Deep Freeze

Two weekends ago temperatures dropped below zero for a couple days, which did cause the reservoirs to almost completely freeze over.  This for me was a good thing, because it forced the eagles to be near the stream where I can get the closest to them.  The eagle numbers were the highest I’ve seen this winter, but still lower than normal.  I was seeing about ten eagles every time I went out. 

However I only managed a few photographs.  I was having problems with lighting.  With the lens I use it has a very high f-stop when at long range, which was causing problems with getting the proper lighting.  Also due to this, most of the time I had to use a 1600 ISO. Which I would prefer not to use because of the extra noise that it adds to photographs.  Also I was battling the sun all day.  It was either too bright or not enough.  It always seemed to sneak behind a cloud at the worst moments.  In addition I was having problems with the full mature eagles because there heads were overexposing, and I could not figure out how to prevent it, without the rest of the image being drastically underexposed.

Furthermore I had a day that when I arrived at the lake, there was a construction crew working on clearing brush and putting in new electric poles.  They were working right where the eagles roost and feed.  This really upset me, especially since they were running a chainsaw and making tons of noise.  There are signs that it is an endangered species area during the winter months because of the eagle population in the area during those months.  Also there are signs stating that outdoor activity will disturb eagles.  Yet they were out there working.  It just seemed like poorly timed construction work.  Due to there noise the eagles left the area for the day.  But the next morning they were back and it was the best day I had all week.   

During my trips last week I was also seeing much higher numbers of ducks.  I saw plenty of common mergansers, black ducks, and a few hooded mergansers.  But I also found two common goldeneye ducks, which I don’t normally see.  I also spotted a downy woodpecker, but he didn’t stay around for long.   

Towards the end of last week, the weather had started another warming trend.  It is quite crazy.  Temperatures fell to below zero and days later it climbed into the fifties, with average temperatures around freezing.  I am hoping that I continue to see more eagles, but I believe that the warm weather won’t help.  I guess at least I can look forward to the spring duck migration.  Until next time.           

High ISO Test

With the Bald Eagle numbers so low recently,  I decided to run a test to see how much noise high ISO’s would introduce into my pictures.  By using the higher ISO’s I was also testing much faster shutter speeds than I normally shoot with.  I found that 3200 ISO introduced a sizable amount of noise into the photograph.  I will probably try and avoid using that high of and ISO anymore when shooting wildlife.  1600 ISO seemed ok but it did introduce a little noise as well, at least for my camera.  The rest of the lower ISO’s seemed less significant in the amount of noise they introduce in the photograph.  However I found that 200 ISO was the clearest of them all, but 400 and 800 were not much worse than 200.  

For a while I was actively avoiding shooting shots with an ISO higher than 400 but I believe now that I can get away with using up to 1600 ISO and still get a nice clear shot.  I have not looked into using noise reduction software in post processing, but I know there are some out there.  Hopefully this will help my wildlife photography out, because often my photographs are blurry or I miss shots because the shutter speed is too low.  So using the higher ISO should allow me to use faster shutter speeds and should allow for more clarity with motion photographs.  

I included some of my test shots of birds by my feeders.  One shot is of what I believe is a white-throated sparrow hopping along the ground, and it was taken with 3200 ISO.  The other photos of the blue jay and the tufted titmouse were taken at 1600 ISO.  The harsh lighting did not help the photos any, but I believe that the higher ISO is not really as big an issue as I once believed.  At least now I hope I won’t be afraid to use high ISO, because I think getting the picture is more important than missing it because I was afraid to introduce noise into the photograph.  Please feel free to comment or ask questions, or leave your thoughts on the use of high ISO in wildlife photography.  Until Next time.

Abundance of Wildlife

Yesterday was full of excitement, from the time I got to the lake to the time I left.  When I first arrived I spotted a couple of eagles.  Plus there were many types of waterfowl including common mergansers, American black ducks, and Red-breasted mergansers.  The lake was also teeming with seagulls.  After about a half an hour more eagles started to show up.  I could not even count how many I saw during the day.  They were very active fishing, but I did not capture a good shot of any while fishing.  I did get a good shot of an eagle while it was taking off.  Out of all the photographs I took it seemed like the only good one.  I not only got to see eagles chasing ducks and one eagle attack a seagull that had caught a fish, but I also saw eagles locking claws and fighting each other.  It was absolutely incredible.  I hope when the snow stops, that I can get another chance at the lake this afternoon. 

Bald Eagle Heaven

I spent about three hours yesterday afternoon out at the local reservoir and it was like Eagle Heaven.  I saw at least ten eagles.  Plus they were very active.  Most of which were fishing and landing on the ice.  I didn’t get any good flying photographs or any good shots on the ice, but I did get some nice shots of them in the trees.

  I was not alone though, there were several other photographers there with very nice equipment and they were making it challenging to get good shots.  Since I have been going to the lake for years I felt like I had the advantage of knowing the eagle’s habits.  I guess a little knowledge of where they like to land and a little luck got me a couple of good shots.  I decided to stop fighting over position with the other people and went further down the lake, where the lake thins out to a stream.  That’s when I saw an eagle sitting in the tree really close.  Most of my photos were taken at 600mm but a couple were taken at 1300mm, because I did not need to get any closer.

Plus the lighting yesterday was very good.  The light was not to bright and not to dark for me to use my larger lens.  Please take a look at my photographs and leave comments and questions.  I will try and answer any questions that you leave.