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Forum: Post Your Photos!
08-23-2017, 08:28 PM
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Last year I found a Swainson Hawk nest after the leaves had fallen from the trees and this spring I started watching the nest to see if it might be reused and was rewarded when I found mom sitting on the nest in June. I kept going back to the nest until one day I saw a small white head. The first photo I got was on July 5. There were 3 chicks and as best as I could tell they were about 4 or 5 days old. I returned to the nest as often as I could and tried to keep a photo record of the chicks as they grew. In order to get the photos I took along a 14 foot extension ladder and set it against a tree about fifty feet away from the nest. Now I would like you to try and visualize me running across a field with and extension ladder in my arms and my camera and Sig 500/4.5 strung from my shoulder. I would lean the ladder against a neighbouring tree and then climb up to the top rung of the ladder, wrap one arm around the tree and shoot handheld while I swayed in the breeze. Fortunately no one ever saw me☺ Anyway, here are some of the photos I was able to get as the chicks grew. Cross posted to 300+ lens club
July 5 first Photo
July 7 There were three chicks when I started watching the nest
July 9 I spent very little time each visit one or both adults were always present and quite concerned that I was there. I never spent more than 5 minutes during a visit as I was concerned I might force the adults off the nest completely.
Mom July 11
Chicks on July 11 you can see the feathers beginning to emerge.
Chicks July 17 – I was unable to get to the nest for 6 days and the change was amazing. I also found that there were only 2 chicks instead of three. Perhaps an owl picked off a chick but I also understand that the Swainson’s chicks are known to periodically eat each other. I had to wonder if Mom returned to the nest only to be told by Ralph that while she was away Frank ate Wilbur. There was a huge change in the chicks over the six days.
Adults rather disgusted with me.
By July 20 the chicks are really starting to look like hawks
July 22 – If you look at the chick’s claw’s you can see that it is clutching what appears to be a thirteen lined ground squirrel
July 25 – When I arrived at the nest the adults would circle and screech at me and typically the chicks would crouch down and remain completely motionless
July 27 Again the crouch
Mom July 27 – she still hasn’t gotten used to me
July 29 The chicks are starting to get a bit more adventurous – they were moving along the branches at the nest.
Mom and Dad – I happened to catch both adults in the same shot
July 30 Venturing out a bit further – their feathers are almost completely developed
July 31 – this was the last time I saw the chicks at the nest. I returned on July 2 and only one chick was near the nest and I spooked him out of a tree before a saw him.
Aug 5 – I found the two chicks on a nearby hay bale early in the morning
Aug 5 The one chick flew off leaving this guy to shake out the morning cobwebs.
Aug 6 My last shot – I have been back a couple of times since but I guess they are off chasing grasshoppers.
Thanks for looking
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Forum: Post Your Photos!
11-16-2018, 07:10 PM
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very nice composition!
excellent shot! I love it!
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Forum: Pentax K-70 & KF
09-28-2016, 03:58 PM
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I do not see a K-70 photos thread like there is on the K30/K50 forum so I thought I'd start it. Here are some pics from a hike today in Newfoundland. As season is getting late, lighting is fairly dark and used ISO 320 on all shots. Lens is 55-300 PLM RE. xposted to 55-300 opinions thread. (click pics for exif info)
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Forum: Post Your Photos!
11-06-2018, 12:59 AM
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A very pleasing sight. Awesome work.
TT
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Forum: Post Your Photos!
11-12-2018, 07:04 AM
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Beautiful photo! The lighting on the bird and the colorful bokeh are excellent.
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Forum: Post Your Photos!
11-12-2018, 07:52 AM
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Just lovely!
Thanks for sharing :)
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Forum: Post Your Photos!
11-12-2018, 07:31 PM
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Lovely photo. We have some of these around. One built a nest under the floor of our "tree house" beside our studio. Reminded me of a swallow's nest.
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Forum: Post Your Photos!
03-24-2018, 02:05 PM
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Five shot pano of sunset on the lower Colorado River near Island Lake and Picacho Peak.
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Forum: Post Your Photos!
