.

The basis of a turkey call is to make the Tom’s curious enough to come to you to check you out. And I got to tell you, this really works.

My brother happens to have quite a selection of turkey calls, so I had him come out with me one morning to be my caller while I made some photographs. After the break, you have a listen to my first turkey photography session using store-bought turkey calls. 

The results were outstanding.  I made plenty of photographs of turkeys that were really pretty easy to get.

Let me talk a little bit about lighting.  Your best light will likely be early morning light that is low across the ground, illuminating their feathers and colored heads.  This direct sunlight will also illuminate the copperish looking bodies that kind of look iridescent in the proper light. This is spectacular to see and is caused by the sun refracting off the feathers of the bird.

The wild turkey can also look great under soft overcast light.  While the colors don’t explode as they would with low angle sunlight, they do look quite nice. One of the best parts is the colorful heads of the male birds. 

The heads are made up of three specialized parts.  The snood is that droopy bit of flesh that comes out just below their eyes and can be a few inches long as it hangs down across the male turkey’s face.

 Chicks dig the snood. So, it’s a real attractant to the female birds. 

 The back of the head has some warty looking skin called the caruncles (car-uncles) that comes down and merges into the chin area.  That flabby area in the chin area is called the wattle.

These parts of the turkey’s head can change color from bright blue to fiery red.  

The blue – teal color is very saturated with color and this means that the bird is excited and looking for a mate.  This is usually the head color you will see in the springtime when you are making sounds that mimic a female turkey. 

When these areas are red, that means that the male turkey is angry.  “In a fight’en mood.” As they say. 

You will see these colors when there are other male birds trying to move into another bird’s territory. This is where another sound, the gobble, that you can also make with a store-bought call, comes into play.  This gobble signifies that “hey, I’m here to take all your wives!”  

Fighting words in just about any language. So, when this area of the bird turns red, you know you got its attention.  This is a defense mode, he is defending his harem of hens that he has been gathering. 

A month or two before the mating season the tom turkeys are gathering up their hens into a harem of female birds.  That way when mating season begins, the male bird will have his pick and the convenience of everyone being right there, close by. 

It’s during this time that rouge jakes (younger male birds) will try to lure hens away from a harem. These fights, while they normally don’t last too long, can be spectacular photo opportunities. 

The birds will use the thorny spurs on their ankles to jab at the other bird, while many times twisting their necks around to peck the other bird. It looks like half fight half dance as two male turkeys will go around and around. 

Eventually, one bird will come out on top, literally on top of the other bird, and the loser will slink away as the lesser turkey, for that day. 

To photograph this display, you obviously need to be in the right place at the right time and be careful of having too long of a lens. Remember you will be having two large birds, moving violently around quickly so you want to be back far enough to capture the whole scene. 

Since these birds are moving, you really need to have a very high shutter speed if you want to stop the action.  So, keep that shutter speed in the 1 4000thof a second or higher for these battle scenes. 

For the most part, wild turkey photography won’t require super-fast lenses or high ISOs. As the birds move rather slowly when they are strutting and showing off their feathers. 

Shutter speeds a 250thor 500thof second should do the trick, but remember if you are using longer lenses, be sure to compensate for the magnification and increase that shutter speed.

Wild turkey photography is a lot of fun and can be a challenge to get them to come to you, but its worth it.

They really spectacular birds, that had it been up to Ben Franklin, the wild turkey would have been the national bird instead of the bald eagle. 

For your sanity, start with photographing the wild turkey in the springtime during mating season as they will be much less wary and since they only have one thing on their minds, it should make photographing them way easier. 

Until next time, this is Terry VanderHeiden thanks for listening to the Nature photography podcast brought to you by Imagelight.com

Episode 0006 Hummingbirds

Many of us have heard the sound of hummingbirds feasting at our home bird feeders.  The sound is unique. Almost like the sound of a large bumblebee.

We will painstakingly cook up the hummingbirds’ favorite nectar, with just the right amount of sweetness, to lure them back for more intimate viewing.

While this tiny bird is a common sight during spring, summer, and fall, they offer one huge challenge for photographers to capture a good photograph of them.

In today’s episode of the Nature Photography podcast, we will learn more about the simple hummingbird and see how photographing them is not all that simple. 

As with any wildlife photographic subject, it is always best to learn as much as you can about your subject so that way you can better predict where they will be and more accurately understand their movements.  With this information, the photographer can take better pictures of their intended subjects. 

There are over 350 species of hummingbirds most of them living in warm climates such as Central America and South America.  Only five are generally seen in North America, so that narrows it down quite a bit as to which hummingbird we are dealing with.

 Those five are the Ruby-Throated, Rufous, Costa’s and Allen’s and Anna’s hummingbird.

In California, we mostly see the Allen’s and Anna’s hummingbird and some Rufous hummingbirds.  Allen’s stay a little bit south while Anna’s spend their time North as far as Canada and Alaska. 

While the Rufous and Allen’s are very similar in their appearance, you mostly will be able to tell the difference due to where you see them.  The Allen’s’ hummingbird will stick to the southern part of the west coast while Rufous will go all the way up to Alaska making this bird’s migratory mileage, thousands of miles. 

The Anna’s hummingbird’s male version will have a bright red crown and throat, while the female mostly a dull green.  The Allen’s and Rufous hummingbirds both have a dramatic splash of orange for the crown and on their sides.

In the southern part of the US you will likely find the Costa’s hummingbird.  This species has a super vibrant purple crown. So bright, that it’s hard to capture the color on your camera’s sensors but I will give you some tips on that later.

East of the Mississippi River is where you will find the Ruby-throated hummingbird. Named for how the male looks, this hummingbird Summers in the United States and up to Canada and winters back down in Central America.  

All hummingbirds act pretty much the same regardless of the species, so wherever you are you should be able to predict their patterns.

The hummingbird is famous for its hovering behavior.  They seem to stay in one place in mid-air with wing beats up to 90 flaps a second. Then they are gone as fast as they appeared zipping off in random angles.

The hummingbird will feed on tiny insects and spiders as well as nectar from flowers.  They will hover in front of brightly colored flowers and dip their long beaks deep into the flower to take a sip of the sugar-loaded nectar. 

