Florida Bird Collection Series - 001 Great Blue Heron, Brown Pelican, Pigeon & Seagull

Great Blue Heron - Nikon D300 Nikkor 80-200mm f/2.8D @ f/5.6 ISO 200 1/1600 -0.67 ev

There are birds all over Florida.  Great Blue Herons like the one above are often seen on beaches, and even on back patios!  This series is meant to be a modest and/or amusing collection of random bird photographs.  When I first looked at that great blue heron, I thought it looked like it was in prison.  So since I could not get a clean shot of the bird, I chose to make use of the obstruction.  I just made sure to use a single focus point and put it right on the GBR's eye.

Seagull (with bokeh) - Nikkon D300 Nikkor 80-200mm f/2.8D @ f/8 ISO 200 1/800thThere is no more common bird than a seagull (assuming one lives by the sea).  Why I chose this photograph was for its ultra creamy bokeh produced by the fantastic Nikkor AF ED 80-200mm f/2.8D lens, a great bargain alternative to the much more expensive Nikkor AF-S 70-200mm VR f/2.8G lens (not even to mention the crazy expensive VR II version).  I first bought my 80-200mm lens (a used one) just under two years ago, and was amazed by its bokeh the first time I shot with it, and remain so to this very day.  

(rainbow?) pigeon - Nikon D300 Nikkor 80-200mm f/2.8D @ f/4 ISO 200 1/1250thMaybe the pigeon is more common than the seagull in Florida?  Still, I chose to include this photo because of the repeat of color on the pigeon's neck matching the color of the bokeh.  With bird photography, bokeh can really enhance a shot from just being a snapshot of a common bird to a photograph of a common scene shown in a way that cannot be seen by just standing there.  The quality of bokeh actually varies greatly between lenses.  Before the 80-200mm lens, I had the Nikkor AF-S 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6G lens.  At first I thought the latter's bokeh was good.  However, upon first seeing the bokeh produced by the 80-200mm, I was stunned at how much creamier it was.  Selling the 18-200mm lens was the first thing I did out of learned photographic knowledge.

diving brown pelican - Nikon D300 Nikkor AF-S 105mm VR micro f/2.8G lens ISO 400 f/4 1/5000thThis female brown pelican was a millimeter away from breaking the water's surface in search of her dinner.  I made sure to use a very fast shutter speed in order to be able to freeze her plunging dive.  Thankfully, she made dive after dive so had several chances to capture her.  However, like all of these shots, I was not out to purposefully photograph birds at the time.  Three of the shots I made while teaching a DSLR photography lesson and the other was made during a portrait session.  Nowadays I do not have much chance to to photograph Florida's many birds, hence the start of this collection series!

Dragonhunter Dragonfly & Garden Spider macro

Dragonhunter Dragonfly on green leaf - Nikon D300 Nikkor 105mm VR micro @ f/22 ISO 200 1/60th SB-600 hotshoe mountedPicking organic blueberries was only really a facade for actually doing macro photography.  Just before I moved back to Florida after living in Asia for nine years, I thought that insects would be crawling and flying all around just outside my door in Florida, wouldn't it be great to have a macro lens?  As I tend to do with such things I became obsessed with finding an affordable priced used Nikkor AF-S 105mm VR micro f/2.8G lens, Nikon's flagship macro lens.  Just a few days before I left Tokyo, I did.

black & yellow garden spider Nikon D300 Nikkor 105mm VR micro @ f/22 ISO 200 1/60th SB-600 hotshoe mountedHowever, there was no parade of fascinating insects marching past my front door in Florida.  Then I remembered it is much easier to hear an insect, than to see it.  I would soon learn that macro insect photography requires much, much more than just having a great macro lens.  

Anyway, the blueberry bushes were quite popular with black and yellow garden spiders, who make a web much interesting looking than their common name would make you think.  It reminded me of either a polygraph test readout or the graphical representation of speech.  

