Small Bird Extravaganza

I know it has been a long time since my last post.  But I have now graduated from college and have more opportunities to go out and photograph wildlife.  On my trip yesterday I was looking for Bald Eagles but I didn't see many.  The numbers have been low so far this year, and I'm hoping they get better soon.  The few eagles I did see were not in range to get a shot.
 

However while I was out I did see an abundance of small birds.  I saw a downy woodpecker and a red bellied woodpecker.  Also there was a pair of cardinals and probably a dozen or more blue jays.  There was also many other small bird species including dark eyed juncos, sparrows, and black capped chickadees.  I was surprised that I did not see any nuthatches.

Overall it turned out to be a fun day, and I am looking forward to seeing more Bald Eagles this year.  From my trip I did get some nice photographs of small birds.  Included in the post our my favorites.  Hoping to get out a few more times this week and get some more photographs.  Hope everyone enjoys the photographs.  Until next time.

Photo's from Bashakill and Reverse Ring Test

It took me a little longer than planned to go through the images from my last couple trips from the Bashakill, and the flower photographs that I was trying to take with the reverse lens.  A lot of the flower photographs didn’t come out as planned and I think next time I will try using a tripod to eliminate blur.  I am not sure if it was just the tiny depth of field or if some hand held movement caused some of the blur. 

However I did take one photograph of a dandelion (pictured above) that I thought was decent.  I am also uploading the garter snake photograph that I took when I was outside photographing the flowers.  

The one photograph from the Bashakill trip is the baby Canadian goose photograph, which I was pleased with.  Hope you enjoy the photographs.  I will hopefully get out a few days this week and get some more photographs.  Until next time.   

Home for the Summer

Since my last post I have not had many opportunities to get out and photograph anything.  Partly due to me being away at college.  Now summer is finally here and I am home, where there are many more opportunities to photograph wildlife and nature.  A couple days last week I was messing around with the Reverse Lens Technique trying to photograph flowers.  I mounted my 55 mm lens in reverse, using my reversing ring and mounted that on a stack of Kenko extension tubes.  I was surprised by the results.  With a regular mounted lens the extension tubes would allow you to be able to focus on closer subjects to the lens.  With the reverse lens mount on extension tubes, I found that it lets you stay further away from the subject which in some cases will be very nice.  I was happy about this because with just the lens you sometimes would be right on top of the subject in order for it to focus, but with the set of extension tubes it allowed me to be a little further away from the subject.  Hopefully this will help a lot when photographing insects, where as before it was a challenge to focus on animals because you had to get so close.  I also stumbled across either a ribbon or garter snake not sure which, when I was experimenting.  So I took a few shots with the normal mounted lens as well.  I have not had a chance to upload the images to my computer yet, but hopefully I will get to it this week and post some of the images by the end of the week.  Until next time.     

Eagle Photographs from Break

So far this bald eagle season has been a bit of a let down.  The weather has been crazy.  There is tons of snow and ice, and it has kept me busy.  I did get a chance to get out today, but only saw one bald eagle. But I do have some images from last break that I never got the chance to upload.  Last break I had a great outing where there were eagles on the same side of the road as me, and I only needed my 255 mm lens to photograph them.  Also they were feeding on the ground so I got plenty of opportunities to photograph them.  I am hoping I get a few more chances this week to get some photographs.

Hope everyone enjoys the photographs. Until next time.

Cold Weather Woes

The cold weather has been helpful for keeping bald eagles confined to the places that have open water which helps make it easier to know where you have the best chance to see them.  But the crazy weather has also led to me not being able to get out much because of snow, ice, rain, and freezing temperatures.  But I hopefully will be able to get out a few more times before I go back to college next week. 

Because I have not really had many chances to photograph anything I was looking through some of my old photographs from last year and realized I did not upload some of the images.  So I decided to upload them now and hopefully soon I will have some new photographs.  One of the photographs is an immature bald eagle, and the other photograph is of a red squirrel.  I also noticed that I have been having a problem with lighting of my pictures from when they are on my computer and when I upload them.  Sometimes they appear lighter and other times there dark.  I am not sure why but I will try to fix this in further posts. Until next time.