Photography by Tim Rucci

Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge

2012-01-27T17:30:00.000-05:00

I was glad to be able to make my first trip of the season to Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge earlier this week, and fortunately there were enough birds to make the trip worthwhile. It's about 150 miles away, so I have to start out around 4:45 am in order to get there by sunrise and take advantage of the soft early morning light.

I was able to photograph a couple new species on this trip so that was an extra bonus. This time of year the birds are starting to dawn their breeding colors, so that makes the photography all the more rewarding. I met up on this trip with Dave Turko and we spent the morning tooling around Blackpoint Drive and Biolab Road, within the refuge.

#111890 - Reddish Egret - 1/1250 @f4, iso 400, 500mm

We saw quite a few reddish egrets, and enjoyed watching them strut around in the shallow water and pounce on countless fish. They always put on a good show. The image above shows a typical early morning scene. Below, the bird is ready to strike at a fish, and they rarely miss.

#111990 - Reddish Egret - 1/800 @f8, iso 400, 1000mm hand-held

#111873 - Reddish Egret with Catch - 1/1250 @f4, iso 400, 500mm

One species I have rarely seen and had never photographed, is the white morph reddish egret. We were fortunate to see one but not in the best light. I did not manage to get a photo I was happy with, but I captured the image below as documentation of having seen it.

#111906 - White Morph Reddish Egret - 1/2500 @f5, iso 400, 500mm

The white morph is one of the most beautiful birds I've ever seen. I'm pretty sure the color of the bird's bill and lore get brighter than you see here. I hope to be able to get some better images of this species at a later time.

The image below is a Northern Shoveler. They are common but I had not gotten a decent photo of one before now.

#111951 - Northern Shoveler - 1/1250 @f8, iso 400, 1000mm hand-held

This is the first time I've tried hand holding my camera with 500mm lens and 2x teleconverter attached. Adding the flash, the entire rig weighs 15 pounds. It's quite a bit of weight to try and hold steady to get sharp photos. I've gotten used to stooping down and propping up the lens with my left arm, resting it against my knee for support. Dave shot this photo of me holding this rig. When time permits, it's a lot less work to mount it on a tripod with gimbal head.

One thing that really surprised me was that the images shot with the 2x teleconverter on this outing were surprisingly sharp. Many times in the past I have avoided using the 2x except occasionally on my 300L f2.8 and 500L f4 lenses, and even then only as a last resort. In theory, an extender will degrade image quality slightly, so you only want to mount it if you are using a very high quality lens to start with. I sent my 500 f4 to Canon to have the calibration checked a few months back and this outing indicates that it's performing noticeably better now. Before calibration, the images were noticeably softer with a teleconverter attached, than what I am getting now.

Canon 1D Mk2N camera, Canon 500L f4 IS lens, 2x Teleconverter, and 580EX II flash with "better beamer" flash extender

The next two images are a horned grebe. I had seen this bird one time before, but had not gotten a photo of it until now. Again, this was not the best light angle, so I'll have to try and do better next time.

#112120 - Horned Grebe - 1/1000 @ f5.6, iso 400, 700mm

#112125 Horned Grebe - 1/1250 @f5/6, iso 400, 700mm

While driving around Blackpoint drive, we saw two bald eagles in a tree in the distance. They were not close enough for the photo to show much detail, but I took the shot below anyway. This is at 1000mm, and with the 1.3x crop of the camera sensor, it's equivalent to 1300 mm on a 35mm film camera.

#112089 - Bald Eagles - 1/3200 @f8, iso 400, 1000mm hand-held

On the way out of the wildlife refuge, there were lots of birds in the water along the causeway. I took the opportunity to get the close up shots shown below.

#112273 - Black Skimmer - 1/1600 @f8, iso 400, 1000mm

#112213 - Black Skimmer in flight - 1/2500 @f6.3, iso 400, 700mm

#112297 - Royal Tern - 1/1600 @f10, iso 400, 700mm

#112268 - Royal Tern - 1/1600 @ f8, iso 400, 1000mm

I saved one reddish egret photo to use as the last image. This guy was more or less posing for me.

#112011 - Reddish Egret - 1/1250 @f8, iso 400, 1000 mm

Overall, this was a good trip. I photographed several species I had not gotten before, and finally seeing a white morph reddish egret made it a memorable day.

Remembering the Fire

2011-12-24T13:03:00.000-05:00

Today being Christmas eve, I want to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a happy, healthy, and prosperous new year. In addition to being a time of celebration, for many of us this is also a time for reflection on the past.

It was 4 years ago yesterday that the sanctuary at Hendricks Avenue Baptist Church was completely destroyed by fire.

#N_16855 - Before the fire

#N_35818

I suspect that nobody who was present the morning of December 23, 2007 will ever forget that day. It was like a bad dream waking up on Sunday morning 2 days before Christmas, learning that your church had been reduced to ruins in an overnight fire.

After a lot of work, study and planning, a new sanctuary was built to replace that which burned and it opened on the 2nd anniversary of the fire, December 23, 2009.

#N_78383

Yesterday, two years after the first service in the new sanctuary, a sculpture was dedicated to mark the place in history where the congregation moved beyond the tragedy of the fire to continue forward. The sculpture was created by Jim Smith from a twisted, melted steel beam that was part of the roof support structure in the original sanctuary. You can clearly see in the 2nd image above the steel beams melted and sagging from the intense heat of the fire.

#N_111631 - The "Rising" by artist Jim Smith

Below are a few more images of the new church.

#N_78409 - Outside at night

#N_78851B - Inside Stained Glass

#N_78158 - Antiphonal Organ (fisheye view)

The 60 rank pipe organ was built and installed by A.E. Schulter Pipe Organ Company of Lithonia, Georgia. I created this image using a fisheye lens from behind the antiphonal organ.

Yosemite National Park - Part 2

2011-12-02T16:07:00.000-05:00

#7D_1001 El Capitan and Cathedral Rocks at night

I'll start off with a my favorite night time Yosemite image, which was photographed from the area called gates of the valley. It is a small turnout off northside drive and offers a great view of both El Capitan and Cathedral rocks. The image above is a 30 second exposure that was taken in near total darkness at f4, iso 200 with a 17mm lens. Due to the long exposure, the moving water creates a nice blur as it flows over the rocks, and the stars in the sky are just beginning to form star trails. Because there was no moon, an exposure this long was necessary to get enough light on the mountains.
The next image is taken from the same exact spot but looking a little more to the right at Cathedral Rocks. You can see the blur of headlights and tail lights from cars passing on the road in the distance, and also rocks lit in the river from headlights of cars pulling into a parking area behind me. The light on the rocks was unintentional, but I could not control it.

#7D_998 - Cathedral Rocks at Night

The following evening we were photographing Half Dome from the Sentinel Bridge and this was the first time I used a graduated neutral density filter. It worked wonders at equalizing the bright light in the sky so that I could get a decent exposure of both the foreground and background, without blowing out highlights.

#7D_ 1271 - Half Dome

Had I done a little more investigating on filters prior to this trip, I could have saved myself a lot of grief the first couple days we were there. The filter proved invaluable in many different situations and made it a lot easier to get photos that would have been impossible to capture without it.

Where I had been bracketing exposures the first couple days in situations where the light was too harsh, I found myself wanting to go back to places I had been and re-shoot.

As I had said earlier, there was not much water flow in any of the falls this time of the year, so it was not a priority to photograph them. I did however, photograph several of the falls that were visible either from the road, or after just a short hike.

Although these are not very good photos, I am including them just to show what was there. I do plan to return sometime in the summer so that I can get photos of the falls with more water flow, and also take the longer hikes required to photograph Vernal Falls and Nevada Falls.

#N110753 - Bridalveil Falls (photographed from the tunnel on Hwy 41)

#N110494 - Upper Yosemite Falls

#7D_747 - Lower Yosemite Falls

We finally drove up to Glacier Point, which is about an hours drive from the valley floor, depending on where you start. It was along this drive that I showed the coyote photo in the previous post. It's a long and winding road climbing several thousand feet, but offers spectacular views of the valley once you get to the top. The following images show the observation area as well as a view of the valley.

#N_110710 - This is the famous overhanging rock. Many photos have been taken here.

#7D_1261 - The observation area at Glacier Point

#N_110716 - View of Yosemite Valley from Glacier Point

Yosemite National Park - Part 1

2011-11-13T03:17:00.136-05:00

#7D_0976: Valley View - El Capitan on left and Cathedral Rocks on right from the the Merced River
(6 second exposure at f8, iso 100)

As most of my close friends know, I recently completed 6 months of cancer treatment and my wife and I celebrated with a 2-week trip to California. The first week we visited three national parks: Yosemite, Kings Canyon, and Sequoia; and the second week was spent in and around San Francisco. For all who may be wondering about me, I am fine as far as I know, and I will have periodic scans every few months to check and verify that I remain cancer free. During this trip I was still a little worn down from the radiation treatments I had just finished 7 days before we left, and I had to stop and rest frequently during uphill hikes. But in the next few weeks I should get my normal strength back, and hopefully I have seen the end of the lymphoma.

#7D_1166: Cathedral Rock - Photographed from a meadow north of the Merced River
(1/100 second at f9, iso 200)

My wife and I had never been to Yosemite or to San Francisco, so this was a special trip in several ways. My main objective was to enjoy the beauty and try and get a few pictures at the same time. Yosemite did not disappoint. It is beautiful in every way and it is surely a place I will visit again in the future. I plan to return in the summertime when there is higher water volume in the falls. Since I was not in shape to do some of the longer hikes required to see Vernal Falls or Nevada Falls I was not planning to photograph them on this trip anyway. There will be a better time for that when there is more water flowing, and when I'm back in shape and able to enjoy the long hikes. I pre-planned where we would go to take pictures each morning and evening to take advantage of the good light. In between those times, we explored the valley and photographed some places that were not so dependent on the light coming from any particular angle. It was also fun to photograph some of the same places during the daytime, and then again under the stars at night. In the next post, you will see some of the night time photos.

#N110735: Coyote
(1/250 sec at f4.5, iso 400)

I had not expected to see much wildlife on this trip but to my surprise, we came upon a coyote one afternoon on the drive up to Glacier Point. I was able to fire off a few shots out of the rolled down car window and I think the photo above is probably the best one. I also took a few shots of a deer I saw when we stopped to photograph El Capitan. Those two photos are below.

#N110810 - Deer
(1/160 second @ f2.8, iso 400)

#N110805: El Capitan
(1/640 sec @ f4, iso 200, -2/3 EV)

The next image was taken from the swinging bridge. It shows Cathedral Rock in the distance, with the Merced River in the foreground. I really liked the contrast of colors in this scene.

#7D_1181: View from the Swinging Bridge
(1/500 @ f6.3, iso 400)

Next is an image of Half Dome photographed from Cook's Meadow, with a large elm tree in the foreground. From this location, you can see several of the notable Yosemite landmarks simply by looking in a different direction.

#7D_0906: Half Dome from Cook's Meadow
(1/250 @ f8, iso 200, -1EV)

Next is a photo of El Capitan with its reflection in the Merced River, photographed from Cathedral Beach. This image was difficult to capture and it took my widest lens, a 15mm fisheye, to fit the entire reflection in the frame. Some of the barrel distortion from the lens has been removed in photoshop. This was a very cold morning with temperatures in the 30's and after about an hour my numb fingers told me it was time to get back to the car and move on.

#N110571: El Capitan from Cathedral Beach
(1/200 second @ f8, iso 100, 15mm fisheye lens)

Of course, no trip to Yosemite would be complete without the classic photo below taken from just outside the tunnel on highway 41, commonly referred to as 'tunnel view'. This is probably the most commonly photographed scene at Yosemite.

#7D_1267: Tunnel View
(1/500 @f7.1, iso 200, with 2-stop graduated neutral density filter)

In the next post, I will show some of the waterfalls and the night time photos, as well as some views from Glacier Point, looking down into the valley from above.

