Soaring Swallow-tailed Kites

On one of our trips to Lake Woodruff National Wildlife Refuge in Florida we saw quite a few Swallow-tailed Kites flying above us. They were fun to see soaring as we were walking the trails. Usually they were really high up in the sky or far off in the distance so we never got good images of them. But the images here are from one visit when they were soaring right above us near the parking lot. They were still really high above us but I thought they were still interesting images. All images were taken with a Canon 400mm DO lens with a 1.4X Teleconverter on a Canon 1DmkIV.

When You Can Not Get Close To Your Photo Subjects

Many times when I am out walking in a Wildlife Refuge to photograph birds I either cannot get close because they are high up in the trees or there are other things in the way to get close. Or they are flying some what in the distance. So if you are shooting “RAW” camera files such as Canon CR3 Raw files you can use “Enhance” in Photoshop to nicely uprez your images for severe cropping. Or if you want to really Print Large images. Works well for both applications. It also helps to run a noise reducing software after uprezzing. I had made my own Photoshop actions to uprez images but using “Enhance” in Photoshop is easier to use. The Featured Image is severely cropped from my “Enhanced” File. Sometimes I also use Nik Define software to remove some “noise” in the image if I am using a high ISO.

Female Anhinga, Canon f/4 300mm lens, Canon R (Full Image)
Female Anhinga, Canon f/4 300mm lens, Canon R – Photoshop “Enhanced” & cropped in a little
Female Anhinga, Canon f/4 300mm lens, Canon R – Photoshop “Enhanced” & cropped-in more
Female Anhinga, Canon f/4 300mm lens, Canon R – Photoshop “Enhanced” & cropped-in even more
Female Anhinga, Canon f/4 300mm lens, Canon R – Photoshop “Enhanced” & cropped-in closer
Anhinga – Extreme Crop to Show Detail
Adobe Instructions for Enhance from there website

Whooping Cranes Flying With Sandhill Cranes At Lake Woodruff NWR

On our trip years ago to the Lake Woodruff National Wildlife Refuge in DeLand Florida we were surprised to see a few Whooping Cranes flying and forging with the Sandhill Cranes. It was fun to see them interacting with the Sandhill Cranes. They were mostly far out in the fields but I managed to get a few images with them flying together in a flock. Image taken with a Canon 1D mk III with a Sigma 300-800mm lens @ 800mm with a Canon 1D mkIII.

More American Alligators From Lake Woodruff NWR

Here are a few more Alligator images from our Florida trip a few years ago to Lake Woodruff NWR. Luckily they were mostly in the water channels along the paths or sunning on the shorelines in the refuge and not on the paths. The Featured image was taken with a Canon 7D with a Tamron 150-600mm @ 220mm.

Alligator_v2_LW_500mm_LW_7D

American Alligator, Canon 7D, Tamron 150-600mm @500mm

Alligator_v2_LW_1_20_7D_329mm_MG_0356

American Alligator, Canon 7D, Tamron 150-600mm @ 329mm,

More Sandhill Crane Panoramas From Lake Woodruff NWR

I am still going through Sandhill Crane images that were shot for making panoramas since they were so close to me as I was photographing them. Usually it is a reverse problem where your subjects are too far away as you are photographing them. All images in this post are taken with a 300mm lens on a Canon R. The Featured Image is a 2 horizontal image panorama combined in Photoshop.

