It dawned on me today that I have never written a blog entry on what equipment I have in my bag, how I pack, and how I prepare for a shoot. So, I guess there is no better time than now.

Location Preparation

I believe the most important component to preparing for the trip is in location preparation. For my trip to Florida, I first checked out the internet, via our friend "Google", for information regarding birding in Florida. This would include topics such as "winter birding locations", temperature and what kinds of species I might encounter.  After the basic searching, I will then narrow my search by looking for hot spots already discovered by fellow birders and photographers.  For example, searching on "Florida Birds Arthur Morris" turns up a myriad of locations since Art is a well known and published bird photographer.

Once I find a location where I think I will have the best chances of cranking out some great images, I will then use mapping software to see how long it will take to drive it or fly it and what kind of obstacles I might encounter.  For example, in Florida there are both toll roads and costs to get into parks.  I wouldn't want to get caught without the cash to even get into the national or local park.  If I am going to a national park I will often go onto YouTube and see if anyone has shot video of the area so I can get a better feel for how  the terrain and lighting will look.

As I get closer to the trip I will do one more check of the weather.  I am specifically looking for sun direction, wind speed and wind direction.  Why do I do this?  First, the direction of the sun is crucial to better wildlife images.  When the sun is low and coming in over your shoulder it produces a soft, golden light, directly onto your subject. Next, wind speed and specifically direction is important to determine which way a bird will take off and land.  Birds always take off and land into the wind and often they will stand into the wind as well to avoid getting their feathers ruffled.

Packing my Gear

Ah this is the fun part.  Every photographer likes his gear. This is an area where you will get as many opinions as there are photographers but this is what I pack:

• Canon EOS 7D Body (Primary body)
• Canon EOS 1D Mark II (old body but great for backup and birds in flight)
• Tamron 70-300mm SP VC (A light, sharp lens when the super telephoto is just too much. Also serves as a backup lens)
• Sigma 150-600mm Contemporary - This is a light, sharp, super telephoto zoom.  This thing is the real deal, and very important for staying out of the fight or flight zone of wildlife and creating better bokeh.
• Canon 50mm 1.8 II (sharp, cheap and versatile) - I use this with extension tubes for macro work.
• Canon 10-18mm IS - I use this as my primary landscape lens.  I am NOT in love with this lens but it does the job with some decent post production work.  If you can afford something better don't buy it.
• Kenko PRO 300 DG 1.4x TC - This teleconverter, when attached to my 600 gives me an effective length of 1300mm !!  Beware you will get some image degradation.  This is normal with TCs.
• Cheap wireless shutter release - you can pick this Chinese made shutter releases on Amazon all day long but it works quite well.
• Tiffen Polarizer Filter and Step Rings - I use the polarizer when I am shooting waterfalls to remove the glare on the rocks.  I consider this filter essential.
• Opteka Autofocus Extension Tube Set - A cheap extension tube set, but they get the job done when I need to shoot macro with my 50mm.
• Manfratto 3221 Tripod - I can't say enough great things about this tripod.  It is no longer made, but has served me since the mid-1990s.
• Bogen 3030 Pan Tilt Head - A great all purpose tripod head which can even be used as a poor man's gimble head in a pinch. This item is no longer made, but can be found on the used market.
• Grizzly Camera Bean Bag - I can use this bean bag as a saddle over my car door and rest my long telephotos on it for great support.  It can also be used on the ground.
• 3 LP-E6 Batteries - Even shooting heavily I can get through an entire day of shooting with these batteries.
• 2 MP-E3 Batteries - These are use for my Canon 1D Mark II.
• Battery Chargers for both camera bodies
• 4 Compact Flash Cards - used primarily in my 7D. UDMA 7 are the best version for the 7D.
• 4 SD Cards - I only use these in my 1D Mark II along with a backup CF card.
• Emergency Blanket - A light and small item which might help save your life if trapped in the car or in the woods.
• Small LED Flashlight - Great for finding the settings on the camera in the dark and checking out the trail.
• Lens Cleaner and Cloths
• Lens Pen
• Hunting Knife - The knife can be used for protection, but I have it in case I get lost or need to cut something in the field.