Back to Birding...

2011-05-25T22:11:00.002-04:00

I have been itching to get out with the camera lately, and today I finally pushed myself a bit and went out to photograph birds. I did not have my usual stamina, and found that I had to stop and take a rest every hour or so. But it was nice to get outdoors and once again occupy myself with something I really enjoy doing.

I was able to get a few decent photos, including one of a roseate spoonbill chick. Prior to today I did not have any images of chicks of this particular species, and it was difficult to get this one due to twigs and branches obstructing my view to the bird as it hobbled around in the nest. But waiting and watching for quite some time finally paid off and resulted in the image below. You can contrast this image with of the adult spoonbill below it.

Roseate Spoonbill - chick

Roseate Spoonbill - adult

The next image is a cattle egret in full breeding plumage. It's quite amazing how a fairly boring white bird transforms itself into the colorful version you see below in breeding season.

Cattle Egret in breeding plumage

Next is a young tricolor heron. As the bird gets older, the browns will turn to blues as seen in the top image in this article.

Tricolor Heron - juvenile

Finally a great white egret both perched and in flight.

Great White Egret

Elizabeth: Fantastic light and an attractive model...

2011-05-22T15:18:00.008-04:00

Last weekend I traveled to Cocoa Beach to visit relatives and witness the final launch of space shuttle Endeavour. The shuttle photography was challenging as we were looking in the direction of the light and it was only the low cloud cover that prevented lens flare and made it possible to get decent phots.

But the evening before I enjoyed some of the best light I've ever experienced with my camera in my hand. After enjoying a fantastic home cooked dinner with Liz and David, we went out cruising on a boat before sunset and were washed in some fantastic soft light. I took advantage of that for nearly two hours, shooting away with Elizabeth and trying to create some nice images. Balancing fill flash with ambient light in this situation was so amagingly easy that it was fun. It's not difficult to see that I could really enjoy doing a lot more of this kind of photography. It was so much fun creating the images you see here with almost no effort. And obvioulsy it helped to have such an attractive subject in front of the lens. Thanks for your willingness to pose for the photos, Liz. I hope you like the results....

[click on any image for a larger view]

I decided to post this to share a look at some of my favorite images from that evening with anyone who may be interested. Thanks to David, Elizabeth, and Patty for a fantastic weekend, for wonderful company and a lot of just plain fun. It was the perfect weekend and a sort of escape for me, having just been through my 2nd round of chemotherapy. And thanks again to Liz for posing for these images.

More images can be seen at the link below: http://www.pbase.com/tim32225/elizabeth

Space Shuttle Endeavour - STS 134 Final Mission

2011-05-18T02:02:00.021-04:00

Program notes: Click on any photo to see a larger version. Prints are available from a link to my web page posted at the bottom of this entry.

The story continues. I managed to get back down to the Cape for one last chance to see Space Shuttle Endeavour launch on it's final journey, and everything went fine with the shuttle lifting off on time at 8:56am Monday. I have just chocked one more item off my 'bucket list'.

On this visit, I was at the "turn basin" viewing site, which is a few hundred yards in front of the VAB Building, approximately 3 miles from the launch pad. This is the closest I've ever been to witness a shuttle launch. On previous outings, my best attempts had come from the NASA Causeway, which is about 6.5 to 7 miles south of the launch pad. One advantage viewing it from the turn basin is the smoke plume from the solid rocket boosters does not obstruct your view as it does from the Causeway.

Due to the low cloud cover, the shuttle was gone in just about 22 seconds from the time it lifted off. Usually I am able to follow it through my lens and photograph the solid rocket booster separation, which does not happen until well beyond 2 minutes into the flight. On this occasion, we could not see the shuttle at all after it ascended above the first cloud layer.

So this time it was over quickly. We arrived at around 5:30am and staked out a spot to shoot from within the relatively small area that was roped off for spectators, then we waited about 3.5 hours to view the launch. This launch was spectacular. It's much more exciting from this distance, and the ground felt almost like an earthquake as the loud rumble from the shuttle shook everything in sight. Light was not the best for photography, with the sun about 20 degrees to our right and up roughly 30 degrees off the horizon at launch time. But the low cloud cover actually helped a bit to cut down on the lens flare I had been seeing through the lens prior to when the clouds rolled in. At least we were not shooting into direct sunlight, which would have made it next to impossible to get any decent photos.

I owe a special note of thanks to Cindy's cousin, David Turko who obtained the NASA pass and then invited us to join him and his sister Patty for the launch. We had a thoroughly enjoyable weekend which also included a boat cruise at sunset Sunday, when we took advantage of some fantastic soft light to do a photo shoot with David's better half, Liz. You may see some of those images in my nest post.

While waiting for the launch we visited with folks we met, and we monitored the light. As the conditions constantly changed we discussed camera settings in hopes that everyone would be able to get properly exposed photos. Exposures can be tricky, especially if one is used to shooting in aperture priority or shutter priority mode. I avoid those settings and shoot manual exposures so that the bright flame of the solid booster does not affect the metering of the camera, and therefore change the exposure. I have seen many people ruin photos by not taking this into account. For anyone who may have been unfortunate it that regard, I have made prints available from a link at the bottom of this post.

During our wait we especially enjoyed meeting Alyson and 3 of her friends, who we learned all who work for the American Cancer Society. After I lifted my hat revealing my bald head, and told them I was fighting non-hodgkins lymphoma, we ended up having a lot to talk about, and they were all very helpful and supportive.

I am disappointed that the shuttle program is coming to a close, and there is no other program ready yet to go behind it. This is also going to be devastating to the central Florida economy as all the NASA employees begin to loose their jobs over the next month or two.

I cannot help but believe there is enough fat and waste in our federal budget that could be cut in order to provide funding for projects such as NASA. Our space program over the years has resulted in many discoveries and innovations that have led to scores of products we use in our every day lives, such as teflon used to make cookware, and many, many others. It is a shame that a program that has been so vital to us is now dying due to lack of funding and what I believe are misguided priorities.

A larger variety of photos of this launch can also be seen on my main web page here:

http://www.pbase.com/tim32225/sts134_endeavour along with the availability to purchase prints.

Snowy Egret

2011-05-03T00:03:00.009-04:00

One of my favorite birds to photograph, although one of the most difficult to photograph in flight, is the snowy egret. The snowy egret seems to fly in a much more erratic manner than other types of egrets, and I find that I have more throwaway photos of this species than any other when attempting flight shots. Because they almost always change direction abruptly in flight, often just prior to landing, it's often difficult to get sharp photos of them in flight. The images posted here are a few that I am happy with.

These images were captured at Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge while on a cross Florida photo trip with my friend Ken Conger.

While following observing several snowy egrets landing in a pond and fishing I was fortunate to capture a few images below showing the bird with it's catch.

I am using some past material in this post because I have been under the weather the last month or so and unable to get out and obtain any new images. After over a month of sickness and a 15 day hosptial stay, I am back on the mend and undergoing chemotherapy treatments after being diagnosed with a type of non-hodgkins lymphoma on April 21. I had mixed feelings about posting this publicly, but I figured most of my friends know the situation, and I wanted the folks whose blogs I used to comment on to understand part of the reason I seem to have vanished from the scene lately. The good news is this type of cancer is treatable and the prognosis is good for a full recovery.

I am finding that the side effects of the chemotherapy are the worst the first few days after treatment, and then I bounce back to my normal self and actually feel pretty good after that. I am learning how to deal with it one day at a time and I am planning to have as normal a life as possible along this new journey. I actually traveled to Cape Kennedy 12 hours after being discharged from the hospital in hopes of photographing the launch of Space Shuttle Endeavour , sts-134. I was taking medicine to deal with the side effects of the chemotherapy I had just had slightly over a day before. I owe a special thanks to my friend Terry Seaney, for graciously offering to drive me from St. Augustine down to Cape Kennedy, and then back home after the launch was srubbed. I still plan to photograph the launch as long as the revised launch schedule does not conflict with my treatment.

My oncologist advised me against making the trip, but my regular doctor gave me his blessing based on certain precautions I was able to take.

If you see images of the space shuttle launch in my next post, you will know I was able to pull it off.

Tricolor Heron

2011-03-28T15:59:00.001-04:00

The tricolor heron is one of the most colorful birds we see here in Florida in the springtime. Since I've been a little under the weather lately these images are from an earlier outing.

[click on any image for a larger view]

Juvenile Night Heron

2011-03-01T17:58:00.001-05:00

40-13600 - Night Heron headshot

Since I don't have may photos of this species, I thought I'd post a couple images from a recent outing. This is not a full grown bird, but rather a juvenile. Night herons in this stage are sometimes mistaken for the American bittern, and they can sometimes look similar. The night heron is usually more hunched over when perched, and I believe the larger orange eye of the night heron sets it apart. There is also a dark brown mark under the neck of the American bittern that turns black in adults, and no such mark exists on the night heron. An American bittern will often points its head and bill straight upward when startled. [click on any image to enlarge]

40-13606 - Juvenile Night Heron

#89078 - Juvenile Night Heron

Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge

2011-02-23T14:00:00.001-05:00

96987 - Great Blue Heron

I recently made a quick trip to Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge and have finally gotten around to posting a few photos. This great blue heron was standing in some grass near a pond and was in pretty good light. I made quite a few shots but I like the head angle on this one the best.

Below is a full body shot of the same bird. (Click on any image for a larger view.)

97008 - Great Blue Heron

And finally, one with a fish.

96969 - Great Blue Heron

I have never managed to get a really good shot of a belted kingfisher, and as of today I still haven't. This one below is probably my best effort so far, but it is cropped from a larger image. These birds spook easily and it's very difficult to approach one to get a closer shot.

40-14265 Belted Kingfisher

The last two are a reddish egret and a tricolor heron.

97137 - Reddish Egret

96848 - Tricolor Heron

Reworking Old Photos

2011-01-29T19:48:00.011-05:00

Night Heron in Flight (juvenile) 2005

[Click on any image for a larger view]

It seems as software gets more and more sophisticated and one's editing skills improve, there is always a desire to go back and re-edit old photos. On that topic, I often tell my friends that I don't think any of us will live long enought to go back and fix all of the images we'd like to fix. But accepting that as reality, it's still fun to take some time now and then to dabble a little bit just to see the difference between our editing skills now, versus what they were back whenever.

I have been cleaning up some old computer files this weekend and deleting a lot of old images that I no longer feel are worth holding onto. But in that process I stumbled across a few photos I couldn't resist taking time to rework.

I've been using Photoshop CS5 since it was released a last year and I believe it is absolutely the best upgrade Adobe has ever released in the CS line of software. Adobe Camera Raw version 6 (raw image editor) is absolutely amazing compared to even the last version that preceded it. The improvements in ACR alone make CS5 worth the upgrade price.

The first image above of a juvenile night heron in flight, is a lucky shot I made back in 2005 with my first ever DSLR, a Canon 10d. It typically could not focus fast enough to track a moving bird, but I got lucky on this attempt. This is still one of my favorite shots of all the birds in flight I have photographed since.

Here are a few images I reworked today...

Tricolor Heron in breeding plumage, 2009

Red Shoulder Hawk, 2008

Yellow Crowned Night Heron, 2010

Meadowlark, 2008

Wood Stork (nest building), 2009

Great Egret with nesting material, 2009

Photographing the Lunar Eclipse

2010-12-22T07:03:00.011-05:00

Early yesterday I morning went outside to photograph the lunar eclipse that was visible all across north America. Although it was not my original plan, I ended up staying up all night and shooting over 400 images during the event.

Since the moon was directly overhead for part of the time, I was unable to mount my lens on my tripod because it cannot be tilted that far upward without the long lens or the camera body hitting the top of the tripod. Due to this, I hand-held my rig for a good portion of the time, and fired short bursts hoping to get a few sharp images out of each attempt. Later when the moon was at a lower angle, I mounted my rig on the tripod and was able to just fire single shots every couple minutes. One has to constantly adjust the camera aim since the moon actually moves rather quickly across the sky.

