Tripod holes 19

Al Denelsbeck

green heron Butorides virescens on swamp plants in Audubon Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary, Florida
N 26°22’37.94″ W 81°36’28.29″ Google Earth Location

While this image isn’t stunning, it represents two things: a place you should definitely visit, and one of my specific ‘branding’ images that presently illustrates one of my many business cards. I don’t have many businesses, just a wide variety of cards, because what kind of fool sticks to just one? Sheesh. Also, the location isn’t precise, being somewhere within a few hundred meters, but close enough for our purposes, since it was taken from the boardwalk of the Audubon Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary near Naples, Florida. Actually, it’s not near anything, being way out in the upper Everglades, but that’s the point, and my plots are close enough because you’ll be walking the entire boardwalk there anyway. Almost the entire circuit is heavily shrouded in trees without landmarks of any kind, so while I remember this small pool (yes, it is a pool, chock-full of plants right here,) and the immense activity therein, I’m just not exactly sure what point along the boardwalk it resides on. I do recall that at least six species of waders were fishing enthusiastically in a very small area, and that one small alligator was hanging out nearby. An absolutely fascinating place, and in the years since, I’ve seen some excellent photos taken by others there.

On this trip, I’d decided on the name, “Wading-In Photography,” and was getting my marketing materials together, so I was purposefully aiming for some illustrative photos, and it was a good trip to do this – I shot some 24 rolls of slides within a week, an awful lot of them quite pleasing to me, and you’ll see more in later Tripod Holes installments. Nowadays this might not seem like a lot – 864 images, which I exceeded on a single outing this past Friday – but with film, since every frame costs you money, you tend to be more selective about how often you trip the shutter and how likely the image will be solid. This one was shot even wider than this, to allow room for the card text, and for that purpose I digitally washed out the swamp cabbage leaves (actually I’m not sure what plant those are) so they wouldn’t interfere with the text.

This also wasn’t my first green heron (Butorides virescens,) but it was the first close and detailed view of them, along with both species of night herons, tricolored herons, great egrets, common egrets, and wood storks (Mycteria americana,) which were doing this great display of fishing behavior, foraging along with a wing raised to throw a shadow that would scare the fish into motion.

wood stork Mycteria americana fishing in pool within Audubon Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary, Florida
One of my bigger regrets was failing to see this spot on the last trip to Florida, far too long ago, but The Girlfriend and I removed it from the list because we’d already seen Big Cypress Bend, when the Everglades were suffering from the drought and were little but mud; we knew Corkscrew Swamp would be unimpressive in those conditions.

But if there hasn’t been a drought, go – it’s well worth the time.

Tried to slip one past, eh?

Al Denelsbeck

As usual, I had several egg cases of praying mantids to keep an eye on around the yard this spring: one Chinese mantis, two that I suspected were European mantis brought down from NY, and three Carolina mantis. One of the Carolina’s vanished over the winter, perhaps found by mice or something (this was before I’d mounted them on new stalks to keep them out of reach of squirrels.) Both European mantis cases disappeared at different times, one just after I’d mounted it nearly two months ago, and the other only a couple weeks back, I suspect (from the nearby grazing damage) the victim of deer wandering in our front yard. That left two Carolina and one Chinese to watch, the latter being one naturally deposited by last year’s brood on one of the rosemary plants in the yard. The Carolina mantids hatch about a month later than the Chinese, so they’re not quite due yet.

I was watching the rosemary, but neglected to check on one particular day when it was unseasonably cold and overcast, when I surmised that they wouldn’t possibly hatch in those conditions. I was wrong.

recently hatched egg case ootheca of Chinese mantis Tenodera sinensis
The next morning I found the telltale ‘beard’ of chitin or membranes that are shed by the mantids just after hatching, what informed sources tell me is likely a vitelline membrane that encases the embryo. You can see the string that I used to hold the branch up at a more visible angle, and the leaf that got incorporated into the ootheca by the mother during production. Yet, there wasn’t the faintest sign of newborns to be found, despite it now being much warmer and sunnier conditions.

