Stood out in the freezing cold to get some bird photos with the new camera and the teleconverter that Anya bought me for Christmas... Here are the first results.

Technical Data: Canon EOS 7D Mark II, Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM at 560mm with Canon Extender EF 1.4x III, 1/1000 sec at f/8. ISO 1250. IS Mode 1. RAW processing and cropped in Adobe Camera Raw.

- Bill

While that last shot really made me look at multiple ways to convert the image to black and white, these two were much easier as these conversions really stuck out for me and worked perfectly for what I wanted to portray with the conversion...

Technical Data: Canon EOS 7D, Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS STM at 27mm, 1/120th second at f/8. ISO 800. RAW processing in Adobe Camera Raw, B&W conversion in Adobe Photoshop CS5 with Nik Silver Efex Pro using Preset 030 - Film Noir 1.

Mouseover the images to see the original color version.

Technical Data: Canon EOS 7D, Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS STM at 27mm, 1/120th second at f/8. ISO 800. RAW processing and cropped in Adobe Camera Raw, B&W conversion in Adobe Photoshop CS5 with Nik Silver Efex Pro using Preset 020 - Fine Art (high key, framed).

And as a bonus, here's a heavily cropped shot of a Peregrine Falcon sitting atop another piece of driftwood. This particular piece was probably 200 yards away, so the sharpness produced by my Canon 100-400 Mark II lens was definitely very surprising. I really expected any of the bird photos at this distance to be completely useless, but surprisingly I was able to salvage at least a couple for slightly more than identification photos.

Technical Data: Canon EOS 7D, Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM at 400mm, 1/200 sec at f/11. ISO 800. IS Mode 1. RAW processing and cropped in Adobe Camera Raw.

We'll get back to the underwater shots here soon - I still have some gems to share from that trip (and hopefully at least one more video if I can get the motivation to put another one together).

Thanks for stopping by!

- Bill

Not sure if animals can be narcissistic, but this guy sure seems to be admiring his reflection...

Technical Data: Canon EOS 7D, Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM at 400mm, 1/1250 sec at f/8. ISO 800. IS Mode 1. RAW processing and cropped in Adobe Camera Raw.

- Bill

Ok - nature lesson of the day... baby turkeys are called poults.

Technical Data: Canon EOS 7D, Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM at 400mm, 1/500 sec at f/8. ISO 400. IS Mode 1. RAW processing and cropped in Adobe Camera Raw.

- Bill

So we technically should still see Cedar Waxwings in the winter, but it seems like the group that we had been seeing on a regular basis have moved on. They would come visit our pond just around sunset every night, so getting good sharp photographs was always a challenge.

Technical Data: Canon EOS 7D, Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM at 400mm, 1/250 sec at f/5.6. ISO 2500. IS Mode 1. Canon Speedlight 580EX II flash in auto mode plus Better Beamer. RAW processing in Adobe Camera Raw.

They usually didn't stop for very long, so I eventually decided to add my flash and Better Beamer. After a bit of that, I decided to see if I could catch one in flight...

Technical Data: Canon EOS 7D, Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM at 400mm, 1/160 sec at f/6.3. ISO 1600. IS Mode 1. Canon Speedlight 580EX II flash in auto mode plus Better Beamer. RAW processing and cropped in Adobe Camera Raw.

I wish I would have used 1/250th of a second exposure on that to eliminate/reduce the motion blur more, but I'll have to try that next time...

Technical Data: Canon EOS 7D, Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM at 400mm, 1/250 sec at f/5.6. ISO 2500. IS Mode 1. Canon Speedlight 580EX II flash in auto mode plus Better Beamer. RAW processing in Adobe Camera Raw.

- Bill

I know I've posted several other posts with probably better Green Heron photos, but I figured I'd share these as it appears our little family of herons that had been living on our pond have moved south for the winter.

Here's hoping they return next year to continue growing their family so I can get some more photos.

- Bill

Another big bunch from Cuyahoga Valley National Park...

Technical Data: Canon EOS 7D, Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM at 400mm, 1/250 sec at f/8. ISO 800. IS Mode 1. RAW processing and cropped in Adobe Camera Raw.

Blue Heron	Eastern Painted Turtle	Juvenile Wood Duck	Green Heron

Technical Data: Canon EOS 7D, Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM at 400mm, 1/800 sec at f/8. ISO 800. IS Mode 1. RAW processing in Adobe Camera Raw.

Wood Duck (?)	Blue Heron	Female Wood Duck	Green Heron

Technical Data: Canon EOS 7D, Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM at 400mm, 1/640 sec at f/8. ISO 800. IS Mode 1. RAW processing and cropped in Adobe Camera Raw.