What I have posted below is a sequence of 12 images that I believe summarizes what I saw over the four-hour period. If you were not able to stay up all night, or if the weather prevented you from seeing it (as was the case in parts of the Western United States) you can get a glimpse of what you missed below.

[Click on any image to see a larger view]

Image #1 of 12 - 12:58am

Image #2 of 12 - 1:59am

Image #3 of 12 - 2:15am

Image #4 of 12 - 2:39am

Image #5 of 12 - 3:22am

Image #6 of 12 - 3:46am

Image #7 of 12 - 3:52am

Image #8 of 12 - 3:56am

Image #9 of 12 - 4:14am

Image #10 of 12 - 4:32am

Image #11 of 12 - 4:53am

Image #12 of 12 - 5:03am

Photographing the International Space Station

2010-10-19T22:05:00.000-04:00

Ever since my curiosity led me to try photographing the International Space Station as it flew overhead one evening in June, I've had the desire for closer images with more detail than I got on my first attempt. Using the NASA website, it's easy to tell exactly when the ISS fill fly over any location you enter, and NASA's "skywatch" program calculates the times when it will actually be visible.  These are always in times of darkness, or in the early morning or late evening when light from the sun illuminates the space station in the dark sky. Usually the biggest deal breaker to getting photos is the weather. You need a clear sky with few clouds or ideally no clouds to get in the way.

This morning was one of the best opportunities yet for photography. At it's closest point, the ISS was only going to be 221 miles overhead at exactly 6:44:52am. It would come into view from the Northwest about 800 miles away, and be visible to the naked eye a little over 2 minutes prior to passing at its closest distance. After passing almost directly overhead (89 degrees from my location) it would be visible for another 2 minutes or so as it sped away toward the Southeast.

This morning I slept through my alarm and luckily got outside with my camera gear just in time to see it approaching. Usually I find the moon and set my camera focus on it to get a good 'infinity' focus setting, and then switch to manual focus to shoot the ISS, being careful not to touch the focus ring on my 500mm lens. Today I was rushed and there was no moon in sight so I had to use autofocus and hope for the best.
Looking through a long lens and teleconverter at high magnification, it is difficult to even find the bright dot streaking across the dark sky, even though it is clearly visible to the naked eye.   And trying to get the camera to auto-focus on it under these conditions is iffy at best.

This morning I managed to get photos of the space station approaching, but unfortunately I lost it after it got closer than 270 miles away. When I found it again through the lens, I shot more photos as it sped away, but none of them were properly focused.   The solar arrays are clearly visible in the images of the ISS approaching but still not as close as I had hoped, since I was unable to get a shot of it when it was at its closest distance.

(Click on the image below to see a full size composite showing 7 images of the ISS as it passed over this morning)

Distances listed in the image are calculated using tables from NASA's skywatch program, and interpolating the distances between the 20 second intervals listed. Before doing this, I synchronized the time setting in my camera with an atomic clock to be sure time time stamp on each image was accurate. This allowed me to determine the distance in each photo referencing the NASA charts. You can clearly see that each successive image of the international space station is slightly larger than the previous one, since it is getting closer in each frame. Even though it is difficult to keep the ISS in the viewfinder even at 1000 mm, I have pretty much decided that I need to stack teleconverters to get even more magnification if I ever hope to get a closer shot. This will make it even more difficult to find in the viewfinder, but if I succeed the image will be 40% larger.

Camping in Denali National Park

2010-10-15T16:11:00.007-04:00

Photographing Mt McKinley

Sunrise on Mt. McKinley - From Reflection Pond, Denali National Park

The highlight of my last few days in Alaska this year was camping at Wonder Lake, which is only 23 miles from Mt. McKinley. We had driven almost all night to return to Denali from Seward, and this bought me a extra day since we had planned for Monday to be a travel day. Arriving back in Denali in the early morning, we found that there was space available on the 2pm camper bus, so we unpacked our camping gear and dried out our tents, then repacked for Wonder Lake. Since it rained the last day at Brooks Falls we had been forced to pack our tents wet before getting on a float plane to fly out. We went for a good lunch before hopping on the bus.

Panorama from Eielson Visitor Center - [Click to enlarge]

Wonder Lake is located at mile post 88 on the Denali Park Road - about 6 hours from the park entrance. On a clear day there is breathtaking scenery along the way, especially at polychrome pass and at Eielsen Visitor Center.

Our tents set up near Wonder Lake - Denali National Park

Upon arrival at Wonder Lake, we set up our tents and then cooked dinner before getting ready to hike up to Reflection pond to photograph the mountain. We did not know it yet, but we were in for a special treat. We heard there had not been a clear day there in the previous 3 weeks. But we had arrived to a blue sky with a few puffy clouds that moved out during the evening leaving a clear view of Mt McKinley. Our hope was to get photos with the reflections in the water.

The hike to the pond is about 2.5 miles, and it's mostly uphill. We set out for the pond, carrying only minimal camera gear. The bugs were pretty bad so we wore mosquito nets to keep them off our faces. We arrived at the pond a little before 10pm, a good hour prior to sunset. While we were at the pond, several others arrived, all with their cameras. Most folks marvelled at the view, and I was no exception. It is a rare sight to see the top of McKinley because it is usually shrouded by clouds. Today it was clear and the lake that stood in front of us was icing on the cake. We shot lots of photos and made plans to return around 4:30am to do it again when the light from the sunrise would first start hitting the top of the mountain.

Denali before sunset (10:24pm)

We arrived back at our tents around midnight planned to get back up at 3am. We would need to take up camp and pack all our gear in the morning, before we could hike back up to the pond. The hike had taken just short of an hour so we needed to budget at least that much time for the morning, since we would be carrying 40+ lbs of gear in each of our backpacks.

In the morning the sky was clear, so we packed up our camping gear and left it at the bus pickup point and started out for the pond. All went as planned, and we arrived at the pond at 4:30am. We shot various photos of the mountain and had plenty of time to plan prior to the 5:08am sunrise.

We were fortunate that there was not much wind and this resulted on few ripples in the water to spoil the reflection. I shot lots of photos, but my favorite one is the first one at the top of this post. It was shot at 5:13am, just 5 minutes after the sunlight began to hit the top of the mountain. It is repeated again below to show the progression from dark to light.

Pre-dawn McKinley (4:30am)

Just before Sunrise (5:01am)

Five minutes after sunrise (5:13am)

We started making our way back to the bus stop at 5:30am in order to catch the 6:30 bus. Along the way, I couldn't resist photographing this scene, with the lush green meadow in the foreground and the mountain as a backdrop.

Denali through the meadow

We were back waiting for the bus with time to spare, and were able to relax on the long bus ride back. I was really tired but it was well worth it.

This last photo was taken by a passerby on Monday evening. I'm the guy on the right, and the other guy is my friend, Ken Conger. Ken is a park ranger at Denali National Park and he has captured amazing wildlife images all around Alaska and elsewhere. You can see his website HERE.

Grizzly Bears at Brooks Falls

2010-08-24T03:46:00.004-04:00

It was very interesting and sometimes entertaining observing the behaviour of the grizzly bears at Brooks Falls. Some bears seemed to be frequently catching salmon either swimming in the river or jumping at the falls while other bears seemed less fortunate. And there seemed to be an established pecking order among the bears who were all trying to catch enough fish to satisfy themselves and fatten up prior to winter. When one bear caught a fish, there was another particular bear that would chase after him and try to intimidate him into giving up the fish. It seemed that this "bully bear" would almost always succeed in getting the fish away from the bear who had actually caught it. This bear may have been too big and fat to be catching his own fish, but he got plenty to eat nonetheless by harassing all the other bears.

The tougher bears took the best fishing locations at the top of the falls, and were willing to fight other bears to keep their position. There were usually lots of bears in the water in front of us. One evening there were 19 bears there at the same time.

Soon we found ourselves giving the various bears nicknames based on their behaviour. We were particularly entertained by a bear that I labelled 'beggar bear', who would frequently approach a bear that had just caught a fish. But unlike the 'bully bear', beggar bear would approach within a foot or two and put his paws and head on the surface of the water, and gaze at the bear eating the fish, hoping the other bear would share some of the catch. This bear was never aggressive and I never saw him try to steal the fish. This approach apparently worked because we often observed bears saving a small portion of their catch for him.

Another bear seemed to always stay in the swirling waters and bubbles just below the falls, and we appropriately named him "jacuzzi bear".

I tried to get a photo of a bear catching a fish, just before he closed his jaws on it. but I never exactly manged to get the shot I had in mind. It was about 2 weeks past the peak of the salmon run, and fish were not jumping very often.

As the bears would devour the fish, several gulls were always wading just a couple feet away, waiting for the scraps. On one occasion, a gull went up and pecked away a piece of a fish while a bear was eating it. That was one brave gull.

Visiting Brooks Falls was nothing short of amazing. I had never been here before, and I wouldn't hesitate to return if given the opportunity.

Grizzly Sow with Cubs

2010-08-16T17:39:00.003-04:00

Katmai National Park, Alaska

Camping five days at Brooks Falls provided some great photo opportunities, but I think Thursday was the best day of all. We had seen a sow with four cubs on the beach Wednesday morning, but not in time to try to get in position for photos. Since my main photo goal on this trip was bear cubs, I was determined to be on the beach again early Thursday to look for them. We headed to the beach first thing the next morning before going up to the falls, and sure enough she was there again with her 4 cubs.

Seeing a sow with 4 cubs is a pretty amazing sight by itself because usually they have just 2 or 3. Having the opportunity to photograph them was like a dream. The sun was not yet popping through the cloudy sky at 6:45am, so I was forced to use make some compromises on camera settings. I was fortunate to still get sharp photos.

We watched as the mother left the cubs to look for fish in the lake, always keeping an eye on them to guard them from any danger. At one point another bear approached, and in the top photo above it is this other bear that the cubs are watching. Bears have been known to attack and kill cubs if the mother leaves them unprotected. I believe this particular bear was quite capable of protecting her new family, and when she stood on her hind feet, she showed us just how big she is.

The cubs are really cute as they play around and discover more and more of the world around them, and they are a joy to watch.

Dancing Bears?

It was really entertaining watching the cubs stand on their hind feet to get a better look at their surroundings. They look like they are dancing.

The next post will explore grizzly bears catching salmon in the falls.

Brooks Falls - Katmai National Park

2010-08-14T14:49:00.004-04:00

It's been a while since I've posted, but having just returned from 10 days of hiking and camping in several National Parks in Alaska, I finally have some material I feel is worth sharing. After meeting my friend Ken Conger in Anchorage, we flew to King Salmon and then took a float plane over to Brooks Falls in Katmai National Park. The flight itself on the float plane was a treat, as I had the privilege of sitting in the cockpit for the short hop down to Brooks. It's a shame the weather was not good for photos that morning, but I did snap a few anyway, especially as we prepared to land on Naknek Lake.

I couldn't resist looking back and snapping a photo inside the plane before we took off, since I figure it will be while if ever before I am able to enjoy an experience like this again. You can't help but notice the looks of excitement of the faces of everyone in this photo.

The float plane landing is remarkably smooth and this really surprised me. I thought there would be a thud when the plane began to touch down on the water, but in reality a water landing in this type of plane is smoother than a typical runway landing.

In only about 25 minutes, we were preparing to land on the lake. We saw 5 grizzly bears on the beach as we made our descent to the water.

After getting off the float plane we saw grizzly bears roaming the beach within about 100 yards of us. To me this was a remarkable sight. I have never been to Brooks Falls before, and if this was any indication of what was in store for the next 5 days, it was going to be great.

Our first task was attending bear etiquette training, so that we would be prepared to act safely in case we came in close proximity to bears during our stay. Next, we would get our gear over to the camping area and set up our tents. We felt fortunate to have arrived at Brooks by 10am, because the visibility had been much worse in Anchorage earlier that morning. It was clearer in King Salmon where we got on the float plane.

