photoartflightSunrise & Early Evening Cloud Landscapes From Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge
Posted on March 10, 2023
From the archives, early morning and early evening cloud landscape images from the Wildlife Drive at the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge near Cambridge, Maryland. The Featured image is near the start of the Wildlife Drive. Image taken with a 17-40mm lens @ 17mm, f/11, 1/640 sec., -0.67 Exposure Comp, Canon 1D mkIII.
Golden Eagle Vs. Bald Eagle
Posted on February 11, 2023
I was going through my backup drives to clear out images I do not need and came across these images of a Golden Eagle going at a Bald Eagle at Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge in Maryland. We had seen comments online that there was a Golden Eagle that was staying around the Refuge giving visitors a good chance of getting some photos. I probably posted some before but I re-adjusted some of the images for more detail and better color. All Images were taken with a Canon 400mm DO lens with a 2x Teleconverter giving me a focal length of 800mm on a Canon 1Ds MkII. With the 2X Teleconverter my f/stop wide open was f/8 so I stopped down 1 more f/stop to get a little more detail.
Seaside Dragonlet Dragonfly At Blackwater NWR
Posted on July 24, 2022
On our visit to the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge in Maryland I had the chance to photograph a couple of Dragonflies I never photographed before, the Needhams Skimmer (Female) & the Seaside-Dragonlet (male). We only saw a couple of these at the refuge. One by the first Observation Platform along the Wildlife Drive and the other was at the was in the Marsh Edge Trail area.
Blackwater Great Blue Heron In Tree
Posted on July 19, 2022
I am still going through images from our visit to the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge which is 12 miles south of Cambridge, Maryland. The images here are of a Great Blue Heron roosting in a tree along the Wildlife Drive. It seemed like it liked posing for me so I had a lot of poses to choose from. Here are a few from the series of images of the Great Blue Heron. On a few I removed a tree branch here or there. was trying to see which I liked better. All images were taken with a Canon 7D with a 300mm lens with a 1.4X Teleconverter.
DewDrops On Double-ringed Pennant @ Blackwater NWR
Posted on July 15, 2022
When we got to the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge we went to the nearest Observation Platform to see what was going on and to also get some panorama landscapes as the sun was just rising in the sky. On the Observation Platform I noticed this Double-Ringed Pennant Dragonfly on a grass stem along the Observation Platform that had a heavy coating of Dew Drops. I had to backup quite a bit because I had the 150-600mm lens on my Canon R camera. I shot a few images handheld @ 600mm but it was 5:30 in the morning and there was not much light. So I upped my ISO to 800 and shot a series of images wide open @ f/6.3 & 1/60 sec. Hoping 1 or 2 in the series would be sharp enough to use. It seemed to work out ok and got a few images sharp enough to use.
Distant Eagles At Blackwater NWR
Posted on July 14, 2022
We finally got a chance to go back to the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge in Maryland to see if we could find some Bald Eagles to photograph. It is about a 4 hour trip from where we live. After getting there we were surprised to see 2 Bald Eagles in a tree right after entering the Refuge. One was on one side and the other was on the other side of the same tree. But those will be in a different post. The images here were taken near the end of the 3.6 mile Wildlife Drive across the water near the exit. There usually are Bald Eagle and Osprey nests in the trees because they can fish right below. The only problem is it is pretty far from where we are on the Wildlife Drive.
More Bald Eagles In Flight From Blackwater NWR
Posted on May 29, 2022
A series of Bald Eagle in-flight images taken over a few visits to the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge in Maryland. I find Blackwater NWR has one of the largest amount of Bald Eagles in the Northeast and is a fairly easy drive to get there from my home. The Featured Image was a quickly taken 2 shot panorama to get both wingtips in the image.
Ospreys In Flight At Blackwater NWR
Posted on May 25, 2022
I am going through images I had not had time to post when I was working. Being retired now I am catching up on images that I wanted to post. These Osprey images are from a previous trip to the Blackwater NWR years ago. The Featured Image was taken with a Canon 400mm DO lens with a Canon 7D.
Northern Harrier FlyBy At Blackwater NWR
Posted on May 22, 2022
A series of Northern Harrier images taken at the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge in Maryland. All images were taken with a 400mm DO lens with a 1.4X Canon Teleconverter on a Canon 7D.
Blackwater NWR Bald Eagle
Posted on May 16, 2022
A series of images of two Bald Eagles taken at a previous trip to the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge near Cambridge Maryland. The Featured Image was taken near the entrance to the Wildlife Drive. For the Featured Image I was using a Better Beamer Flash Extender to light the Eagle as it was very early in the morning and I did not have much light on my subject far away Eagle. I usually do not use Flash when photographing Wildlife but it was so far off I needed to throw some light on my distant subject that was in the shadows. Image taken with a Canon 1D mkIV, 400mm DO lens & a Better Beamer Flash Extender. Looking at my Raw Data, this Eagle was 115 feet away from me. I hardly ever use the Better Beamer Flash Extender for Wildlife but it just happened to be in the car from a Commercial Photo session.
The second Bald Eagle was only 65 ft. away from me and was more in the open so I did not need to use a flash to light the Eagle.
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