This is great news for us photographers, as we know that they will come to visit a hummingbird feeder that we fill with a sugar water recipe that they can’t resist. 

The first challenge you will face photographing hummingbirds is that their wings are moving pretty fast. As the photographer, you will have an artistic decision to make. Do you want sharp wings or blurry wings?

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When photographing hummingbirds, their 90 beats per second wing speed presents the challenge of how do we want to show their wings while they are in flight? Do we want to show the wings blurred or stopped cold?

For the version that shows the motion of the wings flapping, a kind of ghosted effect of the wings moving so fast it looks like a blurry fan, this can be the easiest technique to pull off.

A shutter speed of 1/500 of a second will certainly freeze the hummingbird while he’s hovering but his wings will be quite blurry from the movement.  Most cameras today can have shutter speeds of up to 1/8000 of a second that may very well work at sharpening up those buzzing wing flaps.

The best way is to do some testing to see what you like best.

Start with an active bird feeder and stay as far away as you can so you won’t disrupt the hummingbird while he’s feeding. Use a lens that will allow you to get a nice shot of the tiny bird, so it is likely a telephoto lens of some type, 200 to 300 mm, in most cases.

 If the hummers in your area like to sit on a perch and drink, this is the best way to start.  You won’t need to do anything fancy just shoot test photographs changing out your apertures with that lens. You want to discover what aperture works best to photograph the hummingbird with that particular lens. You want enough depth of field to make sure the whole bird is in focus. But not too much depth-of-field that the background becomes distracting. 

Once you have your location, and your aperture figured out, it’s time to experiment with the shutter speed. 

If your lighting is staying the same for a while, switch over to manual mode and start to move your shutter speed faster. Remember, every time you make your shutter speed faster, you will have to increase your ISO to allow you to get that same base exposure. 

Move your shutter speed to 1/1000 of a second and see if you like the results on the moving hummingbird. Keep going until you reach 1/8000 of a second.  You will have to decide what works for your tastes. Go check them out large on the computer, don’t make these kinds of decisions solely based on what you see in the back of your digital camera. 

Check out the wingtips. Are the tips sharp?  How much blur do you want? Check all the levels with the different shutter speeds and try to hone in on what you like.

To improve your photography of hummingbirds, put your camera on a tripod.  I like to use a tripod with a Wimberley Gimbal head.  This way, I can move the lens and camera quickly without having to crank down the knobs to lock the lens and camera in place.  Because the Wimberley is a gimbal head, you can balance your set up when you start and know that the camera will stay exactly where you left it.

When hummingbirds are hovering around a feeder they are pretty easy to track, but I’d say don’t even bother trying to track them when they are flying to and from the feeder, they are just way too fast. But while they are near the feeder they will likely do the same maneuvers over and over again.  Up, down, left, right. If you watch them enough, you will figure out their pattern. 

After many hours of watching the hummingbirds in my area, they will hover, take a drink, then tilt their head back and rise up a couple of inches, then they go back down to the feeder.  This is valuable information, as now I can predict their movements when they are coming in to visit the nectar supply. 

Another thing to watch for is their perch.  I’m not talking about perching ON the feeder itself, but when they are “next in line” to have a drink. If you watch them, they will usually land on a limb of a nearby bush, wait, and then zip in for a quick drink.

There is a hierarchy to drinking at the feeder. So, perching somewhere else to see if the coast is clear, is very common.  Many times, there is a dominant male who wants to keep the feeder to himself.  

In my area, he sits nearby and then buzzes in to chase off any others who want to drink at the bar.  When he finally goes back to his nest, six or seven of the others will all drink at the same time while the bully is gone.

Knowing where your birds’ perch can be discovered by just watching and following their patterns.  One of the birds in my area will perch within a couple of inches of the same spot every time. This is a great time to photograph them sitting still and this is predictable.

Next up , is to take a look at your images and determine if the wings are sharp enough. Even at 1/8000 of a second, the wing can still appear blurry. The next step you need to take if you want really sharp wings is to use electronic flash.

So here is my warning about how technical this can get and using flash is not for everyone. However, if you want to take your hummingbird images to the next level, then keep listening, this will get pretty detailed. 

Using electronic flash will take a bit more patience, but the payoff is fantastic. 

For this exercise, we are going to work with portable electronic strobes. There is a couple of good reasons to use the portable versions, the first of which is their small size and portability, and that you can place them anywhere and not have to have an outlet nearby to plug them in.  However, the most important reason is that with the smaller flashes, you can create a very fast light source. 

This part is important, so follow along, the more power you output from the flash, the slower the light is.  The less power you use, the faster it will go off.  When you are using your flash on manual mode and set it at full power, the strobe goes off at about 1/1000 of a second.  However, if you set your flash on 1/128thpower, it can go off at 1/40,000 of a second.  Now that is pretty fast.

The downside shooting at this low of a power is a diminished volume of light. At 1/128 power, not much light is being cast on your subject. As you move up on the range, 1/64 power gets you about 1/30,000 of a second and on up. At 1/16thpower you are shooting at 1/10,000 of a second.

I would suggest that you start there at 1/16thpower and if you find you need more stopping speed then cut the power of your flash.  

The logic is pretty simple, to get more light, ad more flash units.  In large setups, it’s not uncommon to have 3 or 4 flash units going off. In order to get good, stop-action shots of the hummingbirds that are coming into your yard, there is some set up that needs to happen first.  

To start with you need to do a test.  This is where you set your flashes up and put your camera on a tripod, positioned to where you want to capture a hovering hummingbird.  The lights are going to have to be on separate light stands and pointed pretty close to where you want your subject. You will want to shoot at the same time of day that you can expect hummingbirds.  Early morning and late evening is a very popular feeding time. 

Begin with a small stuffed animal or a thick stick to act as your subject. Try to find something that would replicate the size of one of your hummingbirds. Mount it on a stand to stay in the same spot throughout the testing. 

Put your first strobe, set on manual at 1/16thpower aimed at the subject.  We will call this your main light. Have the light coming from the right, slightly above the bird feeder.  Essentially shining in the hummingbird’s face.  

