Plover and new born
Taken at Crane's Beach yesterday. Had a great time photographing these guys. Very cute. The mother would call out to them and basically snuggle them under her feathers. This guy just didnt want to wake up after a snuggling session. Sometimes I feel just like that in the early AM. Taken with a Pentax k3 , 70-200 mm lens,with extender.
June 15th is Nature Photography Day !
The North America Nature Photography Association (NANPA) has designated June 15 as Nature Photography Day. This was established in 2006 by this group to promote and celebrate the enjoyment of nature photography and focus on how images may be used to create awareness for nature conservation and protection causes and policies.
So whether you have an advanced digital camera with heavy glass or an iPhone, you are encouraged to get out today and take some photos of nature anywhere you find it during the day. Enjoy the splendor of taking nature photos and help spread the word about Nature Photography Day !
Creative software filters
I was inspired by the Nat Geo channel's production of Picasso and the approach the director took for the video trailers. So I used a few creative filters in digital software (Adobe and ACDSee programs) on an image from our recent trip to Ireland. The location is the Claddagh region of Galway, a famous area to take photos showing the homes and the reflections in the water. I was not able to duplicate the effect they used in the show, but I came up with an interesting modification to the original image. The before and after are shown. Many software programs running on iPads, iPhones, Android systems, etc are equipped with these filter features to allow creative modifications to the image. I cannot imagine doing this in the old film days! Would take lots of additional work and maybe not even possible
Read the Camera Manual
I learned a great lesson today, READ THE CAMERA MANUAL!!. During a recent trip up to Maine to photograph osprey in flight, I became quite frustrated with the autofocus system on my camera not being able to keep up with the fast pace of birds in flight. This was a new adventure for me and I was not experienced with tracking the subjects in the frame or setting the camera for this type of photography. The basic problem was as soon as I lost track of the bird, the lens would focus to infinity and then it was all over getting the bird in focus. After reading the manual I have realised that I could set the camera software to overcome this. This mornings photography with smaller birds was very successful with a much higher keep rate. I am sure custom software settings applies for all camera brands to optimise autofocus performance. I was very surprised how many custom settings were available (over 6) to improve autofocus on my Pentax which is not known for high speed autofocus to support sports and nature photography. The current settings make the camera very usable for this type of photography. Here is an example of todays results using a robin (not glamorous but much sharper):
Behind the Image: Marshall Point Light
Marshall point light is located near the fishing village of Port Clyde, Maine. You may recognize it from the movie " Forest Gump" starring Tom Hanks, where the long boardwalk was used as the termination point for Forest's long run. Weather and lighting conditions were excellent for seascape photography that evening, however, I wanted to achieve a very silky water look in this image. I was unable to use a long shutter speed to achieve that look due to the lighting conditions. I added a dark filter (6 stops) to reduce the light level and allow me to set the camera for a thirty second exposure. Getting a good quality filter is important to retain good color and sharpness.
The image was taken with a Pentax K3 (24mpix) camera and 18-70 F4 lens , f14, for 30 seconds
Tom