Note that I have two bags.  One bag I put all my backup gear in, and one backpack I actually wear on my shoulders. I leave the backup gear in the car.  Both my bags are sprayed with camp dry to keep them waterproof. Make sure you take your gear out of the bag before spaying the silicone and let it dry thoroughly.

 

Arriving at the Location

Plan your arrival time based on your research conducted during the preparation phase of the trip.  For example, you want to shoot in the best lighting for animals and this is not usually in the middle of the day.  Don't roll out of bed a 10:00 am and expect to get great shots during the heat of the day.  Get up before dawn and be at your location no later than daybreak.

If this is a location you have never been to before, realize that it will take some time to get acclimated and find the animals.  If possible stop by the park ranger's office to find out where the wildlife currently is and what species are plentiful.  You might burn up a couple crucial hours of shooting, but the time could pay off for you in better shots that evening.

Finally, and above all,  be patient.  If you can't sit still and wait on your subject, then wildlife photography is not for you.  It can take hours to get only one good shot!

I hope this was helpful for you when planning your next wildlife shoot.  So now get out there, have fun and shoot!  

Normally my newsletter has completely different content than on my blog, but I so enjoyed my trip to Huntington Beach State Park in South Carolina that I felt it was worth sending out via a newsletter.  Essentially, it is a diary of the morning shoot, which I think will appeal to both the wildlife enthusiast and the photographer.  So without further adieu...   Huntington Beach State Park  (Sigma 150-600mm C Part 2)   A cold, dark morning awaited us as Rick (my brother) and I left the comfort of our hotel rooms, loaded up our gear and began our 50 minute drive to Huntington Beach State Park in South Carolina. Our conversations were typical and ranged from Myrtle Beach questions to talk about the latest gear. It's always an exciting time for me to be off to a new shooting location and probably the only relief Rick got from my excessive talking was when I occasionally took a sip of hot coffee.  Did I mention it was cold? The trip seemed to take forever, but we finally arrived at the park and paid the $5.00 per person entrance fee. The sun was up now and probably a little higher than I would normally like, but it was still low enough to illuminate our subjects with the warm glow I so like in early morning.   Directly past the gate, the forest area opened up to a lovely view of a vast salt marsh, and a bridge to cross it.  It was here that we saw our first bird.  Off to the left, I could make out a tall white bird wading through the salt marsh. From this distance it looked like some kind of egret.  As we began  to cross the bridge other wading birds came into view.  My excitement grew and I wanted to jump out of the van right there, but since no one else was parked here, I continued on across the bridge to the parking area. I don't think Rick was nearly as excited as I was, but I could tell the birds had peaked his interest as well. Since we were past the peak season for tourists, the parking not was empty, but I could see a few photographers and birders milling around. After parking, I jumped out and started breaking out the gear.  The Sigma 150-600 was mounted on my Canon 7D and the 7D was mounted on my Manfratto 3221 tripod.  I let Rick borrow my Tamron 70-300 VC since he didn't have a telephoto with this reach.  With tripods on our shoulders we headed back toward the bridge and settled down for the shoot.   I left my camera mounted on a tripod and lined up the great egret in my viewfinder.  The light was beautiful and coming in from the east over the ocean.  The egret was lit perfectly, and I began to fire away in 3 shot bursts. The shot below was one of the first of the morning.  It was shot at ISO 250, f6.3 and 1/2500th of a second.   The auto-focus speed was fast and accurate just I had seen in my initial testing of the lens.  I should also note that I did very little to correct contrast since the lighting was so great. It is worth noting that shooting a white bird on a dark background is a bit of a trick. After shooting the great egret for a while I got down low on my belly and started working the snowy egrets. The one I photographed mostly was a young egret as seen in the photograph below.  The camera was no longer tripod mounted and I was particular interested in how it performed hand held.  Of course, right off the bat the tripod collar was in my way so I spun it around so the foot was on top.  The tripod collar can be removed, but since I was shooting both handheld and tripod mounted, I elected to leave it in position. Tech Tip:  How to Expose for White Birds on a Dark Background Having a white bird on a dark background is one of the most challenging exposure scenarios a wildlife photographer will encounter. If the bird is completely white, as is the case with the snowy egret, then he can expose for the highlights by spot metering the bird on the side illuminated by the sun.  Generally speaking this will give you a good exposure, but may darken the background considerably as it does above. Actually I really like this look for the most part, but you can also bracket your shot to give you a bit more detail in the water.  