2 Horizontal Image Stacked Panorama, 300mm, Canon R
Sandhill Cranes, 5 Horizontal images pano, 300mm, Canon R

Sandhill Crane Panoramas From Lake Woodruff NWR

These are from a trip a couple of years ago to Lake Woodruff NWR. It is located in Volusia County, Florida near the community of DeLeon Springs. It is a very interesting NWR to visit and is surprisingly empty of visitors except for the Wildlife. If you see a few groups of visitors there it is not the norm. Many times you are there almost completely by yourself which because of the size it is a little strange feeling. The famed St Johns River forms the western boundary of the 22,000-acre refuge. The refuge contains a wide variety of habitats. Among them are marshes, swamps, creeks, hammocks and uplands. One of my favorite birds besides Bald Eagles are Sandhill Cranes which seem to really like this Refuge. On this day there were quite a few Sandhill Cranes roaming around the ponds close to the entrance. It is very strange to have a bird that large walk right up to you to check you out. Many times you are just a few feet from them. On previous visits they were more wary and did not get close. I was just using a Canon 7D with a 300mm lens for wildlife and my iP11 Pro for landscapes. The Featured Image is a 7 horizontal images panorama stacked vertically to get the whole Crane in. When shooting panoramas of slowly moving birds foraging you still have to shoot the sequence very quickly to have the images line up correctly without having to do a lot of touch-ups on the overlaps.

Sandhill Cranes, 5 – 300mm Horizontal Images, Stacked Vertically, assembled in Photoshop
Sandhills Making Noise, iP11 Pro
Tail Feathers, 300mm, Canon 7D

Lake Woodruff NWR Multi-Image iPhone Panoramas

Many times when we are out walking in Wildlife Refuges I carry a main camera with a 400mm lens or a 150-600mm zoom lens and a m43 camera with wide angle 14-140mm lens. I also have in my photo vest a few Teleconverters just in case I see something interesting farther out for the full frame camera. But as I am getting older I am using my iP11 Pro more for the Wider or Multi-Image Landscape Panorama shots. The Featured Image is made with the iP11 Pro using the 1.5mm lens (Full Frame Camera Equivalent ~13mm). I shot 14 images, shooting 3 rows of 4 images and then 2 images in the center just as a precaution to make sure the images line up successfully. When using the iP11’s 1.5mm lens I overlap the images even more than if I was using the 4.3mm or 6mm lens. Photoshop does a good job lining up and blending the multi-rowed images from the iPhone..

Lake Woodruff NWR Landscape, iP11 Pro, 4.3mm lens, 8 image panorama. 2 rows of 4 overlapping image.
Lake Woodruff NWR Early Morning Sunrise, iP11 Pro, 1.5mm lens (Full Frame Camera Equivalent ~13mm) 6 image panorama. 2 rows of 3 images

Male Anhinga At Lake Woodruff NWR

This is from a previous trip a couple of years ago to Lake Woodruff National Wildlife Refuge in DeLand Florida. We saw quite a few female Anhingas, but we only saw this one male Anhinga preening on a branch and just hanging out there. Usually there are lots of them, but not on this visit.

Anhinga_Male_v2_LW_300mm 076A2559-2

Anhinga_v2_076A2544-2

Hawk FlyBy

During a walk at Lake Woodruff National Wildlife Refuge this hawk did a fairly close fly-by as we were walking on the trails. I was able to get a few shots as it went by using a 100-400mm lens @ 400mm with a 1.4x teleconverter. The featured image was as it was almost overhead giving me a better image.

hawk_v1_lw_1-4mm_1_4X__Y9F7860Hawk_v1_lw_1-4mm_1_4X__Y9F7863

7 Image iPhone Panorama

Another panorama from our trip to Florida in February. For this panorama I chose to shoot with the 1.5mm lens on my iPhone 11 Pro. This would be an equivalent field of view of 13mm on a full frame camera.  I shot 2 rows of images, top row 4 images and bottom row had 3 images.  Somehow I miscounted on the bottom row, but it worked out anyway. I selected the files and adjusted the phone jpegs in Adobe Camera Raw before opening them into one layered file in Photoshop. I have my Adobe Camera Raw setup to open jpegs as raw files with settings. I tried setting the iPhone to shoot HEIC raw files, but that just slowed down the camera and did not see much of a difference in quality only a much larger file size. The panorama images below are multiple images in one row, combined and blended in Photoshop.

LW_Landscape_IP11_pro_1_5mm

Another Multi-Image version of the same view. This time a one row, multi-image blend shot with the 1.5mm lens.       (Each Image in Series Full Frame Equivalent 13mm)

LW Landscape_2img iPhone 11_Pro_4_3mm lens 26mmFF

2 image iPhone panorama, shot with 4.3mm lens.                (Each Image in Series – Full Frame Equivalent 26mm)

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