Next, put a light behind the subject in the back left of the frame. Make sure this strobe unit is not seen by the camera.  This will be your separation light. Start with it at 1/16thpower as well. 

Set your camera on the highest shutter speed that your camera can sync with a strobe, my Nikons are set at 1/250thof a second.

You will need some sort of trigger that fires the flashes when your shutter goes off.  This can be in the form of a radio transmitter or infrared.  Refer to the make and model of your camera to get that answer. 

Take a test shot.  If you are shooting at ISO 100 and at f/8 or f/16 your background should be dark or black (as long as your background is not in full sunlight.) This is a good thing. The darker the background means that you are not getting any ambient light into the shot and that it has been totally lit by strobes.  This also means you now have total control over the shot with your lights and the speed of the flashes will determine the stopped motion of the shot. 

If you are not getting a good exposure yet, try moving the flashes closer to the subject. Try adjusting your f/stop or finally adjust your ISO.  Remember, increasing your ISO is always your last resort.

You can adjust the power of your flashes to change the look as well. Maybe a little less power from the separation light. Since the angle of that light might be too bright for your tastes.

Lastly, consider the background.  You have options here.  One way is to hang a drape that will be a green fabric that is out of focus. Some photographers go the extra step of taking a photograph of greenery, completely out of focus, making a print and hanging it as the background.  You then will have to add a light to that background, yes, a third light to light the background. 

Now the shot of your test stick should be looking pretty good. 

The next challenge is to wait for the live hummingbirds to come to visit. 

Since wild animals are wary of changes, you may want to build your set up slowly.  Put a light stand out there one evening.  A few days later when they are comfortable with that, add your second one. Another day or so hang your background.  Slowly add your strobes and when the birds are comfortable feeding again, turn the strobes on with fresh batteries.  Hook up your camera a good distance away and wait.  When they get hungry they’ll come.  Don’t fire the strobes at all at the first subject.  Take your time. This is an ongoing project.  Let your subjects get used to all this extra equipment.

Lastly, you will want to improve your foreground.  Until now, you have been photographing the hummingbirds at your feeder. But wouldn’t it look more natural if they were feeding from a flower?

Anchor a flower there instead of the feeder.  Once your flower is in place, take a syringe or an eyedropper and place a few drops of your feeder liquid down in the throat of the flower. Now when the hummingbird comes to drink they are treated to dipping into a real flower.  This makes a much better photograph. Obviously, you will want to position your camera so that there is not a bird feeder in the background, you will want to make this whole shot look natural. 

There is yet another level you can achieve with your hummingbird photography and that is changing the quality of light.  

So far, you are using three electronic flash units pointed directly at your hummingbird subject.  Some species have crowns that almost look like tiny sequins, reflecting light in all kinds of directions.  The Costa’s hummingbird is in this category.  And for this reason, they can be difficult to capture the colors the way you see them. When using a straight flash to illuminate such a reflective subject, the colors may not pop like you are seeing.  

The reason for that, is you have essentially a very sharp and tiny light source in your electronic flash.  Kind of like the sun appears at noon up in the sky.  A very sharp light, with deep shadows.

To change the quality of light, you will need to soften it.  The easiest way is to buy or build a small soft box to bounce your light into, to create a larger light source. Kind of like when you have a layer of clouds that diffuses the sunlight into a much softer light. 

You can also point your flash backward and bounce the light off a piece of white cardboard.

Another way is to shoot your light through a piece of diffusion material like white plexiglass 

This will soften the light and give reflective parts of the hummingbird much better color rendition and softer shadows.

This kind of diffusion does come with a price.  You are outputting less light volume. 

This means you may have to boost your flash’s output, thereby reducing how fast the strobe goes off.  One solution is to put more than one flash into the softbox so you can get more power of light, without suffering a faster flash speed or bumping up your ISO and degrade your photographs.

After you get your light to work the way you want, the next thing you may want to experiment with is moving your camera closer.  That may mean, setting your camera up with a remote shutter trigger to fire the camera when you are not near it.

The remote is usually plugged into the cable release port or there are some smartphone apps that can fire the camera remotely and let you look at the results right there on your phone.

As you move your camera closer, you can experiment with wider lenses. Yep, try using a wide-angle lens staged right up next to the bird feeder and fire remotely.  This will give you a large depth shot of your yard and make an interesting view of the birds and their habitat.

So, there you go, everything I know about photographing hummingbirds.  

Start off easy with just a bird feeder and your camera.  If you want to progress, look at using different lenses, and finally when you are really ready for a challenge, try using the electronic flash setups.

Episode 0005 Pacific Chorus Frogs

Who doesn’t like the sound of frogs croaking on a warm, spring evening?

Just after a spring rain many of us can hear this tiny animal calling to their friends and especially calling out to find a new mate.  It’s the kind of sound that can bring out the memories back to when we were kids and could hear them along the creeks we were exploring. 

This is a pretty easy animal to find in the wild, so let’s find out more about these attractive subjects and learn how we can take better photographs of them.

Hi, this is Terry VanderHeiden, bringing you the Nature Photography podcast. In this episode of this nature photography series, we will work with Pacific Chorus frogs and learn some tricks to photographing them, how to find them and how to work with artificial light to create realistic scenes. 

The tree frog that we are listening to here, is the Pacific Chorus frog, also known to many as the Pacific tree frog.  This is considered to be one of the most plentiful amphibians on the west coast of North America. They can be found everywhere from Baha California to up into British Columbia and as far east as Montana. 

While it is sometimes referred to as a “tree” frog, this little guy seldom ventures up trees, it will mostly stay near the ground. While his little suction cup feet can propel this frog on just about any surface, in shallow creeks and ponds are the home of choice, for this guy.

They can be found as either brown or green, depending on the background he’s living in. One of the keys to this frog’s survival is not being seen as easily, so the ability to change his own coloring is a big asset. 

They are notable to have a dark mask that goes from the front of their faces, through the eye and partway down his body. They have suction cup feet and big voices.

When you find several of them making their tell tail “ri-bett” sound, it can almost be deafening when they all get going. 

Finding these frogs is pretty easy. Go looking in the early evening in the spring time, anywhere from January to June depending on how cold it is in your area. Just go to an area that has some shallow water, be it a pond, creek, ditch or whatever and sit quietly and listen.