After taking a few minutes to set up camp, we grabbed our camera gear and headed up to the falls, about 1.5 miles hike. When we arrived at the falls, there were about a dozen grizzly bears there.

[click on the image above to see a larger view]

In the next post, we'll take a lot closer look at the grizzly bears, including a sow and 4 very cute spring cubs that I photographed on Thursday morning.

The International Space Station

2010-06-30T01:14:00.001-04:00

(Photography "outside the box")

[click on the image for a larger view]

I have been curious for a long time whether it would be possible to photograph the international space station as it passed overhead. I had been watching the NASA website and making notes of when an opportunity might come with the ISS passing in close proximity to my location. It is only visible if it passes close by, and then only when it's dark outside and the ISS is illuminated by the sun. On Thursday evening 6/24/10 at 9:54pm that opportunity came, and it was supposed to be visible for around 4 minutes starting when it was about 800 miles away and eventually passing as close as 227 miles.

Since the weather was clear, I went outside about 5 minutes prior to the beginning of the viewing window with a 500mm f4 lens and 1.4x teleconverter mounted on a Canon 40d body. My plan was to try and hand hold the rig using autofocus and see if I could lock onto the 'dot' as it passed overhead. I made some practice shots of the moon to try 'guestimate' the correct exposure, and I decided on 1/250, f8, iso 400. I would be using manual exposure, but with autofocus and image stabilization mode 1, since it would be more of a 'hold it steady' motion than a panning motion. The ISS was easy to see with the naked eye as it approached, and I was able to locate it in the camera viewfinder and fire off some shots while trying very hard to keep the bright dot in the center of the frame as it streaked across the sky. I was surprised that the 40d actually locked focus very easily most of the time.

Of a couple dozen shots, only a few taken when the subject was the closest showed any real detail. The image shown above was my best shot. It is shown here as a 100% crop, but it is actually about 1.58 times actual size due to opening it in photoshop at a resolution higher than the native resolution of the camera. (You must click on the photo to see it actual size).

I tried a second attempt Sunday morning at 4:57am, but this time with stacked teleconverters hoping to get an image twice as large with my 1400mm rig. Since autofocus is not an option when using 2 teleconverers, I used manual focus and pre-focused on the moon in order to accurately set the focus at infinity. When the ISS came into view, I found it in the camera viewfiner and took some shots. But as it got closer and near the sweet spot where I could get a closer photo, I lost it and was unable to find it again looking through the camera even though it was clearly visible to the naked eye. The added focal length meant that I was looking at a much narrower slice of the sky when looking through the lens than on my first attempt. This proved very frustrating, but at the same time it was a learning experience. Hopefully I can do better next time.

[click on the moon image below for a larger view]

The Final Voyage of Space Shuttle Atlantis

2010-05-17T23:26:00.010-04:00

I was fortunate once again to get tickets to view a shuttle launch from the NASA Causeway, and this one was absolutely spectacular. The weather was almost perfect and although it was very hot, we had a very nice breeze that made the long wait very pleasant. This was the final launch of Space Shuttle Atlantis on Friday May 14, which was taking supplies to the International Space Station.

Although this is the 3rd launch I've witnessed from the NASA Causeway, they never get less exciting. It was difficult to get good photos prior to the launch this time because there were visible heat waves making the view through the camera a little bit wavy as Atlantis sat on the launch pad.

As the countdown gets down to around 6 seconds, you can watch the shuttle's main engines fire and try to get a few photos before the solid rocket boosters fire and the smoke plume completely blocks the view of the space shuttle for people viewing it from the south.

The next trick is to be ready to get more photos as the shuttle emerges from behind the smoke.

It's not until about 30 seconds after launch that you actually hear it, since we are slightly over 6 miles away. But once you hear it, you also feel it, and the rumble as it climbs skyward is something that everyone should get to experience.

The shuttle climbs just a short distance before it begins to roll to the side.

Only about 2 minutes into the flight, the solid rocket booster engine separation occurs and the shuttle continues into orbit on it's own three engines. In the photo above, you can see the puff of smoke when the booster engines separate from the space shuttle.

In the photo below, you can see the solid rocket boosters completely separated from the shuttle as it continues onward. The bright white dot below and to the right of the solid rocket boosters is the flame coming from shuttle's three main engines as it flies away from us. This photo is a 100% crop from the actual image.

This is the last scheduled flight of Space Shuttle Atlantis. Unless the US Congress does something to extend the program, the only way it will fly again is possibly as an emergency backup to one of the two remaining shuttle flights by the other orbiters.

Roseate Spoonbills

2010-04-29T15:11:00.007-04:00

One bird that seems to usually be pretty elusive for me is the roseate spoonbill. I don't see a lot of them very often, and usually when I do the chances of good photos are slim. When the birds are roosting, the backgrounds are almost always too cluttered so the best chance at a keeper is usually a flight shot. This presents a whole different set of challenges because it seems that I seldom get many opportunities at flight shots either. Even when I do, everything has to be just about perfect to get a decent photo. The light needs to be in the right direction, and a small amount of flash should be used to partially light up the underside of the wings to balance the ambient light hitting other parts of the bird. If all these factors are in place, then the challenge is to capture a good flight pose and also get a sharp, well focused image. The majority of my attempts end up in the recycle bin due to one or more of the items mentioned above not being just right, but most often due to just not capturing an attractive pose.

On my most recent outing, I hooked up with a friend who was visiting Florida from Texas and we set out to try and get some flyer shots. I had some decent opportunities with various bird species, including two chances where a roseate spoonbill flew close by. I am only including the spoonbills in this post and all of these flight shots came from the same series. In the image above, the bird was flying to the left and preparing to bank back toward the right.

As the bird came back around to the right, I was fortunate to get a shot with a full wingspread. Although the flash did not fire, I got a little bit lucky that the wings were back lit enough to prevent the underside from being too dark. When I checked the exif data on this series of photos, I was surprised when I noticed that flash did not fire on any of them. Thinking back, I remember changing my flash batteries at one point after discovering they were spent. I must have shot this sequence prior to that time. I must remember to watch that indicator more closely from now on as I believe some fill flash would have helped these images.

As yet, this species has not nested this far north in Florida. But folks around here are hopeful that they may start soon as some nesting behaviours have been observed in St. Augustine.

In a bit of unrelated news, I was fortunate to get NASA Causeway tickets again for the launch of Space Shuttle Atlantis on May 14. So if all goes well and there no delays, I am hoping to get some better images of a shuttle launch in a couple weeks. This will be the last flight of space shuttle Atlantis, and after this there are only 2 more launches left in the entire shuttle program. I'm sad to see the program end.

The Launch of Space Shuttle Discovery sts-131

2010-04-05T21:49:00.022-04:00

The Challenge of Photographing a Pre-Dawn Launch

Early this morning we drove down to Cape Canaveral to watch the launch of Space Shuttle Discovery. We arrived at 3am to allow time to board a bus and set up our cameras on the NASA Causeway for the scheduled 6:21 am launch. The launch was originally set for the afternoon of March 18th but due to cold weather in Florida, the preparations to the launch vehicle could not be completed in time for that date. Because the shuttle launch has to be synchronized with the orbit of the International Space Station, the launch time gets 25 minutes earlier for each day it is delayed. That's how we ended up with a pre-dawn launch, which is much more challenging to photograph.

Today we were fortunate that everything went very smoothly and the weather cooperated very nicely as well. Discovery lifted off right on schedule at 6:21am. It was a nice cool morning approximately 60 degrees, which is what I consider perfect weather.

Below is a chronological sequence of launch photos. There were over 20 images in this series but I am only showing 5 of them. The camera settings I used were vastly different for the first few photos, before the shuttle cleared the launch tower. Once it cleared the tower and the huge flame from the solid rocket boosters became visible, I had to raise the shutter speed from 1/100 second to 1/640 second to prevent the photos from being completely washed out. Since I knew the smoke plume would billow out toward us and momentarily block our view of the shuttle after the solid rocket booster ignition, I used this 1 to 1.5 second interval to adjust my shutter speed. I was ready when the shuttle emerged from behind the smoke and I had the right settings thanks to a good friend from the Marshall Space Flight Center in Montgomery, Alabama who advised me early this morning. Thanks, Joby!

[ click any photo to enlarge ]

Ignition of Discovery's 3 main engines.

Flaming up

Firing Solid Rocket Boosters (here comes the smoke plume)

Discovery emerges from behind the smoke plume.

The photo below shows the International Space Station as it flew overhead 17 minutes before the shuttle launch. I snapped a few photos as it passed between us and the moon, getting both in the frame.

[click photo to enlarge]

Finally, here's one that Cindy snapped right before the launch. Since we were in total darkness, I look like deer in someone's headlights from the camera flash.

Additional images can be seen HERE.

Birds In Flight

2010-04-02T04:58:00.006-04:00

St. Augustine Alligator Farm

Having just returned last week from a trip around Florida photographing birds, I was still in the mood to do a little more. So on Tuesday I drove down to the rookery at the St. Augustine Alligator Farm and was a little surprised to see so many birds already nesting in the trees above the swamp. I had heard there were a good number of birds, but never expected this many so early in the season.

Needless to say, this made a good opportunity to photograph some birds in flight. The wind direction was not ideal, but I still got some decent opportunities. There were tons of great egrets, and also lots of wood storks and snowy egrets.

I also saw about 20 spoonbills roosting, and occasionally they would fly around. But usually they did not fly far and would land again close to whee they had been, offering little chance of flight photographs. I only had one or two chances to photograph the spoonies in flight, and I didn't really get anything too good. The image above is one of them. [click any image to enlarge]

The next five images are great egrets. It's fun to photograph these guys as they go out to retrieve sticks and then return to add them to the nest.

Below is one of the few wood storks I photographed that day. There were lots more great egrets in the sky than anything else.

And finally, it was interesting to see this great egret below attempt to fly with this large a tree branch. He flew a good distance with the branch, but dropped it just as he got to the nest.

The rookery is really cranking up now and there are lots of birds. In addition to what I've already mentioned, there were also some tricolor herons and a few cattle egrets, and night herons.

The newly built boardwalk is much nicer than the old one. It is far more stable, and it extends a little closer to the back fence. It does not vibrate when folks walk past pushing baby strollers, as it always did in the past.

I figure I'll be making a few more trips to the rookery as the other species of birds start nesting.

Birding In Florida - Part 2

2010-03-25T22:10:00.009-04:00

Viera Wetlands, The Everglades NP, & Fort De Soto Park
(Continued from Part -1 )

After Merritt Island, we headed down to Viera Wetlands, which is about 40 minutes south, off I-95.

The goal there was caracaras. We had visited the place on a couple prior occasions but never seen them. We were joined there by another friend, Klaus Peter and his friend Donnie who had met us at Merritt Island. And just by chance we also bumped into fellow blogger Brad Myers who was on vacation from Pennsylvania (what a small world). It's difficult to get any keeper shots of wading birds at Viera because they do not allow people to shoot from the edge of the water, so it's difficult to get low enough to create a nice blurred background. Although most of the time nobody will catch you if you break the rules.

There are usually good possibilities for nesting birds and some occasional flyers. I made a fair amount of images of great blue herons, and the two shown above are my favorites. [click any image to enlarge]

We finally saw a caracara, but it landed very high in a pine tree, too far away for any photo worth showing here. But a few minutes later a juvenile bird flew past us and eventually perched on a fence post. I hate having a fence post in the photos but sometimes you just take what you can get. Having not yet gotten images of his species, we took a few shots and then worked in closer to try to get better ones.

After finishing with the caracara, we felt we had gotten what we came for, so we headed to our next planned stop. We had virtually no luck at Orlando Wetlands, Circle B Preserve, and Corkscrew. The water level at Corkscrew was so high that there were no birds. After spending an afternoon there, we elected to make a run down to the Everglades because the folks at Corkscrew told us it had lots of birds.

