TWIP Raptors and Foliage at Fontenelle

Warning...massive photo post!!!

Last weekend a couple of photographer friends and I made our way to Fontenelle Forest in Bellevue for a walk about.  I had never been, so I thought it would be a very interesting to say the least.  One of the things I really wanted to see was the Raptor Recovery of the area.  I have seen many demonstrations of the magnificent birds they have at the location, but never actually visited.  This was a great opportunity.  

Carrying my trust camera I was able to capture some fun images of the birds and also happened to catch a couple of interesting finds along the walking trail of the wilderness as well.  

Taking photos of the birds was a little difficult as most that have tried can tell you, that you have to take the photos through a cage.  The rule of thumb is the closer you get your lens to the cage, the less you see.  So I used a telephoto as close to the cage as allowable to get these shots of the birds.  While the birds are located in a cage, you don't get the beautiful backgrounds and sweeping skies that go with most of the wildlife photos, but you do get the opportunity to see close up what these birds actually look like.  Looking into their eyes, you get a sense of their personality.  

Here are a couple shots from Raptor Recovery followed by a couple of nature shots from around the forest.

TWIP Focus Stacking a Praying Mantis

So this week, I found a baby praying mantis in the backyard and decided to capture it for my collection.  Praying Mantis are some of my favorite insects just due to their shear coolness.  I am unsure if it was a male or a female, but believe it to be a female as it didn't appear to have wings.  Females are larger and cannot fly due to them not having wings.  The males are much smaller and are the flyers of the bunch.  

This photo took place in my boxwood hedge which provided excellent camouflage to the bug.  No one saw him there but me.  I am pretty good a spotting little things as I was really into macro photography when I first started this journey, so I tend to spot things most don't.  

He was very keen to keep an eye on me even though I caught him glancing at a cricket in the area a time or two.  I was hoping that he was going to pounce on the cricket so I could get some carnage, but he was more interested in me not squishing him than food at the time.  I bet the cricket would have been more than enough for this guy as he was so small.  I used my macro lens with a 36mm extension tube and a continuous macro light to photograph this little guy.  

I ended up using 15 of the 30 photos I took of him in this position to make the below photos.  My previous focus stacking tutorial on here will give you a better idea about how I stack my photos.  It is pretty simple, I import the photos into lightroom, verify the photos I would like to see stacked together, and then import them all into photoshop.  Now photoshop doesn't do as good of job, at least the version I have, as some of the dedicated focus stacking software out there, but it works for what I use it for.  

In photoshop I align the layers and then stack them together.  I then touch up the resulting image as best I can and there you have it.  Takes about 10 minutes per picture if you were looking at it in a time sort of way.  

Here is the baby mantis.  As always, click on the photo for a larger version.  Like my Facebook for more of my work Facebook.com/alderimages.

TWIP Canon Telephoto Taking on Butterflies

My vehicle has been having trouble for a couple weeks, so I decided to try and play mechanic and fix it.  So far so good.  I decided to run to Heron Haven on my drive around town to make sure everything was working, and thought it was about butterfly season...just maybe there would be some there.

Well, I wasn't as lucky as I thought I would be but I did see my three favorite midwestern flyers.  I saw a monarch butterfly, a black swallowtail, and a tiger swallowtail.  I was able to catch up to and capture the first two but the latter always was one step ahead of me.  He would either be out of the butterfly garden or inside, depending on where I was not.  He was sneaky to say the least.  I did get another photo to add to my collection of flowers.  I have something planned for those, so all was not lost.

Today, I shot butterflies with the Canon 300mm f/4L IS and my 6D.  I really like the clean crisp files of the 6D over any other camera I have and from initial reviews, may stick with this for at least one more camera iteration.  While the new 6D has all of the focus fixes I was looking for, I just love the images that come from the 6D sensor.  Taking photos of butterflies with a Telephoto lens like the 300 can be a challenge.  You have to be a little ways back from them, so there has to be a lot of room to move.  The bonus is you can be a ways back from them and let them do their thing.  I prefer it this way as I don't like to disturb nature when photographing it.  Shooting the photos of the flowers held a whole new issue, but I won't go into that.

Enough talk, here are some photos.

As you can see, the swallowtail seem to be a pecking piece for the nearby birds.  Poor guy is missing half of his cool wings.

TWIP Steam Trains are COOL!