I enlisted the help of my good friend, fellow photographer and natural history enthusiast, David Bozsik. David has a fantastic web site with tons of great wildlife images at  www. Bozsik Imagery.com   I asked him to tell us a bit about “finding” the Pacific Chorus frog. 

Once you have located a Pacific Chorus frog or any other frog for that matter, you are going to want to photograph it.

Since these are small animals, (one to two inches in length) you going to need to get out your macro lens.  

This is a specialized lens that not everyone owns, but it really worth adding to your equipment list just for how versatile it really is. 

Unlike your other lenses, this one lets you get really close to your subject, allowing you to focus on something that is only a few inches away from the front of your lens.

No other lens in your bag will allow you to photograph a landscape and then be able to focus down to fill up the frame with something as small as a US quarter. 

The big trade-off on one of these lenses is that your depth of field can be really shallow, but there are some ways to get around that.  

And when I say shallow, I mean really shallow.  Imagine this, You are photographing the face of a penny.  That penny fills up the frame of your viewfinder. When shooting at the maximum wide open f/stop, say, f/2.8, looking at the penny, Lincoln’s face could be in focus but the background where the words (In God We Trust) are out of focus.  Just that tiny difference between the levels of the engraving will fall out of the depth-of-field area that’s in focus.

To combat this, we usually need to stop the lens down. Make the aperture smaller.  Thereby letting less light through the lens.

Like in most photography situations, the first thing to think about is your light. 

When you are working in Macro photography situations, you already have a very shallow, depth of field.  The first thing you can do to give yourself more coverage on what’s in focus is by stopping down the lens.  By this I mean instead of having your aperture at f2.8 you might need to go down to f/16, f/22 or even farther. 

In order to do this, you will need lots of light to use a shutter speed that will let you handhold this highly magnified shot. Of course, your fall back is boosting your ISO but I always like to save that as a last resort since I know that too high of an ISO will degrade the quality of the final image. 

While it’s tempting to shoot in bright sunlight, which should normally be plenty of light for this kind of work, I would lean toward an overcast day, where there still is a lot of light but the light that is there is much softer and not as harsh as the middle of the day kind of light. 

If you haven’t done this type of photography before, do some testing with different light conditions but epically with subjects that aren’t going to move on you. 

To start with I would look for a bottle cap.  This is small and about the size of a very fat, Pacific Chorus frog.  Set that bottle cap on some leaves, on the ground, or rest it on a sturdy plant.  Try getting some shots of it, making sure that your depth of field covers both edges of the cap.  Now, get closer and take some more.  You should get to the point where you fill-up the frame with the bottle cap and it’s all in focus. 

If you find your depth of field is still too shallow and you have your lens all the way stopped down, try moving back just a bit.  

All lenses will have a breaking point so to speak.  Even a high-end Macro lens will have a limit to how close you can focus. I like to know what that distance is and learn what those limitations are.  Here is how I do it.

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We are outside in my garden, I’m shooting with my Nikon D850 and a 100mm macro lens, also made by Nikon.

I’ve got a bottle cap set up resting on a leaf of a potato plant, to simulate the size of a Pacific Chorus frog. I have full overcast morning light and the wind is almost non-existent. 

Just as a side note, when shooting close-up photos, wind, is NOT your friend.  Even the slightest breeze can cause all kinds of havoc when you are trying to keep things in focus.  There are enough other factors going on that you don’t need a breeze coming up and moving your subject around while you are trying to get a good focus with such a shallow depth of field. 

I’ve set up my camera and lens and adjusted my ISO to shoot at f/45 at 1/500thof a second.  The reason my shutter speed is so high is the same reasoning you boost your shutter speed while shooing with longer telephoto lenses.  Magnification.

Magnification will magnify how much a subject is moving in your viewfinder.  If you were shooing this bottle cap from 10 feet away, you wouldn’t even notice the movement of the plant leaves.  However, from only a few inches away, even a slight movement will seem like the plant is moving at great speeds inside the viewfinder.

Remember to keep your shutter speed high to keep your images sharp.

My technique when I want full magnification is to the rack my lens out to as far as it can go, then I back it off by just a small amount.  That way my macro lens’s focus is not maxed completely out.  It’s close, but not completely to its maximum magnification. 

Then, I slowly move the whole camera closer, until my subject comes into focus. 

Its’ almost like a rocking motion where I am sitting here, just leaning forward from the torso, into the shot and shooting as soon as the front edge of the subject comes into focus. 

I know I am getting the maximum magnification that my lens will allow and my aperture is giving me most all of my depth of field.

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After I have checked these images out on the computer, where I can look at them nice and big, I’ve noticed a few things.  Even though it seemed like we had lots of light on that overcast day, I had to shoot at ISO  3200.

That is pretty high and am starting to see some noise that is affecting the image quality.  Also, I could only shoot things that were in the light.  Overcast or not, I wasn’t able to shoot anything in the shadows.  

As you can imagine, we don’t have too much control over where we are going to find our subjects, so this is limiting. 

I guess I am going to have to bring along an electronic flash unit to get the results I want. 

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Alright, I am back outside.  This time my camera is set to a shutter speed 1/250thof a second, the lens is set on f/45 and now my ISO is down to 200.  This will give me a much cleaner image.

Since I know my flash is going to go off at least at 1/1000 of a second, I won’t have to concern myself too much with my shutter speed.  It will stop the motion even at high magnification.  I just need to make sure it syncs up with my camera, and in my case, that is set by the manufacture at 1/250thof second.

The strobe unit I am using is a Nikon SB800. They have newer models out, but this seems to work fine for this application.

 A note about flash units.  You can get many other inexpensive off-brand flash units but if you go with a unit that is manufactured by your camera maker, then it will be just easier to use. Since it is paired with your camera from the get-go.

 I’ve set my flash on manual and set the power at 1/2 power.

I also like to use another technique of lowering the shutter speed to bring in more detail in the background.

When you are working with your flash and macro lens, try lowering the shutter speed.  This is allowing you to brighten up the background.   This technique is called dragging the shutter.  