The images below are from Shark Valley in the Everglades National Park.

This anhinga was working the canal and repeatedly came up with minnows. It was a challenge to try and get him in the photo before the fish was gone. I snapped this one just in time. The same anhinga is seen below with a bigger catch. It seems pretty amazing to me that a bird this size can swallow a fish as big as this one all in one gulp.

Another stop we made was the north beach at Fort De Soto Park. It felt really strange to arrive there to find the parking lot empty, even in the middle of spring break. Since the weather turned too cold for swimming and partying on the beach, the college kids had apparently resorted to indoor partying and we had the whole place to ourselves. There were literally 4 cars in the parking lot when we pulled up.

About the only thing I saw there was a pair of oystercatchers. They were pretty skiddish but eventually I managed toget close enough to get some photos. This is another species that I had been wanting to photograph, so I was glad to see them.

All and all, this was a good trip. It would have been even better if we had seen more birds, but the cool weather and the combination of high water at Corkscrew made the birds pretty scarce. Ironically I still manged to photograph 3 new species and get some improved images of several more. One bird I have still not properly photographed is a swallowtail kite. I saw a few of them on this trip, but struck out every time. Either they were too far off or obstructed in flight by tree branches above me. I will close this post with the sunset over the north beach at Fort De Soto Park.

Birding in Florida - Part 1

2010-03-23T20:44:00.013-04:00

Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge

Last week my friend Ken Conger was planning to visit so we could photograph the launch of Space Shuttle Discovery. Ken has been wanting to see a launch for some time, so I am bummed (and surely so is he) that the launch has been delayed until at least April 5th. We decided to spend the time visiting some wildlife sanctuaries instead, so we set out a plan based on some target species we both wished to photograph. We started out at Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge, where we had hoped to photograph skimmers and reddish egrets. There was an abundance of roseatte spoonbills there also, which is one of Ken's favorite species.

I had for a long time wanted to capture a photograph such as the one above, and found it challening to do, since a bit of luck is involved in finding a place to shoot where the birds are likely to fly past in close proximity. You can see a closer look at the beak action in the water in the image crop immediately above. [click on any image to enlarge]

While in the wildlife refuge, I was pleased to have the opportunity to meet up with up with fellow birder Rod Ostoski , whom I had gotten to know through email the last few years, but had never actually met. Rod showed Ken and me some good places to watch for skimmers, and I'm pretty sure I would not have gotten the skimmer shots posted here without his direction. Rod is probably best known for has amazing images of the space shuttle. You can see them, as well as many bird images on his website linked above. It was Rod who helped me out with some initial camera settings for photographing the space shuttle launches on several attempts I have made in the past.

One of my favorite images from this trip was a great blue heron that we sort of happened upon when we rounded a bend on Biolab Road. I shot the image at left from the car, fearing that the bird would fly if I tried to get out. This guy was in perfect light on smooth water, and I was able to fill the frame with the 100-400 lens I had on my 40d backup rig in the front seat.

I made a very similar image of a tricolor heron, although the bird was not as close as the great blue and had to be cropped. The light and reflection looked amazing, and I patiently waited for the bird to turn into the soft early morning sunlight before taking this shot. I already have lots of images of tricolor herons, but none that I remember in water like this one.

One species I had hoped to see is a white morph reddish egret. Unfortunately I did not see one all week, but did have the opportunity to photograph the reddish egret shown below as it fished along the shoreline.

The day would not be complete without some flyers, so I have included a few below. There were an abundance of white ibises and roseatte spoonbills.

CLICK HERE to continue to Part - 2.

You can also check out my Birds in Flight gallery here.

The Cattle Egret

2010-01-28T14:51:00.010-05:00

and it's fascinating breeding plumage

One thing that draws me out each spring to photograph birds is their attractive breeding colors. I find changes in coloration fascinating, and in most species it renders a far different look from the same bird seen at other times of the year.

Today I am highlighting the cattle egret. It is a very common bird in Florida, and often seen in high numbers. During breeding season, the cattle egret undergoes a transformation from a very common looking bird into one that is a joy to behold. The most fascinating change to me is the lore, which turns a vivid purple right next to the bird's eye. The headshot above shows this purple lore better than any other cattle egret photos I have made to date. It was cropped from the image that appears directly below.

The bird's legs, which appear red here, may be also be pink or yellow, and in the winter they are darker, or even black.

[click on any image to enlarge]

I have photographed this bird on many occasions over the past few years and the examples shown here were not captured in the current season. I am showing these particular images because I believe they show the colors very nicely.

The images below show a different bird that is not at peak color. It also appears to be younger than the one above. I have shown it from front, back, and both sides below. You can clearly see the differences between a bird that is in peak breeding plumage and one that is not.

Anhinga Catches More Than A Mouthful

2010-01-21T22:39:00.008-05:00

The Everglades National Park

It's been too long since I've posted, and even longer since I've posted on birding topics. Generally I enjoy getting out with the camera in the springtime, when it's breeding season for many of birds that are native to Florida. It's still early and that time has not yet arrived here in the northern part of the state.

Today I am revisiting some images from an earlier outing in the Everglades National Park, where I saw an anhinga catch a pretty big fish and then actually struggle to swallow it. In this particular instance the fish was so large compared to the size of the bird, that the anhinga actually brought it to the shore and smacked it on the ground a few times before attempting to swallow it. It was interesting watching the anhinga actually toss the fish into the air and catch it several times, apparently trying to get the fish to land in a position that would allow it to easily slide down the birds throat. You can see some of that in the images below.

In what may seem amazing to some, this ordeal continued for no less than 22 minutes as verified by the time stamps on the 112 images I shot while witnessing it.

[Click on any image to enlarge]

And finally, 22 minutes later......

Loss and Restoration

2009-12-27T22:39:00.012-05:00

Some of you may remember that two days before Christmas 2007, the church I attend burned to the ground. I posted about this topic back in April and showed the wooden framework of the new church sanctuary being built to replace the one lost to the fire.

This week we held the first services in the new sanctuary, and it has been wonderful to once again have a 'normal' house of worship. We had been holding services in the fellowship hall ever since the fire.

I was asked last year to create an exhibit to be displayed in the gallery of the new building. So for a little over a year I have spent many days at the construction site capturing the progress in photos, and also meeting many of the 'hands' that built it. I have made many friends along the way, and I have even been up in an 80-foot crane, photographing it from high above the roof. Unfortunately, I was not able to include many images of the finished interior construction in the exhibit, since the 12 x 18 prints had to be given to the framer while the final work was still being completed. The last three weeks prior to completion saw a 60 rank pipe organ being installed. The first service was held this past Wednesday, December 23, on the 2-year anniversary of the fire. I thought I would take a few minutes and give those interested a glimpse into this magnificent new structure.

The exhibit consists of twenty-one 12 x 18 inch prints. It attempts to capture some of the emotions experienced by a congregation during the loss by fire, and the subsequent questioning, soul-searching, planning, and finally rebuilding of their church. I have posted photos of the exhibit below, and you can see the actual images of the exhibit by clicking on the following link: http://www.pbase.com/tim32225/loss_and_restoration

Launch of Space Shuttle Atlantis

2009-11-17T07:48:00.030-05:00

Yesterday I had the opportunity to view the launch of the Space Shuttle from the NASA Causeway, and it was one of the most exciting things I've ever witnessed. I had seen several launches before, but never from this close. My normal viewing site was always the rooftop of a business on US Highway 1 in Titusville, which according to Google is just a smidgen over 13 miles from the launch pad. But after getting lucky enough to purchase tickets for this launch, I was only 6 miles away.

The day started out very cloudy and I was skeptical that it would even launch as my brother and I were driving down from Jacksonville. It's about 2 1/2 hours drive and we hardly saw any blue in the sky most of the trip. The forecast was for a 70% chance of favorable weather and we kept hoping the clouds would blow past before the 2:28pm launch time. As luck would have it that's exactly what happened, and Atlantis was headed up toward the international space station exactly on time after a picture perfect liftoff. This was a welcome change for me personally, because the last time I had causeway tickets, I made 4 trips to Kennedy Space Center only to have the launch scrubbed all 4 times.

For viewing from the NASA Causeway visitors are required to arrive well in advance, with arrival times being assigned to everyone who is lucky enough to purchase tickets. There is quite a crowd of people and the arrival times are staggered so that everyone does not arrive at the same time. Our arrival deadline was 11am for the 2:28pm launch, but we arrived around 9:30.

The image above is heavily cropped to show the detail. But the images in the flight sequence below are the full width of the original image, but most of them have been cropped in the other direction only enough to create an 8x10 aspect ratio. The close up images were shot with a 300 f2.8L IS lens and Canon 2x extender on a 40d body, and the wider shots were done with a 100-400 and 28-135 lens on my Mk2N. I'm always reluctant to use the 2x extender but it usually works out ok on the 300 f2.8.

Additional images can be seen on my website here.

For a look at a night launch, check out The Launch of Space Shutle Discovery

Great Blue Heron

2009-08-11T18:14:00.027-04:00

Of all the large birds I've photographed, the great blue heron is one of my favorites. During breeding season the plumage is really beautiful, especially at its peak when the lore turns bright blue.

I was cleaning up some files on my computer today and ran across some images from a previous outing that I had not yet worked up or converted from raw. Looking through them brought back memories of the day I photographed this graceful bird, and I decided to post a flight series from that day. These were shot in Wakodahatchee Wetlands in South Florida. In the flight shots below, the male was flying out to retrieve sticks, which he would then carry back to the nest and hand off to the female.

I hope you enjoy these images. Breeding season is winding down in Florida and looking through these images makes me wish for springtime to begin all over again. To see more of my birds in flight images, click here.
Click any image to enlarge.

Finally, here is a photo of the male pictured above, landed in the nest with the female.

Pittsburgh's PNC Park

2009-08-07T17:17:00.021-04:00

Timeout for baseball
71031 [click on any image to enlarge]
The week after I returned from Alaska, we traveled to Pennsylvania for a family reunion and spent over a week in the Pittsburgh area visiting various relatives. I was also able to take time to see a Pirates game at PNC Park. I had been past the stadium a few times in the past, and had photographed it from the outside, but this was the first time I had attended a game and took the opportunity to get a photo that I had always wanted from the inside.
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My plan was to get a shot from up the upper deck behind home plate showing the playing field and the city skyline in the background. But as luck would have it, it was raining before game time and we had to wait through a 45 minute rain delay before the game started. It did clear up later but my chance for the ideal photo with a perfect blue sky did not really materialize the way I had hoped (I have enhanced the sky a little bit in the first photo at the top of the page).

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In the photo at left you can see a well formed rainbow that appeared after the rain. There was actually a double rainbow and I captured that in a different photo, but it is more faint so I did not post the image.

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I walked to different parts of the stadium during the game so I could capture the view from several different places. The last photo below is from the left field exit where we stopped to watch the 13th inning. The game went to extra innings and we stayed pretty late, but finally left at the end of the 13th with the game still in progress. As we got to the car, we listened to the game on the radio. When the Pirates won the game with a walk-off home run in the 14th inning, we wished we stayed just a bit longer. However we finished off the night with some cold beer and an excellent pepperoni pizza from Gino Brothers, which eased the pain just a little. This was absolutely the best pizza I've had in a long while. I can't understand why nobody in the south can make such a good pizza, but that's another story.
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I've not been out photographing any birds or wildlife since returning from Alaska, so this is the reason I have not posted lately.

Da Bears

2009-07-16T02:01:00.016-04:00

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When I set out to travel to Alaska, the one thing I hoped to do was get some close up photos of Grizzly Bears. For whatever reason, I felt like this was one of the main photo goals of the trip. Unfortunately I only saw Grizzlies at a distance the first 2 trips I took deep into the park, and I had one last chance on my next to last day in Alaska. We had just gotten back from Valdez at around 5am, and I had to grab a couple hours of sleep and get back up at 9:30 to get my gear ready to hop on a morning bus.

