Skomer Island Puffin

Skomer Puffin

This is a picture of a wistful looking Puffin taken on Skomer Island off the West coast of Wales. Only 250 people are allowed on to the island each day and no booking is allowed. You have to arrive at the ferry very early in the morning to ensure your place.

On the island there is a wide variety of wildlife, mostly sea birds, but including owls and mammals.

I was there to see the Puffins in particular having not seen one before. They were all in one area on the south west of the island where they nest in burrows on a cliff top. The island was still covered in Bluebells and Campion (seen in this pic).

I will definitely be going back at some point in time. It is too good not to.

Kit: Canon EOS 7D EF 70-200 + 1.4x f/4 @ 1/1600 ISO 200

More of my photos can be seen at FLICKR.

Eurasian Jay (Garrulus glandarius)

This is a picture of a jay taken on a feeder in my back garden. The love peanuts, monkey nuts and sunflower seeds. During preparation for winter they will bury up to 10,000 nuts around their patch for them to go back to during the hard times. They will remember where they have put up to 9,500 of those.

These birds are very skittish and will not come into the garden if any of my windows are open so for this shot I had the camera on a tripod with a USB lead coming back in to the house through a small window. I then used canon’s utility to focus and take the shot. You get plenty of time as they will put up to 10 peanuts in their crop and then a few more in their beak before flying off.

Kit: Canon EOS 5DII EF300mm @ f/4 @ 1/1250s ISO 640

More of my photos can be seen at FLICKR.

Long Eared Owl

This is a picture of a long eared owl taken at the Hawk Conservancy nr Andover in Hampshire.

Because I am so close to the bird and using a longish focal length of 300mm, the depth of field is quite shallow. It does give a nice smooth background though. It is vital in shots like this to have the eye in focus (the near eye if two are visible but it is not possible to get them both in focus).

The hard part of this shot was getting that close. A friendly falconer was the key. Once there, I stepped down to f/5.6 for a little more depth of field. If I had thought a bit more, I would have taken the ISO down to 500 and the shutter speed to 1/640 to match but I was rushed so used what I had already setup. It is a little noisy but not too bad.

Kit: Canon EOS 7D 70-300mm f/5.6 @ 1/1250s ISO 1000

More of my photos can be seen at FLICKR.

Bushy Park Deer Rut

This is a picture of a young Red Deer taken in Bushy Park, West London. October and November see a period called the ‘rut’ during which time the males vie for females to add to their harem of hinds and also to defend or enhance their status. Most of the time this is carried out by posturing and barking at other deer with the occasional charge to ward off the young pretenders. Sometimes it will escalate into a fight during which the deer will literally ‘lock horns’ in an attempt to down the opposition.

Clearly it is not wise to get to close to the deer during this period as they are prone to stop fighting each other and turn on the onlookers as several people can attest. 300mm will get you plenty of full frame action shots. Get there for first light and try to catch the condensation on their breath backlit by the sun.

Kit: Canon EOS 1Div EF 500mm f/4 @ 1/500s ISO 1250

More of my photos can be seen at FLICKR.

London Fashion Weekend – Somerset House

This model is parading at the London Fashion Weekend AW12 Trend show. She is wearing a design by Zoe Boomer who is an upcoming designer from Northern Ireland.

I got an invite to shoot the show from Canon. Gratefully accepted and turned up on the day for my first taste of fashion shooting.

A few basic rules: Get a full length, 3/4 length and head & shoulders of each ensemble. No showing the soles of shoes. Should always try to get both feet on the floor when walking so time the shots to coincide with the front foot touching down. AI servo focus to track the model. Focus point over the eye. F/4 or f/5.6 to ensure any clothing extending in front of the model is in focus.

No flash required as the ambient was very bright. As the lights were all the same and very constant, white balance was measured at 3100K and set manually to ensure consistent results throughout the show.

Kit: Canon EOS 1Div, EF 70-200mm F/2.8 @f/4 with 1.4x converter, 1/640, ISO 400, custom white balance set to 3100K

More of my photos can be seen at FLICKR.

Arizona Monsoon daytime storm

I took a trip over to Arizona earlier this year to capture the majesty of severe lightning storms during the monsoon. This is a daytime strike taken near the border with New Mexico in a town called San Simon. Daytime lightning is a bit harder to get than night time due to the requirements of longish exposure while there is a lot of light. Also due to the timing required in order to catch the strike.

Due to the way a lightning strike works an exposure time of 1/4 to 1/3 of a second is required. In summary, a strike begins with ‘stepped leaders’ looking for a path to ground. Once this is found, the main discharge takes place in stages. All this takes up to 300 milliseconds. If your shutter speed is faster than this, you won’t catch the whole discharge and the strike will look incomplete. The challenge is to get the shutter open as soon as the strike begins.

I use a variable ND filter to control the light levels.

