Sandhill Cranes and a bit more waterfowl

Once again today I headed to Ladner for some waterfowl photos. The weather was pretty much the same as yesterday...dull and overcast, but it beat staying inside watching daytime TV. Since the weather was the same, the behavior of the ducks was the same too. Hardly any flying so I just focused on the same type of shots as yesterday. Some Sandhill Cranes also made an appearance and were more photogenic than usual...waterfowl and crane photos to follow the paragraph below.

I would also like to take this time to explain my thoughts on overcast vs. sunny shooting conditions in regards to photographing wildlife. I'm sure those of you that read these regularly have noticed that my thoughts on shooting under overcast skies are normally pretty negative. While this may be true, this negativity is only in comparison to shooting on a sunny day. Once you've seen what photos look like in great light, why would you want to take photos with no direct/flat lighting? Well I'll tell you why. When it comes to wildlife photography, you have to understand that the birds and animals are going to do what they do regardless of the weather. Say you want photos of Grizzly Bears fishing for salmon in a river. Bears only feed on salmon in the rivers during a fairly short time span each year, sometimes as little as two weeks depending on the location and the salmon run that year. If it's rainy and there's horrible lighting, you're not just going to pass on shooting the bears that year. You just have to suck it up and realize that when it comes to wildlife photography, capturing the moment/action is more important than capturing only shots with perfect lighting. However if you can do both, all the power to you. Keep in mind all this good vs. bad lighting talk is only in reference to wildlife photography and is purely my thoughts on the subject. I've been guilty of passing up landscape shots due to poor weather on plenty of occasions because lets face it, a sunset on a heavily overcast/rainy day is very boring in comparison on one when the sun actually makes an appearance. Basically all I'm saying is don't let the weather stop you from getting the shots you want.

Alright so now for today's photos. I'll start with the waterfowl ones...

1/750 @ f/5.6, 400mm, ISO 800

1/350 @ f/5.6, 400mm, ISO 800

1/750 @ f/5.6, 400mm, ISO 800

1/1500 @ f/5.6, 400mm, ISO 800

1/500 @ f/5.6, 400mm, ISO 800

1/500 @ f/5.6, 400mm, ISO 800

1/1000 @ f/5.6, 400mm, ISO 800

1/1500 @ f/5.6, 400mm, ISO 800, +1.oev

As I mentioned above, I had some Sandhill Cranes land near me and was lucky enough to get some shots of them....here they are.

1/180 @ f/6.7, 400mm, ISO 800, +1.0ev

1/500 @ f/5.6, 400mm, ISO 800

1/500 @ f/5.6, 400mm, ISO 800

1/350 @ f/5.6, 400mm, ISO 800

1/500 @ f/5.6, 400mm, ISO 800

1/500 @ f/5.6, 400mm, ISO 800

Thanks for reading!

www.brandonbroderick.com

First Waterfowl Shots of 2010

This past week I've been at home resting up after yet another concussion so this morning I decided to get some fresh air, and my first waterfowl photos of the new year. It was raining in North Van so I headed to Ladner in hopes of better weather. It was raining there when I first arrived but it stopped shortly after and actually cleared up a bit and presented me with some amazing light...for about 45 seconds. Okay that might be a bit of an exaggeration about how little time I had decent light, but it honestly didn't last very long.

For some reason the ducks weren't flying much today. It could have been weather related but I'm not 100% sure. I mean with the overcast conditions it wasn't optimal for flight shots anyways so I wasn't too disappointed. So without them flying, I decided to just focus on behavioral shots. Preening, fluffing their feathers, diving, stretching...stuff like that. Here are some of the shots.

1/750 @ f/5.6, 400mm, ISO 1000

1/3000 @ f/5.6, 400mm, ISO 640, -0.5ev

1/750 @ f/5.6, 400mm, ISO 640

1/1000 @ f/5.6, 400mm, ISO 640

1/1000 @ f/5.6, 400mm, ISO 640

1/2000 @ f/5.6, 370mm, ISO 640

1/2000 @ f/5.6, 300mm, ISO 640

When the weather did finally clear for a few minutes I did happen to get a flight shot...here it is

1/3000 @ f/5.6, 400mm, ISO 640

The rest of the photos from my day can be found here

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=2916210&id=61927899276

Thanks for reading,

Brandon Broderick

www.brandonbroderick.com

Waterfowl Training Session

With winter being the optimal time to photograph waterfowl, I need to be ready for it when it arrives. Back in my last post I mentioned I was at the Reifel Migratory Bird Sanctuary in Ladner, BC doing a bit of a scouting run. I did take a few photos while there but I was more or less just testing the waters...bad joke, I know. Anyways yesterday and today I went back for the purpose of actually taking some pictures.

Yesterday I went from 2-4p.m. and was presented with some fairly decent light, but some pretty boring/lazy ducks. They were still doing their typical water based events, however flight was limited. And with no flying taking place, I had to photograph them doing something else. So yesterday was mostly behavioral photos.

1/1500 @ f/8, ISO 640, 400mm

Today I decided to head to Reifel for morning light. However there wasn't much. There was this layer of clouds that seemed to follow the sun across the sky, which is sub-par for photography. But, with it still being early in the waterfowl photography season, and this being a test run (making sure I know what I'm doing before the shots that count present themselves), I still decided to stay and take a few photos...642 to be exact. Now you may be asking yourself, "642 photos!?!? That's going to be a lot of editing!" And if in fact you did just ask yourself that, my answer to you is, No. 642 photos in poor lighting of some pretty lazy birds equals 3 keeper photos. And I'm still not entirely happy with those photos. If you follow my blog, you'll eventually learn that I'm really really picky about photos I decide to keep and not trash. As mentioned above, the birds were lazy again. Not much flying going on so again, I just shot random behavior stuff, such as this one of a pair of American Wigeon.

1/750 @ f/6.7, ISO 640, 350mm

Well that's about it for this post. The rest of the photos can be found here http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=109190&id=61927899276&ref=mf