Whew! That was quite the whirl-wind of photos. I hope you enjoyed it all!

- Bill

For Anya's birthday, we took a day trip over to Cuyahoga Valley National Park. We got a later start than we had hoped, so we didn't get to do as much as we had planned, but one stop we did make was to the Beaver Marsh Boardwalk. The amount of wildlife alongside the trail and boardwalk was impressive - especially how many calm water fowl the provided some very nice photographic opportunities.

Technical Data: Canon EOS 7D, Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM at 400mm, 1/800 sec at f/8. ISO 1600. IS Mode 1. RAW processing and cropped in Adobe Camera Raw.

I've got so many photos from this trip that I'm going to have to share them in batches or it would take me weeks to get through them all. Just mouseover the thumbnails below for the larger version.

Green Heron	Juvenile Wood Ducks	Blue Heron	Wood Duck (?)
Blue Heron	Water Lily	Juvenile Green Heron	Blue Heron

And one last fun one for this batch... I just love the inquisitive look that duck on the right is giving me. It really did feel like some of these birds were more curious than scared. I definitely was getting closer to these birds than I have ever gotten to any of them when they're here on our pond at the house.

Technical Data: Canon EOS 7D, Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM at 400mm, 1/250 sec at f/8. ISO 800. IS Mode 1. RAW processing and cropped in Adobe Camera Raw.

Be sure to come back tomorrow as I still have plenty more to share!

- Bill

Ok - still working through the backlog of photos. Today's set comes from our trip to Lake Chautauqua about a month ago. I had hoped for more water birds to photograph (particularly I was hoping for some wading shore birds), but all we really got was gulls and a few mallard females with babies.

For most of the week, the mallard with the babies was very elusive and kept the babies at a good distance. One of the last days of the trip, we woke to the mother repeatedly quacking a weird, sad quack. I went to investigate and discovered that a red-tailed hawk had apparently caught and killed one of the ducklings. As I approached to investigate, I scared the hawk off (unfortunately without any decent photos). However, something about that made the mother duck feel that it was safe to bring her babies in closer to me. For the remainder of the trip, every time I went down by the water, the mallard and her babies would show up and come in much much closer than before. While it is sad that one of the babies died, I guess it is one of those circle-of-life things and the hawk needs to eat too, and the improved photo opportunities it allowed were appreciated.

Technical Data: Canon EOS 7D, Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM at 400mm, 1/800 sec at f/8. ISO 400. IS Mode 2. RAW processing and cropped in Adobe Camera Raw.

Thanks for stopping by.

- Bill

Some photo opportunities fall right in your lap and are super easy while others require a bit of patience and discomfort. Today I've got examples of both with some nice bird photos.

The first is the easy one. I came home from work and as I got out of the car, an extremely large hawk flew overhead squawking like crazy. I watched it fly into our front yard and land in one of our tall pine trees. I never get much opportunity to photograph hawks, so I dropped my stuff and ran to go get my camera. As I went to go back outside, I looked out the one window and saw I had a good vantage point from there if I could get the window open without spooking the hawk. I managed to do so and was able to take several photos while hanging out the window. Since the hawk was being so cooperative, I decided to try climbing out on the roof outside that window and continue shooting. That too was successful, and though the hawk was still easily thirty feet (if not more) higher than me, I managed to get some very nice shots...

Technical Data: Canon EOS 7D, Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM at 400mm, 1/250 sec at f/10. ISO 200. IS Mode 2. RAW processing and cropped in Adobe Camera Raw.

The second opportunity required a bit more investment. We've been seeing a number of green herons feeding at our pond. Green herons are among my favorite birds - but they are extremely skittish and hard to approach. Well, we've repeatedly observed this one feeding from a stick that pokes up out of our pond, and when we saw it there this morning, I decided to see if I could get some photos. I approached as stealthily as I could, but still spooked the heron before I could get into position. Luckily, it didn't look like it flew too far away, so I decided to just hunker down and see if I could hide out long enough for it to feel comfortable to come back. An hour later with both of my feet falling asleep from me sitting on them the whole time, it finally flew back out to its branch. I managed to fire off about ten shots before it spotted me and flew off again... I could barely walk because of the pins and needles in my feet from sitting still so long, but it was worth it...

Technical Data: Canon EOS 7D, Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM at 400mm, 1/800 sec at f/8. ISO 400. IS Mode 1. RAW processing and cropped in Adobe Camera Raw.

I may have to do some major work on the site here soon. Hopefully I will be able to do so with minimal disruption, but I might have to mothball this site and start a completely new one. I'm not sure what I want to do just yet, but stay tuned and hopefully I can get it worked out quickly and get back to posting more regularly.

Thanks for stopping by!

- Bill