Common Terns At Brigantine

I usually do not photograph some of the smaller birds I see at Wildlife Refuges. Usually they are far off in the distance or are very skittish and fly off. On this trip to the Brigantine Division of the Edwin B. Forsythe NWR these Common Terns were more cooperative. All images here were taken with a Canon 400mm DO lens with a 2X Teleconverter on a Canon 1DmkIV. The last image in the series was actually a panorama shot as it was flying right at me and I wanted to get the right wingtip in also. So I quickly shot a series of images hoping to get the right wingtip in also for my final pano image.

Common Tern, 400mm Canon DO lens, 2X Teleconverter, Canon 1D mkIV
Common Tern, 400mm Canon DO lens, 2X Teleconverter, 2 Image Flight Panorama, Canon 1D mkIV

Snow Geese Mass TakeOff

The Brigantine Division of the Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge usually has a large amount of Snow Geese in March so it is fun to photograph the large groups of them especially in flight. On this visit I was on the Wildlife Drive looking at some small birds down by the water. A large group of Snow Geese took flight a little ways from where I was on the Wildlife Drive and were flying towards me. This image was taken as they were flying by me and then reversed direction and went back from where they took off.

Willet FlyBy At Brigantine

As I was photographing birds out in the water at the Brigantine Division of the Edwin B. Forsythe Wildlife Refuge this Willet flew close by me. I managed to get a few images as it went by.

Willet FlyBy, 400mm DO lens, 1.4X Teleconverter, Canon 1D mkIV
Willet FlyBy, 400mm DO lens, 1.4X Teleconverter, Canon 1D mkIV

Another Cormorant Panorama From Brigantine

When photographing at the Brigantine Division of the Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge in NJ, you often see large groups of Cormorants swim by in the channels along the Wildlife Drive. This group had about 92+ Cormorants in the Group. It is hard to get an actual count because some are under water as you are counting the group. I counted 92 Cormorants in the image, but some more were not visible as I was counting.

Small Group of Cormorants swimming by the shoreline. 400mm DO Lens, 1.4x Teleconverter, Canon 1D mkIV

Little Blue Heron FlyBy

Another close flyby bird image. This time a Little Blue Heron photographed the same day as my previous post. Image taken at the Brigantine Division of the Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge in Oceanville New Jersey. Image taken with a Canon 400mm DO lens on a Canon 20D.

Osprey Fly-By At Brigantine

I was going through images from a previous trip to the Brigantine Division of the Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge near Oceanville, NJ. This is a series of images of an Osprey that flew fairly close by me with nesting material. I was out of the car & on the Wildlife Drive which enabled me to follow the Osprey as it flew by. All images were taken with a Canon 400mm DO lens with a 1.4x teleconverter on a Canon 1D mkIV.

Osprey FlyBy, 400mm Canon DO lens, Canon 1DmkIV
Osprey FlyBy, 400mm Canon DO lens, Canon 1DmkIV

Brigantine Multi-Image Panoramas, Set 1

On our visit to the Brigantine Division of the Edwin B. Forsythe NWR I was using a variety of cameras to make a series of multi-image panoramas. I shot a lot of images so I would have a “library” of images to use for posting here during the Winter months. I was using the following cameras – Canon R with a 150-600mm lens, Panasonic LX-1 Pocket Camera in 16×9 format, OM-D 1 Olympus with a 7.5mm Fisheye lens and a iPhone 11 Pro. For this post all images were with the iPhone 11 Pro with mostly the 1.5mm lens (Full Frame Field of View Equivalent ~ 13mm) & the 4.3mm lens (Full Frame Field of View Equivalent ~ 26mm). The Featured Image was taken early in the am before the Wildlife Drive got crowded. I used my iPhone 11 with the 4.3mm lens to take a series of 12 overlapping images for the panorama image.

Observation Tower, 3 image panorama, iP11 Pro w/ 1.5mm lens
Observation Tower, 3 image panorama, iP11 Pro w/ 1.5mm lens, faux infrared B&W
Brigantine Landscape, 11 Image Panorama, iP11 Pro, 1.5mm lens (FF Equiv. ~13mm)
Brigantine Landscape, 7 Image Panorama, iP11, 4.3mm lens (FF Equiv. ~26mm)
Brigantine Landscape, 5 Image Panorama, iP11, 1.5mm lens (FF Equiv. ~13mm)
Brigantine Landscape, 5 Image Panorama, iP11, 1.5mm lens (FF Equiv. ~13mm)
Brigantine Landscape -same view as above but higher view of clouds, 6 Image Panorama, iP11, 1.5mm lens (FF Equiv. ~13mm)

Brigantine Division 40 Image Panorama

I am still going through images from our trip to the Brigantine Division of Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge near Oceanville NJ. Most of the wildlife was way off in the distance so I did a lot of multi-image panoramas of the landscapes & large flocks of birds in the Refuge as we were traveling around the Refuge on the Wildlife Drive. It was a fun photo day and I have a lot of images to go through and to assemble my images into the final panoramas. The Featured Panorama here is a 40 image handheld panorama taken with a Canon R with a 150-600mm lens @ 150mm at f/16. Final size of the Panorama is 126″ x 12.75″ high @300 ppi. When I am shooting multi-image handheld panoramas I tend to overlap the images a lot. If I do not need all I shot for the image, that is ok. But from experience it is better to have too many images than not enough. Also the panos seem to blend together better than spacing farther apart. It takes some practice but Photoshop does a Great job aligning & blending the images for the final Panorama.

Center Section of the finished featured panorama to show detail
Detailed Panorama of the area to the right in the Featured Image – 10 Image Panorama. Canon R, 150mm, f/16

40 Image Brigantine Wildlife Drive Landscape

I am still going through images I shot on our visit to the Brigantine Division of the Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge near Oceanville, NJ. The Featured Image is a small Center Section of a handheld series of a 40 image panorama for one of the panos I shot from the Wildlife Drive. The full landscape is below. When doing handheld large panoramas I try to shoot the series as quickly as possible because clouds, grasses and birds in the image may be moving so when blending the pano images it is easier to blend the scene. I have found that Photoshop does a very good job on automatically assembling my multi-image panoramas, even when they are very Long or even Multi-row, Multi-image panos. you just have to get used to setting them up. On this trip I was using a variety of cameras depending on what I was photographing. These are taken with a Canon R camera with a 150-600mm zoom @150mm @f/16.

Full view of the 40 Image, 126″ x 22″ @ 300 ppi Wildlife Drive Panorama
An additional 10 image pano to show detail on the area to the right (10 Image Full Size 68″ x 16″ @300ppi)

Bald Eagles From Brigantine

We took a trip to the Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge, Brigantine Division to see what we could find to photograph. I was not sure of what we would find but it turned out to be a Great Photo visit. I was hoping for large groups of Snow Geese and we definitely found multiple groups of them around the Refuge. Most of the groups of Snow Geese were far out in the various pools, so for those images I shot a series of images for long panoramas of the large groups. One large group of Snow Geese far out in the water, shot with a 600mm lens, was a series of 64 images with a final image size of 507″ long. On the first area we were photographing in I was shooting some landscapes when Kathy pointed out 2 Bald Eagles in a distant tree. So it was going to be a Good Photo Day!

Pair of Bald Eagles, Canon R, 150-600mm lens @ 600mm
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