In fact, it took days before The Girlfriend and I finally found a handful on the same plant, though I didn’t have the camera in hand then, and once I’d returned a day later, I couldn’t find them again. This might, in part, have been due to the frequency that the temperatures have dropped quite low overnight, forcing the mantids down into the depths of the plant and/or the leaf litter beneath to remain warmer. I did find a minuscule crab spider though:

possible white-banded crab spider Misumenoides formosipes on rosemary leaf
It’s always hard to positively identify young crab spiders, and this one was small indeed, but I’m guessing it’s a white-banded crab spider (Misumenoides formosipes.) Just barely big enough to pose as a threat to the newborn mantids, this certainly wasn’t the cause of the disappearance of dozens of them, since it would be considerably bigger and fatter had that happened. At this size, it might also serve as prey to the mantids instead – depends on who’s quicker, I think.

It wasn’t until well over a week later that I finally got the chance to photograph one of them on the rosemary.

newborn Chinese mantis Tenodera sinensis on rosemary leaves
So, the first of the local brood of Chinese mantis (Tenodera sinensis) posed semi-obligingly for the camera, but few of them seem to be using the plant anymore, and I couldn’t say whether they’re still hiding, have fallen prey to songirds (of which plenty are visiting the yard right now,) or have simply dispersed. I have been finding some in other areas.

newborn Chinese mantis Tenodera sinensis on Japanese maple leaves
The Japanese maple near the front door, setting of so many of my images for the past nine years, hosts several of them. I had examined the low, broad tree a couple of times through the winter specifically for oothecae (the proper plural,) but I don’t think it ever fully shed its leaves so there may have been a spot to hide one, or the evergreen cleyera immediately adjacent could easily have concealed quite a few. Just across from this, a bed of ivy, daffodils, and vinca also sported a few newborns.

newborn Chinese mantis Tenodera sinensis on vinca leaf
Overall length doesn’t top 12mm, closer to 8-9 (I never got out the scale – they were spooky enough.) Was this part of the brood from that ootheca up there, or from one that I never found? I haven’t gotten the impression that they spread out very quickly, but it’s not impossible, so who knows? If anyone has an easy way to distinguish baby mantids, well, it would still be pointless in this case because I never saw them hatch.

newborn Chinese mantis Tenodera sinensis on vinca leaf
But I have a few to monitor now, with the butterfly bushes coming into bloom so we’ll see if any move to the fertile feeding grounds that those provide – not the flowers themselves of course, but the various arthropods attracted by them. The Carolina mantis oothecae are nearly due to hatch so I’m watching those, and come fall, I’ll see if my suspicions pay off and a new egg case appears on the rosemary – perhaps this will be the year that I finally snag photos of the production of one. Onward goes the gripping saga, as they say (no one says that, least of all about bugs.)

One week to prepare

Al Denelsbeck

Well, a little less now, because I’m posting this later than I should, but next Saturday, May 13th, is World Migratory Bird Day for the Americas, so make your plans now. For once, we have no traveling that falls around that weekend, though my own schedule flanking it is a little booked, so we’ll see what happens.

pair of double-crested cormorants Nannopterum auritum perched on pilings
It’s not like I don’t get the chance to photograph migratory birds on other days anyway – you’re about to see a bunch more shortly – but maybe I can slip in something more than photography. So for now, we have some images from the past few days: a pair of female double-crested cormorants (Nannopterum auritum) above, and a chipping sparrow (Spizella passerina) below.

chipping sparrow Spizella passerina with captured spider prey
I got a bit lucky with this one, seeing it foraging in the shadows near sunset yesterday, and tracked it until it entered the low golden light, whereupon it snagged a spider for a meal. But we also have to see the details of the body plumage:

back plumage of chipping sparrow Spizella passerina
Isn’t that slick? I wonder if I can find a jacket like that…

Anyway, you have a week, kinda. Make some plans and have at it!

