Steve Ting Nature Photography

Today I was able to test my new Mark IV with a couple Harriers in flight. The Mark IV tracked the birds extremely well.

When photographing birds in flight it is generally best to use Manual Exposure. When shooting in Av or other Semi Auto mode the camera will change exposure depending on backgrounds.

To set your exposure set your Camera in Manual Mode, meter a mid tone scene and set your exposure based on the tones. The other option is just to shoot a couple test shots, check your in camera thumbnail and the histogram and then adjust your exposure. I like to shoot most BIF at a shutter speed of at least 1/1600. The aperture and ISO will need to be adjusted accordingly.

The following photo was taken at : ISO 800, f/4.0, 1/1600

A few more Harriers are on todays phlog post

I just purchased the new Canon 1D Mark IV and tested it on some local ducks today. I received the camera yesterday and it came with the latest firmware (1.06) installed. I was very happy with the focusing ability and the image quality from the camera. The camera had no problem acquiring and maintaining focus.

All of the ducks were taken in AI Servo mode with either the central point, or one of the peripheral focusing point active. When photographing ducks I try to keep the focus point closest to the eye the active point.

The photo of the Mallard below is an example from today. For more examples please visit today’s phlog post. As you can see the sky was overcast with flat lighting.

In my last post I posted a photo of a female Northern Flicker. I’ve been hoping that a male would come to my perch and this morning he showed up!

To set this photo up I drilled some holes in the side of a branch, then filled them with suet. After several days the birds found the suet and then I started watching to see if they had any pattern of when they were showing up. The only time they were showing up on a regular basis was just before sunup. Otherwise it was off and on throughout the day.

Since I didn’t want to sit and wait for hours until a bird came in, I chose to try for a pre-sun up shoot. Since there is no light from the sun that early I had to plan on shooting with flash. This meant using at least 2 flashes – one for the subject and one for the background. Setting up a flash set up like this sounds complicated, but once you do it a few times it isn’t really that difficult. I prefer to set my flashes on manual, since I feel that it is more predictable then using them in ETTL mode.

The set up is:

• 1 Flash on a tripod directed at the background (a tree). This flash is set on Slave mode to be triggered by the main flash.
• 1 Flash on camera for the subject and set as the Master flash.
• Exposure was ISO 400, 1/300 at f/8.0

Below is the male Flicker. The female can be seen at today’s Phlog post.

A couple cooperative birds in my yard today. Below is a Northern Flicker.

Ready for lift off!!

More photos of these two birds can be seen at today’s Phlog post

Spent this week at Virginia Lake shooting some ducks. When the majority of the lake is iced over this makes for good photo ops on the duck species that visits the lake. They are forced to smaller locations and tend to be closer to shore. One of the challenging aspects of photographing ducks in water like this is to isolate a single duck from the rest of the group. This is best done by setting up in one spot and then watching for one duck to become separated from the rest. Patience being the big key!

Below is a male Northern Shoveler

For more recent duck photos visit the following two phlog posts -
December 14, 2009
December 15, 2009

This is a photo of Rudy, our 3 year old lab that was having a blast running through the snow. When there is snow on the ground and the sun is out, you will often have to subtract around a stop of light due to the reflected light coming from the snow.

A juvenile Cooper’s Hawk landed on this piece of wood and spent the next 30 minutes grooming and terrorizing the quail that were trying to come in to the feeder area.

More photos on the December 9 Phlog

I spent a few days this week in the mountains near Wells, NV. The sheep winter in this area yearly. There were approximately 150 sheep in the area.The weather was clear yet cold with highs in the mid-20′s! The mornings were in the single digits. It was so cold that the moisture from my breath was building up as frost on the back of my camera.

Below is a photo of one of the Rams I photographed. For more photos please see the following two phlog entries.

2-December-2009
3-December-2009

I’ve posted some photos of some of the birds that come to the feeders in my yard today. Below is a winter plumage American Goldfinch, for more please see todays phlog.

One of our young chickens got out of his enclosure today. A young Cooper’s Hawk took advantage of this opportunity and had an afternoon meal at our expense. I was sorry to lose our young rooster, but at least I was able to get some photos of this young raptor.

I set my exposure for this photograph by choosing an aperture of f/8.0 which would give decent depth of field without losing too much shutter speed and still maintaining a good background blur. Then I set my shutter speed to 1/1250. This is + 1/3 stop from Sunny 16 based on an ISO of 400. I added the 1/3 stop because it was late afternoon light. After taking a few shots, I then checked my histogram and thumbnail and made sure the exposure was ok.

See my post on Sunny 16 if you need a review.

I’ve gotten away from using the in camera light meter, but if I was using it for this photo I would expect the in camera exposure to be pretty accurate without much compensation.

A couple more photos can be viewed on today’s phlog