Category Archives: water birds

Catching Swallows

August 10, 2015 by Words | Comments Off

One of my regular photographic challenges (self-imposed) is photographing swallows (or swifts) while they swoop over water or across fields. Mostly I walk away with no success at all, but in the last week I’ve managed a few that while far from perfect are at least usable. The difficulties are many: keeping the bird in the frame while it speeds across the lens; keeping the lens in focus and relatively steady; having a fast enough shutter speed; and capturing the bird while it’s facing in an acceptable direction (youu don’t really want back views).

As I said, these ain’t perfect, but hey are among my better efforts. I’ll start with one from last week diving over the pond and – double bonus points – with its beak wide open!

Swallow diving over Falmer Pond

Swallow diving over Falmer Pond

The rest are from today, when the light was decidedly iffy. The ISO was ramped up to 1600 as getting anything usable depends on speed. Ths is actually a fledgling, but it can still motor!

Swallow in flight over fields at Falmer

Fledgling swallow in flight over fields at Falmer

Swallow in flight over fields at Falmer

Swallow in flight over fields at Falmer

Swallow in flight over fields at Falmer

Another one with mouth open! More bonus points 🙂

To make up for the roughness of those, one ‘proper’ photo, also from today. I took quite a few of this group of ducks passing the time of day, but this is the pick.

Three ducks at Falmer Pond

Three ducks at Falmer Pond

Camera note: all photos taken with the Canon 7D Mark II and EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM lens.

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Grey and Black

August 6, 2015 by Words | 4 Comments

There may be something of a theme developing here (see yesterday’s post) as I’m still focused on the dark side of the camera, and once again these are shot at a high ISO (1600) with lots of negative exposure compensation. The main sequence is a heron which after staying in fairly open areas finally pitched up just in front of some trees that are adjacent to the pond. This provided the dark backdrop I was looking for. There was enough light coming in to bring out the heron’s colour, but exposing for the background would have washed everything out. Hence dialling down the compensation to around -2. I lifted the whites in processing these, and damped down small parts of the background with the burn tool.

Grey heron at Falmer Pond

Grey heron at Falmer Pond

Grey heron at Falmer Pond

Shame about the duck in the foreground, but I liked the posture.

Grey heron at Falmer Pond

This is my personal pick. Nice and clean.

That proved to be a fruitful corner of the pond. While I was watching the heron I noticed a moorhen going back and forth. Tucked away under the low branches and among the tree rots a pair of chicks were scrambling around. I had to squat down right at the edge of the pond, with branches pressing all around to get any clear line on the chicks, and even then they were mostly obscured by foliage. I got three usable shots of which this is the pick. Compensation on this is a modest -1 (anything more would have lost the detail on the bird).

Moorhen chick among the tree roots at Falmer.

Moorhen chick among the tree roots at Falmer.

Camera note: all shots taken with the Canon 7D Mark II and EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L USM IS Mark II lens.

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A Touch of the Dark Side

August 5, 2015 by Words | 2 Comments

Don’t worry, there’s nothing too sinister about this post. The title is a reference to camera settings.

There was some fairly bright sunshine early this morning and while taking yet more pictures of the heron, I spotted a cormorant fly over. When photographing a dark bird against a bright sky I tend to slightly under-expose by setting the exposure compensation to a slight positive number. Anyway, the cormorant swept down to the water, where everything is much darker. To retain a usable shutter speed I scrolled the compensation setting into the negative zone. I was aiming at around -1, but doing it on the fly I overshot so these were taken with a setting of -2. This had the effect of keeping a respectable shutter speed (around 1/1600s, keeping things nice and sharp), but leaving everything rather dark. A little bit of adjustment in Lightroom was needed to even things up a bit and bring out the green reflections in the water.

Cormorant

Cormorant

Cormorant

Cormorant

Cormorant at Falmer

I do like deep colours and dark backgrounds, and by lunchtime the clouds had rolled in and there was even a touch of rain. Everything was grey apart from one shaded corner of the pond where some ducks had congregated. The overhanging trees provided deep shade, but that of course kills the shutter. To get anything usable I started at 800 (first shot which had a shutter speed of 1/250s) but then ramped the ISO to 1600 and – against the usual advice – under-exposed by -1. Normally under-exposing at a high ISO is risky as it can increase the noise in the darker areas, but only if the intention is to lighten the photo later on. I wanted to keep the dark areas dark, and just have enough light on the ducks. I have made some minor adjustments (and cropped), but these are very close to how they came out of the camera. If I hadn’t under-exposed the shots would have lost impact and contrast, and frankly the shutter would have crawled. This way I have something sharp. And there really isn’t too much in the way of noise (even in the second shot which is the high ISO one).

Mallard duck at Falmer

Mallard duck at Falmer

Mallard duck at Falmer

[I]Camera note: all shots taken with the Canon 7D Mark II and EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L USM IS Mark II lens.[/I]

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