More Friday color

Al Denelsbeck

We’ve done Friday color before, two, no, three times, and a Friday night color, all several years back now so we’re due, right? Most of these came from a visit to the NC Botanical Garden, wow, over a week ago, and a couple are even older, yet I’m finally getting around to uploading them now – Slackass, thy name is Al. But one is from yesterday, so I’ll just say they were waiting for a complete set…

We’ll start with some local ones.

pansy Viola × wittrockiana in front planter
This was one of The Girlfriend’s pansies (Viola × wittrockiana) in the front planter – no great shakes here, the damaged petals weren’t working for me, and I was about to discard the frames during sorting when I noticed some tiny details.

pansy Viola × wittrockiana closeup showing tiny ants collecting nectar
I had no idea they were even there when I took the photo, finding them only at high magnification, so instead of discarding, the images went into the Arthropods folder (actually, Arthropods 7, since I limit the folders to about 4,000 images to make indexing and searching a little easier – tells you how many insect images I have.)

cluster of columbine Aquilegia canadensis hairy-stem spiderwort Tradescantia hirsuticaulis and smooth meadow parsnip Thaspium trifoliatum blossoms
All growing close together nicely, the red ones are columbine (Aquilegia canadensis,) the blue ones are hairy-stem spiderwort (Tradescantia hirsuticaulis,) and the yellow are smooth meadow parsnip (Thaspium trifoliatum.) I say these with the utter confidence that no one cares, or is even reading, but at least I’ve photographed such species there before so they seem like reasonable identifications. Though, you know, if you’re in some high-stakes trivia game or a life-or-death challenge involving dangling scythe blades that demands a precise identification, well, sorry…

dwarf violet iris Iris verna in front of unidentified red flower buds
The blue one in the front is, I believe, a dwarf violet iris (Iris verna,) mostly because the yellow bits aren’t raised, while the red lobes in the back remain unidentified. The NC Botanical Garden features all native plants, but the NC Wildflower Database doesn’t show anything even remotely like this – it remains possible that, in bloom, they’re a different color. But anyway, the two colors contrasted nicely. We’ll need a closer look at one of the irises, though.

dwarf violet iris Iris verna blossom
Call it whatever color name you like, it’s a lot of it. The day was hazy to the point of being overcast, softening the light and contrast enough to make all those little details stand out well, without bleaching or overdark shadows. Don’t do colorful or nuanced subjects in bright light.

To contrast that, we have one from Walkabout Estates.

pineweed Hypericum gentianoides blossom in front of bigleaf periwinkle Vinca major blossom
The yellow one is likely pineweed (Hypericum gentianoides,) quite small and sparse, but it lined up nicely with the bigleaf periwinkle (Vinca major) in the background – or at least it did with a bit of maneuvering. The light was bright and direct, though, and you can see how it affected the colors and reduced nearly all of the subtleties – what remains comes simply from the sunlight hitting at a very oblique angle. The periwinkle in the background, by the way, I’ve probably identified as five or six different species over the years, but this one seems closest (so far.) Again, dangling scythes…

One last.

ripe fruit of Oregon grape holly Mahonia aquifolium
I’ve shown this before, since it sits near the end of our road, but this is an Oregon grape holly (Mahonia aquifolium,) which blooms very early in the year and comes to fruit at this time. I’ve never attempted to try one, and the deer seem to avoid it, so I imagine it isn’t tasty, but it looks cool, especially with a few residual raindrops.

I have critters, too, that will be along shortly, plus an outing later on today that may net some more stuff. ‘Tis spring!

Robbed

Al Denelsbeck

Today is apparently a holiday of sorts, or at least one of those days that seems to merit special attention solely because of the numbers that represent it: May 4th, or, “May the fourth be with you.” Star Wars Day. Granted, there isn’t much that goes on, save for social media and the occasional post (ahem,) but you know, even that would have been welcome thirty, forty years ago, had either such thing existed. You see, I was a Star Wars fan from the moment I saw it in the theater, or theaters, because I saw it multiple times on its first run, and so you know, Star Wars refers to the first movie – that ‘A New Hope’ bullshit didn’t appear for years afterward, once George Lucas figured out that the movie not only wasn’t bombing, it was becoming a brand – he was trying to create a ‘Lord of the Rings’ thing after the fact. And I can tell you, in that time period while Star Wars and the two sequels were tearing up the box office, people that were ‘into’ Star Wars were still widely considered nerds and basement dwellers. Wearing a Star Wars shirt, having a model kit of R2-D2, making any reference at all to the characters or quotes or whatever, was decidedly uncool. Granted, I was in high school at that time and it took no effort at all to be considered uncool, because teenage insecurity and pissing up trees is typical, more so in the late seventies in a rural farm area.

