Spring is near!

Hello Everyone,

I know last week I said I would rest this week but obviously I can’t do that. This Sunday I went to explore and area I been having an eye out for awhile. I typically look at reports and see what’s been spotted but even then is not a guarantee that you will see those birds you are searching for. Lately, I been looking for ducks. Not just any ducks I been searching for the wood duck. I love the colors of this duck and would love to capture a good photo of them. I been also trying trying to capture birds in action. This has been a real challenge for me as my camera suffers from capturing light and dynamic range. I will not stop though I know I will find a way around it. One thing I did noticed this weekend is the speed and ease I am having capturing photos. Before I would see a bird and start going through a checklist on my head on what I needed to do. But now, now is like second nature to me I point and shoot within seconds and I am more effective with it as well. I know a couple blogs back I was talking about how much gear I carry. Well now because of how comfortable I feel I just grab my camera, a couple of sd cards, and a range extender. However, I am thinking of not using the range extender anymore mostly because range extenders take away about two stops of light. So if your lens is able to do f5 in aperture once you connect the extender that is now an f10 lens. Any light I can gain helps my camera take sharper photos and helps blur that background quite a bit.

For those that may be starting photography or may not really know anything about photography here is a little breakdown of what I have learn. The basics of photography are simple at least that’s what I thought. The exposure triangle may sound very simple but it is not as simple as it sounds so bare with me as I hope to explain this to the best of my ability. First, lets start with ISO. ISO is the amount of light you are letting in to the camera. ISO effects how your image looks so most photographers will say keep your ISO low for best quality images. I believed that was true for so long. However, this might be an unpopular opinion but I do not shoot at ISO 100. When ever I can don’t get me wrong I prefer shooting at ISO 100 but if you are out shooting birds or wildlife you sometimes don’t have time to be tweaking settings on the fly as some of this animals only give you seconds to point and capture the photo. I use to put my camera on auto ISO but I was running into another issue with that. As I mention my camera struggles capturing light so any light I can get helps. But what my camera was doing is setting the ISO extremely high and I did not like that at all. The higher your ISO the more grain there will be in your photos. Auto ISO will work better in a more advance camera that have a high dynamic range and captures light very well so play around with your camera first. What ISO do I shoot in then? Well, I have been exploring with different settings and I have really found ISO 400 or ISO 800 to work perfect for me some where in that range my camera works well. I recently started shooting in aperture priority as well. What is aperture? aperture is that F number I was talking about. The aperture also controls how much light comes into your camera. It controls how much your shutter opens. The lower the F number the more light and the higher F numbers means less light. But that’s not all aperture also controls the amount of blur in an image. Usually, lenses already have a aperture that they are built for. For example, the lens I am using at the moment is a canon 100-400mm F4.5-5.6L. Meaning that the lowest aperture I can go is F4.5. The lower the F number in a lens the more expensive it is going to be as this lenses have a lot of technical parts in it that help you be as sharp as you can with your photos and also help bring more light to your camera sensor. I primarily shoot at F5.3 as I like my subjects to be in focus with a blurry background to erase any distractions. I shoot F11 when ever I do landscapes as I want everything to be in focus and with a lot of details. And the final important part of photography is the shutter speed. That’s very self explanatory. Shutter speed effects how long the shutter is open for. For waterfalls I typically use a slower shutter speed as I want that nice veil look on the water. And for bird photography I try not to get lower then 1/125 of a sec as anything below that can come out blurry specially with a moving subject. To freeze action I shoot 1/2000 of a sec or higher as I want the action to be frozen and subject to be sharp. However, my camera struggles to get up to 1/2000 mostly because it struggles to capture light so if I want to shoot at that rate I have to up my ISO. That is basically the basics of photography and knowing the exposure triangle goes along way to capturing good photos. The rest comes with time and repetition.

The red-bellied woodpecker is definitely a character. I run into this wonderful bird almost every time I am out on hikes. But they are extremely difficult to photograph as they are always on the move. For the longest time I believed they were called the red-headed woodpecker but I was so wrong. While yes they do have a red stripe on there head there cousins head are all red so they definitely deserve that name more. This woodpeckers actually have a red hue on there bellies is just super hard to see from far away. These woodpecker’s can stick there tongue out nearly 2 inches past there beak. The tip is barbed and there spit is very sticky this helps them snatch there prey from tight crevices. There diet mostly consist of arthropods but will eat nuts and fruits as well. These woodpeckers are known to eat more fruits then any of the other woodpeckers. The oldest red-bellied woodpecker on record was a male that was 12 years and 3 month old. They, like most woodpeckers are also known for stashing food for the winter. Woodpeckers are truly remarkable birds and they always add a splash of color while out on walks. Even if you don’t see them you are sure to hear them being very vocal while scavenging for food. These woodpeckers are not migratory as well they usually stick around in the same area for the whole year. This birds are common at bird feeders so help them out by setting up a couple of there favorite foods they are sure to appreciate it. Not to mention the huge help you provide to help them survive out in the wild.

That’s it for this week. I know is a bit of a short one but I been really tired so I haven’t really gone out to explore. Sunday I nearly had to call for help as I got a really bad pain on my leg and was unable to walk. Thankfully after stretching my foot a bit I was able to walk back to the car slowly but I made it back. I am trying to rest and most likely I will this week as there is a lot of rain on the forecast. Until next week I hope everyone has a wonderful week!