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

Sunrise, Cranes, and very few Eagles

Early this past week the weatherman was calling for perfect weather this weekend. And I can't be the only one out there that is a little skeptical when I see the weather forecast 5 days in advance. However for some crazy reason, the weatherman was right and today it was beautiful out. It was freezing cold, but just blue skies and sun. With the weather being so rainy/overcast here all winter, I had to take advantage of such a nice day and decided to take pictures from sunrise to sundown.

I'm not sure why, but for sunrise photos I decided to head to a place an hour from North Van...Tsawwassen. This meant getting up extra early, but once I was finally awake, it wasn't so bad. I was originally planning on taking some photos of the sunrise itself, but with no clouds in the sky, it was pretty bland. However the scenes I did capture really illustrate the temperature and the beauty of the sunrise.

1/4 @ f/22, ISO 200, 17mm, -2.0ev

1/250 @ f/11, ISO 400, 60mm, -1.0ev

1/60 @ f/22, ISO 400, 60mm

After the sunrise photo session I headed to Ladner once again to try for some waterfowl shots. I did accomplish my goal and managed a few waterfowl photos, but some Sandhill Cranes caught my attention so I ended up focussing on them. I don't have many shots of the cranes so it was a hard opportunity to pass up.

Here are some of the waterfowl shots. This first one is a female Wigeon on thin ice.

1/1000 @ f/5.6, ISO 500, 400mm, -0.5ev

This one actually came out pretty cool. It's a mallard taking off from the ice.

1/2000 @ f/5.6, ISO 400, 300mm, -0.5ev

This ended up being the only decent flight shot of the day. It's a female Pintail.

1/1000 @ f/5.6, ISO 400, 400mm, -0.5ev

I started off the waterfowl photos with a shot of a female Wigeon on thin ice, so I'll close it off with this shot of a drake Wigeon in the same situation.

1/1500 @ f/8, ISO 400, 400mm, -0.5ev

Alright so now for the Sandhill Crane shots. There's not much to say about them so enjoy.

1/4000 @ f/5.6, ISO 500, 400mm, -0.5ev

1/4000 @ f/5.6, ISO 500, 400mm, -0.5ev

1/4000 @ f/5.6, ISO 500, 400mm, -0.5ev

1/1500 @ f/5.6, ISO 500, 400mm

From Ladner I made the long trip out to Harrison to hopefully find some eagles. Eagles were found, just nowhere near the shoreline. There were some really strong winds and most of the eagles took advantage of them and just soared high above the valley. The ones that weren't in the air were sitting on some sand flats out in the middle of the river, far beyond the reach of my lens.

The photo below is the only decent shot I got in Harrison. It's 2 eagles attempting to lock talons. They didn't end up locking up but if you look closely you can see the one eagle is actually grabbing onto the tail feathers of the other.

1/4000 @ f/5.6, ISO 400, 400mm

Well that does it for my December 5th photo blog. Tomorrow I'm in search of some coyotes to photograph so keep an eye out for that blog...maybe a video too.

www.brandonbroderick.com