Yet now we have a day for it. There are Lego kits of the Millennium Falcon and Star Destroyers costing hundreds of dollars being bought routinely. One of the more popular streaming shows is spun off from the lamest character from the original trilogy (seriously, Boba Fett was hyped significantly for his appearance as a new villain in the second film, to have two lines I believe, only to die as comic relief in the third, with a belch even.)

It’s funny, because I no longer follow it all, and couldn’t possibly be considered a fanboy of any sort – I’m not even sure how many movies there are anymore, to say nothing of the streaming series and the animated stuff. But I would have appreciated the current popularity back a few decades ago when it would have been useful. Granted, I now have the immense prestige and respect of being a nature photographer, especially of bugs and lizards, but this was a long time coming.

Improving autofocus

Al Denelsbeck

Earlier I mentioned having pretty egregious autofocus issues with the Canon 7D and the Tamron 150-600 lens, and sat down to see if I could improve things. My efforts were quite successful, so I’m going to go over what I did in the hopes that someone else may benefit from this. Virtually all of these will apply to any DSLR camera, with perhaps minor variations.

Clean the contacts. The electronic contacts between the lens and the camera body are how the camera can tell the lens to start and stop focusing, so ensure that these are clean and shiny. A pencil eraser is a good way to clean off anything stubborn – just be sure not to get eraser bits in either the camera or lens. To this end, holding them up higher and facing down helps the debris fall away – this is also recommended just for cleaning dust.

Blow out the mirror/shutter box, carefully. Generally, a blower brush or bulb is recommended for this, and again, while the camera lens opening faces down. Canned air is not the best; while it’s much more powerful, it can damage the shutter and introduce fluid and solvents into the camera. If used, always fire a test blast into the empty air first, to clear the tube of residual fluid, and then apply it indirectly into the mirror/shutter box, preferably from a moderate distance. The shutter blades are very thin and delicate and a solid blast of air may kink them, and you don’t want that repair bill. You can find air bulb blowers at most camera supply places, or a battery filler bulb (which I use, much more volume for stiffer blowing) from auto supply stores for about 1/4 the price.

Use a soft brush to clear stubborn dust and debris. A decent artist’s brush, preferably a flat brush in the realm of a centimeter wide, can help get out stubborn stuff without using enough pressure to scratch anything. Be aware that there is often a bit of spongy padding at the top of the mirror box, front of the focusing screen, for the mirror to hit without clattering, and this often snags stray hairs that don’t come free with a brush, in which case careful attention with tweezers can get them out of the way.

Clean both mirrors. Hopefully, you don’t have smears or stains on these mirrors, but occasionally it happens – if it happens a lot, you have some bad habits to clear up. For the most part, you can just use the artist’s brush to clean off the reflex mirror, but do this gently – these are front-surfaced mirrors meaning they’re easy to scratch.

If you have to clean oils or gunk off of them, use lens cleaner or high-grade alcohol (90% or better) on a microfiber cloth and swab gently – it shouldn’t need much.

interior view of DSLR showing dual mirrors
labeled mirror/shutter box in DSLR cameraBut there’s a second mirror in there too. Using a non-metallic object just to avoid the possibility of scratching (I use the handle of another brush, because you’ll need the first one in a second,) gently push up on the forward end of the mirror – it’s only held down by spring pressure. Underneath, you should see another mirror on its own hinge coming up with the main mirror, angled differently. While holding this up slightly – not all the way – blow some air in there too, and brush gently with the brush as needed. You’ll see that the main mirror is actually semi-transparent, half-silvered, and some of the light entering the camera goes through this mirror to reflect from the second one underneath – this is how the autofocus sensor works. Schmutz on this mirror can affect the AF sensitivity.