The important part to remember is to not overexpose the highlights too much.  If the information is lost in the highlights then you will not be able to recover them in post processing. Rick and I continued to work this area as there were several different species of wading bird congregating here.  One of the birds making its way in toward my position was a tricolored heron.  I had never seen a tricolored heron in the field before, so this was a treat for me. This tricolored heron was also shot handheld at ISO 160, f5.6, 1/1250th of a second.   We finished up this area by shooting another bird I had never seen before.  At first I thought it was some kind of ibis, but a local birder informed me it was a wood stork.  Here you have kind of an exposure nightmare as you have very bright wings and a dark head.  In order to capture this image, I metered for the highlights and opened up a bit to bring out more detail in the head and feet. Because of the need to add more detail in the head, this dropped the shutter down to 1/400th of a second. At this point I was back to being tripod mounted. Moving on from the bridge area, we drove north, to a long pier which extends out across a large section of the marsh.  Here we saw more of the same wading birds.  Rick got bogged down talking to a local birder so while he was running interference, I began to photograph another snowy egret who was hunting off to the north of the pier.  I really liked the shot below as it gives us a nice clean background and a nice reflection from the egret.   Rick continued to talk to the birder so I continued down to the end of the pier.  Off to the southwest there was a large wooden structure and perched on top was another great egret.  The egret was in a fairly interesting position here so I thought I would post the final image.  I like the simple background here as well.   After photographing the great egret, I waited patiently at the end of the pier just taking in the beauty of God's creation and the salty smell of the marsh.  It was such an utterly calming experience that words cannot do it justice.  My patience was rewarded by a small flock of black-crested cormorants flying over. I singled this one out for my only bird in flight keeper.  I used the center point for focus and the focus speed was decent.  I honestly think the new Canon 100-400L would have locked on faster, but I was pleased with the performance.  Shot at ISO 200, 1/2000th of a second, f6.3, 600mm.   It was about 9:30 now and the sun was moving higher in the sky and would start giving us unfavorable shadows and contrast so we decided to move on.  The next stop was "the jetty."  This man made structure extends out into the ocean and is often a place where birds congregate so Rick and I thought we should make the trek.  We drove up to the far northern parking lot, disembarked and began our 1 mile walk out to the jetty.  This beach walk was amazing and beautiful.  A beach untouched by the mega hotels and resorts.  It was like we were on our own private island. We arrived at the jetty and it was quite disappointing. There were no birds to speak of except for gulls, terns and a few ruddy turnstones.  As anyone who is into wildlife viewing will tell you, this is just part of the game. Sometimes you will see a ton of birds and sometimes you will not. I did manage to make this shot of a ruddy turnstone.  Well that was all she wrote for this trip.  The sun reached 10:00 am and with it the harsh lighting.  Had this been on the west coast we could have continued to shoot shorebirds on the beach, but they were too back-lit this early.  Note that once the sun crosses over into the 1:00pm angle you can shoot shorebirds the rest of the day on the east because the beach acts like a giant reflector.  Similar to shooting in snow. By the time we made it back to the car we were pretty tired and ready to head back to the hotel.  Whatever you do, don't push yourself so hard that you begin to hate photography.  I hope to make this scouting trip into a week long trip sometime in the future and overall I was pleased with the amount of birds. Conclusion The Sigma 150-600 C is definitely a keeper in my book and frankly I believe it would compete with the "L" quality lenses.  What I really liked in this shoot was the ability to zoom.  There were times it came in really handy and I would have missed the shot with a fixed focal length lens. I also really enjoyed the contrast and colors produced by this lens.  Don't be fooled into thinking this lens is second rate just because it is a third party lens.  This lens is sharp and in the 300 to 400mm range it is very sharp.  Don't forget to check in next month when I head down to Florida for some winter birding photography.  Whatever you do, get our there and have fun shooting!   Well, I hope you enjoyed the story on Huntington Beach as much as I enjoyed being there.  If you enjoy my blogs and newsletters consider supporting my effort by buying one of my fine art images from my Etsy Store   If nothing else I hope I inspire you get outside and experience the true wonders that God's creation brings us!   My Website: http://www.mattcuda.com My Blog: http://www.mattcuda.com/index.php?/essays/ For anyone not subscribed tho this newsletter because it is forwarded to you by others, you may sign up at the this link:  http://mattcuda.com/index.php?/pages/newsletter-signup/ To purchase any of my prints please use the following link: https://www.etsy.com/shop/MattCuda

Copyright © 2015 Matt Cuda, All rights reserved.

