Wildlife Photography is for the BIRDS

This morning I woke up to birdsong. I did my morning routine with a smile on my face, for my lawn (which I can mostly see now) was host to some kind of robin convention. I fed the kids and came to the computer to do my usual routine. I checked in with HSMSHS to see the prompt for the day: BIRD.

PIECE OF CAKE!

I smiled to myself, looking out the window at all those robins. Then I picked up the camera, walked to the door....and they all flew away. I wasn't worried though. It was still early, and I had all day to photograph just one bird.

The joke was on me though, for every time I picked up the camera, they all flew away. I swear it was not a robin convention on the lawn, it was a robin conspiracy. Those birds are serious about their privacy!

All day I tried, and all day they mocked me, flitting merrily about when I watched from the windows, but making themselves scare the second I picked up the camera.

Obviously, wildlife photography is not my niche.

But then, a call from the kids: "Mama! The deer are here!"

I did the fastest lense change ever and ran to the kitchen windows. We hadn't seen our deer pals yet since fall, and I had no idea whether or not they'd be in cahoots with the birds. They weren't. They were actually quite pleased to have their photos taken.

Hubby arrived from work just after I'd snapped the first few photos, and I was sure the car would have them running for the woods, but they carried on as if he wasn't there.

Inspired by my success, I went out to see if I could track down a bird. No luck. Perhaps it was because of my assistant:

Did you say bird? Let me help!

I finally managed to ditch my assistant and tramped around, following the sounds of birdsong and peering into the trees. What I ended up with was a whole lot of this:

I eventually found a robin way up in the top of the tree and managed to tiptoe under it for this shot:

But WOW! Those birds really made me work for it!

Next time I'm photographing the Boy's Webkinz.

SOS After the rain...

I had this all ready to go yesterday and then Picasa and Blogger banded together to give me fits. So I'm posting it first thing this morning and pretending that it's still Sunday. :)

Colour!

Ahhhhh. So good to see colour again after such a long winter. Now for the snow to melt...

Boom!

I was away yesterday, having a photo shoot and running errands, so didn't get to blog. I just can't stand to look at that gross decay photo any longer though, so let's all look at something much better.

Isn't he adorable? His name is Boomer and he's not only incredibly photogenic (photo SOOC), he's also very (VERY) well-mannered and loving. Ok, and a little bit sneaky. Guess who polished off all the prop croissants yesterday? Oh yeah. (I would have too Boomer, they smelled yum-o!) He was hanging out with his girls yesterday and ended up being the star of our photoshoot.

And so much nicer to look at than rotting potatoes! ;)

(Kidding! Anything's better to look at than rotting potatoes! He's a truly handsome boy though and we had so much fun with him. I'm enjoying seeing him as I do my edits.)

Sprout and shadow later today when the sun comes out. It's cold and rainy now but the weatherman promised sun this afternoon and I'm holding him to it!

Snow much fun!

Today is Saturday, which means it's time to pull out the portraits! I love this one for several reasons:

1. Practice session with my long lens turned out just fine--lots of great photos to choose from.
2. After spending close to an hour shooting each kiddo, this last shot with both of them feels like some kind of bonus prize.
3. Happy, snowy kids!
4. They're mine! We moms always love photos of our kids.

We're off to winterfest today, so more snowy fun photos tomorrow!

Snow Exposure

Yesterday was our first snow day of 2009. It was actually a wimpy sort of a snow day, Hubby made it into work just fine and the kids spent lots of time outside playing. Of course I had to get photos of the kids outside! It was my first time bravely taking the Canon out in the winter instead of the old P&S, and I'm really glad I had read a lot of articles about shooting in the winter first.

First shot, I left the camera on the settings I had been using indoors:

Yikes! What a mess! Obviously my settings are so very,very wrong. Let's start with White Balance, shall we?

Oops, had it set on cloudy. It's definitely not cloudy out! In fact, with the sun hitting the fresh snow, it's the exact opposite of cloudy. The world is one giant reflector!

This is going to be an example of making adjustments on the run. I'm walking and adjusting...

So much better! Wow, that WB sure makes a difference, doesnt' it? A simple switch from Cloudy to Auto makes a world of difference.

Now we're still a little blown out. Does it seem bright to you? It seems bright to me! You know what's a quick fix? I'm going to dial down my Exposure Compensation, see what that does for me...

Much better! And just in time, since now I'm nice and close to the kids!

These photos are SOOC just for you (and me), to illustrate the differences and the adjustment process I made. Learning to think on my feet has been one of the biggest parts of understanding my camera and getting great photos. All photos shot using the 50mm, AV setting, f/4....ISO 800? Is that right?

Oops! Guess I should have checked ISO before worrying about Exposure Compensation. Yikes again! That's what I get for going from shooting indoors at night to outdoors in sun and snow. Now we've really learned something--check all your settings before shooting! If I had realized I would have changed that first thing!

Next lesson to learn: spot metering. Because my closeups turned out great, but backing off a bit....

Oh, how that 800 ISO is messing me up! Fortunately I shoot in RAW, and just dialing back the Exposure Compensation a couple more stops in the software that came with the camera....

Saves that one from the dreaded delete key. They're right you know, once you go RAW, you'll never go back! It can allow you to save yourself from even the most boneheaded mistakes...like shooting on ISO 800 on a sunny day.