This turned out to be the best day of all in the park as I did finally see a sow and 3 first year cubs just about 50 yards off the road. They were traveling further away and moving behind some underbrush before I would be able to try to photograph them. By the time they were in clear view again, they were probably about 75 yards away. I had been using a 40d with a 600mm setup, but this was too close to get all the bears in the frame, so I quickly switched to my Mk2N with 100-400 lens. This allowed me to fit the sow and cubs all in the frame at the same time, but I gave up the opportunity to get close ups of individual bears when I set down the other rig.

Below are some additional photos from this sighting. I couldn't get over how cute the cubs were, and I felt fortunate that I had been able to see them this close.

Other wildlife seen later in the day were several caribou and one moose. I have included one photo of each below.

The bears were sighted just a few miles east of the Eielson Visitor Center which sits at mile post 66. After seeing the bears, and especially the three cubs, I would have been happy even if I had not seen any other wildlife on the return trip. While I would have loved to have also gotten some close ups of the individual bears, I think it was better to do what I did, given the choice. I was unable to manage both cameras in the short time I had to squeeze off a few shots, and I felt more confident with my main camera rather than the less capable 40d.

Cruising Prince William Sound

2009-07-14T02:37:00.033-04:00

70208 - Humpback Whale

Down in Valdez, we went out on a Glacier / Wildlife viewing cruise with the hope of seeing some whales, and as luck would have it we were fortunate to see three of them as well as several sea otters, tons of sea lions, and a few bald eagles and puffins.
[click on any image to enlarge]
70117 - Humpback Whale
70163 - Humpback Whale
70192 - Humpback Whale
8198 - Bald Eagle
In addition to that, we enjoyed watching dozens of dall porpoises buzzing the front of the boat for about 20 minutes straight as we cruised out toward the area where we would look for whales.

69878 - Dall Porpoise
It was nearly impossible to get a good photo of the porpoises because they moved so quickly and were so close, only popping out of the water or an instant at a time.

From the bow of the 75 foot Lu-Lu Belle we were looking straight down at them most of the time.

70287 - Ice field near Columbia Glacier
70286 - Iceberg
The ride out was comfortable but got quite chilly as we rode toward Columbia Glacier. Overall it was a great day out on the water, and Captain Fred Rodolf and his crew only added to our enjoyment. I met a young woman working on the boat wearing a Florida Gators hat I and had to ask about it since we are die-hard Florida Gator fans. As it turned out, Brittney is a UF student spending her summer working in Alaska on the boat.
70304 - Fred and Brittney

We had some good laughs and got a photo of her doing the "gator chomp" in front of an iceberg out near Columbia Glacier.
8438 - Brittney does the "Gator chomp"
The ride back was more scenic than the ride out as the skies cleared up a bit and the conditions were more conducive for photography.

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70352 - View from the Bow

Finally this last photo is "Oscar" the sea otter, who is often seen around the harbor in Valdez. We spent quite some time watching and photographing him as he would dive for mussels and then resurface to eat them.
69202 - "Oscar" the sea otter

The Denali Highway

2009-07-09T04:29:00.024-04:00

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One of the highlights of my Alaska trip was traveling the Denali Highway on our way from Denali National Park to Valdez, where we planned to go out on a glacier / wildlife cruise on Prince William Sound. From Denali National Park we drove about a half hour south on the Parks Highway to Cantwell, where the Denali Highway begins. The Denali Highway is a 135 mile road that extends from Cantwell in the west, all the way to the Richardson Highway at the town of Paxon in the East. It is a dirt road except for the last 20 miles near Paxon, which is paved. It is suggested that vehicles travel at a speed of 30mph, and on most of the road that's about as fast as you can go. It's such a beautiful drive that one would hardly want to travel any faster anyway.

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The scenery is spectacular, and you find yourself wanting to stop frequently to take pictures. We didn't really have a lot of time for that, so we agreed beforehand that we would only make about a half dozen stops. I found myself often shooting from the moving vehicle, taking multiple shots and hoping to get at least one good one of each scene I attempted to photograph.

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The terrain is varied along the route, as you drive through forests as well as wide open plains flanked by snow capped mountains. There are places were you are looking down into valleys with kettle ponds which often reflect the scenery behind them to make for an interesting photo. Near the end, there are higher mountains with glaciers sitting between some of the peaks.

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When we reached the of the highway at Paxon, we headed south on the Richardson Highway toward Valdez, and we made a stop at the Worthington Glacier, which is very close to the highway.

8066 - Worthington Glacier

The photos posted here are a sample of the views we saw during this amazing drive. I have posted a few more on my photo web page, and they can be seen by clicking here

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The next post will describe our glacier & wildlife cruise on Prince William Sound.

Map of Denali Highway

Hiking in Denali National Park Part 1 - Wildlife

2009-07-05T00:18:00.040-04:00

68231 - Goshawk

Note that I was without internet access during the trip to Valdez and I did not have time to write anyway. So now the plan is to work on getting the blog back up to date over the next few days.

Hiking the trails of Denali National Park proved to be a small adventure, and I had time to explore three different trails during my visit. Rock Creek is a 2.5 mile trail that meanders through forests of spruce and aspen trees and was colored with many varieties of wildflowers and grasses, as well as mostly yellow shades of tundra. Walking on tundra is like walking on 6-inch thick sponge, and it's amazing how it springs back to its original position after each footstep. The stuff would probably make a comfortable place to drop a sleeping bag to camp for the night.

The first part of the trail I only saw plants, grasses and flowers, and no wildlife at all. I will show some photos of the wildflowers later in a separate post. About 45 minutes into my hike I walked up on a goshawk that had killed a snowshoe hare and was having lunch. The biggest surprise was that he allowed me to approach him very closely and sit on the tundra and take photos for about 20 minutes.

68243 - Goshawk

68116 - - Goshawk

Another fun hike was a the Horseshoe Lake trail, which features a 250 foot elevation drop down to a lake surrounded by a spruce forest. This photo shows the view of the lake from above.

67130 - Horseshoe Lake

There is a huge beaver lodge on the edge of the lake and we saw a couple beavers across the lake gathering tree branches to bring back to the lodge. We waited quietly in the woods at the edge of the lake and then photographed them as they went by carrying the tree branches. We had hoped to get photos of them chipping away at a tree such as the one in the 2nd photo below, but we never saw them out of the water.

7145 - Beaver

67137 - Horseshoe Lake

There is a hike at Savage River at mile post 15 near the ranger station that afforded us quite a few photo opps in just a short while. We saw an arctic ground squirrel, a full family of ptarmigans including a male and female and about 15 chicks, plus a coyote that tried his best to make a meal of the ptarmigan chicks or mew gull chicks that were in the same area.

68377 - Arctic Ground Squirrel

68673 - Male Ptarmigan

68861 - Mew Gull

68626 - Ptarmigan Chick

68867 - Male Ptarmigan hiding in flowers

When a coyote approaches, you can usually tell where he is because the nesting birds in the area will dive bomb the coyote in attempt to keep him away from their nests and chicks. We witnessed this and it was fascinating to watch. The coyote was stalking the chicks directly in front of us across the creek while the ptarmigans were running to the left with their chicks to hide them from the coyote. Then the mew gulls were flying in from left to right and attacking the coyote to try and scare him off. They finally succeeded and the coyote retreated across the stream and up into the thick brush on the mountainside across the creek. We laughed as some startled hikers on the other side of the creek saw the coyote suddenly pop out of nowhere and pass right in front of them on his way up the mountainside. Below are photos of all the players in the scenario I described above:

68387 - Mew Gull Attacking Coyote

68800 - Female Ptarmigan with chicks
If you look closely, you can see 4 chicks in this photo. There were at least 3 or 4 more chicks under the mother's wings and out of view.

68800 - Female Ptarmigan with chicks

Denali National Park, Day 3 - Small animals

2009-06-29T04:53:00.032-04:00

67977 - Snowshoe Hare

67930 - Snowshoe Hare

Day three was uneventful as I took a bus back to the Toklat river station (mp 53) but did not see much wildlife. It began to rain a couple hours into the ride, but I did manage to snap a couple photos at a reflecting pond just west of Toklat, and of the braided river as we crossed the bridge. It began to rain a couple hours out and this would have made photos difficult anyway.

67935 - Snowshoe Hare

67646 - Mew Gull calling

7358 - Arctic Ground Squirrel

Upon my return from the day's trip, I rode out to Savage River and photographed some snowshoe hares on the wayback. I was able to take time and approach them very slowly, and one of them allowed me to get within about tenfeet and photograph him as he was chomping on some roadside vegitation. I was watching a mew gull sitting on afence post and he began calling, which made an interesting photograph.
Below is an arctic ground squirrel that I actually photographed on Thursday near the Eielson Visitor Center (mp66).

7327 - Grey Jay

The last photo is a grey jay photographed at Wonder Lake on Thursday.

The next post will deal with animals encountered while out hiking some of the trails inside Denali National Park. It will include photos of a fairly rare bird that I photographed yesterday while hiking the Rock Creek Trail, as well as several others during three different hikes. I hope to post it tomorrow if I can find internet access. Tomorrow is a travel day as we will be driving down to Valdez (approximately 10 hours away) and camping out, then taking a cruise on Prince William Sound Tuesday, hopefully to photograph whales. Please check back for updates.

Denali National Park - Day 2

2009-06-28T06:14:00.040-04:00

On day 2, I took a bus tour to Wonder Lake, which is 85 miles inside Denali National Park. This is nearly as far as you can go, with only one stop, Kantishna, lying beyond. It is at the end of the road at mile post 89. This was an eleven hour bus tour and with the weather clear, the scenery was spectacular. I am posting lots of photos so everyone can see a little glimpse of what I saw.

The highlight of the day was being able to see all 20,320 feet of Mt McKinley without any clouds obstructing the upper peaks. It is rare to get to see the entire mountain, and from what we were told, only a small percentage of the visitors are so lucky. I shot photos of the mountain from 4 or 5 different locations along the Denali Park Road, but I will post my two favorites. The photo above is a view from the first place we saw the mountain.

This bull moose was the first wildlife sighting of the day, and it actually was before we saw Mt McKinley. The moose photo I posted yesterday was a one year old moose, where this one is an adult.

I was hoping to photograph a bear close up, but the 6 or 8 grizzly bears we saw this day were too far away for a good photo. I am hoping I will see one up close before my time here is up.

The next photo is from the Teklanika River overlook at mile post 29. This is the first rest stop along the way to points deeper inside the park.
The next three photos are mountains along the way to Polychrome Overlook.

I snapped this photo of one of the tour buses going around the bend to give some perspective to the photo. The drop-off here is about 900 feet to the valley floor below. The mountains in the distance are several miles away.
This is another photo of Mt McKinley, as seen from Stony Hill, located at approximately mile post 63.

This is Wonder Lake, which was my final destination before we turned around to head back.

These remaining photos were shot on the way back.

Denali National Park - Day 1

2009-06-26T16:43:00.020-04:00

I arrived in Alaska Tuesday night and made it out onto the park road in Denali National Park for the first time Wednesday morning.

Seeing the amazing beauty of the scenery, I was reflecting on how wonderful it is just to be here. The possibility of seeing wildlife and photographing it would be icing on the cake.

Wednesday afternoon on the park road it started snowing. The truck thermometer showed the outside temperature at 36F. What a change from Florida... I was literally giggling at the experience.

We traveled the park road to mile post 15 and back twice in the morning without seeing any wildlife. But in the evening another run to the same location resulted in some exciting wildlife viewing and a few photos. Our first sighting was the yearling moose pictured above and we spent a few minutes photographing him before moving on to explore further.

