Time, or Temperature?

Time or Temp?

Trick question – its both the time and the temperature! And, that’s a reference to one of my favorite movies – Chinatown with Jack Nicholson and Faye Dunaway (Mrs. Mulwray says: “She’s my sister and my daughter!”)

I just wanted to post something to let everyone know I’m still around but its still too hot to be out shooting much. It will get hotter in the next couple of hours and I might get brave enough to head back out for a peak temp shot, but don’t count on it.

August 24, 2011, Nikon D200, Nikkor 18-70 @ 24mm, ISO 400, 1/1250th second at f/5, hand held from inside the air conditioned car.

Birds in Fog

Black-necked Stilt

On a nature photography critique web site where I have been participating since 2001 a discussion began with this question: “Images shot in the fog — is there a way to do it?” The poster went on to say: “A lot of noise removal was necessary. I also enhanced the contrast. Is there a way to get a well-defined bird in the fog?”

For me, this goes against my reasons for shooting in the fog – I don’t want a “well-defined” bird nor would I increase the contrast trying for better definition.

The essence of fog is the way it simplifies a scene by reducing contrast and eliminating detail – the subject and setting are reduced to a minimum of lines and shapes while color and detail are suppressed. I think this makes for a simplified image depending on strong graphics, and I like to have some of these images in my portfolio.

The Black-necked Stilt group at the top of this post is an excellent example. A heavy fog in central Arizona at the Gilbert Water Ranch gave me a rare opportunity to create a simple graphic image. Stilts are high contrast birds with stark white and black plumage, but the fog has reduced the contrast and made these birds two close shades of gray. 12/12/07, D200, 300/2.8 plus TC20E, ISO 400, 1/500th second at f/8.

Great Egrets in fog

Taken just a few minutes earlier this pair of Great Egrets at the Gilbert Water Ranch shows a little more detail since the birds are closer to the camera putting less fog between to reduce detail. 12/12/07, ISO 400, 1/320th second at f/8.

Green Heron on a foggy day

This Green Heron was encountered about an hour before the egret and stilts, and at even closer range. So, the image has more color and detail, but the heavy fog has obliterated details of the busy background just a little farther behind the heron. 12/12/07, ISO 800, 1/640th second at f/8.

Cactus Wren

The technique works for small birds as well, as with this Cactus Wren at the Gilbert Water Ranch. Again, I’ve taken advantage of a bit of fog to  minimize background detail that might have been distracting. 12/22/08, ISO 320, 1/160th second at f/8.

White-crowned Sparrow in morning haze

Finally, a White-crowned Sparrow in light mist at the Water Ranch, where the mist has softened the background to pastel shades. 11/25/08, ISO 400, 1/60th second at f/8.

Rain in Phoenix

Rain in Phoenix

We’ve finally had a break in the oppressive summer heat in Phoenix, and hopefully the triple digit days are over for 2010. The big change came when a major storm over southern California spilled far enough east to cover the Phoenix metro area. We started with 0.3 inches of rain one day (I know that doesn’t sound like much but in Phoenix it is). Then on October 5 we had 0.9 inches in our back yard, with some parts of the Valley getting almost 2 inches.

It was odd enough that I grabbed my backup D70 body and mounted my widest lens – a Tokina 12-24 and stepped out to the covered patio to take some shots as the rain came down. It was only 4:46 pm but it was so dark that even at ISO 640 I ended up with an exposure of 1/10th second at f/5.6. The resulting raw file was still quite dark and this image was given another stop of exposure in raw conversion with Adobe Camera Raw.

I had the Tokina lens at 12mm – the equivalent of an 18mm lens on a full frame 35mm camera. I did my best to position the tripod low enough to minimize any tilt up or down with the lens, and tried to square it up with the patio roof and pillars, but I didn’t quite get it aligned. So I used the transform feature in Photoshop  to straighten out the vertical lines in the image. This is a great feature of Photoshop if you ever shoot buidings with a wide angle lens.

Morning Mallard

Mallard

After my previous two posts (Black Phoebe and Pied-billed Grebe) I figured I might as well give equal time to the Mallard photographed the same day at the Gilbert Water Ranch.

After spending most of my time indoors to avoid the high summer temperatures I was happy to get out for a couple hours on a morning with rare stormy skies. I didn’t expect much and would have been happy just for the exercise and time outside. I ended up working only one of the ponds at the Water Ranch, spending my time as a friend in Utah wrote: “I can envision you at Gilbert, sitting on the point of your butt, knees up, tripod legs spread, getting this shot at this angle.” No doubt he’d thought of this photo of me taken by another Water Ranch visitor taken at the same pond.

I admit I don’t pay enough attention to ducks in the summer, so I can’t really say if this is a young bird or an adult in eclipse plumage. But I do think it shows some amount of genes of the Mexican race, at one time considered a separate species the “Mexican Duck.”

Compositionally this is a lot tighter than I normally frame my subject. I was already set up pond side watching the grebe when this Mallard decided to climb on this log and preen. I didn’t want to mess around swapping the 2x converter off my 300/2.8 lens for the 1.4x in a belt pouch as I was more interested in the smaller more distant grebe. The Mallard barely fit in the frame.

The other concern was the low light level. I love the soft light from overcast skies, but that can be a problem for active subjects and a long lens. I could have used more depth of field from a smaller aperture, but I also had to worry about my shutter speed as the duck fidgeted. I compromised on ISO 400, 1/160th second and f/8.

Juvie Pied-billed Grebe

Pied-billed Grebe

On the same visit to the Gilbert Water Ranch when I shot the Black Phoebe of my previous post I got to spend some quality time with the juvenile plumaged Pied-billed Grebe. Young birds show this interesting mottled pattern on the face, unlike the plain face of adult grebes.

This juvenile bird was a treat, and was the only grebe on the pond that morning. Although PBGs are regular at the Water Ranch, we have no evidence that they breed there (they disappear around breeding time). The water level was down in the pond so the grebe had less opportunity to stay out of range, and once I’d sat down close to the edge behind my lowered tripod the grebe came close enough for some photos.

The light was softer than normal for AZ, with overcast skies as we had a brief period of monsoon rains. That kept the contrast down on the grebe so I could easily expose the shot and get good detail in broth the whites and blacks. but it also meant my light levels were on the low side, and even with the lens wide open at f/5.6 I could only manage 1/160th second at ISO 400. But with a stable tripod and careful technique that was enough.

August 1, 2010, Nikon D200, 300/2.8 plus TC20E (2x), ISO 400, 1/160th second at f/5.6, 81% of frame. A couple distracting feathers edited out of the image, noise reduction applied to the water.