[Note that the Canon 30D is shown for these photos, though most DSLRs should be largely the same.]

autofocus sensors in floor of mirror/shutter box of DSLR camera
Clean the sensor too. Now lift the main mirror all the way, which will raise the second mirror too. Gently blow some more air in there, aimed towards the bottom of the mirror/shutter box – you should see some openings in the floor there, where the AF sensors lie. Again, do this while holding the camera front facing down. Brush gently with the brush while you’re at it, to clear any dust from the face of the sensors themselves.

Twice now, I’ve had enough dust and pollen and whatnot get in there to affect autofocus – the perils of doing lens changes out in the field, so this should be a routine thing if you’re changing lenses in dustier environments.

Camera Settings

Some of this will be ‘season to taste’ – my shooting habits are not necessarily going to be your own, plus camera and lens variations have an effect. The best I can say is to try them and see what works.

AI Servo focus mode. This is Canon’s nomenclature, but what it means is that the camera will attempt to maintain focus as the camera and subject moves, even while you’re tripping the shutter. This is best for moving subjects, but occasionally it will result in images being defocused because the lens is adjusting as you trip the shutter. Overall, it seems to work more dependably than other modes for action.

Custom Functions. The 7D has an elaborate set of parameters that can be adjusted and these will likely be in different orders or menus with different camera bodies. In my case, these all fell under Custom Functions III: Autofocus/Drive.

1, AI Servo Tracking Sensitivity, set to fastest. May result in more twitching of AF or even hunting if the subject gets out of the focus area for too long, but overall, with subjects that can shift distances quickly, this probably gives the best edge.

2, AI Servo 1st/2nd Image Priority, set to 0: AF Priority/Tracking Priority. I’ve tried others, and they all seem to wander or lag too much for wildlife subjects, especially flying ones that can leave the AF area in any direction.

3, AI Servo Tracking Method, set to 1: Continuous AF Track Priority. Seems to work best, again, for moving subjects, as well as for compositions that do not necessarily center the subject in the frame.

4, Lens Drive When AF Impossible, set to 0: Focus Search On. This one is the one I have the greatest misgivings about, because it can make or break the shot. When on, it will track in and out trying to locate a subject with enough contrast to lock onto, which is fine – it’s what autofocus is all about. But it’s not very ‘smart’ on the 7D at least, and when failing to focus on a subject that was focused only milliseconds ago (a moving bird that slipped out of the focus area, for example,) it can start tracking from near-infinity inwards, shorter, which will throw the bird so far out of focus that it vanishes from the viewfinder, right at the time that you need to see it at least a little to keep it centered so the autofocus can lock onto it again. This is where the focus limiter switch on the lens comes into play, where you can select the ability to only focus between infinity and, say, 10 meters, which will prevent the AF from tracking way too far. As long as it’s already switched on.

There’s no option, for instance, to make the lens focus out first, or search focus only in small increments for a moment or so when focus was locked almost immediately before. Moreover, a major shortcoming of the Tamron 150-600 (the Generation 2 model) is that even if you manually bump the focus wheel in the right direction, it can stubbornly keep trying to focus inward.

[To be sure, focusing outward can have issues too, because that would make the lens lock onto the distant background more often, something I’ve already had issues with. Some of this is assisted with the AF Point Expansion bit further down.]

5, AF Microadjustment, set to 2: Adjust by Lens. This allows the camera to tweak focus by individual lenses, and with the Tamron 150-600, I’ve set it to focus just slightly short, a little closer than what the camera defaults to, which seems to be producing pretty good results. This may be because the lens is ever-so-slightly off when focusing, or it may be because AF grabs the areas of highest contrast, which would be the wings and body against the sky, which are slightly further off than the eyes or fish clutched underneath. Also, depth-of-field extends farther beyond a subject than closer to the photographer, so this bias takes advantage of this trait.

And one more, from the Shooting Functions menu on the camera back, selected by the INFO button.

