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

Technical Data: Canon EOS 7D, Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM at 400mm, 1/160 sec at f/8. ISO 800. IS Mode 1. RAW processing and cropped in Adobe Camera Raw.

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

- Bill

I almost forgot about this little guy... I only got a couple shots off before he darted back down into the wood pile.

Technical Data: Canon EOS 7D, Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM, 1/100 sec at f/8. Image Stabilization on. ISO 800. RAW processing in Adobe Camera Raw

I have more uploading now, so stay tuned.

- Bill

While we're talking a close look at the eyes on that Blue Heron, here's another shot that has been zoomed into show the eye...

You'll notice that today's shot isn't quite as sharp as the ones I shared yesterday. However, this shot has an exposure of 1/50th of a second at f/11; whereas the shots from yesterday had 1/320th of a second at f/8. The significance here is that while this image zoomed to 100% does show a very slight amount of softness too it, it is still acceptable for sharing on the web... Here's the uncropped version:

Technical Data: Canon EOS 7D, Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM at 400mm, 1/50 sec at f/11. ISO 320. IS Mode 1. RAW processing and cropped in Adobe Camera Raw.

Previously, there would have been no way I would have been able to shoot at 400mm with a shutter speed as slow as 1/50th of a second. Granted I was using a monopod and the best technique I could to keep the camera steady, but this definitely shows a very high level of precision provided by the upgraded Image Stabilization that the Mark II version of this lens has. Canon claims a 4-stop improvement from this new IS system (up from 2-stop on the original version of this lens), and I'll be honest and say I think they made good on their claims.

I definitely look forward to using this lens for many many years!

- Bill

The new lens provided me a glimpse at a very cool feature of that Blue Heron that I was shooting the other day... Its nictitating membrane.

A nictitating membrane (yeah, I know that is a hard word to stay) or sometimes referred to as a third eyelid is a semi-transparent lens that certain animals have to protect their eyes. I've seen them on lizards, frogs, and birds... but even some mammals have them. Basically they act as a way for the animal to still be able to see in conditions that might damage their eyes. In a heron's case that would be likely when they're stabbing their beaks into water to catch prey.

I could see this heron blinking his nictitating membrane and managed to get several sharp photos showing it. These are cropped at 100% just to show the effect, but they also do a decent job of showing the sharpness achieved with this new lens.

Open	Half-way	Closed

Technical Data:Canon EOS 7D, Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM at 400mm, 1/320 sec at f/8. ISO 320. IS Mode 1. RAW processing and cropped in Adobe Camera Raw.

Cool stuff, no?

- Bill

Ok - I suppose technically this isn't an entirely new lens. I've been borrowing my buddy Tom's Canon 100-400mm lens for about the past year (huge thanks, Tom!), and I have finally managed to buy my own. However, I purchased the newer version of that lens - the Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM. The Mark II version has upgraded Image Stabilization, a shorter minimum focusing distance, better weather sealing, a twist zoom ring (instead of the push/pull zoom of the Mark I) as well as an updated zoom tension adjustment ring, upgraded lens hood and tripod mount, and probably a bunch of other improvements I'm missing. I honestly had my doubts as to whether the Mark II version would be worth the added price, but so far the new IS system alone appears to be well worth every penny.

We took the lens out to Goddard State Park the other day, and while subjects were hard to find, I did get some time with a patient Great Blue Heron that allowed me to reposition several times and get fairly close (down to about 21 meters) for some decent shots.

400mm, 1/320 sec at f/8	400mm, 1/400 sec at f/8	400mm, 1/80 sec at f/8	300mm, 1/60 sec at f/8

Technical Data: Canon EOS 7D, Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM at various focal lengths and exposures as listed. ISO 320. IS Mode 1. RAW processing in Adobe Camera Raw.

I've got a couple more cool things to share from this little outing, so stay tuned.

- Bill

So the same night I was out looking for the ducklings, I heard this odd crunching noise... turns out that two of the beavers were snacking on the stems of the spatterdock we have growing on the edge of our pond. Honestly, I'd rather they eat that than taking trees down.

Technical Data: Canon EOS 7D, Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS USM (borrowed) at 260mm, 1/200th sec at f/8. ISO 1250. RAW processing in Adobe Camera Raw.

Technical Data: Canon EOS 7D, Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS USM (borrowed) at 400mm, 1/80th sec at f/8. ISO 1250. RAW processing in Adobe Camera Raw.

Technical Data: Canon EOS 7D, Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS USM (borrowed) at 190mm, 1/120th sec at f/8. ISO 1250. RAW processing in Adobe Camera Raw.

We did have some problems with them gnawing on the bark of some of the larger trees, making us worry they might try to cut them down... and they did cut down some smaller stuff (nothing bigger than about six inches in diameter), but they seem to have stopped doing that at least for now.

- Bill

So far this spring, we've had far too many geese on the pond, but we've also had visits from mergansers with their ducklings, and a wood duck and her young (I didn't get to see them, but Anya did), and this mallard mother and her nine offspring. I've tried to get photos of the others, but these are the only ones I got, and even these were pretty lucky and in poor conditions.

Technical Data: Canon EOS 7D, Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS USM (borrowed) at 400mm, 1/320th sec at f/8. ISO 400. RAW processing in Adobe Camera Raw.

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

Technical Data: Canon EOS 7D, Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS USM (borrowed) at 400mm, 1/250th sec at f/8. ISO 400. RAW processing in Adobe Camera Raw.

Maybe next year...

- Bill