photoartflightOspreys In Flight
Posted on November 25, 2019
One of my favorite photo subjects are Ospreys in flight. Over the years I have enjoyed photographing them in many different locations. Quite often you can see in the photos their eyes keeping an eye on you. The featured image was taken at the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge in Maryland. Featured image was taken with a 400mm DO lens with a 1.4X Teleconverter. Other photo locations for the images here were the Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge, Briganine Division and The Celery Farm Natural Area in Allendale, NJ.
Immature Bold Eagle Coming In For Landing
Posted on October 5, 2019
Near the exit of the Wildlife Drive at the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge I was looking for photo subjects in the fields. Then this Immature Bold Eagle flew in and landed giving me a few more images on our way out.
Recent Dragonfly Images
Posted on September 1, 2019
Here are a few images of Dragonflies and a Damselfly from a few local parks in our area. Most were shot with a close focusing 300mm f/4 lens with either extension tubes to get closer or 1.4X or 2X teleconverter. A few I used a Canon 400mm f/4 DO with Extension tubes and 1.4X teleconverter. The featured image is a female Eastern Pondhawk that was quite cooperative for extreme closeups. Image taken with Canon 7D, handheld, 300mm @ f/8, 1/1000 sec, ISO 400.
Blue Dasher extreme closeup – 2 image focus stack Canon 7D, Canon 300mm f/4 IS, 1.4X teleconverter, w/extension tubes
Blue Dasher extreme closeup – 2 image focus stack Canon 7D, Canon 300mm f/4 IS, 1.4X teleconverter, w/extension tubes (f/11, 1/200 sec, ISO 400)
Damselfly – multi image stack, 400mm f/4 DO with extension tubes, f/8, 1/50 sec, 1600 ISO, camera on tripod
Female Eastern Pondhawk- f/11, 1/320 sec, 300mm f/4 w/ 1.4X teleconverter
Slaty Blue Dragonfly, f/11, 1/160 sec, +1/3 exp. comp, 300mm w/ 2X teleconverter, Single image, flew off before focus stacking images
Slaty Blue Dragonfly, f/10, 1/320 sec, 300mm w/1.4X teleconverter, effective 420mm
Male & Female Blue Dasher Dragonflies
Posted on August 22, 2019
We went to a local park to see what we could find. Found a few Blue Dashers by the ponds, but most were looking the worse for wear. Then I concentrated on Butterflies that were around. When photographing Dragonflies I usually shoot multiple images at different focus points. This is to keep a smoother background and still get more of the dragonflies body and wings in somewhat sharper focus. It also depends on if the dragonfly cooperates and does not change position or flies off. The featured image I only had time for 1 shot so the tail is softer. The others were 2 images, so somewhat more depth of field.
Female Blue Dasher Dragonfly – f/8, 1/80 sec., +0.33 Exposure Compensation
Male Blue Dasher Dragonfly – 2 image handheld stack to retain more image sharpness from head to tail and still keep a smoother background. Canon 300mm f/4 Close Focusing lens, with 1.4X Teleconverter shot @ f/11 – 1600 ISO
Yellow Swallowtail Butterfly
Posted on August 18, 2019
Continuing with the previous post with butterflies, here is a Yellow Swallowtail series of images taken at the same time as the previous post. We have not seen as many butterflies this year as previous years. Even though at this park they have a Butterfly House and raise them to release them in the park. Plus the butterfly house has plantings around the Butterfly house to attract other butterflies. In previous years they were very abundant throughout the Park. Even Dragonflies seem to be more scarce this year at this Park also. Time is marching on and the Butterflies you see show considerable wear and tear. The Butterfly series shown below really liked this plant and stayed for about 10 minutes. I only picked a few of the images of that series to post here.
Black Swallowtail Butterfly
Posted on August 14, 2019
We went to a local park to look for Dragonflies, but I noticed this Black Swallowtail Butterfly on some flowers by the pond on the way in. It looked colorful with the flowers and I liked the contrast of the dark colored butterfly against the flowers.
Little Egret Panorama
Posted on August 14, 2019
I was photographing along the Indigo Trail at the Ding Darling NWR early in the morning on this day. We finally had found a large number of birds along the trail. It was quite dark under the trees, but we managed to get a lot of images of a variety of Egrets and Herons while they were foraging for food. With this Egret, I liked it’s reflection in the water and it was just keeping an eye on me as I was photographing it. After shooting a few images of the Egret, I shot vertical images for a long panorama. I was traveling light on this walk so I only had the 400mm DO lens with a 1.4x teleconverter. It was quite dark under all the trees so I had to raise my ISO higher than I like. After assembling in Photoshop, I trimmed the left & right sides a little so the Egret would be more prominent in the long vertical image. Then removed some “noise” from using a higher ISO than normal.