 You can shoot as low as you want, but there will be point where the background will look smeared because of such a slow shutter speed.  Just keep in mind that the flash is controlled by your aperture or f/stop and your shutter speed controls the tone of the background. 

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So now you know how to find a very popular subject in the Pacific chorus frog, and you have learned how to start using your macro lens for close up subjects.  You also have dipped your toes into the fascinating world of using an electronic strobe unit with your close-up photography.

One trick to keep in mind is getting low.

You may very well be laying on the ground to photograph these animals in their environment.  But getting low will give the viewer an interesting and different perspective on these little guys. If you get shots of them on a plant, that you are looking up at them, so much the better.

So, there is nothing stopping you from getting your own frog photographs so get out there and do it!

Episode 0004 Photographing Coyotes

The coyote vocalizations at night can be haunting to some, but to others like myself, it’s part of nature’s wonderful soundtrack. 

To me this sound lets me know that coyotes are nearby and I know these are superb animals to photograph. So, to me, it’s inspiring.

Let’s find out all we can on coyotes so we, can take better photographs of them.

Before we go any further this animal’s name can be pronounced either Kai-oat-Tee the three-syllable version or it can be pronounced as the two-syllable version -  kai Oat. 

Some people even shorten it to be yote’s.  As in “ I was out all day looken fir sum yotes”.  

Since it’s a regional pronunciation thing, I may switch it up as we go. So I apologize upfront if I’m not saying it the way you are used to. 

First, the coyote is from the Canidae (cani-die) family or the canine family, which includes wolves, foxes, and our own best friend, the domestic dog. These are carnivorous animals that feed mainly on rodents, rabbits, reptiles, amphibians and occasionally fruit, sometimes they will dine on something even as large as deer. 

The evening vocalizations that we can sometimes hear out in the wild are usually generated by lone coyotes. Since this animal is socially family orientated, these individuals are looking for mates or letting others know this is their territory. 

Otherwise, the coyote will be found in a pack with a mated pair leading the way. This mated pair, seldom part ways and are usually together in a  “death do us part” sort of deal. 

These animals can be found all over North America and increasingly, the coyote, rather than being pushed away when humans move into its territory is adapting to the urban landscape.

While coyotes have been known to cross paths with humans, they prefer open wooded areas where they can hide from humans, THEIR number one predator. 

If you are driving in your car and see a coyote trotting in the woods, you might be cursing yourself for not having your camera ready.  The way the light can highlight their fur coats can be stunning. However, not everyone likes this animal. 

You will find outdoorsmen, hunters, and farmers all in the same camp that these animals need to be killed on site.  Hunters can’t stand them because they might scare off a deer that was in their sites. Or that the coyote is the guiltiest for eating pheasant eggs or hens or other game birds.  Ranch owners will tell you all kinds of stories of how a single coyote can decimate their sheep heard. Coyotes get blamed for all kinds of natural mayhem. Some of which is probably true but we do need to learn ways to co-exist with this animal.

The industry of hunting the coyote is huge. With sportsman shops like Bass Pro Shops boasting dozens of different products devoted to just hunting coyotes.  From specialized calls to camouflage clothing to decoys to coyote scent concealers. 

The fact that coyotes are hunted so aggressively by humans, these animals have learned to be clever and rely on all their senses in order to stay alive.

Let’s take the senses one at a time;  The sense of smell:  

 The coyote has an amazing sense of smell.  After all, they use their noses for hunting as well as for sensing danger and they do this, all day long. 

Some hunters go to great lengths to hide their own human smell.  Taking showers with scent eliminating soaps, washing their clothes in special detergent, keeping their hunting clothes in special scent-free bags, and even getting dressed outside their car so as not to drag the smells on their car seats into the field. 

They also buy coyote urine, spray it on themselves, their surroundings, and their gear in the hopes of not being discovered.  However, the most important thing you can do when out photographing coyotes is to remain downwind from your subject.  That means once you are in the right location, and the light is right, choose to be where the wind is in your face.  That way the coyote can’t smell you as easily as if the wind is coming across you and blowing your scent right to them. 

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This can be a challenge but it’s the simplest thing you can do when it comes to this type of photography. 

Next up is the sense of sight.  Do you really need to be covered in camo clothing to photograph coyotes?  Not really, but it depends.

 If you can use something to break up your face and eyes, sunglasses under a hat or a loose-fitting face mask should do the trick. 

When it comes to clothing, just wear something drab and not patterned.  Think, khaki pants and olive green shirt rather than blue jeans and a red plaid shirt.  Keep in mind you might be out in a field a long time so dress for the weather and temperate first. 

The big thing to keep in mind is movement. You need to be absolutely still.  If you do need to make movements, move super slow.  It’s the movement that will give you away not what you are wearing.   

Lastly, we come to sound. 

 If you look at the face of a coyote you can see his ears pointing up and out.  These are shaped in such a way that they can grab sounds from very far away. They are like little parabolic microphones gathering in sounds from all over.

To illustrate their hearing most of us have seen the clips of coyotes leaping into the air off a bed of snow and slamming their face deep into the snow to capture some unsuspecting rodent. That behavior is from coyotes “hearing” a little mouse moving around in the snow deep below where they stood.  Not only did they hear the mouse, their hearing so good they can track their prey’s movement under the snow, that way they know exactly where to bury their face and make a kill. 

There are countless stories that hunters will tell you about coyotes hearing something as soft as the safety of a gun being clicked off at hundreds of yards away can scare a coyote off.

Excellent hear is a big asset for the coyote.  However, it is a tool, that we as photographers can use, to get fantastic photographs of the coyote. 

 When it comes to photographing coyotes, there are a few things that we can successfully do that will help us get some great shots of these magnificent animals.  First and foremost is finding them. If you have heard the coyote howl in your area, then you know they are around.  But let’s say you head out to some open spaces to try to get photographs of them in less urban surroundings. The things to look for are, scat and tracks.

For scat, Coyotes will deposit a rope-like material that is filled with bones and hair. These are about the same size as your good-sized neighborhood dog will leave on your lawn, but the materials inside are quite different, and that is due to diet. While our dogs feast on mostly store-bought dog food, the coyote’s diet is vast to include rodents, rabbits, and other small animals.  So, if the scat you are looking at is full of hair and bones, very likely a coyote has been through there.