I read an interesting blog about letting men be men and boys be boys and that triggered me to do some additional thinking on the subject that I thought I would share.  Specifically why do many men naturally have an urge to be "at one" with nature, hunt, fish, and hike?  Even men who play games such as World of Warcraft end up virtually hunting, fishing and hiking.  It seems to be hard wired right into us, but why?

Well, I think to answer that question we have to go all the way back to the beginning.  Now, the way some of you believe, going back to the beginning means that you were once a slimy critter making its way out of some tar pit, but for me, being one of those pesky Christians,  I am going back to Genesis.  Specifically let's go back to Genesis 2.

Genesis 2:8 Now the Lord God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed.9 The Lord God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground—trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

So now we have man put right there in the middle of a bunch of trees, which of course grew fruit and nuts on them to eat.  So now God has solved man's first crisis, which is how to keep his belly full. You know what?  Man has wanted to keep that belly full every since.  Men love to eat!

Genesis 2:10 A river watering the garden flowed from Eden; from there it was separated into four headwaters. 11 The name of the first is the Pishon; it winds through the entire land of Havilah, where there is gold. 12 (The gold of that land is good; aromatic resin[d] and onyx are also there.) 13 The name of the second river is the Gihon; it winds through the entire land of Cush.[e] 14 The name of the third river is the Tigris; it runs along the east side of Ashur. And the fourth river is the Euphrates.

OK, you tell me.  What is the next thing men like?  Water sports such as kayaking, fishing (not in vogue yet),  and swimming come to mind.  A river running right through eden and splitting off into four other rivers provided quite a bit of entertainment.  Specifically God solved several problems:  eating, drinking and recreation.  Hey maybe Adam even got into a little gold crafting so he could give Eve a nice ring.

Genesis 2:15 The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.

Wow, no wonder so many men like growing gardens and farming in the great outdoors.  This was the primary way man grew the food he needed and gave himself purpose for thousands of years.  Only now do we see this once great occupation dwindling away in the face of technology.

Genesis 2:19 Now the Lord God had formed out of the ground all the wild animals and all the birds in the sky. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature,that was its name. 20 So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds in the sky and all the wild animals.

Well this one is a no brainer!  We are still naming animals to this day.  In fact, there are whole occupations devoted to naming and observing animals.  Did you ever hear of a biologist or ornithologist?  We even give the animals fancy latin names because we just can't stop with the common name.  I'd say naming critters was hard wired into man right from the beginning. Hunting, although not part of the pre-sin garden is really just a means to attain food and observe nature.  How many men hunt, are into bird watching or like the idea of roaming through the woods in search of critters they have never seen?

Can you imagine a powerful bengal tiger or the massive grizzly bear walking up to Adam and looking at him as if he was saying "ok boss, name me." Maybe after he named the tiger, it gave him a little nuzzle and wandered off into the garden. How cool would that have been?

Eventually woman was created by God and she was made to complete the man.  She did a really good job of it until she and Adam sinned.  Now thousands of years later, man still wants to name his animals and tend to the garden, but the woman wants the man to hang out with her.  So you see that is why man does what he does. He is being called back to the relationship with God and his duty to name animals and grow things.

Now some of this is a little tongue in cheek, but honestly these are the roots of the man.  It is still here within us today. Perhaps not as pure as it was then, but it is still there calling to us.  Our modern world full of cube farms, social media and cell phones leave little room to accommodate the ancient call of the wild, but we can still get out there and discover what God made for us all those years ago.  Yes it is a fallen world so don't expect some tiger to come wandering up to you for naming, but we can still observe and enjoy and I highly recommend doing it.