Having missed the first trip to town for the College World Series by a mere 2 minutes, I made sure I was in my spot in plenty of time to see the famous 844 steam engine of Union Pacific on its way back home.  Scouting spots along the railway turned out to be a good thing instead of the usual fly by the pants approach I tend to make most of the time when shooting things.  I reviewed spots along the line to get the best location, with little to no distractions in the background, and off the beaten path.  The first time around, there were cars lining the roadway and I knew this time wouldn't be any different as this was happening on a weekend instead of late during a work week.  That meant everyone and their dog with a camera were going to be out.  

I grabbed a location where it was a semi straight away just off the main road by a railroad crossing.  This way, as they were approaching the crossing they would have to blow the steam whistle.  This would cause steam to shoot up into the air from the front of the train.  I knew that it was warm, so the steam coming off the engine wouldn't be as dramatic as some of the photos everyone has seen as these are usually in the fall and winter when the weather is very cool.

So, I turned down my road and already there were multiple cars, video cameras, and kids hanging out to see the train. Luckily they were just off the main road and not in the area I wanted to be.  Pulling to my location, a couple other seasoned train photographers were there waiting as well.  Finding my spot, opposite of the others due to the clutter of the background, I set up the tripod, video, and got my telephoto ready to shoot.  Not knowing what to expect as this was my first time trying to shoot this engine, I didn't know of the speed or rate in which I was going to get an opportunity.

You can see from the video, this baby came fast.  I didn't have nearly as much time as I planned for  and the blew the horn a little sooner than I thought as well.  However, I came home with 3 shots that I am really happy with.  I have included those below.  

TWIP Using ND filters for blur

Purpose of an ND filter in photography is a question most people ask when they see the big odd shaped pieces of glass on the front of a camera lens.  These filters can be screw on, square or rectangle.  Various filter types include regular ND filters, graduated ND filters and reverse graduated ND filters.  

The regular type filers stop light from the whole lens that is coming into the camera.  Most of them come in 3,6, or 10 stops.  Stops is the measurement of the amount of light coming into your camera.  For instance, if you are shooting a scene with a shutter speed of 1/60th of a second and decide to add a 3 stop ND filter to the front of your camera, your shutter speed will now be a 1/8th of a second.  You change your 3 stop to a 10 stop, you are now at 16 seconds on your shutter speed.  I have a little handy chart that assist in calculating this in the field.  You can find these anywhere if you just search google.

The graduated filters help the photographer to even out the scene in terms of exposure.  I have found that majority of the time, the sky is about 3 stops brighter than the ground, therefore, on scenes where I am trying to get cloud movement, I put a 3 stop graduated filter in front of the camera as well.  These come with a hard line, for flat horizons, and soft edge for those with lines that aren't so flat.  Reverse grads are what most use for sunsets.  The top is lighter until you get to the horizon line where it is most dense as when shooting the sun, the brightest point is at the middle area of the frame.  

Below is an example of what ND filters can do for your photography.  The top shot is a behind the scenes photo with my iPhone.  You can see the clouds are frozen in time.  This day the wind was blowing about 30 mph and the clouds were really moving.  I placed my 10 stop on the front of the camera and a hard grad filter which is another 3 stops to get this exposure.  Exposure on the bottom two photos were approximately 120 seconds.  I believe the longer exposure gives a little more life to a regular mundane scene.  

TWIP After the storm

This week in pictures is after the storm.  We had a rather large storm come through the area producing many tornados and winds that were crazy.  Our area of town was spared some of the worst as the storm weakened slighted as it went through, but quickly intensified again as it went through town.  After the storm had passed, it was perfect timing for the sun to pop from under the clouds and highlight the already very cool looking mammatus clouds.  Here are a couple of the quick shots I was able to get.  The area I was in was filling up quickly with water as it is a collection lake for runoff.  The water rose probably 6 inches from the time we go to the spot until we left.  I did collect one tick as well, which was surprising as I was there less than 15 minutes and the grass was cut very low.  Guess predictions were right that ticks are going to be very bad this year.

TWIP Sunset and God

I do love a good sunset.  Over the last week we have had a couple.  Being a busy dad, there hasn't been much opportunity to get out and shoot a sunset especially this summer with it running into the evening ours and night time routines.  Plus the NBA finals are on, so spending time with my sports loving son is much more important.  

Earlier last week, there was a doozy of a sunset coming our way and I thought it best to make an attempt to photograph it.  It was after all something I really enjoy, even if it is for 10 minutes.  

I stopped by a church in as I thought it would make a great backdrop for the sunset and started snapping away.  Having forgot my tripod, I had to work on my steadiness to make an HDR of this evening.  Filters were not available, so I was just working with the bare lens.  I shot a couple set of HDR with the Rokinon 14mm f/2.8 and then another set with the Canon 17-40mm f/4L just to get a little variety. 

