Friday, April 29, 2011

Lacrosse Action

This was taken at a high school varsity boys lacrosse game at dusk. This sport provides quite a challenge to get nice action shots because the players change directions so rapidly. This particular photo is nice because one player has the ball, the ball is visible and his face is visible. Many times the player's faces are turned away from the camera.
The photograph was lit mostly by the stadium floodlights with a little help from the dwindling light in the sky. 100-400 lens at 260mm, 1/500 second at f/5.6, ISO 12800 on the Canon Mk IV body. Quite a bit of visible noise in the image but it will still look nice in the smaller print sizes. Shortly after this photo was taken the sky turned so dark that I couldn't get a fast enough shutter speed anymore. I will switch to the 70-200mm f/2.8 lens in the future, though, when the light gets that low. Trade some magnification for the opportunity to keep shooting.

Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Two Ducks in Flight

This pair of flying mallard ducks was photographed before landing in a nearby creek. This is the fourth frame in a sequence of five shots I took as they made a fast, banking turn and descended. All five images are pretty neat because the wings were cupped nicely in all of them. In this frame both ducks were banking at almost the same angle and they looked very synchronized.
I also liked the lighting. Hazy, late morning sun was behind me and this lit the birds very nicely. Clouds had begun to move in from the west to make the sky darker behind the ducks. I switched the camera to an auto exposure mode because of the rapidly fluctuating light levels caused by these advancing clouds. Handheld, 400mm lens, 1/2500 second at f5.6, ISO 250, aperture-priority mode with +.67 exposure compensation.

Friday, April 15, 2011

Waterfowl in Flight Photo Gallery

We have just posted photographs of waterfowl in flight to our online gallery. These photos are our favorites from the Spring, 2011 season and include both ducks and geese. Many of the images were taken as the birds were in hot descent with cupped wings and feet down. Pretty exciting for those of us that like to watch this. Click this gallery link to see them all! For anyone that might like a print there is instant online ordering.

Thursday, April 14, 2011

Canada Geese in Flight

Two Canada geese in flight, descending with cupped wings. I was set up near the shore of a pond to photograph incoming waterfowl and normally I like to have the birds descending toward me. There was no wind on this morning so the ducks and geese were landing from every direction. I took three frames as the two geese set their wings and glided to the water. This photo was unique because the closest goose turned its head in my direction and its mouth was open as it called.
100-400 lens at 350mm, 1/1600 second at f5.6, set manually, ISO 400, handheld.

Monday, April 4, 2011

Soaring Turkey Vulture

This soaring turkey vulture got pretty close to me while I was photographing ducks in flight. I have seen them at a distance and haven't been particularly interested in photographing them. Late one afternoon, though, this one was circling a pond and creek where I was positioned and he kept getting closer. What the heck, he got close enough for me to see good detail and there was great contrast against the blue sky. The soaring vulture is much slower than the ducks coming in hot so it was an easy shot. The camera was set manually, 1/1250 second at f6.3, ISO 400, 400mm lens.