 Next are the tracks to look for.  While this can be more difficult since the domestic dog has a similar paw print, the telltale sign is the gate.  While a dog of about the same size as a full-grown coyote is about 40 lbs, the stride will normally be quite different. Likely a dog will make a footprint every 16 to 25 inches, the coyote will make a track every 28 to 48 inches.  Also, the domestic dog will make tracks in a zigzag pattern where a coyote will travel in a straight line whenever the terrain will allow.

The best way to photograph the elusive coyote is to use its amazing hearing to your advantage and call them right to you.

Back to a place like Bass Pro Shops you can find several different calls that you can use.

If you are ambitious and don’t want to spend too much money there are manual hand calls that you just use your own lungs to produce the appropriate sounds. 

The first of which is a diaphragm call.  With these items, that are about the size of a half of a half-dollar coin, you place them in your mouth and blow against the small latex flapper and change the pitch and rhythm with your own voice. 

These can make a variety of calls to attract coyotes to where you are set up.

 This variety can be everything from pups yelping to females in heat to young coyotes announcing that this is their territory.

Some diaphragms can make multiple sounds but in many cases, you will have two or three different diaphragms to choose from.

 The manual hand calls have a couple of downsides.  First, is that there is a learning curve to using them.  They take some practice to get the sounds right.  You also may need an amplifier tube to get a little more volume of sound. 

One problem that these tools present are that as you are sitting there calling in coyotes, you are not ready to take photographs.  Coyotes can come running pretty fast so dropping your call and getting your face down behind the camera to photograph, is a movement that can be seen from quite a ways away for the cautious coyote. So, this is best done with a buddy system. Where one person does the calling while the other does the photographing. 

Next up are the reed callers.  These are built with a mouthpiece that you bite down on and blow into kind of like you would a clarinet, only producing music that only coyotes love.

There is a whole range of these devices in this category and you can even go online and learn how to make some of these reed callers yourself.

 Lastly on the topic of calling coyotes are the electronic callers.  These are pretty fancy devices.

 Essentially, the best electronic callers have a handheld remote and a separate set of remote speakers. This allows you to place the speakers in a bush and call your coyotes to that location.  This makes the animal check out the spot where the speakers are as opposed to where YOU are. 

These systems can output quite a high volume of sound to help in calling coyotes in the wind or if you need to reach out and bring your subject in from far away. 

Also with two speakers, you can “move” the call from the left speaker to the right to simulate that a sound is moving.  Kind of like it would be out in the wild.

The best part about this device is not that they have just a few coyote calls, but they offer hundreds of calls!  You not only have the calls that make a coyote come running but you also have included with the unit, calls for gray fox, red fox, mountain lions, elk, and moose.

The most sophisticated units come with sounds of wounded animals like the sound a jackrabbit makes when he’s injured. Or a cottontail in distress and many, others.  

 All of these sounds make these digital calls quite versatile for calling in many different animals. 

All of this versatility a good thing and possibly a bad thing.  

 When you start using predator calls and select from the large variety of wounded animals, you might get something attracted that you didn’t expect. 

Keep in mind that when you are calling predators, you can’t be certain they will be coming in from where you would expect them to be.  Possibly they may come up from behind you, so be ready.

A good friend of mine told me an interesting story about one of his calling adventures.

One early morning he was set up near the top of a canyon, with his coyote call, working the valley just below him. For this instance, he was using a rabbit in distress sound hoping to get some shots of coyotes coming up the canyon.  

After a while and no coyotes in sight, he had this weird tingly feeling of being watched. We have all experienced something like this feeling before, so he slowly turned around to check his surroundings.  

There, on the ledge right behind him was a full-grown bobcat. The cat was just casually watching him. Obviously brought in by the sound of a possible free meal.

 After a short stare off, the bobcat sauntered away. 

After that, my photographer friend now had a new location to call in a different subject, for his camera. 

Now that you have an understanding of the crafty coyote and how to stalk and lure them closer to you for some great photography, you need to know how to photograph these animals.

First, let’s talk about the best times to go and photograph coyotes.  

For the animal to look his best, fall, winter and early spring are good times since the coyote is going to be well dressed for your photographs. 

In the fall, the coyotes start getting their winter coats and most of them have filled out, storing up fat for the leaner winter months. That makes fall and winter are the best times to photograph them when they are looking their best. 
Also, keep in mind that January and February is the time of year that coyotes mate up so there are more calls that will attract them to your spot to photograph them during these months of the year.

Whew.  That is about all you can stand learning about coyotes. Let’s get into the actual photography part to make sure your photographs come out the best they can.

Let’s go over equipment to make sure you have everything you need to make quality captures.

As far as camera’s go, you likely have already made that decision as to which brand you use, but if not here’s a little food for thought:  

While I use traditional DSLR equipment, Nikon in fact, there is a good case for high-end mirrorless cameras for photographing coyotes.  Here’s why: If you remember earlier when we talked about the amazing hearing capability of the coyote, the sound of the snapping shutter may not be your friend.  

Typical set up for calling Coyotes. Two tripods, one with a 600mm and one with a 300mm. Both fitted on Wimberley WH-200 Gimbal Head. The Gimbal head makes switching between focal lengths quick and easy. Zeiss Conquest 10 x 42 Binoculars for scanning the distance for subject movement.

I like to use a Gimbal head on my tripod for this kind of work.  The gimbal head I use is a Wimberley WH-200 Wimberley head Version 2. This head screws on to the tripod where you would normally thread on your head but the base has a tall arch connected to it. On this arch, a moving platform it attached and it’s on this platform that you attach your lens foot of your telephoto lens. This head is not made for shorter lenses without a lens foot. Once you are attached, you can loosen the lock knob and gently slide the lens and camera back and forth until you get your whole rig balanced.  Once its balanced, you now can move your camera in any direction, left or right or up and down, when you find the perfect spot, just leave it.  If you have your rig balanced, it won’t move.

This is perfect for setting your sites on an area in the distance and when you start to follow your wildlife its fluid and easy to follow with the Wimberley Gimbal head. I can’t imagine going back to a regular tripod head for shooting something like coyotes or just about any wildlife for that matter.