We saw a coyote in the woods near the side of the road, and watched has he appeared to be hunting snowshoe hares. He was bouncing around in the woods chasing something and he finally emerged with a snowshoe hare pictured here. I felt sorry for the hare, but this all part of nature. It was interesting to watch.

This time of year the sun is not setting here until around midnight, and it rises again around 4:30am. It never really gets dark, and even in the middle of the night, it is no darker than dusk. It makes for long extended periods of light which are great for photographers.

The next two images were shot at night - the first one after 9pm, and the last one at 11pm.

I will try to post updates to the blog every day or two, time permitting. Please check back often for updates.

The next post will include images of Mt McKinley that I shot on day 2. We had a very rare, crystal clear day with blue skies morning until night, making it possible to view Mt McKinley from top to bottom. It is an amazing sight.

Headed to Alaska

2009-06-20T10:23:00.052-04:00

Mt. McKinley, Denali National Park Alaska (film scan)
An unexpected opportunity arose in the last couple weeks to travel to Denali National Park in Alaska and hook up for some wildlife photography with my friend Ken Conger. Many of the folks who have stopped in here to visit my blog are also readers of Ken's blog. But for any readers who have not yet visited Ken's blog, you owe it to yourself to click on the link above or check out the spectacular wildlife photography on his photo website here.

The only other time I had the opportunity to visit Alaska was in September 2001, and we were actually on our way into Denali National Park the morning the terrorist attacks shocked the world on September 11th. What an eerie and bizarre day that was.

On that trip, I was without a camera of my own, and used a friend's Minolta Maxxum film camera that he insisted that I borrow and take with me. This was the first auto-focusing camera I had ever used. I had been shooting with a Canon AE-1 Program for many years, and autofocus cameras had not yet hit the market when I purchased it.

The photo of Mt. McKinley above was captured at Stony Hill, which the maps show at mile post 62. This a popular stop for viewing the mountain on the tours that go that far into the park. It was explained to us that less than 10% of the people who visit Denali get to see the top of Mt McKinley, because it is usually covered by clouds. We were fortunate to have a clear day, and I have wanted to return ever since, especially after I purchased some more modern camera gear. The photo above was scanned from film.

Grizzly Bear - Denali National Park, Alaska (film scan)
Anyway, this time instead of being limited to a one-day bus tour, I should have a lot more time to try and capture some interesting wildlife photos. This grizzly bear photo above was captured by shooting out of an open window of our tour bus. My wife was shooting video while I was shooting stills when the bears appeared from the woods and walked alongside the road.

I am planning to keep up the blog while I'm away, so we'll see how that goes, assuming I am able to get some decent photos. In the meantine, if you care to see any of the other photos my 2001 Alaska trip, there are 8 additonal shots posted on my photo website. I have only scanned and digitized a few of the photos from that trip.

Black Crowned Night Heron

2009-06-15T23:30:00.009-04:00

66847

This morning after meeting some friends for breakfast, I was watching some birds along the shoreline of an adjacent lake. I noticed a white ibis and a black crowned
night heron fishing along the shoreline, but was particularly interested in the heron. I had my camera in the car, but the longest lens I had with me was a 70-200 f2.8. I had never used this lens with an extender but since it was the only solution available, I tried some shots first with the 1.4x and then later with the 2x extender. All photos in this blog entry were shot with the 2x extender.

66857

I was fortunate under these circumstances to capture a few decent images, although I blurred a few of them due to a combination of shooting at slow shutter speeds, and being crouched down in an unstable shooting position, trying to get down as close to the water level as possible. As always, it's best not to use an extender if you don't need to, but I found that the results were acceptable with both the extenders and the 70-200. It did seem to work a little harder to acquire focus with the 2x, however. Below are a few more photos from this morning.

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I tried shooting both with a flash and without, because I feared that the flash may cause a bad red eye situation due to the distance from the bird, since it was mounted directly on the camera as opposed to using a flash bracket. But it only caused a problem in a couple of the photos.

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Using the flash was probably the best approach because it allowed me to expose for the background, which had some bright reflections in the middle of dark water, and then use the flash to put some light on the bird.

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My goal with flash photography is to make it subtle enough so that it is not obvious to the viewer that flash was used. The horizontal lines you see on the bird in several of these photos are reflections from ripples in the water. All in all, this turned out to be a fun way to spend a couple hours in an unplanned, unexpected opportunity.

A Break from the Rain

2009-06-10T13:58:00.027-04:00

Florida Birding

The heavy rain has finally let up, so now we are just getting our typical Florida summertime afternoon showers. This gave me the opportunity to go out shooting again, and I enjoyed spending the morning at my favorite venue. But it is really getting hot - the temperature topped out just over 90-degrees F yesterday, and it is expected to get worse. You can tell summer is on its way, although it has not officially arrived.
Below are some photos from my latest outing, including a few headshots and a great egret flight sequence.

[click on any image to enlarge]
6791c - Snowy Egret
This snowy egret photo is probably my favorite shot of the day. It was made with my backup camera, a Canon 40d with 300mm f2.8 lens and 2x extender (600mm). I've heard people say for a long time that the 2x extender degrades picture quality too much to be of use. I used to think that was true, but I realized last year that my camera focus was out of calibration, and once that was corrected, I began to get nice images, even with the 2x. I might add that to get good results with an extender, you should attach it to a good quality lens.

The tricolor heron below is a young bird, as you can tell by the coloration and the head feathers.
66424 - Tricolor Heron
There were a good number of roseatte spoonbills (15 to 20), but they were roosting in the trees and seldom flying around. Every so often a few of them would get restless and fly off to a different perch. I was not able to get many good flight photos of them because I either was not close enough or the light was at a bad angle. Here is one shot I managed to get, although pretty heavily cropped.

66577c - Roseatte Spoonbill

66606 - Snowy Egret

Snowy egrets were flying around jousting for space in several trees, and I captured this image when one of them held still for a few seconds. Most of the time, the snowy egrets did not stay put for very long, except for the ones sitting on eggs.

66651c - Tricolor Heron

I do not have many tricolor heron flight shots, so if I get an opportunity I always try to capture a better one. I snapped several photos as this one flew past, and
this was my favorite one.
Below is a flight sequence of a great egret flying to the nest with a stick. I watched as the bird tore the branch from a tree, and then prepared to fly back to the nest. I like the first and last shots the best. It's interesting to watch as the bird springs off the tree and spreads its wings to take off.

#66627 - 66631 Great Egret flight sequence

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Swallowtail Kite

2009-06-03T14:01:00.014-04:00

66409 Swallowtail Kite
I have wished for an opportunity to photograph a swallowtail kite for quite some time, and until today I had never gotten that chance. It's funny that in my occasional travels with my friend Ken Conger, there was a day when we both thought we would nail that shot. I cannot honestly remember if it was 2007 or 2008, but talk was buzzing around the nature photography forums that a swallowtail kite was building a nest in the Everglades National Park, in a tree right next to the parking lot at Shark Valley. Folks were coming from all around and photographing that bird as it would swoop down to the nest, carrying moss. I had even thought about how I could like to compose a shot if I had gotten the opportunity. We were travelling across Florida and we had already planned a stop there, but when we arrived, we did not see the bird we were seeking. In fact we only saw one swallowtail kite there, and it was far in the distance from our location, and nowhere near the tree where we had been told to look.

66406 Swallowtail Kite
This morning I walked outside to pick up the newspaper and I noticed a swallowtail kite soaring about a hundred feet or so above the street. My first thought was if I go get the camera, it will be gone when I return. But what the heck, I went back inside and grabbed my camera and attached a 100-400 lens to it, then headed for the door. When I got back outside, the bird was about twice has high and getting a decent photo was out of the question. I snapped a few shots anyway just to have a record of bird's visit, and I was about to head back inside when the surprise came. A second swallowtail kite swooped down about 20 feet above me and began to circle my driveway. It was so close that I clipped the wings on a couple shots. I tried to relax and follow the bird and I managed to get a few photos before it flew away toward the lake that is behind our house. According to time in the exif data of the photos, it the whole ordeal lasted only 16 seconds.

66410 Swallowtail Kite
I wasn't sure I got anything worth posting as I realized that I had not even checked the exposure mode of the camera, or any of the settings. When I examined the camera I found that it was in manual mode, iso 200, 1/640 at f8. I had been photographing a construction project the last time out and those were the settings I used last. I pointed the lens toward the sky and looked through the viewfinder to check the exposure, and found that those settings amounted to +2/3 EV against the blue sky, and +1 EV against the white clouds according to the camera's meter. Now how lucky is that? When I shoot birds in flight I always set the camera to either +2/3 or +1 EV because it allows me to properly expose the bird without the meter being fooled by the bright sky. So just by chance, my camera was already set to the perfect settings to photograph that bird.

66412 Swallowtail Kite
One other thing I wish I had done is grab a flash. That would have helped, but perhaps the bird would have been gone before I returned if I had taken any more time. In the soft early morning light the photos came out pretty decent even without it.

66413 Swallowtail Kite

What a nice surprise this was first thing in the morning. You can bet I'll be looking up at the sky from now on when go outside to get the paper.

Bird Headshots and Portraits

2009-05-30T17:37:00.022-04:00

Reverting to "Plan B"

It has rained 8 of the last 9 days here in Florida totaling over 24 inches of rain according to my neighbor's rain gauge. Since this has prevented me from getting out, I decided to revisit some photos from past outings and take a closer look at some headshots.

Getting a good headshot is aways a big challenge for me and most of the time the I end up not liking a lot of the shots I make. It's particularly difficult for me to capture enough close detail and create a well composed shot at the same time. This is something I'm still working on - trying to achieve the kind of balance that will jump out at me when I see it. The examples in this post are some of my better attempts.

30247 Tricolor Heron
The tricolor heron image above was captured in St. Augustine, Florida. Getting this kind of shot is easy when you just happen to get an unexpected opportunity at very close range. I was fortunate to have this happen one morning in the Everglades National park, which resulted in the two images below. Neither of these birds spooked as I approached, so it was pretty easy to get these images. I figured the birds in close proximity to the trails at Shark Valley must have become accustomed to human presence because they were very tolerant of people approaching and snapping photos.
42043-Black Vulture

42198-Cormorant
The cormorant was the first decent headshot I've ever gotten of one. I only wish this particular bird had been in breeding colors with the blue ring around the eye. I have seen some amazing photos of them but have not had the opportunity to capture an image like that myself yet.
42431 Green Heron
The green heron image above was captured in the early morning light at Wakodahatchee Wetlands. Sometimes a bird approaches closely but lands on a the railing of the boardwalk or some other man made object. I will usually not photograph a bird and show it standing on something other than a natural perch, but this type of situation does give an opportunity for a head shot, which is what I did in this situation.
23919 Purple Gallinule

The purple gallinule is one of the most colorful birds I've ever seen. On the few occasions I've had to photograph one, I have not yet had an opportunity for a really good full length shot. This one walked up into the grass beside a trail where I was standing in the Everglades National Park, allowing me the opportunity to make this headshot.
29375 Cattle Egret
This cattle egret shot above was made in St. Augustine. It was perched on a tree near the boardwalk at the Alligator Farm and made an easy target for a headshot.
35551- Wood Stork
In this last shot, I was able to get fairly close to the wood stork. But I was in a hurry to get the shot, thinking the bird was about to leave, and neglected to choose a narrow enough aperture to keep the back of the neck within the depth of field and in focus. I'll try to remember this in the future and hopefully avoid making this same mistake again. Taking headshots is fun, but it is also something I do as a throwback when I am unable to capture a full shot due to either an unsuitable foreground or some other distraction that would disturb the composition. That's why I consider headshots as 'plan B' on most outings.

Birding Nirvana

2009-04-30T21:04:00.055-04:00

Photographing Birds in Flight

On Tuesday I went out with the intention of getting some bird images and testing my camera that was just back from Canon sporting a brand new shutter. In my previous post, I used my backup camera and was pleasantly surprised at how well it tracked moving birds.