Dragonhunter Dragonfly Nikon D300 Nikkor 105mm VR micro @ f/22 ISO 200 1/80th SB-600 hotshoe mountedThe dragonhunter dragonflies mostly hung out on wires strung between the rows of blueberry bushes.  They have faces that are very easy to anthropomorphize.  It really looks like they are smiling at you.  I would have to say that dragonflies are perhaps my favorite insect.  They leave humans alone and they eat mosquitoes.  Cannot ask for more than that from an insect!  Plus, one day looong ago, I had no car at that time.  I got every where on my trusty Trek mountain bike.  This meant rain or shine I rode.  Florida in the summer produces torrential rain storms of various lengths.  That day one of those storms was raging while I had to go to work.  I put everything into a plastic bag inside my backpack and rode shirtless to MOSI (museum of science & industry).  Riding in that kind of rain obviously is pretty hardcore.  I looked down at my handlebars and clenched to the brake cable was a dragonfly.  We looked at each other, neither showed aggression, and I rode on.  The whole 20 minute ride he was locked onto my bike and I felt a camaraderie with him.  He was gone when I returned to my Trek to ride home.  These are things that have meaning to me, even some 15 years later.  

black & yellow garden spider Nikon D300 Nikkor 105mm VR micro @ f/22 ISO 200 1/60th SB-600 hotshoe mounted

I have struggled with macro insect photography in the past year, but I feel I am refining and improving my technique.  All these shots were at f/22, the first time to shoot with such a small aperture using the 105mm VR micro lens.  I look forward to my next macro chance . . .

Well wishes for all oil coated brown pelicans

BP did what?? For 50+ days??

I did not know that brown pelicans were just recently an endangered species.  Having grown up in Florida and seen these large birds all over the place in plentiful numbers, I just never imagined they could disappear forever.  Not until I read Scott Bourne's recent post about brown pelicans, the BP oil spill and the importance of photography did I know that.  

Being a person who is committed to not causing harm to any animal for any reason, it causes me great pain to see the oil covered birds, turtles, hermit crabs and all other creatures in the effected Gulf of Mexico coastal areas.  The oil spill is truly a crime against Nature.  

If only I could scratch my own back so well as this brown pelican canSo whenever I see a brown pelican now I will look upon it with a new respect and think, as Scott wrote, this could be the last photograph ever taken of this species.  Take care my friends.

Rainbow Springs Florida Landscapes

Rainbow Springs swimming hole - Nikon D300 Tamron 17-50mm f/2.8 @ f/11 ISO 200 1/125thI often think how in the hell did people live in Florida before air conditioning was invented?  I have settled on the answer that never having known air conditioning, people did not know what they were missing and therefore intense heat and humidity was just the way Florida life was.  No doubt though a dip in a watering hole such as Rainbow Springs in Dunnellon, Florida would be refreshing in any century.  

Rainbow Springs green waters - Nikon D300 Tamron 17-50mm f/2.8 @ f/11 ISO 200 1/160

The spring is always gushing out fresh water at 72F degrees.  I cannot state how refreshing it is to take the plunge (have to jump in as water is deep everywhere) and escape the intense heat of the day.  We went on Memorial Day, which has to be one of the busiest days of the year for Rainbow Springs, but it never felt too crowded with enough space to swim and to picnic on the grass.  The area is very little developed, preserving the feel of swimming at the source of a river deep in a forest.  

Canoe the Rainbow River - Nikon D300 Tamron 17-50mm f/2.8 @ f/11 ISO 200 1/200th -0.67 +/-Kayak and canoe rental services are available right next to the swimming hole.  We rented kayaks, which was no simple affair!  It is quite relaxing to lazily paddle downstream in the clear water hoping to spot a manatee or two.  Warning though, there are some beautiful homes along the river and you will find yourself really wishing you had one of them as at least your vacation home, if not wanting to give up city life altogether for the extreme peace of country riverfront life.

view from the top - Nikon D300 Tamron 17-50mm f/2.8 @ f/11 ISO 200 1/30th There is much adventure on land as well too.  There are waterfalls, hills, gardens and even haikyo zoos!  The latter discovery was an exciting cap on what had already been a great day.  

Rainbow Springs State Park Information: 

• 19158 SW 81st Place Road, Dunnellon, Florida 34432
• Phone:  352-465-8555
• $2 entrance fee per person
• about 2 hours from Tampa
• dogs on leashes ok! but not in the springs, on kayaks ok
• official site 

Burrowing Owls of Cape Coral Florida

Nikon D300 Nikkor AF ED 80-200mm f/2.8 @ f/4 ISO 200 1/3200th SB-600 hotshoe mounted in high speed sync mode

I recently became aware that people were going all the way to my tiny hometown of Cape Coral to photograph the burrowing owls that live there.  Even Scott Bourne went!  Growing up there the owls were something to be feared, as if you got to close, they would screech at you and even take some swoops at your head!  Plus, they are super protected so even as a kid that put some fear of the law into me and I mostly just steered clear of them, never thinking them some great nature photography subject.  Then of course at that time I did not even own a camera.  However, I have visited Cape Coral several times in the past year with all my photo gear and it still never occurred to me to photograph them until I heard of others going there.