I’ll put links in the show notes and on my website or you can just go to www.tripodhead.comand order your own.

Lastly, let’s talk about f/stop or aperture.  Normally I would say the rule of thumb for shooting wildlife is I almost always shoot at wide open and focus on the eyes.  However, with animal-like this that has an elongated snout, I like to try to get a somewhat wider depth of field. 

To experiment with this, let’s go get our model so some practicing. 

 Most of us have easy access to the perfect model for learning how to photograph coyotes.  

That’s right, mans’ best friend, our domestic dog. 

The reason I recommend practice on photographing dogs is that most of them have an elongated snout, can move erratically, and are readily available to work with.

 You are going to want to get your techniques down, like second nature BEFORE you go out looking for coyotes.    You don’t want to go the trouble of setting up your equipment, doing your calls, and then find when a coyote does appear, your autofocus was on his tail and he’s completely out of focus.

Practice with a dog. The best subject would be a small German Shepard as they are about the right size around 40 lbs.  They have a longer snout than say a French bulldog so they will present the same challenge of the depth of field for the animal’s face.

I’m working with my beagle, Tucker, out here at an open field dog park and simply just letting him run around.

 As I shoot, I’ve got my camera on continuous focus, so as long as I hold the focus button down, the camera and lens will keep adjusting to keep the dog’s eyes in focus.  Following the focus and tracking the animal. Nikon refers to this function as continuous focus while the canon brands call it AI Servo. 

To make this easy, I have my tripod set up, my Wimberley Gimbal head in place, my 300mm 2.8 lens hooked up to my Nikon D5.  

I’m having my wife call the dog while I track and photograph him.

 My dog loves it and I’m getting great practice at photographing moving subjects.  My wife not all that into it, but two out of three’s not bad.

 While I was out there shooting, I varied my f/stop.  That way I could get the best depth of field for photographing coyotes.  Here is what I discovered.  

I needed to stop down to about f/7.1 or f/8 to get enough depth of field to keep the eyes and the nose in focus on the full-face shot. 

  This aperture, of course, depends on how close my dog was. I would not likely be photographing a coyote near as close since they wouldn’t let me and I’m not sure I want a wild coyote that close to me.

As the animal was farther out, I could default to my standard wildlife setting of wide open, in this case, f/2.8, as the depth of field was not an issue and even if it was, I was focused on the animal’s eyes.  If you keep the eyes sharp almost all else is forgiven. 

Since you are all set and ready to go, the last thing we need to talk about is the time of day you want to go.

Most wild animals are active during the early morning and late afternoon.  And that is also true with the coyote.  However, during the late spring when pups are in the den, the coyote will be out feeding much more often and many times right in the middle of the day.

Since this animal is has adapted to the human world so well, they can be found in city parks and on sidewalks, seeing one during daylight hours doesn’t mean that the coyote is rabid or sick in some other way.  I often mean it just out looking for food.

If you see them in your urban world, give them a wide birth, and enjoy watching them.  As dog-like as they may appear, never approach one, try to pet it or anything like that, respect that it’s a wild animal and one that is quite a challenge to get good photographs of.

Episode 0003 American White Pelicans

0003 Episode Three

American White Pelicans

This episode is about photographing the American White Pelican. One of the United State’s largest birds. Terry talks about how to find these birds and how to photograph them.

The American White Pelican is one of the largest birds in North America with its almost nine-foot wingspan, amazingly, it’s a magnificent flyer. Due to habitat loss, this bird’s population dropped in the early part of the 20thcentury. But since the 1970s’ there has been a substantial increase in population due to this bird’s ability to adapt. 

Learning as much as you can about a species is a great way to understand your subject before you go out to photograph them. 

 Such as with the American White Pelican, with the knowledge of their migratory patterns and eating preferences, you can gain the knowledge of where to find these birds and better predict their behaviors. Thus, increasing the odds of getting better photographs.

 Here at Anthony Chabot Regional Park in Castro Valley, California, the American White Pelican calls this place home for at least part of the year. The white Pelican winters in warmer climates like California, Florida, and Mexico then it migrates to the northern great plains and Canada to breed.

When the Pelicans are working to capture their next meal, they usually are seen flying about 10 to 15 feet above the water’s surface looking for fish activity.  

The American White Pelican can be found often working in pairs or in groups, collaborating together to capture their next meal.  The technique they use is to work in teams to swim and drive fish to the shores into shallow water where the fish are much easier to catch.

While the fisherman have carbon fiber fishing rods and state-of-the-art lures, the Pelicans have a just a long beak and an extensible pouch as their tools to capture fish with. Cruising quietly on the water, they dip their heads underwater and can quickly scoop up the unsuspecting fish.

 Stocking alpine lakes usually happens by air.  The workers pick up the fish at a local fish hatchery and then load up tanks that are hauled on to a helicopter.  The helicopter flies low along the predetermined mountain lakes with the tanks hanging below the helicopter, the pilot then goes into a hovering pattern.  By remote, the pilot can easily press a button the fish are simply dropped into the lakes.  

As you can imagine, the fish are a bit stunned when they are dropped into a lake but most survive.

In local community lakes, the fish arrive in a truck that is driven to the edge of the lake and connected to a large tube that extends down into the lake.  A few baffles are switched and the mountain trout go tumbling down the tube.  At the end of that tube, the tube becomes a trough and fish can be seen flipping around as they splash out into their new home.

This delivery event also stuns the fish and they react by swimming slowly in the shallow waters. This is where the American White Pelican takes advantage of the disoriented fish and arrive to their very own Thanksgiving dinner table. 

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 A few days can pass after a fish stocking event and the mountain trout or bass can still be feeling the effects of the transport and from the flushing down the large black tube. The Pelicans know this and are swimming the shallow waters every morning capturing the fish that don’t yet have their act together. 

Photographing the American White Pelican does present some challenges. This is a large bird as we noted earlier and they are mostly pure white.  There is a small black edge of the underside of their wings that can only be visible when flying. Their long beaks are yellow and some pink can be found around their eyes. 

An all-white or mostly white bird presents some challenges to the photographer. And as you can imagine, this revolves around exposure. 