63622 Roseatte Spoonbill 1/3200, f5.6, +2/3EV
But this day I was happy to have my main rig back in my hands, and I also took the 40d just in case. I set out early to drive to my venue of choice, the rookery at the St. Augustine Alligator Farm, which is about an hour away. This day would prove to be the best day ever for flight photos. The conditions were nearly perfect and the birds were so numerous that often I had to choose which one to follow and shoot. If there is such a thing as birder's nirvana, this must have been it. In this post I will show camera settings on each photo for the benefit of anyone who might be wondering. All photos in this post were shot with a Canon 1D-Mk2N body and 100-400L IS lens at iso 400. Aperture and shutter speed, as well as exposure compensation (if applicable) are shown above each photo. If exposure compensation is not shown, the photo was shot in full manual mode. Near the bottom of this post, I have shared some additional shooting tips for birds in flight.

I started off looking for an opportunity to photograph some perched birds, but I quickly abandoned that idea when I realized that there was such an abundance of flyers. To me, flyers are the ultimate challenge and I find it difficult NOT to try and photograph them, especially when the conditions are good and the backgrounds are sweet. Most of the morning, I was fortunate to have both.

63837 Great Egret 1/2500, f7.1
By the mid-afternoon, I had shot about 800 images, which is very unusual for me. Normally I will shoot till noon at the latest, and generally will end up with less than half that number. But the action was non-stop and I took advantage of it.

63594 Wood stork 1/2000, f5.6, +2/3EV
I watched as this wood stork repeatedly flew to a tree to rip off a branch, then carry it back to the nest. I loved the look of the wing spread just before he took flight. Below is another shot of him flying with a different branch.

63602 Wood Stork 1/1600, f5.6, +2/3EV
As is usually the case, there were more great egrets in the air than any other species. I did try to capture a cattle egret and snowy egret flyer, but the opportunities were rare. I was fortunate to capture a few shots of roseatte spoonbills in flight, mainly because I just happened to notice them coming before they got too close. There were only two or three chances to get spoonie flyers all day. My favorite shot was the first one posted at the beginning of this post above. The shot below is of a younger bird.

63560 Roseatte Spoonbill 1/1250, f5.6, +1EV
63664 Great Egret 1/2500, f6.3
The next few images are great egrets. I had a blast photographing these guys and even though I felt like I was taking a lot of shots that were almost identical, I never tired of doing it. I had a nice conversation with another bird photographer while I was shooting, and after a while learned that he is Kevin Karlson. Kevin has published several books on bird photography, and you can see his website HERE . Since we were both shooting right next to each other, we got many almost identical shots, and we had fun comparing them on our cameras.
63638 Great Egret 1/2000, f7.1, +2/3EV
63654 Great Egret 1/2500, f6.3
63552 Great Egret 1/2000, f5.6, +1EV
When I am shooting birds in flight, I find that it's generally best to shoot in full manual mode, but sometimes I also use aperture priority. No matter what exposure program you choose, you always have to overexpose the shot by about 2/3 to 1 stop if shooting against a bright sky background. Otherwise you will end up with a dark silhouette instead of a well exposed bird. If shooting white birds against dark foliage, the exact opposite is true and you must underexpose by approximately the same amount. The advantage of using full manual is that you can take a few test shots and set the exposure, and it will be the same no matter what the background. This eliminates the need to keep changing the exposure compensation depending what the background is. Since you never know exactly where the bird is going to fly, manual mode yields a lot more keepers and far fewer missed opportunities. I also prefer using flash rather than relying only on natural light. What I try to do is use just enough flash to fill the shadows, but not so much that the viewer can easily tell that flash was used.

63655 Great Egret 1/2500, f6.3
63693 Snowy Egret 1/2000, f7.1

63995 Snowy Egret 1/2500, f7.1
63833 Tricolor Heron 1/2500, f7.1
I was hoping to get a nice shot of a tricolor heron in flight, but unfortunately the only decent shot I think I got was this one looking almost straight up. Perhaps I'll get a better opportunity at a later time. I was not especially crazy about the wing position of the great egret shot below, but other than that I love the detail and sharpness. I am posting a 100% crop below the full shot, so you can get an idea of what I am seeing on my monitor.

63724 Great Egret 1/2500, f7.1
63724 Great Egret 100% crop
Snowy egrets and cattle egrets always seem to fly very erratically compared to the larger great egrets. This makes capturing a flight shot especially challenging. On this outing, I only saw 2 or 3 cattle egrets building nests, so the chances were limited. The shot below was my best effort.

64128 Cattle Egret 1/2500, f7.1
Shooting birds in flight is great fun, and it's also rewarding when you have a good day. I've had my share of frustrating days in the past, but this particular outing made up for a lot of them. This is the kind of day that keeps me coming back.

A Half-Day of Florida Birding

2009-04-18T23:45:00.041-04:00

6185 - Great Egret in flight
Today I got out for the first time this season to do some birding, thanks to a friend visiting from Atlanta who was looking for some shooting company. We met at the rookery behind the Alligator Farm in St. Augustine, Florida. I was only shooting from 8am till noon, but it ended up being a surprisingly fruitful day. I was sort of bummed because I had to send my main camera in for service, so I was left to shoot with my backup rig, which is a 40d. This camera is slower to acquire focus than my Mk2N, but I was a little surprised at how capable it was once I got used to it. I didn't think about it until I was on my way home, but I actually could have photographed 7 different species of herons and egrets alone, if I had bothered to get at least one image of every kind I saw. In addition to herons and egrets, I also saw roseatte spoonbills and Wood Storks. Aside from opportunities to photograph adult birds, there were also chicks of several species and also some juvies. This post will be long on photos and short on text.

6063 - Great Egret chicks

There were plenty of opportunities for Great egrets, including many nests with chicks. I have never gotten what I consider a really good shot of chicks, and I after today I can still say that. But I did get a few shots that at least show the chicks pretty well. Note that in the photo above, the mother has already lost the bright green lore that you usually see as the birds get into breeding season. In the photo below, you can see another of the same species in full breeding colors. I would guess this one is about at peak color.

6014 - Great Egret breeding colors

I'm not normally a fan of white sky backgrounds, and most of my photos with white backgrounds end up in the recycle bin. But the one below works for me and I like it. It's probably the first time I've posted a photo of a white bird with a white background. I was fortunate in my timing to capture the egret with a nice full wing spread.

6161 - Great Egret with nesting material

I was hoping to get a good shot of a cattle egret, and while I saw a few with good color, all were in nests that were obstructed by too many sticks for a decent photo. I'm posting one anyway, just to show the breeding colors. When the colors are at peak, the lore is a purple and looks pretty cool.

6114 - Cattle Egret

I saw a few snowy egrets, but none in good breeding colors. Here is an example of what I am talking about. These birds look a lot prettier when the lore is bright red.

6104 - Snowy Egret

This tricolor heron hung around for a while so I waited until I could get an unobstructed shot. There was a piece of a branch in the upper right corner of the frame that I cloned out.

6026 - Tricolor Heron

Below is a headshot of another tricolor heron that had a little nicer color. This bird was facing away from me at first, but I liked the background so I waited a long time until it turned its head to give me this shot.

6132 - Tricolor Heron headshot

I saw lots of wood storks in nests with chicks, but most of them were too high up in trees to get a good shot. I waited for a long time before this chick stood up and faced me. There were two chicks in this nest but they never got up at the same time while I was watching.

6271 - Wood stork with chick

As I was about to leave, I noticed a great blue heron standing on a tree limb above the swamp. It did not give me the head turn I hoped for, but I snapped this photo anyway.

6275 - Great Blue Heron

This ended up being a very productive day compared to most outings, and I felt like I got at least a half-dozen keepers. This was partly due to the overcast conditions, which kept the light pretty soft for a good part of the morning, well past the time when the bright sunlight would normally be spoiling most opportunities for decent photos. In addition to what is shown here, I saw roseatte spoonbills and a few green herons, but I didn't have an opportunity to get any decent shots of them. Since I spent the morning walking on a boardwalk above a swamp full of alligators, I'll end with a headshot of a gator. I captured this mage because I liked the color of reflections in the water.

6023 - Gator

A Church Rising From the Ashes

2009-04-11T23:47:00.036-04:00

5390w3 - Raising Roof Beams
This is a photo from Hendricks Avenue Baptist Church in Jacksonville, Florida, currently under construction. It will replace the former church building that was destroyed by fire 2 days prior to Christmas 2007.

16855 - Old Sanctuary prior to fire
Rewind back to December 22, 2007 - three days before Christmas. That evening, the church was host to a benefit concert of Handel's Messiah given by the Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra. Late that night several hours after the conclusion of the concert, an air conditioner motor apparently overheated and caught fire. Before most people awoke the next morning, the church was gone.

35719 - Church still Smoldering 12/23/07 10:57am
This event surely impacted some people more than others, but I suspect it was probably the hardest on the elderly in our congregation who had formed so many memories both from events in their lives and those of their families inside that building. It was difficult to watch as we arrived at church and saw the firefighters still spraying water on the now smoldering ruins of the sanctuary where we normally spent our Sunday mornings. The steel beams that held up the roof were now melted and sagging below what had been the roof line. It was difficult to believe this was really happening. We had been members there for about 13 years at the time of the fire.

35744 - Inside Gymnasium - day of the fire
Services were held that morning in the church gymnasium. Ironically this is the same building where the church held its first services in 1946. So in a way, some may have felt they were right back where they had started. The sanctuary had been constructed in 1957 and had been renovated twice with the most recent renovation being completed in 2001, including the addition of a very large stained glass window depicting the outstretched hands of Christ. It would never be the same not being able to see that huge lighted stained glass window as we drove down Hendricks Avenue at night. I will probably never forget that morning, especially how our pastor stood in front of the congregation assembled in the gymnasium already with a hammer in his hand, declaring "we will rebuild".

36614 - Front Facade
Looking back, the fire may have actually brought people in the church closer together than ever before. We all joined in many work days where we did all sorts of cleanup. Additionally we managed to salvage a few pieces of furniture from adjacent offices. One morning, we dug up dozens of bushes and shrubs from around the site of the church and re-planted them in other locations on campus, prior to the demolition of what remained of the building. The concrete front facade of the building remained in place for several months even after the other walls were demolished and removed. It was lit by floodlights at night and stood a remembrance of what had been. In a strange way I was not quite ready for the last piece of the church to completely go away. But that too would soon be removed as we finalized plans for a new sanctuary.

5340 - Lowering a beam into position
Extensive work went into conducting listening sessions to gather input from members of the congregation to assist in determining what style of church should be built. While it's impossible to please everyone, this seems to have gone a long way toward determining how to meet the majority of the needs and wants of the church as a whole. A design was finally decided on while a capital campaign was conducted to try and raise money to cover the shortfall between the expected insurance settlement and the cost of the new sanctuary.

Construction finally began in late 2008, nearly a year after the fire, and was expected to be completed in time to hold Christmas services in the new Sanctuary in 2009. The new sanctuary would not be built in the same location, but instead would be located more in the center of the campus to facilitate better traffic flow and ease in getting from one place to another.

62914 - New Sanctuary Construction
While the site prep work was going on it was difficult to see any progress visually, although progress was certainly being made. But in February the walls started going up and in March the concrete floor was poured. Then at the end of March, the roof beams started arriving and were being assembled and added. Now in the 2nd week of April, the roof frame is nearly complete and soon the workers will begin closing it in. Since now we can see so much progress being made, many are getting excited and are looking forward with anticipation.

62891 - Assembling the massive roof beams
Last week the choir sang Robert Ray's "Gospel Mass" for our Easter Musical. But we performed it a Lutheran Church across the street since we are still a few months away from having a sanctuary of our own. It was a nice change compared to holding services in our fellowship hall, where the sound is not nearly as good.

Just as Easter represents a new beginning for people of faith, the new sanctuary is sort of a new beginning for one north Florida congregation. Happy Easter!