… he says, with a touch of self-consciousness and insecurity.
First off, an apology for being away as long as I have, especially when I said I’d be following the progress of the hawks. I’d actually started this post many days ago, but while it was in draft form, a little over a week back, I was away for the day and the hawk fledglings chose that day to leave the nest. I’d been monitoring their progress by their size and feathers, and while they were big enough, I didn’t think their feather coverage was adequate yet – so much for my judgment. I have seen no sign of them since, though I occasionally hear an adult sounding off with territorial cries, but basically I lost a lot of desire to follow up when I had zilcho to follow up with. Just for the sake of it, I’m going ahead with the original post immediately below.
You might have noticed that the photos of the red-shouldered hawk family are not up to the same quality seen throughout the blog and main site; if you haven’t, well, good, but your eyes suck. As a regular visitor to Why Evolution Is True and his featuring of readers’ wildlife photos a few times a week, I don’t even bother submitting the hawk photos since I feel they’re not up to the standards already set therein.
I’d like them to be better myself of course, but it likely isn’t going to happen anytime soon, and isn’t possible right now. Here’s why.
First off, recognize that the nest is fairly distant, and even my longest lens doesn’t get all that ‘close’ – the Sigma 170-500mm can only do so much. The image to the right is full-frame, my typical view in the viewfinder before cropping down to provide a better image of the subjects. Then, autofocus is out of the question; even in the center of the frame, the distance of everything that it might lock onto varies by several meters, so it’s much better to go with manual focus where I know it’s on precisely the subject I want it to be on, and can’t suddenly decide to wander off to something else right as interesting behavior is being displayed.
But the viewfinder is only so clear; the catchlight in the eyes, visible in the top, cropped version of the same image, is barely visible when I’m focusing, and that’s only when the hawks are in a position and the light is bright enough to provide this, which isn’t often. At all other times, I’m trying to nail sharpest focus by picking the speckled plumage, or the edge of a beak. There’s too much room for slop.
The Sigma 170-500 is an ‘okay’ performer – all right for non-critical uses, but not up to the quality of many other lenses. All of those cost quite a bit more, however, and I have a simple operating principle. While I take my nature photography seriously, it brings in a very limited income, and amounts to just slightly more than a hobby; I make more from students than I do from selling these images. It would be nice to think that, by investing in a better lens, I’ll get more income, but the macro lenses I use are ridiculously sharp and haven’t been resulting in more sales, so that assumption isn’t holding up. I don’t have a lot of disposable income and am notably frugal; if it will pay for itself, I’ll drop the money, but that isn’t being demonstrated, and I have more important things to direct that money towards.
Then there are the traits of the lens itself. It gets noticeably sharper as it’s stopped down to f11 or so, and backed off slightly from 500mm. Stopping down, naturally, means longer shutter speeds or a higher ISO, both of which can degrade the image. It’s easy enough for the hawks to move just a little during a slower shutter speed and blur themselves away from critical sharpness, to say nothing of the tree swaying. Also, the focus ring is designed with a very short travel, handy for quick focusing, but it means that a very small twitch can make the difference between ideal focus and being far enough off to wreck image quality.
Since I’m 183 cm in height (6 feet,) the tripod has to be tall to hold the camera at eye level, more so when it’s aimed up and thus should be slightly higher. But the higher and more extended the tripod, the more vibration it’s prone to. The simple improvement for this was to move a handy chair to my shooting location and lower the tripod down to eye-level when seated; I could have lowered it further and just sat on the ground too, but my shooting location was not ideal for this.
All of these present things to consider when pursuing nature photography. One can spend a lot of money on it, but even the best lenses won’t overcome all of these issues, and there will always be a situation that exceeds the capabilities of one’s equipment. As I’ve always recommended, the first thing that you do is concentrate on overcoming the limitations with what’s immediately available: stabilizing the lens and camera more, or getting closer (or more light.) Using the equipment in its optimal configurations, like stopping down the aperture. Finding subjects that are more ideally situated. There is often a lot that can be done first without throwing new equipment (and thus more money) at the problem. And on top of this, it helps to know what the equipment can do for you, and what it can’t. While another 100mm in focal length is nice, it’s not that much more magnification, and if it comes at the expense of sharpness or maximum aperture, it won’t improve things much, if at all.