No, I am not saying dump your job and I am not against cell phones.  I have one and love it, but do yourself a favor and know when to put the machine aside and just take in His magical creation.  I have a slogan in my photography: Creation is Art.  If you want to experience real art made from the ultimate artist then step into the forest and let God's art renew your energy and purpose.  Just make sure you put some bug spray on because some of his art bites.

In my last blog post "Mostly, it's a Shutter Thing", I talked about how important shutter speed is to capture great shots of wildlife and other action genres. In this post, I will talk about how important aperture is and how it can be used creatively in wildlife photographs.

A Quick Aperture Primer

Shutter speed controls how long the shutter stays open and exposes the sensor or film to light. Aperture also controls how the light hits the sensor, and it does this by controlling the amount of light coming through the lens. Back when film was popular, the lenses had an aperture ring on the barrel measured in stops of light. The higher the f-stop number, the smaller the aperture and the smaller the amount of light getting through to the sensor.  The lower the f-stop number, the larger the aperture and the greater the amount of light getting through to the sensor.  In modern cameras, the f-stop is controlled electronically and for the most part there is no f-stop ring on the lens, but all the concepts are still the same.

  So that handles the exposure part of controlling aperture, but there is also another benefit to your photography the aperture can provide.  This benefit is called depth of field.  Put plainly, depth of field is the area in sharp focus in front or behind the subject to which you have focused the lens.  High f-stop numbers give you greater depth of field and lower f-stop numbers give you a shallow depth of field.  So that photograph of the flower you like, that has a very dreamy and blurred look on the petals, but has  a sharp center was created using a lower f-stop.  By using this f-stop, the photographer allowed the viewer to see a very small depth of field accentuating the pistil or stamen of the flower.  Conversely, that beautiful scenic you love where the entire image is in focus from the foreground to the background is using a large f-stop number like f16. 

Turning Aperture into Art

In wildlife, the primary way to artistically use your aperture is by using the depth of field to isolate the subject.  What, isolate the subject?  How does that work?  Remember the flower mentioned above and how the stamen was and the flower's petals were out of focus? The same principle applies here except you are going to use the shallow depth of field to blur out the background and remove the distracting elements.  To do this, open up your aperture as far as it will go.  On most large lenses this will be between f4 and f5.6.  Now, here is the big secret that many people get wrong.  The distance between the camera lens and the subject matters a lot, as does the distance between the subject and the background.  Let's run through a scenario...

Close Subject Less than 10 Feet Away

In this scenario, we are usually in a blind or photographing a bird or mammal who has tame qualities.  Maybe you are on your belly at the beach photographing a plover for instance.  In this case, even at f5.6, you are so close to the subject, your background only needs to be a 15 to 20 feet behind the subject and you start to see quite a bit of background blur.  This is one of the main reasons photographers, even with 600mm lenses, get as close to the subject as practical.  As the distance from the lens to the subject increases so must the distance from your subject to the background to maintain the blurred background. The house finch below was shot only 5 feet from the lens giving the background a nice gradient blur.  Even at f8 the background is blurred because of the close proximity to the subject.

What does it look like when you don't quite nail it?

Although, not a failed image by any means, this image below shows what happens when the distance from the lens, to the subject and subject to the background is too great.  Note how we have blur, but not significant enough blur to simplify the background.  In this image, I had to actually burn in the background to try to simplify.  I really did not have a choice here and often times you won't, but I always try to simplify it whenever possible.

Conclusion

Aperture can be use to control your exposure, but also to creatively control the depth of field in the image.  This is one of the oldest and most used tools in the wildlife photographer's back of tricks.  Give it and try and see what happens.  Oh and above all, have fun!

I am looking forward to great month of photography here in the Piedmont of North Carolina.  First, the Winston-Salem airshow will take place on September 13 and 14th.  This is always a good time of photography and spectating as the power of flight unfolds before my eyes  Next, the broad winged hawks will be making there annual migration throughout the month of September and often stop by Pilot Mountain or just fly over it on their way to their final destination.  This is a good opportunity to talk to other birding enthusiasts or try to capture a few photographs. Next, I just published the best of my work to Fine Art America where prints can be published without having the hassle of contacting me directly. Finally, I just posted my latest blog article on how to use "zone focusing" when photographing wildlife.  If you know anyone who would be interesting in receiving this newsletter in the future please forward this email to them and they can sign up using the link below.   My Website: http://www.mattcuda.com My Blog: http://www.mattcuda.com/index.php?/essays/ To purchase any of my prints please use the following links: http://www.mattcuda.com/index.php?/pages/buy-songbird-images/ http://www.mattcuda.com/index.php?/pages/order-raptor-images/ http://mattcuda.com/index.php?/pages/order-waterfall-images/ http://fineartamerica.com/profiles/matt-cuda.html