10-21-2018, 12:49 PM
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I have found these tiny bloom clusters pretty difficult to photograph and have it come out the way I want it. This is getting closer, but I will keep trying (much to the entertainment of my neighbors...:lol:)
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Forum: Post Your Photos!
10-02-2018, 11:24 AM
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Raining in Philadelphia.....just a shot out the door 'as is'...
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Forum: Post Your Photos!
10-03-2018, 01:13 AM
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The moon is rising just behind the saddle to the left of Half Dome. The lights on the cliffs are climbers hunkering down for the evening.
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Forum: Post Your Photos!
10-04-2018, 02:42 PM
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This is from late yesterday, October 3 of the base of the Talkeetna Mountains near Sutton, Alaska.
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Forum: Post Your Photos!
09-28-2018, 08:23 AM
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Manizales, in Colombia, is a very nice place for bird spotting and photos!
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Forum: Post Your Photos!
09-26-2018, 01:24 PM
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I like Abelia with its clusters of tiny white flower clusters that bloom all summer as well as well as its foliage.
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Forum: Photo Critique
02-26-2015, 01:57 PM
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I can only speak to my philosophy, but if semi-blurred birds are an important compositional element, the image needs a lot of help. you touched on the frustration of landscape photography; you can be in the right spot at the right time but things don't always work out. your instincts are also correct, a cloudless sky doesn't contribute much an the overall image. but as my mom always preached, two wrongs don't make a right, in this case cloudless sky and blurred birds still doesn't add value to the image.
I've planned entire trips around a certain image, only to take 300 pics and get back home and have to trash all of them, not because of some technical error, but because the lighting wasn't up to par and/or clouds didn't cooperate or a dozen other things beyond your control. you so badly want to make something work because you feel invested in it, but it still won't make an image an objective viewer would connect to.
you have to be your harshest critic, with an eye developed over time by others being harsh but constructive. I'd say based on your comment, you have some good instincts, learn to trust them and couple that with more advanced technical shooting and you'll be happy with your results sooner rather later.
The really great thing is that this scene is readily available, you can experiment, you can build upon little successes, even if it means sending 1000 (or even 5000) pics to the recycle bin. But that one day, on your 100th trip, the clouds part (literally in seattle) and you get that sunburst and because you have the composition down and the exposure down, you'll nail that picture and hang it on your wall like a trophy!
Honestly, if you wouldn't grow bored of the task, I'd say every Saturday at sunset for a year take the same image, honing in on the perfect exposure and composition. try different things (like composition, faster shutter, longer shutter, small aperture, big aperture - since it's landscape you should be at 100iso, but try to catch a ferry and learn what compromises you have to make, how far you can push the iso, what you aperture needs to be for the shutter speed you needed to stop the motion).
Don't leave until you've taken 50 pics (or more if you want). That would be roughly 2600 pics of this image under different lighting conditions, weather conditions and your own emotional conditions. You will learn a lot and you will see your progress because you have other images to compare against. each week you can decide what you could have don't better, what you really like and want to do again. You can try different equipment, like GND filters, even diff GND like 1-stop, 2-stop, CPLS etc. Try different lenses, different Field of View, tight and panoramas. Once you've mastered this scene, you can take all that accumulated knowledge and apply it to your next image somewhere else.
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Forum: Welcomes and Introductions
04-12-2015, 12:03 AM
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Welcome, IMHO a great attitude towards equipment, enjoy the forum and your photography. :)
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Forum: Welcomes and Introductions
04-09-2015, 02:33 PM
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I don't think some people liked what happens above the lens, Ramseybuckeye. :-)
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Forum: Welcomes and Introductions
04-09-2015, 02:19 PM
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Welcome, but I've never heard of the K-30 being an ugly design, at least not by anyone who's ever actually seen one. The K-30 is a great camera, but you're right, it's all about the skills of the photographer.
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Forum: Welcomes and Introductions
04-09-2015, 01:17 PM
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Welcome! I love my K-30. It's a fantastic little package. I look forward to seeing the photos you capture with it!
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