photoartflightSnow Geese Fly By
Posted on April 24, 2020
This large group of Snow Geese was flying in a long & low to the water flock of birds. The white Snow Geese overlapping the bright sun lit water really blended in with the bright water, but I thought it was still an interesting image. Image from Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge a few years ago. Shot with a Canon 400mm DO lens with a 1.4x teleconverter.
Snow Geese Panoramas From Brigantine
Posted on January 1, 2020
Here are a series of panorama images of Snow Geese from a previous visit to the Brigantine Division of the Edwin B. Forsythe NWR in Oceanville, New Jersey. There were so many Snow Geese in the flocks throughout the refuge the only way to get more detail in the actual birds was to photograph them in a series of panoramas with a telephoto lens. If I just used a wide angle lens the individual birds would be extremely small in the frame and I would have a huge amount of empty sky and foreground. All panoramas were shot with a series of handheld images with a Canon 400mm DO lens with a 1.4X Teleconverter. Images were then assembled in Photoshop.
11 image panorama, 400mm lens, with 1.4x teleconverter, final image – 99 inches wide @300ppi
16 image panorama, 136 inches x 17 inches @ 300ppi, 400mm lens with 1.4x teleconverter
6 image panorama, 400mm lens with 1.4x teleconverter
Detail section of one panorama
Snow Geese Detail, 400mm w/ 1.4x Teleconverter
3 image Flying Panorama, 400mm w/ 1.4x teleconverter
23 image panorama, 400mm w/ 1.4x teleconverter (136 inches x 12.75 inches @300 ppi)
16 image panorama, 400mm lens w/ 1.4x teleconverter (138 x 17 inches @300 ppi)
20 image panorama, 400mm w/ 1.4x teleconverter (137 inches @ 300 ppi)
Snow Geese Flying Panorama, (4 image) 400mm w/ 1.4x teleconverter
Snow Goose In Summer
Posted on July 27, 2019
On our trip to the Brigantine Division of the Edwin B. Forsythe NWR, we saw this lone Snow Goose multiple times around one area of the refuge. Usually they are all gone from the Refuge at this time of the year. But seeing it multiple times around a certain area it seemed like the one wing might be injured. We also saw it just walking along the side of the Wildlife Drive.
Snow Geese Panoramas from Brigantine
Posted on March 7, 2019
Sometimes when I find a large groups of birds I try a few panoramas, just for fun. On this day I found a very large group of Snow Geese, mostly sleeping, so I thought I would give it a try. There was not much else around, so why not. They were not moving and stretched a long ways along the Wildlife Drive. The featured image (which will probably not show much detail in this blog) was 35 images, handheld, for a finished panorama of 550 inches long by 15.5 inches high. It took Photoshop quite a while for it to process the panorama and then I had a few touch-ups here and there because of the length. I was trying a new Canon R with a 400mm f/4 D.O. lens and 1.4X teleconverter. It was not very bright out so I should have raised my ISO and stopped down more for increased depth of field, but I thought it might be enough when I photographing them. So the foreground is a little soft, but it was still fun to try.
Cropped section to show more detail
Another Closer Cropped section
Image taken later when they started to move around. Single Image showing limited depth of field on foreground because I was focusing on the flying birds landing in background.
Starting to wake up and move around
Sleeping Snow Geese
Posted on March 3, 2019
When I was photographing Snow Geese at the Brigantine Division of the Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge, I concentrated on some very long panoramas with up to 35 images each. After I had photographed those, I also tried a few different shorter detail panoramas with only 3 to 9 images. The featured image is made with 3 horizontal images, assembled & blended in Photoshop. I could have used a wider lens and cropped off the top and bottom, but I wanted to have more detail in the images of the individual Snow Geese. For the image below, I wanted a little more height so I shot 9 vertical images for the panorama. These were shot with a Canon R with a 400mm D.O. lens with a 1.4x Teleconverter.
9 vertical images, handheld panorama w/ 400mm & 1.4X teleconverter
Snow Geese Panorama From Brigantine
Posted on February 16, 2019
We went to the Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge to see what birds or landscapes we could find. We were hoping for large flocks of Snow Geese and we did find them. But we did not see too many flying close by but found large groups on the ground. The featured image is a 35 image panorama, handheld, assembled in Photoshop. The finished size is 305 inches long. I was trying out my new Canon R on personal images. I have used it and loved the quality of the images for some commercial work, but this is the first time using it for fun. I was using a 400mm Canon f/4 DO lens with a Canon Series III 1.4x teleconverter. The Canon R seems to focus fine even on flying birds and was fun to use. And the files are very clean and has the beautiful Canon Color.
Snow Geese Flight At Noon
Posted on February 12, 2019
As we were wandering around the Blackwater NWR looking for photo subjects I saw these Snow Geese taking off, but stayed low close to the water. The sun was really bright on the water so the white Snow Geese sort of disappeared against the bright reflections in the water, but I still liked the Snow Geese that stood out against the darker tree line.
Blackwater NWR Snow Geese Sunset Fly By
Posted on February 6, 2019
As we were starting to go towards the end of the Wildlife Drive at the Blackwater NWR to wait to photograph some sunset images, we noticed a flock of Snow Geese flying through the colorful sky. I shot a few shots as they flew off and then moved on to setup for the end of the Wildlife Drive colorful sunset.
Snow Geese Panoramas From Blackwater NWR
Posted on January 8, 2019
On our weekend at Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge, I like photographing the great landscapes and also the birds and wildlife, plus detail images I find interesting. On the first day the weather cooperated and I got a lot of images to go through. As I was photographing the large groups of Snow Geese, Tundra Swans and Canada Geese in the water, I wondered if multi-image panoramas shot with long lenses would work on the large groups of flying flocks of birds. You could just use a wide angle lens, but that would not be a very large file. And for a long flying group you would have a lot of blank blue sky on the top and bottom.
So as large groups flew by, I would shoot a series of the flying birds, panning as quickly as I could, to try to capture the whole group. I could not use a tripod and just shoot the same spot in the sky as they passed because the sky & clouds would be in the same place with different birds. I was using a Canon 400mm f/4 DO lens with a 1.4x teleconverter. So at 10 FPS I got quite a few frames of each group as they flew by. Then I chose the best frames for overlap and manually lined them up for position. Then retouched some overlap wing positions or birds that overlapped.
The featured image is made from 4 images of the series I shot on the first day. The first day was a beautiful day with nice blue skies. I manually lined up the images, blending them in Photoshop and touching up a few overlaps.
The 2nd Image is 5 images shot on the 2nd day which was more overcast and kind of a gray day. Again manually lining up the images in Photoshop and blending them together. I had tried to automatically let Photoshop CC2019 align the layers but it could not because of all that was going on with the birds. These final images are between about 80 inches and 110 inches long. I probably would not print them but I know it sort of works.
High Flight Of Snow Geese At Blackwater NWR
Posted on January 2, 2019
We went for 2 days to photograph at the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge in Cambridge, Maryland. Early in the morning, along the Wildlife Drive on the second day we saw a huge flock of Snow Geese flying out under a heavy cloud cover. They were quite high and took a few minutes for the waves of them to pass by. Probably 500 to 700 (or more) passed by in multiple waves.
14-140mm lens @ 14mm with Olympus OMD Mk1