In order to get white feathers to be exposed correctly you must have just enough exposure to give detail to the feathers, but not so much that the feathers burn to pure white.  

The best way to do this is to make sure your camera has highlight warnings turned on.  This is also sometimes referred to as blinkies to some people. In order to turn this feature on in your camera, you may have to consult the owner’s manual or the internet, But I can tell you how to set this up for most Nikon, Canon, and Sony cameras.

First up Nikon: 

This is the brand that I use every day so I know how to get to it easily. Turn your camera on, and press the menu button.  Along the left side of the menu are sub-menus and the top one has a universal sideways triangle “play” icon.  That is your playback menu.  In this set of menus, you are going to choose how you view your images on the back screen of your camera.

Click on this menu and scroll down a few spots until you get to the Display Options menu.  Once you click on this, you should see several options of things that either has a check in a box or an empty box next to a function. You’ll see things like Focus point, None (image only) RGB Histogram, Highlights, etc.  The one you want to check is the Highlights box.  To do that you have to toggle to the right on the main Multi Selector button – that’s the flat multi-angle toggle pad on the back of the camera. Simply pressing the OK button will not work, you have to move the selector to the right and you will see a check in the box.  These are all toggle switches, so moving to the right turns them on, or checks the box, and to the right again will uncheck the box.

Once you are done selecting, now click OK and you have set your playback view to now include the highlight warning view.

To actually use this feature, when looking at the images on the back of your camera, Get an image on the back of your camera by taking a test shot or hitting the play button near the top left of the back of the camera. Move that same multi-selector dial-up this time and it will scroll through the different views you have selected.  Most photographers will have the main screen where the image and some detail, like date, time and filename show up, one more press up and you will show just the image with no information and another toggle up will show you the highlight warning view. 

It is this view that will help you determine that you indeed have the best exposure on a white feathered bird-like the American White Pelican.  

Before we go into how to read this screen, let me tell you briefly how to set it up for the other cameras.

If you shoot Canon, they call it Highlight Alert.  In the menu, scroll across the top until you get to the play menus.  Those will typically be in blue and have that universal sideways triangle play icon.  It is usually the second or third play icon.  What you are looking for is the Highlight Alert.  You scroll down to that and hit the select button to enable Highlight alert. Now you are good to go.

On the Sony cameras, it’s a little different in that Sony uses the “Zebra” system.  The zebra system comes directly from the video shooting industry so since the Sony cameras are mirrorless, it makes sense to work this way. In the menu, scroll until you find zebra setting and scroll down and turn Zebra Display to On.  You also have the ability to fine-tune your zebras from 70% on up.  For most still photography uses and for shooting white-feathered birds, put your zebra on 100%.

Now when you see your image on the back it will have zebra lines instead of blinking highlights.

Either way, the blinking signifies you have highlights in your image that are over-exposed. Meaning that any part of the image that is blinking, will not have any detail in those highlights. No detail in these parts will mean there is no texture in that part of the image and won’t be as nice as if you took a second to change your exposure, by making the whole image a bit darker to eliminate those blinking highlights.

Having the correct exposure is very important for photographing white birds like the American White Pelican.

You want to get all of their feathers to be visible.  

Another thing that happens when shooting white birds is, to get the proper exposure on the bird’s feathers, your image has to be darker.  Which means, the background will likely be darker. 

I’m over at Lake Chabot early this morning photographing the American White Pelican.  This is just after the fish plant yesterday where 1,000 pounds of mountain trout were stocked at the lake.

I have been watching a couple of pelicans move around the marina, and oh one just dipped his head and caught a fish. Come on, turn this way….

No such luck, he turned away and quickly tilted back his head and swallowed the fish whole, flipping and flopping into his belly.

This is one of those action moments that most wildlife photographers look for. Getting shots of the animal Actually catching and eating a meal.  I wasn’t in the best position for that shot but I’ll keep trying. 

What I have been shooting with some success, are the Pelicans flying and landing.

As we talked about early on, these are large birds, Up to nine-foot wingspan.  Watching Pelicans coming in for a landing can be quite hilarious. They can sometimes look so awkward as they land their huge bodies on the water kind of like a sputtering plane coming in for a landing. 

 Awkward and graceful all at the same time.  

The sunlight is just rising up in front of me and reflecting off the light overcast of the morning. This is creating a backlight to the birds from the direction I’m standing.  

What I like to do when I’m photographing is look for the best light.  In this instance, I could be on either side of the narrow part of the marina and I chose to backlight my subject.  Mostly because of the overcast light will make filling in the shadows side of the birds quite nicely. I don’t always go for backlighting but today this looks pretty good.

Here comes one now…. Oh, how cool is that, as he landed he skidded on the lake for a few feet and it kind of looked like he was waterskiing.  The backlighting is also highlighting the water droplets when they get kicked up, which comes across really well in the photographs.

When I first got here, I checked my highlight warning and saw that I was seeing the blinking highlights just on the head and shoulder of the birds. Since its low light of the morning, I am shooting at ISO 3200 and sometimes up to ISO 10,000.  I’m doing this because I need to get a high enough shutter speed to stop the action of the bird, flying, landing, or splashing in the water.  My shutter speed is set at 1/3200 of a second.  As with most of my wildlife, I’m shooting wide open, which means shooting at 2.8 for my 300 mm and f/4 for my 600 millimeters.

When shooting birds in action, my primary concern is a fast enough shutter speed.  I figure I can work with some noise reduction on the images on the computer, later.  But if I don’t get the birds sharp to begin with, I’ll have nothing to work with. 

This wide aperture gives me the best shot at getting softer out of focus background.  I find that if I make sure my focus is correct on my subject’s eye, then whether part of the wing is out of focus or not, is disregarded by most viewers of the image. So get those eyes sharp.

Also when I am shooting like this, I am always considering the background. I don’t want anything to distract from my subject.  Not the marina, not random patches of light, I even try to keep other birds that are not part of my story out of the photographs whenever possible. 

Check out my web site imagelight.com for some of the sample images I shot here today staring the American White Pelican.  These birds make fantastic subjects and they might just be waiting for you at your own nearby lake or waterway.