And all of it depends on how cooperative, or not, your subjects are ;-)
Anyone is free to pick on me regarding my definition of ‘abstract’ for this one, and I won’t argue – it doesn’t really fit with my own definition. But it’s what I have from a month that included few choices for a month-end abstract. This fritillary butterfly, which might be a Speyeria hydaspe, went well against the streaked background, which is actually a stand of pitcher plants in the botanical garden, same location and day as my copperhead encounter from the previous post. I spotted this butterfly from the other side, and it was patient enough (or whatever quality you’d like to assign) to wait while I switched sides for a better view. You get to see the results when this works out; many times it doesn’t, and my subject vanishes before I can compose the image to my liking. So it goes – there will be other subjects and other opportunities. But I do have to say that I’ve gotten a lot better at stalking, having a decent grasp of what will spook off a living subject and what won’t – it’s not perfect, but it has increased my capture rate. Patience and moving slowly are extremely important, and just have to be a constant habit of any nature photographer.
How to identify a copperhead. Copperheads have a distinctive pattern which can be easily discerned in multiple ways. The dark part of the pattern is hourglass-shaped, with the ‘waist’ of the hourglass falling along the spine. Seen from the side only, this may look like Hershey’s kisses. The pattern has a very ‘airbrushed’ look, fading rapidly from the edges, more so than any other species. Alone among North Carolina snakes (and possibly North America – not sure,) the dark portion of the pattern is thinnest along the spine; in every other species, the dark portion is broadest. And finally, the top of the head has no markings whatsoever, and is all one color. All of these can be seen immediately from any distance, and often with only a portion of the snake’s body visible.
The chicks are getting quite sizable now, able to move about with almost the same agility as the adults and often seen standing upright near the edge of the nest. The baby down is giving way to the flight feathers in the wings and tail, but the main body feathers (called ‘coverts’) have yet to appear, which means the parents still hover over them on wet or chilly days. The body feathers are primary protection against the elements, forming both a water-resistant barrier and an outer layer that can trap their own body heat within; lacking these, they will rely on the parents for a while longer. Yet the growing surety of their movements and the alertness with which they view their surroundings is a marked change from just a week ago, not to mention that they’re surprisingly close to the adults in size now. I haven’t watched them for a long enough period to determine exactly how much they’re eating, but it certainly isn’t trivial.
When the action started I simply held the shutter release down and let the frames crank out. Later on, I took fourteen consecutive frames and edited them into this animated gif (pronounced “gorbachev”) because it shows the amusing struggle much better. Yes, video would be even better – drop me a donation through that ‘Feed the gator’ widget to the right and we’ll see what I can do. In the meantime, we’ll carry on with the still photos.
It seemed like any other day where I’d been neglecting my photo sorting duties and thus facing the daunting task of going through hundreds of images, but as they say, things can seem perfectly normal (if slightly guilty) yet suddenly turn dark and ominous. And of course, since I’d been putting this off, how much time has passed that could have made a bigger difference? How much farther along in an undoubtedly sinister plan have we been carried, due to my neglect? Or are we in the nick of time, now aware of something that might easily have passed, quite literally, under our noses?
The hatched Chinese mantises (Tenodera sinensis) that I posted about earlier – and near-perpetually on this blog, really – have spread out across the front yard to some fairly remote locations; remote, at least, for something that measures 10mm in body length. Above, one stalks among the leaves of a creeping jenny plant, while at left another peers suspiciously at a glimpse of activity from the opposite side of its day lily leaf, apparently unaware that a sibling was perched there. They are, if nothing else, getting plenty of water, since we haven’t gone three days without rain since they’ve hatched, but as yet I haven’t seen them with any prey, related or otherwise. This doesn’t mean much – I have only seen mantids with prey a handful of times, but I’ve watched them grow huge in the meantime, so they’re obviously not waiting until I’m present.