With many years of photography under my belt now, and several years as a wildlife photographer, I can honestly say that shutter speed will make you or break you in this genre. In this post I will examine why the shutter is so crucial in wildlife as well as other action photography disciplines.

The shutter in your camera is quite a powerful and useful tool. From a technical perspective, the shutter mechanism is simply a set curtains that open and close for a certain period of time. This action allows light to hit the film or sensor for a measurement we call shutter speed. For example, a shutter speed of 1/500 causes the shutter to open for 1/500th of a second exposing the sensor. Essentially the shutter controls the time of exposure and the aperture controls what is in focus in the scene. OK, so that is the technical, but why is the shutter operation so vital to understand?

Stopping the Action

First, let's talk about high shutter speeds and what they can do for us. A high shutter speed, in my book, is any speed set at 1/500th or higher.  Using a high shutter speed is vital for capturing fast action shots and freezing the subject, but how can you know how fast is fast enough?  My answer to this is quite simple. Use as fast a shutter speed as you possibly can.  Generally, I keep my camera set on manual at 1/1000th of a second, aperture wide open and an ISO of 400( when it is stowed in the camera bag).  This gives me a good starting point in case I need to use my camera suddenly.  If I know before hand that I am going out to shoot birds in flight, or running deer, I will set my camera to shutter priority and start at about 1/1600 and auto ISO.  In order to stop the bird's wings, I will need at least 1/1000th, but I prefer to get as close to 1/2000th as possible.  Once I am there and shooting, I usually switch over to manual so I can fine tune the exposure better.  With my 7D, I also set the auto-ISO threshold to 1600 speed because the APS-C sensor is slightly more prone to noise problems. 

Why are my Animal Pictures so Blurry!

This is a question I get from beginning photographers, and primarily,  what they are seeing is not a focus issue ,but rather it is a problem called camera shake.  Camera shake is caused by having a shutter speed which is long enough to capture the movement caused by hand holding the camera and lens. Humans do not do very well holding something in front of them for any period of time and their muscles weaken causing the camera to move while exposing the shot.  Even tripod mounted, micro-vibrations can cause camera shake with long lenses.  Camera shake is truly the enemy all all photographers, and wildlife photographers are no exception.  In order to fully discuss this evil foe, I want to break down two scenarios to help you understand the problem.

• Low Light and Long Lens -  in this scenario, we have a subject which is in low light such as early morning and we are using a lens in the 400-600mm range.  First, I highly recommend you have your camera and lens mounted on a tripod when shooting with long lenses in general.  The tripod will help to reduce shake caused by hand holding.  Next, rest your left hand on the lens barrel between the tripod collar and the camera body.  This will keep micro-vibrations from causing camera shake. Do not press the left hand down hard on the lens as this could damage the lens or lens mount.  Just rest it gently. Finally, rest your finger on the shutter release button breath in, slowly exhale and hold your breath while firing the shutter.  The bear picture below was shot using the above technique. I had a shutter speed of only 1/100 and was mounted on a tripod.  That is a very low shutter speed and should not be attempted hand held or with a moving subject.
• Mid-morning Daylight and a Long Lens - in this scenario we have good mid-morning light and are shooting with a lens in the 400-600 range. This is the conditions I was in when shooting the osprey above. At At this point, we have stronger light which means you can shoot at higher shutter speeds, but now you have a choice. Do you shoot on a tripod or not?  For me, I am going to shoot handheld whenever possible.  Shooting handheld allows me to be faster and to frame my subject better, but it is not always the right choice.  There are variables to consider such as the weight of the camera and lens, the predictability of the subject, and what are acceptable noise levels. To help answer the tripod question ask yourself this:  Can I get a shutter speed high enough to keep camera shake at bay and freeze the action?  If you can achieve 1/1000 of a second or higher than you may be able to hand hold the lens correctly.  Remember that we are talking about big lenses here.  My 600mm becomes effectively a 960mm when used on my 7D and weights about 6 pounds when the camera is attached. That is the weight of a new born baby!  That focal length will be a huge increase in magnification over your typical 200mm telephoto.  Remember, magnification increases the movement of the camera and causes camera shake.  Honestly,  to shoot handheld even in these conditions, I am going to need at least 1/1600 for me to feel comfortable.  I am not saying you couldn't pull off shooting a bit slower, but my goal is to go home with the shot, not a bunch of blurry images.