Shooting Functions menu of Canon 7DHighlighted here in cyan is the AF Point Expansion mode, and selecting this will provide different options for how specific the autofocus is. The one shown, with its orbit of smaller dots, tries to maintain focus in all of the five focus points shown, which gives a little slop in tracking a moving subject while still being reasonably specific. The main focus point can still be shifted throughout the viewfinder area (offset to one side, for example) and the surrounding AF points will follow. Note that you may have to enable this particular option in the Custom Functions menu.

This mode can still be confused by the camera, by small subjects with lots of surrounding or intervening clutter (like birds in branches,) which is where I simply switch to manual focus – this happens often enough. The biggest problem with manual focus – I mean, after the much slower speed that it takes place – is that the viewfinder screen is too small and too low in resolution, from using a ground glass surface, that it makes crucial sharpness particularly hard to determine; even when doing moon photography on a tripod, everything nice and stable, I’ll fire off several frames and keep reviewing them in the camera LCD under high magnification until I feel the image is sharpest, and then make it a point never to touch the focus ring.

[This needs a caveat, by the way: if the temperature is dropping, and especially if the lens hasn’t had time to match the outside temperature, re-focusing will be necessary because the contraction of the lens body itself will alter focus – astronomers are very familiar with this.]

Side note: There is another specific option that I finally got around to trying. Tamron has an additional bit of equipment for select lenses, called the TAP-in Console, that attaches to the lens mount and interacts with software via a USB connection; in this manner it can update the lens firmware as well as providing some specific options. I’d purchased one some time back but finally got around to setting it all up, since it wouldn’t work on my present workhorse computer, requiring Win 8+ (or MacOS) only, and I had to load the software on a spare computer. The options, however, were only for three things: manual focus ‘speed’ (how responsive the manual focus ring is to input,) focus limiter range (what distances are effective when using the focus limit switch,) and specific tweaks to focus at different focal lengths and distances. In other words, if you find the lens is consistently a little off at 300 mm focal length and mid-range distances, you can adjust this by small increments for more accuracy. Sounds very cool, but to implement it effectively and accurately, you’d need a significant set of high-contrast targets at varying distances, which you would shoot test photos of at varying focal lengths, examine the resulting images at high magnification on a computer, then adjust accordingly; for maximum efficiency, you’d also need secondary targets slightly ahead and behind the primary ones, offset far enough to be outside of the AF sensor range yet still in the photo, that would tell you if the focus was off slightly ahead of or behind the target. Obviously, setting all of this up and shooting the test images would take a few hours, and this didn’t seem to be my issue anyway (other than the change made above to the camera’s Custom Functions) so I’m in no hurry.

What it didn’t have were any options to change which direction it would begin to hunt within, or something to limit initial hunting to small increments to assist with moving subjects that momentarily got outside of the AF area – no one needs the lens to suddenly rack down to its shortest limit in such cases. There’s a balance point between the lens seeking autofocus as needed, when first raised to the eye for example, and trying to regain or retain focus for a moment when a moving subject proves hard to track, which is (I would think) a very frequent occurrence with a long lens. However, this might be a function of the camera body itself, though not something to be found or altered in the Custom Functions of the Canon 7D.

[By the way, after updating the firmware, the only change I made to the lens settings was to boost the manual focus speed, mostly to manually counteract that damn hunting, and we’ll see how much this negatively affects nailing sharp focus when intentionally focusing manually – these have yet to be tested.]

Anyway, that’s all the jazz I played with to improve autofocus results – turned out to be longer than I imagined. Hopefully someone will derive their own improvements from it.

osprey Pandion haliaetus overhead in much better focus

Tripod holes 18

Al Denelsbeck

fishermen at sunset on Old Drum Inlet, Portsmouth Island NC
N 34°51’19.93″ W 76°19’6.58″ Google Earth Location

This one’s a little fun in that, if you go to the location, it’s not technically there anymore. Well, it is, but storms between the time this was taken and now have radically reshaped the islands, and what was once inlet is now mid-island. Not only that, but reaching it takes a lot more effort.