My setup is as follows:
Set the camera to ISO 100, F11 1/3 second. I then set the variable ND to it’s lightest setting (which is about 2 stops darker than no filter). Setup the scene required, focus on the subject and then adjust the ND filter until the internal meter shows that the exposure is correct.

At this point the camera will get the shot as long as it is triggered at the right time. You can use a wired remote and try to do it manually. I have managed to get strikes like this in the past but it is not at all easy. I use a “Lightning Trigger” (http://www.lightningtrigger.com/). It sits in the hotshoe and plugs into the cameras remote port. It ‘sees’ the light level change with the start of the strike and trips the shutter . Reaction time is about 5 micro seconds so very quick indeed. The camera then opens the shutter but there is a delay in doing this of about 60 milliseconds (this varies from camera to camera). This still leaves about 240 milliseconds of the strike to be captured. It will capture about 50% of the strikes. I have found the cheaper triggers sold on eBay to have a lower success rate.

Once that is set you can stand back and enjoy the storm while the trigger does the work.

The hairs that accompany the main strike are there only for the very start of the strike so often do not appear in daytime shots. In the image above you can see quite a few hairs on the right hand one. This was due to the trigger being activated by the left hand strike but then the right hand one following almost immediately and so, the hairs were caught. Pure luck.

A tripod is essential and you may need some weight attached to it as it is often windy around the storms.

Kit: Canon EOS 7D  EF 15-85 ISO 100 1/3 second @ F/11

More of my photos can be seen at FLICKR.

Arizona Monsoon storm

I took a trip over to Arizona earlier this year to capture the majesty of severe lightning storms during the monsoon. This is a night time strike taken near the border with New Mexico in a town called San Simon. Night lightning is relatively easy to capture the hardest part being the focus. I usually look for any feature that can be seen in the distance such as lights in houses, on antenna etc and then use live view on the back of my Canon in order to manually focus. I set ISO to 100 and then aperture from f/5.6 to f/11 depending on the brightness of the storm. This is just a judgement based on looking at the strikes. It’s not complex – 5.6 for dim, 8 for normal and 11 for bright.

Then, using a wired remote I open the shutter, wait until there is a strike and then close the shutter and reopen it straight away. It might only take a second, it might take 20. If there has been no strike for about 20 seconds, I close and reopen the shutter anyway. This keeps noise levels down. I check the first few for focus and adjust as required. Also look to see if the light is washing out the pixels next to the strike – if it is, go down another stop to control this.

Once that is done you just stand up and enjoy the storm while closing and reopening the shutter after each strike.

The hairs that accompany the main strike are there only for the very start of the strike however, because your shutter is already open you catch them. You normally don’t’ see these in daytime shots.

A tripod is essential and you may need some weight attached to it as it is often windy around the storms.

Kit: Canon EOS 7D  EF 15-85 10 seconds @ F/5.6

More of my photos can be seen at FLICKR.

Wild Red Kite

This is a picture of a wild red kite (Milvus Milvus) taken from Watlington Hill in Oxfordshire in the UK. The kites use the wind rushing up the side of the hill to gain lift and will happily cruise on the breeze just yards above your head. Depending on the wind direction, they do sometimes fly below you meaning you can get shots with farmland and trees in the background.

There is no great secret to taking these shots. Wait long enough and they will arrive and fly around.

Kit:  Canon 1Div, EF 300mm F2.8 at F/4, 1/3200s

More of my photos can be seen at FLICKR.

Valentino “The Doctor” Rossi

This is Valentino Rossi on his Ducati at the 2012 MotoGP race at Silverstone in the UK. He is exiting the first part of Club Corner heading for the new start / finish straight. It had been very wet in the morning session and it looked like we would not get to see the bikes ridden to their potential but after lunch the sun came out, the wind blew and the track dried. Then we got a show of bike control from these masters of the art.

This is taken from the stand at Club corner but because I used a 500mm lens, this has reduced the angle making it look like I was actually closer to the side of the track. I chose this corner as they are moving relatively slowly although still at a high lean angle. I chose this part of the corner to reduce the amount of movement relative to me in an effort to keep the image sharp. 1/4000sec shutter also helps there 🙂

Kit: Canon EOS 1Div EF 500mm F/4 1/4000sec @ F/5.6

More of my photos can be seen at FLICKR.

Greater Spotted Woodpecker – Dendrocopos Major

This adult Greater Spotted Woodpecker (Dendrocopos Major) was taken in the garden of a friend of mine in Hampshire in the UK. There are woods close by where the birds live and after 8 months of trying to lure them into the garden to feed, she succeeded. There are small holes in the trunk of the Silver Birch that have food in them just out of sight of the camera. This entices the Woodpeckers to stay for a few minutes at a time while extracting all the food allowing for excellent photo opportunity. This was taken from a small hide set up about 15 feet from the birds.

Kit: Canon EOS 1Div EF 300 f/2.8 1/2000 sec @ F/5.6

More of my photos can be seen at FLICKR.