by successfulbob | bird photography, Lumix G9, LumixGH5, photography, photography gear, travel photography, wildlife photography
Festival of the Cranes
Bosque Del Apache National Wildlife Refuge
White Snow Geese must have gotten the invitation too.
I was in Socorro, New Mexico at the Festival of the Cranes hanging with the massive flocks of birds and a mass of photographers. Gotta tell you I felt like the Snow Goose whisperer during my workshop. The 10,000-plus Snow geese seemed to be following me around the refuge. Seeing them move as a group and fly mass ascensions from place to place was magical! Here are a few photos to help visually tell the story.
If you look closely, you can see the water droplets on the goose’s body
A sandhill crane works to land over a pile of snow geese. The guides at the Festival of the Cranes consider the geese interlopers. (And there were about 20,000 plus!)
A pair of snow geese in flight
This trip is my second time at the Bosque Del Apache National Wildlife Preserve, and I certainly hope it won’t be my last. It is a well-managed area with wildlife throughout the year. Each year the cranes and geese return on their annual migration just before Thanksgiving. It is a sight to behold when 20,000 geese take to the air. I’ll share some photos of that spectacle in a day or so. To tell the truth, I stopped making images for a while to experience the display of so many birds in flight, or as my friend, Skip Cohen says, “Take ‘Neurochromes’ and burn the images into your brain.”
Images were made with Panasonic cameras. Most often the LUMIX G Leica DG Vario-Elmar Professional Lens, 100-400MM, F4.0-6.3 ASPH mounted on the Lumix G9 and the Lumix GH5 for a second body. I had the chance to try out the Leica DG Vario-Elamarit 50-200mm 2.8-40 lens I am now lusting after this… A sweet piece of glass!
Have a happy Thanksgiving!
Yours in Creative Photography, Bob
by successfulbob | bird photography, Lumix G9, photography, photography gear, travel photography, wildlife photography
Bombay Hook National Wildlife Refuge – Smyrna, Delaware
I’ve been a bit remiss in posting. Travel for speaking. Travel for family visit. And catching up upon return fronfrom the travel makes Bob a bad boy. But, I’m back and with plans to have more posts even when traveling to judge images &speak in Oregon and do a seminar and a couple workshops for the Festival of the Cranes in Socorro, New Mexico in the middle of November. We’ll see how that works out!
Dunlin Sandpipers enjoying breakfast
While on the family visit I made it up to the Bombay Hook National Wildlife Refuge. I spent the day making images and talking photography with my friend Ned Levi. This was the first time we met in person. I highly recommend spending quality time with your peers. It’s wonderful how much you can learn from each other. (learn more about Ned and his blog)
Thought this was an interesting formation of the Canada Geese. I normally enjoy them mor eisolatedbut the overlap of the birds is kida cool. Watcha’ think??
If you have not spent time in wildlife refuges there are some protocols that make the system work for everyone. If you do go please follow the rules and regs. use the longest lens you have and do your best to not disturb the wildlife. There’s an expression, “Take only images, leave only footprints.” Not sure I have the exact words but you understand the sentiment.
This is from the Refuge website and the rules are much the same in all refuges.
Know Before You Go
- The wildlife drive is open from 1/2 hour before sunrise to 1/2 hour after sunset daily.
- The visitor center is open weekdays from 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. year round.
- During spring and fall weekends, the visitor center is open Saturday and Sunday from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.
- The visitor center is handicapped accessible and has educational displays and videos.
- The visitor center is closed on Federal Holidays.
- The visitor center is closed on weekends during July, August, mid-December, January, and February.
- Check the website or call to find out about refuge road closures during bad weather and hunting season. During summer months, visitor should bring insect repellent and wear long-sleeve shirts and long pants.
- To protect wildlife and their habitat and to provide the best opportunities in wildlife observation and photography, it is important not to disturb, injure, or damage plants and animals on the refuge. In fact, it is a prohibited act as stated in 50 CFR 27.51. This disturbance includes flushing birds and other wildlife or using mechanical or electronic devices to lure birds closer for observation or photography. Please remember to take only memories and photographs and leave only footprints.