This came from a work-related fishing trip back in 1999, to what I believe is known as Portsmouth Island on the South Core Banks of North Carolina. To get there we had to use a four-wheel-drive vehicle and take a ferry, putting in at Long Point Cabin Camp, the offices of which should be noted in most map services further northeast on the island – I mean, what was the same island back then, since we drove down to the photo location. Fishing bores me to tears, so I treated the trip as a photo excursion instead, which didn’t net me a whole lot of great images due to bad weather most of the time, but at sunset it had cleared and produced these skies. This shows two of the guys I was there with, actually doing some fishing instead of drinking – I had to be lightning fast to catch it…

A few years later, storms had cut a new channel through the island and filled this one in – you can see the changes in the Google Earth program, though I haven’t found a way to see old photos from the online version. Then, subsequent storms did even more reshaping – and then more. Not a place I’d want to own property, especially since one good hurricane will scour the very low island clean. This is the nature of Atlantic barrier islands.

This is also the place where I found numerous paths through the beach grasses, wide enough for beavers though this wasn’t their habitat, and wondered about them. Awaiting the ferry back at the end of the weekend, I found out from a regular visitor that they were caused by “nutra” [sic], and kicked myself for not staking out some of them in the wee hours, because I’d heard of nutria but had never seen one. This would eventually be rectified 23 years later.

April? I thought you left already

Al Denelsbeck

April is now toddling off into the past, never to be seen again or at least not for another eleven months depending on your interpretation (or remaining perpetually according to yet another,) and so we arrive at the end of the month abstract. Which looks amazingly like thus:

double-crested cormorant Nannopterum auritum flapping in water just after sunset
The sunset didn’t perform all that well this day, but the double-crested cormorant (Nannopterum auritum) that came in to land in the dwindling light worked well enough for me, gaining some surreality just from the condition of the water – most poses wouldn’t have worked as well, so the timing was key here, but I’ll only take partial credit for that, having fired off a sequence of frames as it took place. Ink on bronze – this was my art school final project. It got a C- but I passed.

That’s a bit better

Al Denelsbeck

I was out on two photo excursions earlier this week, and the first made me distinctly aware that something was wrong with my autofocus. Well, mine was all right, but the camera’s was off noticeably, for damn near every frame. I provide some examples:

osprey Pandion haliaetus overhead, not quite focused
This is full-frame, and while it’s taken at 600mm, the osprey (Pandion haliaetus) wasn’t that far away – obviously, if the frame is nearly filled with the wingspread. We’ll go in closer on the same frame:

same frame at full resolution
This is full-resolution, and the lack of ‘streaks,” elongated details, tell me that this is a focus issue and not a motion issue. While I can have stability problems when birds pass right overhead, because aiming straight up is difficult for this old man, there’s really no reason for this result.

It showed in plenty of other frames, too:

distant osprey Pandion haliaetus nest
This is full-frame, what I could see in the viewfinder, and while there are branches much closer that are crowding the autofocus point in the center, I was reasonably stable. Cropped tighter:

crop of previous frame showing bad focus
You can see that the AF wasn’t locking onto the surrounding clutter either, being further out of focus than the main subject. Not cool. This was especially annoying in that I could have had some decent shots of dad bringing in more nesting material (I’m quite sure mom was already on the eggs,) but same crappy results:

osprey Pandion haliaetus bringing material to nest, still unfocused
So the next morning I sat down with the camera and did some specific cleaning routines, as well as making a few changes to the autofocus settings in the Custom Functions, and initial tests (on subjects admittedly not moving as much as my normal fare,) were promising. The acid test was the next outing later that day, and things were hugely improved:

juvenile bald eagle Haliaeetus leucocephalus banking towards tree
This is full-frame again, and you can see that the juvenile bald eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) is significantly smaller in the frame, easier for the AF to miss, but no issues this time. Closer:

close crop of previous frame showing distinct sharpness
That’s more like it! A subsequent post will go into what I did to the camera to improve matters, but for now, some more pics from the outing.

osprey Pandion halaietus cruising past with fish
This is full resolution, of another osprey that was further off than the first above, and if you look closely you can even see water drops still falling from the fish. This one, by the way, was the only one (of several spotted that day) that captured anything while I watched, and was pretty accommodating in flying quite close past as it climbed out, though at its closest it was obscured by branches. It circled around and found a perch with great light to tackle its meal.

osprey Pandion haliaetus perched in tree with captured fish
This is cropped tighter as the osprey chose a tree that was still a bit distant, and even with all the surrounding clutter the AF was fixed on the osprey nicely. I started working closer, but the osprey realized someone was fishing from a small boat too close by (in a pool that I’ve never seen a boat within,) and decided that there were quieter places to eat, leaving almost immediately with its capture. Ah well.