Conclusion

This blog post gives you a quick view of how to improve your wildlife image quality and keeper rate.  As time goes on and you improve your photography, you will find your own combinations and scenarios which work best for you.  Here is a summary of my best practices....

• Keep your shutter speed high(1/500 to 1/2000) to reduce camera shake with long lenses.
• When tripod mounted, rest your left hand on the lens barrel between the tripod ring and the camera body to reduce micro-vibrations.
• Do not shoot handheld birds in flight at less than 1/1000th of a second (unless going for artistic blur, but that's another blog post).
• Big lenses magnify any type of movement more than smaller lenses so keep the shutter speed high.
• Don't be afraid to use higher ISO to get higher shutter speeds.  Of course this is within reason. I recommend capping the ISO at 1600.
• Above all, have fun!

It was a long trip and I was almost at the end of my nine hour journey to visit my family in Pennsylvania. My brother had called me and told them to meet them at a specific exit and they would take us all out to eat as part of an anniversary celebration for mom and dad. I pulled into a parking lot just off the exit and got out of the car to stretch my weary legs.  It was a typical parking lot near a wooded area and gas station.  People were milling around, buying gas and also stretching their legs.

As I leaned back against the side of the car I heard a faint call to my right.  I wasn't sure exactly what it was, but I knew that it was a raptor.  I figured Rick and his family would still be a few minutes so off I went with camera in hand to investigate the activity.  I walked across a small paved road and started into a clearing just beyond the first row of trees and there they were.  Two ospreys in flight and two perched on nesting platforms. I put the camera to my eye and snapped a couple distant documentation shots in time to see my brothers car pull in near mine at the now distant parking lot.  Quite excited, I ran over and told him about the encounter.

We had a nice meal at the restaurant and I thoroughly enjoyed getting to see my family once again and catching up, but nagging in the back of my mind were the ospreys.  I had determined as soon as I saw them that I was going back the next morning and capture what I could with my somewhat inadequate 70-300.  Although a good lens it is not good at tracking birds in flight or getting close to them for that matter.  My mom also loves birds so it was nice to also talk to her about them and let her know where they were.

The next morning as dawn broke I was on the road heading toward the parking lot and hoping that the ospreys were still there.  It was a beautiful morning and as I passed by the lake a bald eagle could be seen perched on a dead tree overlooking the lake.  Finally, I arrived at the parking lot, grabbed my camera and extra battery and cards and made my way through the trees and up a hill to the nesting platforms.  I worked my way up very slowly as to not startle the birds too much and finally came to a deer lay and settled in about 30 yards away.  It is important to note that it is against the law to be at close proximity to raptors and it also is stressful to be that close for any period of time.  I actually agree with this law and take great precaution to not stress the bird out and cause them to abandon a nest.  In this case they had already fledged their young and were just using the nest as a perch.

It was nice just to sit there on the side of the hill and take in all the scenery and sounds. I could hear and see the occasional tanager and gold finch and even a critter or two rustling through the underbrush.  The area was alive with wildlife.  One osprey was perched on the nesting box pole and was completely relaxed in my presence. The others flew off to do some fishing. About every 45 minutes they would return and I would snap a few photographs of those majestic birds. Some would circle, some would land and some would head back out to fish once again.  This pattern went on for several hours until the morning light was finally gone and I headed back to the car.

The experience was better by far than my photographs and my takeaway from this adventure is to always have your camera ready for the next encounter because you never know when the perfect opportunity will arise.  Now I have a location on my list where I can go back and be totally prepared. Below are a couple shots from the encounter.