In preparation for the upcoming spring/summer outdoor macro photography season, I recently got in some practice with HHFS (handheld focus stacked) butterfly images at the Niagara Butterfly Conservatory.
Category Archives: Animals
DxO Smart Lighting
DxO Smart Lighting is an adjustment that I use with all of my RAW files, regardless of the subject matter in my photographs. I can’t comment on the use of this function with larger sensor cameras, but I can say that I’ve found this tool to be very useful with all of my images captured with smaller sensor cameras like Nikon 1 and Olympus/OM System M4/3 equipment.
Local Bird Photography
For many folks, doing local bird photography is their best option from both cost and time commitment perspectives. Flying to an out-of-country location to spend a week with a professional photographer/guide to photograph exotic birds can be an exciting prospect. From a practical perspective it is simply out-of-reach financially for many of us.
Mid-March Birding
Mid-March birding can be a bit of a challenge in Southern Ontario since the spring bird migration is only in its earliest phase with robins and grackles starting to arrive. We are left with a limited number of species… many of which some folks do not find particularly exciting to photograph. Birds like Canada geese, gulls, fairly common ducks, swans, and small species like sparrows and chickadees.
Bird Kingdom Outtakes
This article features a selection of Bird Kingdom outtakes that were captured during an earlier visit when I was creating images for my 1200mm EFOV Test article. Photographing birds at an indoor facility with a equivalent field-of-view of 1200mm has some limitations, not the least of which is finding subject birds at suitable distances.
Intensive Practise Session
This article discusses a recent bird-in-flight, intensive practise session I did along the shoreline of Forty Mile Creek Park… and some of the planning that went into it.
In my mind, casually grabbing a camera and going out to create a few impromptu photographs does not constitute a practise session. There is no clear objective. There is no forethought or preparation. Nor is there any discipline involved with the activity.
Gulls Landing on Snow
This article features a selection of recent handheld images of gulls landing on snow along the shoreline of Forty Mile Creek Park.
1200mm EFOV Test
This article shares some 1200mm EFOV test images that were captured handheld at Bird Kingdom in Niagara Falls Canada. In an earlier article, Jigsaws or Drills, we discussed that prime lenses and zoom lenses are different types of tools.
Neither type is ‘better’ than the other, but simply more suited to specific photographic approaches. My preference has always been to own and use predominantly zoom lenses as they better suit my shooting style.
Jigsaws or Drills
Sometimes we get drawn into heated discussions, like deciding whether jigsaws or drills are the best woodworking tools. 🙂 I appreciate that some of you may be thinking that the comparison posed is ludicrous… perhaps even bordering on asinine. And yet as photographers… we sometimes get drawn into these types of pointless comparisons on a regular basis… especially in online chatrooms.
New Zealand Birds
This article shares a selection of photographs of New Zealand birds captured handheld with M.Zuiko 75-300 mm f/4.8-6.7 II and M.Zuiko PRO 12-100 mm f/4 IS zoom lenses. As regular readers know, I spent some time deciding on which lenses to bring on our recent photography tour of New Zealand… especially when it came to a birding lens.