Showing posts with label flowers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label flowers. Show all posts

Wednesday, August 30, 2017

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.












Saturday, July 29, 2017

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.

Saturday, June 10, 2017

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.









  

Thursday, June 18, 2015

Russ and Chelsea

The last couple of weekends I have had the pleasure of spending time with this couple.  Capturing the moments and details of their special day has been nothing short of a fantastic experience.  I normal try to pick a couple photos from the day to display, but since it was over a two weekend timeframe I have more photos that I know what to do with.  So here are some of my favorites from the wedding and reception!  

Congratulations again to the Bride and Groom!!!

Please select the photo to view in a larger gallery!  That way you get to see all of the awesomeness!