Here are my two final images after running the 5 shot exposures through the now dead in the water Nik filters.  Hopefully I am still able to use these after the recent announcement by Google that they were no longer updating or supporting the filters that are so very popular amount the photography enthusiast.  

Top photo is taken with the Rokinon, bottom with the Canon.  As always, click on the photo to get a larger version.

TWIP Neale Woods Nature Hike

A photography friend and I took a recent trip to a local nature preserve called Neale Woods north of Omaha.  Ticks were plentiful and flowers were spars.  We did encounter one flower that was pretty plentiful, so I decided to try my focus stacking technique.  I knew that we would more than likely be taking photos of the same flower and in an attempt to be a little bit original, I thought I would do that.    Now the challenging part of the whole focus stacking in the wild, is there is nothing to brace yourself on unless you carried a walking stick or a monopod, the wind was blowing like crazy (which didn't play nice with my suddenly developed allergy), and I didn't want to walk to far into the grass for fear of coming home with a tick attached to every part of my body.  Ticks are plentiful this time of year and walking in a nature preserve by the river is always a wonderful spot to encounter these nice little #$@#$.  So with that, my attempts.  

I had a couple different runs at the same type of flower, but due to the wind, lining them up in photoshop took a lot more work that I was willing to spend. So grabbed one of the shots that I preferred and worked with it.  Below are the results.  I also caught a wild daisy during a slight halt in the wind. 

Next, I had recently purchased a Tiffen VariND filter.  For those who don't know what that is, it is a neutral density filter that you can turn from 2 stops to 8 stops.  For the novice, stops are the amount of light that the camera lets in.  Thus, using this filter along with my Fotodiox 10 stop neutral density filter, I was able to move the light from regular to 12 or up to 18 stops slower.  Why you ask?  There were clouds moving over head for most of the day and at 2pm in the afternoon, you really need to make it dark coming into the camera as possible to get the illusion of movement.  Not wanting to hold up others with us photographing things that day, I did a couple quick shots.  One was 2 minutes and one 90 seconds.  The two minute exposure, I was using the full 18 stops and it wasn't nearly long enough of an exposure.  I adjusted the exposure and stops using the VariND and 90 second brought out all of the shadows in the building and the grass, exposed the sky correctly, but blew out the clouds.  Now that I have an idea, I am going to try this spot again sometime for a more dedicated session.  Below is the photo to go with the story.

TWIP Verbena

I had some flowers come up in the back yard planted a very long time ago.  They never came up prior to this year, so I was pleased to see them.  Flowers bring an ever present opportunity to do a little photography.  I for one, enjoy photographing flowers, but not like most people.  I prefer to focus stack my photos to give the flower the most detail you can get get, while leaving the background a smooth and creamy look.  A very generous Facebook friend provided me with the name of these lovely little flowers,  Verbena.  

I decided to photograph each bloom's color for this blog.  Who knows, maybe I a nice coffee table book may come out of this idea.  Anyway, here are the shots if you haven't seen them already.  I intend to make a nice simple focus stacking tutorial for anyone who is interest.  I'll link it to this post and future focus stacking posts.

  

TWIP #2

I started this blog a long time ago to follow my photography journey.  I have neglected it for a very long time and feel that it may be time to begin again.  I have many photos on here from prior years and looking back, I would say I have vast improvement over my old self.  However, that being said, I have lots to learn and do to improve every day.  I was planning on doing a TWIP (this week in pictures) for my 52 week project.  I plan on posting 1 photo each week that I have taken that I deem to be a favorite.  I am going to use this as a motivation for making and improving my picture taking ability.  In addition, it will get me outside to actually take pictures which is something I have struggled with in the past couple months.  Making time for family, activities and work have really put a damper on my "getting out there".  So, this week we are experiencing a so called "icemageddon" storm that has shut down may locations around the midwest.  I captured this sunset pre-storm and would like to share it with all of you.

The clouds were really crazy, but were vanishing quickly as I headed to my location.  I was happy to capture these before they were gone.  Thank you for looking.

As always, you can click on the image for a larger size or go and visit my website.  

http://www.alderimages.com/sunset

Family Sessions

Well, fall is kind of winding down the with introduction of snow.  Leaves have pretty much made an exit for the year, but I was able to grab one last family before colors vanished.  This was a very early morning shoot and we happened to capture a little frost on the ground to make a very dynamic color pallet for some of these photos.  Thanks again for letting me spend time with the family and capture some memories for you!