Thanks for learning along with me! For those of you wondering where my HSMSHS is, well, so am I! Yesterday's prompt was "Homemade" and I was determined to get a scrapbook page done to share with you, but never quite got there. I'm going to see if I can do it today and post a double, otherwise I'll just do today's prompt and post later.

PS: shot of the day:

The one that got away...

Alternately titled: A case for Manual Focus

Living in the country, we get a lot of "visitors" to our home. We have a small family of deer that drop by regularly. There are songbirds and butterflies, despite the incredible number of cats between ourselves and our neighbours. You know spring is here when you hear the spring peepers singing (frogs) and fall and spring are heralded by the ducks and geese flocking overhead. In the summer I love to fall asleep listening to the loons on the lake and there's a flock of Canada geese that nest just down the road and are one of the reasons for purchasing a lens with telephoto abilities--those goslings are adorable but their parents are crazy protective!

Then there are the occasional visitors, the ones that you don't see all that often. There is a nesting pair of bald eagles on the lake that occasionally come and rest in the trees outside our house. We've never seen them here by the lakes, but a couple of kilometres away at the farms coyote sightings are not uncommon and the farmers are often serenaded. We've seen black bear and moose a couple of times (not together of course). On one very memorable occasion we saw what we think was a bobcat. Those are the sightings that you miss if you don't have the camera on and ready, the ones that make us call up family and friends to make them play the "guess what we just saw" game.

And they rarely believe us. Skeptics, one and all.

So when I looked out the window the other day and saw something I hadn't seen at our place before, I knew I needed photographic proof of its visit. I grabbed the camera and flipped to auto so I could get a snapshot or two before it disappeared.

Big mistake.

Oh auto mode, how you failed me. I know it's hard to focus through the screen on the fleet-footed black animal in the white snow, but come ON! Can't you do better than that?

Unfortunately it was gone before I could do anything about my settings or my lens. I've been frustrated quite a bit lately by the camera's focus points differing from MY focus points, and this was the last straw. I flipped the switch. My lenses are ALL now set on MF, and I'm having a blast.

So, two questions:

1. Do you shoot on MF or AF (and why?)

2. Any guesses as to what our visitor was?

Trees of Glass

This is one of my favourite winter shots. Taken February of last year with my old point and shoot (a Fuji FinePix A510). We had had a terrible freezing rain in the night, but not enough to melt away the underlying blanket of snow. Absolutely everything was covered with a sheet of ice, and once the sun came up the world sparkled and shone like something out of a fairytale.

This tree stands in our front yard and I had to wait all day for the sun to get around to it, but I was glad that I did, because it just lit up.

Thanks for looking at my winter!

Winter

This may be the last I see of it for a while, as we're supposed to get freezing rain then rain tonight. That's winter in the Maritimes for you: a constant mixed bag of surprises.

No need to adjust your monitor

No, these aren't black and white pictures. This is just our world yesterday afternoon!

The weather was crazy.

On Friday there were all sorts of doom and gloom forecasts for snow changing to rain, changing to freezing rain and back to snow. We were basically told to get out on Saturday because we wouldn't be able to on Sunday.

Then on Saturday all the weather people changed their minds and said "never mind, nothing much is going to happen". Believe it or not, that happens around here. A lot.

On Saturday night, as I was finishing up the home tour (So. Much. Fun.), big, beautiful, fluffy flakes began drifting from the sky. I was kind of annoyed at myself for using up all my memory in the houses when I was being gifted with this beautiful snow. I guess that photo shoot will have to wait for another day. It snowed all night and Sunday morning we woke up to a small but pretty amount of snow. The roads were still fine and the weather reports good (2-5 cm total they said), so off we all trooped to church. While we were there it just kept snowing and snowing. Any idea how hard it is to pay attention to a Sunday School lesson with all of that beauty out the window? I felt like a total space cadet all day.

The drive home was scary but gorgeous. I had to keep biting my lip to keep from yelling at Hubby to stop so I could get out and take photos. I wasn't sure stopping was an option, and hitting the brakes would have been a very, very bad idea. We were disappointed that there was less and less snow the closer we got to home. Fredericton definitely got more than us. What a gyp!**

By choir time it was truly a marshmallow world. All of the Christmas lights looked so gorgeous sparkling out from under their fluffy little blankets. Silly me, I left the camera at home!

(I plead illness. The laryingitis appeared to be aggravated by my earlier attempts to sing at choir practice. It feels like I've poured crushed glass down my throat.)

It just kept snowing for most of the night. I loved every second!

This morning the colour had returned and I tried to get a few photos without leaving the house (sick, pj's, bedhead) and semi succeeded:

(Photographic Where's Waldo?...can you spot the girls waiting for their bus?)





All morning, as I coughed and hacked, I just kept staring out the window. I was breathless anyway, but the scenery would have clinched it. Finally, by lunchtime, mindful of the fact that the wind has been blowing the covering off the trees, I made it out to capture more of my world:







This is why blue is a perfect Christmas colour.

Good golly I love Canada!


____
**Fredericton also had major power outages and we did not, so I guess I won't begrudge them those few extra inches.

Freezing

The soundtrack for Sunday night's sleep was punctuated by little pings and taps of varying intensity. Freezing rain was striking the Maritimes once again.

In the morning schools were closed and the outdoors looked like a magical crystal world. I had to wait for the rain to stop but got a couple of photos with my new Canon EF 50 mm f/1.8 II in the afternoon.