Blackwater Great Blue Heron In Tree

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.

The Last In The Series & He Is Saying “That’s All So Move On!!”

Birds Settling Down At Sunset @ Ding Darling NWR

A couple of colorful sunset images of birds settling down for the evening. I am going through my array of Back-Up Drives making room for newer images and discarding ones I do not need. But along the way I am finding interesting images to post here. Also I am just selecting the best images when I was shooting a series of the bird flying in, etc. then deleting the extra files. The images here were taken many years ago. We were on our way out on the Ding Darling NWR Wildlife Drive as we passed these groups. The Featured Image of the Great Egret landing was taken with a 400mm DO Lens on a Canon 7D @ 6:48. The Group of Wood Storks was taken from the same spot but more to the right 3 minutes later @ 6:51 because I was waiting for a better grouping as they were moving. The distance to both groups were 236 feet according to the Adobe Camera Raw data. Then we had to get going to leave because they were closing and wanted everyone out.

Wood Storks Settling Down In The Water Along Wildlife Drive, 400mm DO lens, Canon 7D

Out On a Limb At J.N. Ding Darling NWR

One of my favorite places to photograph is at J.N. Ding Darling NWR in Florida. But it does have it’s drawbacks, mainly one of the busiest & crowded NWRs. Also many of the birds are quite far off. Here are 2 images taken years ago. These were taken with one of my favorite lenses for birds the Sigma 300-800mm zoom. The Featured Image was taken @ 800mm with a Canon 1DmkIII.

Wood Stork, 800mm with 1.4X Teleconverter, 1120mm, 1D mkIII

Black Skimmer Skimming At Brigantine

A series of images of a Black Skimmer feeding as it was skimming through the water in one of the channels along the Wildlife Drive at the Brigantine Division of the Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge, Brigantine Division. It seems like it also had a damaged feather on one wing. All images were taken with a Canon 1D mkIV with a 400mm DO lens & 1.4X Teleconverter.

Black Skimmer, 400mm DO lens, 1.4X Teleconverter, Canon 1D mk IV
Black Skimmer, 400mm DO lens, 1.4X Teleconverter, Canon 1D mk IV

Uprezzing Raw Images In Adobe Camera Raw

When we are at National Wildlife Refuges you often see interesting subjects way off in the distance, but too far away to get good images. Adobe has an “Enhance” feature now that you can “enhance” to Double the size of the image but it only works for certain “Raw”types. But many times I want more enlargement than “Enhance” gives you. I almost always shoot “Raw” images because I can get more detail & adjust them somewhat before opening them in Photoshop. Using Camera Raw I can also “UpRez” my images when using Adobe Camera Raw Data. This way of super uprezzing seems to work quite well most of the time. All you have to do is enter larger amounts in the Image sizing window in the Camera Raw Size Panel. Give it a try! You can also add a “High Pass” Sharpening Technique layer over the final image to enhance the sharpness more. Just adjust the opacity of the sharpness layer to what you like. I have found that when you adjust this lessen the amount a little more for better results. There are other ways to upRez but this is what I use quite often plus it is in your Adobe Photoshop already. So it easily works in my Image Workflow. Also the images here are downsized to 1200 pixel size for WordPress posting so the Full image has much more detail.

Black-Crowned Night-Heron, 400mm Canon DO Lens, Canon 1.4x Teleconverter, Canon 1D mkIV
Screen Grab Showing Up Rezzing image settings by entering higher width number
Full As Shot Great Egret in Trees Image. 400mm DO Lens, 1.4X Teleconverter, 1D mk IV
Great Egret, Image Uprezzed & Cropped Showing Detail

Osprey Flying Towards Nest

I photographed this Osprey years ago at the Brigantine Division of the Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge in New Jersey. I was going through & cleaning up old hard drives and found images from this trip. We liked to watch & photograph the Ospreys flying to and from the Osprey Platforms along the Drive. This image was from one of our early trips there in July 2006. Back then I was using a 400mm Canon DO lens on a Canon 1D mkII that shot with a 8 megapixel sensor for a 24 meg file at ~8 fps . In today’s world that seems low-res and slow! But it did a pretty good job back then. But you could open the files quite a bit bigger and hold fine detail if you used Adobe Camera Raw and set the parameters for larger prints or severe cropping. Image taken @ f/10, 1/1000 sec, ISO 320.

Osprey Landing At Nest

These are from a previous visit to the Edwin B. Forsythe NWR, Brigantine Division in Oceanville NJ. There are many Osprey Platforms with nests scattered along the Wildlife Drive. So if you are patient and wait for the Ospreys to return you can get some interesting flight & landing images. If there are young Ospreys in the nests there is usually more activity with the adult birds bringing food and feeding the young. These are images are of a landing sequence. Images were taken with a Canon 1D mkIV with a Canon 400mm DO lens with a 1.4x Canon Teleconverter. Looking at the Camera Raw Data the nest was 154 feet from the Wildlife Drive .

Osprey Touchdown & Landing at nest. Canon 1D mkIV, 400mm DO lens, Canon 1.4x Teleconverter.

Great Egret At Brigantine

We finally got to go to one of our favorite National Wildlife Refuges, the Brigantine Division of the Edwin B. Forsythe NWR in Oceanville NJ. On this day the wildlife was few and far between but it was still fun to get out and photograph. The cloudscapes & landscapes were Great and the Green Headed Flies were not biting as much as other visits! So it was a Great Day to be out and photograph! For this post I am using images of a Great Egret that seemed like it was posing for me instead of flying off. We did see quite a few other Great Egrets but most were far off in the distance.

Great Egret, Tamron 150-600mm @600mm, Canon R, @f/11
Great Egret, Tamron 150-600mm @600mm, Canon R, @f/11

3 Ospreys On Osprey Platform

I photographed these 3 Ospreys along the Wildlife Drive at the Brigantine Division of the Edwin B. Forsythe NWR in Oceanville, NJ. In the Spring & Summer months there is a lot of activity at the Osprey Platforms along the Wildlife Drive. Some Platforms are fairly close to the Drive, where others are a little more distant from the Wildlife Drive. Usually the closer ones are crowded with cars lined up so I tend to like the ones further away and shoot with longer lenses. Usually I am photographing them in-flight coming & going from the Platforms but here I liked the 3 lined up in a row looking like a family Portrait.

Osprey Landing, 400mm DO lens, 1.4X Teleconverter, Canon 1D mkIV (560mm) @ f/9, 1/640 sec., subject 154 ft away
Osprey Landing, 400mm DO lens, 1.4X Teleconverter, Canon 1D mkIV (560mm) @ f/9, 1/640 sec., subject 154 ft away

Mute Swans Swimming In Gull Pond

On our recent trip to the Brigantine Division of the Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge in Oceanville, NJ we saw 2 groups of a pair Mute Swans. They usually do not stay around this long as it gets colder this time of year. One pair were in Gull Pond by the 2 way section of the Wildlife Drive and the other pair were in the water by the end of the Wildlife Drive in Doughey Creek. It was fun to see and be able to photograph them swimming in the waters at Gull Pond. I was not able to photograph them at the end of the Drive because so many cars were blocking the view of them waiting to photograph them so we just drove past the cars to go through the Wildlife Drive again.

Mute Swans in Gull Pond, 150-600mm Tamron @ 600mm, Canon 1D mkIV (-2/3rds exposure compensation to hold detail in the white swan)
Mute Swan in Gull Pond, 150-600mm Tamron @ 600mm, Canon 1D mkIV (-2/3rds exposure compensation to hold detail in the white swan)

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