Nikon D300 Nikkor AF ED 80-200mm f/2.8 @ f/4 ISO 200 1/3200th SB-600 hotshoe mounted in high speed sync modeSo during a brief overnight visit last weekend I thought if there are some owls living near my mom's condo, then I will finally photograph them.  When I did find some it was the middle of the afternoon and the light was of course not good at all, hence the unusual choice to make the above shots some form of black and white.  Add to it that the best shooting position (with my back to the sun) was obstructed by tall grass and their cross-shaped perch presumably provided by the government, I was not going to get any National Geographic level cover shots.  Still, I wanted to get experience shooting them so I could do a nice dawn rise the next time I visit and photograph them properly.

Nikon D300 Nikkor AF ED 80-200mm f/2.8 @ f/4 ISO 200 1/2000th SB-600 hotshoe mounted in high speed sync mode

With only a 200mm lens I did have to get a bit close, which I felt a little awkward doing because the owls definitely noticed me and one was angrily chirping.  I felt it was not cool for that to be happening so I rushed my shots also and was doubting myself the whole time, not a great thing to do while trying to make a shot!  Next time I will consider renting a 300mm or 400mm lens so as to let the owls be at ease while I photograph them.

Florida Botanical Gardens flowers in brief macro

Nikon D300 Nikkor AF-S 105mm VR Micro f/2.8G @ f/8 ISO 640 1/25th natural light

I made these macro flower photographs during a recent DSLR Photography lesson with a student at Florida Botanical Gardens.  I was of course focused on teaching her, but I did have a few moments to shoot along side her after I helped her get her camera set to make a similar shot.  Sometimes I used my Nikon Speedlight SB-600 on and off camera, sometimes, like above, the natural light at 8am was good enough.

Nikon D300 Nikkor AF-S 105mm VR Micro f/2.8G @ f/11 ISO 200 1/200th strobist: SB-600 on cameraThe above magnolia flower was offering parts of itself, or getting rid of parts of itself, in a very interesting manner to me.  I wonder how often a magnolia flower's lower petal aligns just right so that it can catch those stems?  Maybe it is not uncommon?  

Nikon D300 Nikkor AF-S 105mm VR Micro f/2.8G @ f/11 ISO 200 1/60th strobist: SB-600 off camera TTL modeThat red flower seems almost bioelectric to me, like it is plugged into electricity somewhere and at night would light up like a flower found on Pandora.  I considered a closer crop of the flower, but wanted to included background elements to show its seeming desire to remain unseen by the passerby despite being so pretty.

Anhinga with bokeh in Clearwater

anhinga in Kapok Park Clearwater Florida - Nikon D300 Nikkor AF-S 70-200mm f/2.8G VR with 2x teleconverter @ f/8 ISO 640 1/500th

I have heard Scott Bourne call bird photography the most difficult kind there is.  I do not know if I can necessarily agree with that, as anyone who has tried to photograph a wedding on a super hectic schedule might have a legit disagreement, or done underwater photography, but no doubt when you consider the serious kit you need to even get within range of most birds, it is not a type of photography to enter into casually.  For example, this anhinga actually was just standing on the edge of a short pier.  Even with a 70-200mm lens and 2x teleconverter on my D300's 1.5 crop sensor, for an effective focal length of 600mm, this is only as close as I could get doing no cropping.  The anhinga was maybe 25 feet away.  Nikon's true 600mm lens is a $10,000 piece of kit!  The lens and teleconverter I borrowed from a friend itself is not that cheap, about a $2,200 solution.  

anhinga ruffling up - Nikon D300 Nikkor AF-S 70-200mm f/2.8G VR with 2x teleconverter @ f/8 ISO 400 1/400th

You might be wondering why was I shooting at f/8?  Why not shoot closer to the lens' maximum aperture of f2.8?  Well, first, the 2x teleconverter automatically makes a f/2.8 lens a f/5.6 lens.  Then, I could not get a sharp shot at all with an aperture larger than f/8.  It was my first time ever to use that lens as well as the teleconverter, and I was handholding that huge setup, so on at least a monopod I might have been able to stop up a bit.

The anhinga is a very showy bird always willing to dry out its wings for you or, as seen above, flex up.  If you do like to do bird photography, Florida is a great place to live, and even Scott Bourne winters here for over a month ever year.   

• purchase fine art prints of either shot here