- Unmanned aircraft systems (Drones) are prohibited.
A simple houe wren was dancing in and out of the flowering bush. Behavior and movement photos are my aim.
Images were made with the PANASONIC LUMIX G Leica DG Vario-Elmar Professional Lens, 100-400MM, F4.0-6.3 ASPH mounted on the Lumix G9.
Yours in Creative Photography, bob
by successfulbob | bird photography, flower photography, Lumix G9, photo walkabout, photography, photography gear, wildlife photography
Long Lens Photography – 100-400mm
I enjoy my long lens for outdoor photography. It’s a beautiful piece of equipment for isolating subjects against a background with nice bokeh. The longer the lens, the easier it is to have an out-of-focus background. The PANASONIC LUMIX G Leica DG Vario-Elmar Professional Lens, 100-400MM, F4.0-6.3 ASPH is a magical lens IMHO.
Here are some images from a walkabout at the Sedona Wetlands. I didn’t find many waterfowl as it was midday and possibly the wrong time of year. In any case, I always try to make the best of any photography situation and started looking for details. There are still some wildflowers scattered throughout. This attracts butterflies, birds, and bees.
Adult female Lesser Goldfinch snacking on some wildflowers that have gone to seed
I always look to capture ‘behavior’ photos as well as straight portraits of my feathered friends. Here the Lesser Goldfinch is working to get the seeds free from the plant.
Butterfly caught with shallow depth of field between the plants.
The butterfly photo was my favorite photo of the day. If you’ve chased butterflies in the wild, you know how difficult it can be to get an interesting image. I tracked this one for a while and looked to ‘sandwich’ the butterfly with DOF. I wanted a sharp subject surrounded by the in and out of focus flowers. This was made more difficult as there were not a ton of flowers in bloom and the wind was making the flowers dance as well. Now that I see the image here I’ll crop in a little tighter and loose the past prime flowers on the right-hand side of the photo.
Wasps one of our other pollinators were flitting between the blooms as well as the butterflies.
I choose this one to share as it has a different color with black and white stripes.
Back to the lens. One complaint I hear about the lens is that it is very stiff to zoom. It was designed that way not to suffer ‘lens creep’ when you hang it from your shoulder. I’ve found a perfect way to change the zoom. Instead of trying to turn the lens, hold the lens and turn the camera. It’s like opening a bottle of champagne where you hold the cork and twist the bottle. Makes it easy and you don’t end up with the lens creep!
When paired with the Lumix G9 you get 6 and a half stops of handholdability. All images were handheld in this post.
Yours in Creative Photography, Bob
by successfulbob | bird photography, fine art photography, Lumix G9, LumixGH5, photography, photography gear, wildlife photography
Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge – Part Three
If you have followed my work for any length of time, you know that I enjoy moving my work into a more painting-based look. I have taken a term I heard from Julianne Kost and adopted it for my new business. “Lens Based Artist.” I have decided to start promoting my more art based images and have begun gallery representation and selling my work as art.
More on that in future posts. (things are starting to take off. YAY!)
Back to Blackwater images and the post-processing. Here are a few photos of which I have played using the PhotoSynthesis process I have been working on over the years.
Geese in Flight. Love the wing positions and pattern of the birds in the sky.
I worked on this image on the plane while en route back to Arizona from my speaking engagement in Maryland where the images were captured. My seatmate was fascinated by the process, and I talked him through my thinking as I worked on the photo. There are several layers of multiple images blended using Adobe Photoshop’s blend Modes and masks. The geese in flight created their art with all the different wing positions. I was able to capture their flight using the **Lumix GH5 and the Leica 100-400mm lens. The reach of this lens with the stabilization in the camera are making captures such as this easier than ever.
Great Blue Heron on the shoreline.