Many of these photos look like they were taken at night, which is generally not the case. The cause is the camera settings: at these magnifications the range of sharp focus is very short, so I opt for a small aperture, usually f16, to increase depth of field. Camera shake can also be an issue, so I shoot at 1/200 second shutter speed, and count on the flash to provide the light that allows both of these to be functional; without it, the images would be drastically underexposed. And in fact, they are – but only for the backgrounds where the flash doesn’t reach, dispersed by the softbox attachment. There are two ways to combat this: have the background very close so that it can be illuminated by the flash too (this usually means an added leaf or something,) or have a secondary light that illuminates the background at the same time. This can be done, but it’s awkward, and changing position means the light has to be moved too, which obviously limits the spontaneity and grabbing the brief but compelling action of the ambulatory subject. What I usually aim to do is have something that can sit immediately behind the subject, like a nearby leaf, but otherwise not worry about the rest. As you can see, it’s easy to have one’s subject framed against pure blackness, which only works for some subjects – darker ones, naturally, can nearly disappear in such conditions, so I’m often picky about my shooting angle, and won’t even bother with some shots because I know they won’t turn out very well.
By the way, The Girlfriend was present for this session, unlike most other times, and she provided a bit of scale by putting her fingertip in the path of one of the newborns as it made a circuit of the same planter that held the egg case. Had she moved her finger towards the mantis, it would have shied off in alarm, but leaving her finger in place while the mantis approached was just fine; shame I missed the focus. In my defense, their movement will bring them into and out of focus in a moment, and this was the only frame where the fingertip appeared – it serves its purpose here, crap though it is. We’ll need this impression (about size, I mean) as we go in even closer.
One of the two resident common snapping turtles (Chelydra serpentina) was peeking out of the water while I was around, one of the very few times I’ve seen this – their shyness is way out of proportion to their reputation and even just their appearance, but the ‘expression’ in this particular image is up for interpretation; I can see a lot of different possibilities, and I’m betting you could too if I were to merely suggest them to you, but I’d rather you take a good look on your own without the impressions. I liked the faintly eye-bending effect of the water’s distortion, where the portions above the surface look normal but everything below gets shifted in perspective and reshapes the turtle’s head – for a more natural view 
In contrast to the startled appearance of the anole at top, this American five-lined skink (Plestiodon fasciatus) watched us creeping closer with little apparent concern, at times seeming to drift off into slumber. Eventually, we got close enough that it figured concealment was called for and it slipped into a crack in the rock sculpture that you see here, but not before we got a fine selection of images. It’s all about going slow, and getting the shots you can before you try to get closer. Not everything that you get is going to be a keeper, but it’s better to get an okay shot from a short distance than to try and get close enough for the best pics and scare the subject away instead, ending up with nothing at all.
While the skink was drifting off, this one was almost certainly well beyond that point. This red-bellied water snake (Nerodia erythrogaster) was sitting in plain sight right alongside the raised walkway, never even twitching as we leaned in close. Even with frequent exposure to humans, I find it hard to believe the snake was that conditioned to close approaches, but here’s the crucial factor: snakes have no eyelids. Basking as it was in a patch of bright sunlight, this one most likely was fast asleep, and our slow approach without throwing a shadow across its face wasn’t enough to trigger any protective response. Add in the raised walkway we were on the entire time, preventing us from producing any vibrations that the snake could feel (they don’t have ears, either,) and you get a distinct possibility that the snake was deep in Dreamland, or whatever passes for such with a snake (Carl Sagan’s book The Dragons of Eden gives some interesting speculations about how reptile brains actually work, if you have the interest – dreaming seems relatively unlikely.)