Most of the birds from this outing remained distant and/or doing little of interest, but way off, I spotted an altercation and started firing off the frames, not even sure what I was seeing.

two juvenile bald eagles Haliaeetus leucocephalus squabbling in midair over a fish
Before you say anything, these are all tight crops of something extremely distant; I have no way of pinning down an accurate distance given that they were over open water, but I feel comfortable saying that it was in excess of 700 meters anyway. This is a pair of bald eagles, and in the viewfinder I considered the one with the white head and tail an adult, but close examination of these frames show some distinct blotches throughout the plumage, indicating to me that it had just reached its fourth year and was sporting brand new ‘adult’ plumage. The other isn’t seen clearly enough to pin down, but I’m geusstimating it was only in its second year.

two juvenile bald eagles Haliaeetus leucocephalus squabbling in midair over a fish
What was clear enough, however, was that the older one was heading to a perch (maybe even a nest, though I’m skeptical) with its fish when the younger one decided that it deserved the fish more, and a significant aerial ballet ensued from the dispute. I fired off 37 frames over 28 seconds, and in that time they had no fewer than six midair altercations – each of the frames that you see here are separate bouts with short flights in between.

two juvenile bald eagles Haliaeetus leucocephalus squabbling in midair over a fish
Yes, the attempted thief is actually upside-down in this frame, trying to yank the fish away from its rightful captor. I’d heard about this kind of behavior many years ago, but the first I’d ever seen it was only a month ago, and I’m hoping to get it a lot closer and in better detail. Video would also be nice, but I’d have to be specifically aiming for that just to have the rig to keep the camera stable enough. We’ll see what happens.

two juvenile bald eagles Haliaeetus leucocephalus squabbling in midair over a fish
To the best of my knowledge, the thief was never successful; the original owner still has the fish in this frame, at least. It is entirely possible that the eagle seen further up banking towards the tree (which was on a small island, almost in line and splitting the distance to these pics) was the same one trying to wrest the meal away. Curiously, the amount of effort expended here was way beyond what would have been required to capture its own fish, but I doubt eagles think in terms of working efficiently and net-loss scenarios. Likely it just saw a passing fish and thought, I should snag that, regardless of who was already in possession.

About ten minutes later, another eagle cruised past, still pretty far off but nowhere near as much.

bald eagle Haliaeetus leucocephalus showing brand new adult plumage
Definitely just transitioning into adulthood, so four years old now – you can still see dark feathers from the juvenile stage in the white areas, as well as paler patches on what should be uniformly deep brown wings. Same one as above? It’s possible, given the direction that it came from and the time that had passed, enough to finish off a half-shredded fish, but that’s only speculation.

Overall, however, eagles were spotted seven or eight separate times, so definitely an active area. I have suspicions of where a nest might be, but it doesn’t appear to be accessible from land and I’m not taking serious camera gear out in the kayak, so I doubt much will come from this suspicion.

Soon to follow will be a shorter post about the things that I did to improve autofocus – I decided to break things up since this was already long enough.

Can’t be assed

Al Denelsbeck

Seriously? Another holiday? But yes, as I look at the calendar, I see there’s something else to celebrate today, though I simply don’t have the inclination to pursue it in detail. Today is Token Appearance Day, possessing a rich history and some very specific ways of recognizing it, which I would enthusiastically tackle if I could tackle anything enthusiastically right now. Which I can’t. I’m just letting you know so you can do something about it on your own, and because it’s been a few days without a post. I do have photos to put up here but, you know, later.

Ah, hell, I’ll throw out one that’s from years ago, just for the sake of it. Better?

unidentified jumping spider peering around edge of leaf

1 … 70 71 72 73 74 … 330