After working on the piece and adding layers of textures, I pulled the image into Skylum’s Focus CK (part of the Creative Kit or available as a stand-alone) to add a bit of selective sharpness to the subject and vignette and slight blurring to the rest of the image. I use this tool in the Macro setting quite often. I could do the same thing directly in Photoshop, but it would take much more time and many more steps to accomplish the same thing. Plugins are very handy. I decide whether to purchase plugins based on how often I perform specific techniques. When I find the plugin saves me the time or makes it possible for me to do something I would not be able to accomplish otherwise, I buy.
Heron in Flight – All images are © Bob Coates Photography – All Rights Reserved
I don’t think any of these images are ‘ready for prime time’ as yet. I think of them as sketches testing ideas and pointing to the direction I wish to go.
Yours in Creative Photography, Bob
** I’ll be using the Lumix G9 in the future for most of my wildlife shooting. Designed with the stills photographer in mind, it adds 6 1/2 stops of handholdabilty (GH5 has 5) along with a better grip and button design for still photographers.
by successfulbob | bird photography, LumixGH5, photography, wildlife photography
Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge – Part Two
While in Maryland presenting some photography programs to MDPPA I found some extra time to go in search of wildlife. I had the pleasure of spending a couple of days with Chris Paulis as he took us to the wildlife refuge from Columbia a couple of hours away in Cambridge, Maryland.
You can check the first post where I shared some large avian creatures AKA the Great Blue Herons. Today I am going to show the world of ducks that we were able to find. There were lots of Northern Shovelers which show quite beautiful plumage. If you don’t know better, it’s relatively easy to mistake their feather patterns for Mallards. Since both were hanging around you can check out the similarities and the differences.
Onward to the duck photos!
These guys tended to stay right on the edge of being able to get beautiful photos. Male Northern Shoveler.
Both Chris and I were using Panasonic Lumix cameras, He had the Lumix G9, and I had the Lumix GH5. We both used the Lumix G Leica 100-400mm f4.5-6.3 lens. Having that reach at full extension (800mm 35mm FF equivalent) made it possible for us to capture many of the shots that would otherwise have been more humdrum. The five-axis image stabilization enabled hand holding even fully extended. It makes a huge difference in the tracking the ever-changing movement of our subjects.
The reflection of the sunset light on the water warms this photo of a male Mallard.
Male Mallard duck in flight.
If at all possible I try to capture images that include behavior. Taken just after leaving the water droplets fall helping to add more detail to the story.
This photo is one of my favorite images from the day. A couple of Northern Shoveler ducks take to the air.
It was a great day, so I probably have one or two more posts to share from our refuge adventure.
Yours in Creative Photography, Bob
by successfulbob | bird photography, LumixGH5, photography, photography education, wildlife photography
Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge
Last week I was speaking at the Maryland Professional Photographers Association. It was a great group, and we made a solid connection in what became an all-day program due to weather conditions that were a wee bit unusual for this time of year.
For this trip, I scheduled some extra time to get out and photograph wildlife. I had an excellent guide and companion for the shooting days in Chris Paulis! (check out Chris’ work here) Chris and I had a blast looking for photo opportunities in the area. On Friday we drove two hours each way to spend time at the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge. Chris had mentioned he hadn’t had a lot of luck there in the past, but I think we did pretty well. We made the loop through the refuge eight or nine times discovering different wildlife situations on each cycle.
The majority of my images were captured with the Lumix GH5 (currently $200 off for a limited time) and the Lumix G Leica 100-400mm lens. Chris had the same lens and was shooting with the new stills flagship camera the Lumix G9. (mine came in right after I returned from the trip. More to come about that new camera)
I enjoy wildlife photography, and my goal is to have images that show either beautiful lighting or behavior images. I’ll share some below and in another post or two over the next week.
Sometimes a simple capture featuring the environment works well and helps tell the story.
Still environmental, this image has a bit more behavior. I laughingly title this Heron Airport.
It’s all about the light and shadow. Add in some lovely water reflections, and now we’re cooking. Getting photographs like this take time and patience. There are only a few minutes in the morning and afternoon when the light starts to work like this. And then there’s having the performer in place at the same time as the light.
Next time some intimate portraits of my heron budies. Til then go get ya some great photo ops!
Yours in creative Photography, Bob
