Ok - so the question of whether the Greater White-fronted Geese (see the next post down) would be back has been answered as I've seen them both yesterday and today (and have a few more photos baking as I type this). But for now, I'm going to bounce back to some photos I took before I saw the geese.

This chickadee was shot at Jennings Environmental Center during a short hike Anya and I took last week for my birthday. I felt the B&W conversion helped to draw out some more of the detail (mouseover the image for the color version).

Technical Data: Canon EOS 7D Mark II, Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM at 400mm, 1/120 sec at f/8. ISO 800. IS Mode 1. RAW processing in Adobe Camera Raw, B&W conversion in Nik Silver Efex Pro.

Despite mentioning that I should get back to some other forms of photography, I have a stack of bird photos to share, so stop back for more soon!

- Bill

Ok - I was going to post a photo of a chicadee today, but then yesterday I looked out the window and saw something much much cooler...

I guess let me back up a little. Recently we've had a flock of turkeys wandering around the area (yes, I do have a couple photos I'll share of them soon), and so when I first looked out the window, I saw a bunch of dark spots in the corn field next to our house I just assumed they were the turkeys. Regardless, I went and got the binoculars for a closer look, and imagine my surprise when the birds I saw were something I've never seen before!

Anya had to grab one of our bigger bird ID books, because these are definitely native to this area. In fact, their normal migration route doesn't even show them as coming through here... so this truly was something interesting. Even more interesting was the fact that she somehow opened the book right to the page that identified what we were looking at - Greater White-fronted Geese (Anser albifrons).

I inched my way as close as I could trying to get the best photos I could (unfortunately, I probably should have taken the 1.4x teleconverter off for crisper photos)...

I am honestly disappointed with the results the 1.4x teleconverter gave me in these conditions (unfortunately, just as I went out, the already setting sun went behind a cloud, so lighting wasn't the greatest). At full size, these images are a bit soft for my liking, but for sharing here, even cropped, I guess they are ok...

I was amazed with how close I was getting (though honestly, according to the camera I was still more than 500 feet away from them). The geese appeared to be pretty unconcerned with me approaching. I would move up slightly, then stop and kneel (yeah - my knees were *freezing* from kneeling in the snow in single digit temperatures). A couple times the geese got up and moved around a little, but then settled right back into their spots.

Then without any hint that I had come too close or too quickly, the entire flock took wing. This is where I really regret having the 1.4x teleconverter on because focusing was much slower and the resulting images are much softer than I would have liked. I had just started thinking that I was close enough to consider taking the teleconverter back off, but I was too slow in making the decision to do so.

All told, we counted a maximum of fourteen geese in one of the shots, but I think there were probably more. A lot of them were hidden from view in the corn stalks and only seven of them were out in the front that I was able to take photos of.

Normally I would be more disappointed with these kinds of results from my photography, but considering the rarity of the subject, I decided to keep them to share anyway...

It did teach me a few more lessons though (hopefully ones I will remember)... I do need to do more test photos with the teleconverter to see if I get better results at higher apertures (I was at f/8 to get a decent shutter speed), but when in doubt, I should only use the teleconverter when absolutely necessary and get back to the regular lens as quickly as possible. Honestly, based on the results I got from my first images, I probably should have just continued with the lens by itself the whole time, but it is difficult not to give in to that temptation to want a little more magnification when your subject is so far away.

I will definitely keep looking to see if these geese stop by again, and if they do I'll hopefully be able to get some better photos. But to be completely honest, I can't say I expect to ever get to see these geese ever again unless I head to Texas or Alaska at some point! I am incredibly pleased that I did get the encounter that I did... seeing awesome stuff like this is precisely why Anya and I bought this property, and it is a privilege to experience stuff like this!

- Bill

Since we installed the aerator in our pond, parts of it are remaining unfrozen throughout the winter... which means we get the chance for more migrating birds to stop by. Today was our first visitors in the form of a pair of swans (they are either Tundra Swans or Trumpeter Swans - we're not quite sure yet!).

Technical Data: Canon EOS 7D Mark II, Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM at 400mm, 1/4000 sec at f/11. ISO 400. IS Mode 1. RAW processing in Adobe Camera Raw.

I scared them off by moving in too quickly - I had hoped they would be a bit more confident to stick around and wasn't being as slow and cautious as I should have been... and I was probably a bit too excited. Hopefully they stop back and I can get more photos, and here's hoping that we get a bunch more uncommon migrators stopping by the pond soon!

- Bill

Ok - so admittedly, I intentionally have not posted in a while, but that was so that I could post my 600th post on the six year anniversary of starting my blog. A lot has happened over six years, and I've taken a ton of photographs (I honestly don't even know how many!). I have done some bigger posts for other anniversaries, so I wanted to do something similar again... but how to do it.

Then it hit me, why not take a look back at my top six favorite styles of photography. Some have been a strong interest since the start (like macro photography of spiders and bugs), while some are pretty new (videography - ok, I know it isn't technically photography, but it still requires a camera!), and some I only enjoy sometimes (landscape), though others I'd do every day if I could (underwater), and some I work hard to get (wildlife), and others that I don't work for but allow it to come to me as the subject warrants (black & white). Of course sometime I am doing multiple styles of photography all at once. But let's take a quick stroll through some examples of each style with some photos that may have gotten over-shadowed or missed for whatever reason throughout the years...

MACRO Definitely my favorite form of photography, macro gives me the chance to show things that most people overlook or never even see. Of course, a lot of the time, those things are the "creepy crawlies" and spiders that most people don't want to see anyway... but I find those things fascinating. Particularly jumping spiders - my absolute favorite macro subject. But macro can be very versatile - spiders, bugs, flowers, abstracts, underwater, fungi, just about anything. And when other forms of photography just aren't feasible because of bad light conditions or such, there are always macro subjects to be found.

BLACK & WHITE This is a style of photography that I have to admit I don't work at at all. I let this one come to me. If the scene or subject screams to me to be shot in black & white, I might see it while I'm taking the photo or sometimes not until I'm home and processing the photos on the computer and sometimes still not until months or years later looking back at the photo. The great thing about B&W photography is it can be merged with any type of photography, and as you'll see, I've tried it on just about every style of photography I do. Actually, that makes me realize that I have yet to ever convert a macro spider photo to black & white... I guess that will be an upcoming project! While I was tempted to process some new photos for this little set, I decided to just dig through the archives to find ones I'd processed previously and get them some due screen time...

WILDLIFE Wildlife photography spans a number of areas for me... birds, reptiles and amphibians, mammals, truly wild, and zoo kept animals. All of it is a huge draw to me. Luckily, Anya and I have moved to a place where we get exposed to so much more wildlife than we did before. As such, I was able to pick this entire assortment from photos I've taken right here on our property or close by (technically the owl and the snake were from the local park where we go to walk the dogs). This is definitely what I probably consider one of my most difficult forms of photography. The amount of patience and luck required are simply staggering at times, and the time investment is one I wish I could devote more effort to. But as I said, luckily all of this is right outside our door, so the convenience factor certainly is helping me to improve and get better shots all the time!

UNDERWATER Well - what can I say about underwater photography other than I wish I could get to do it more often! It is a very challenging form of photography, and quite often by the time I'm getting into a groove and starting to feel like I'm able to get more creative with my shots, that's exactly when the trip is over and it will be another year before I get to try again. Honestly, if I could go diving every day, or even every weekend to hone my underwater photography skills, I would. For now though, I'll just have to be happy with the once a year that I do get to go experience and record such amazing things!

So there you have it... six styles of photography, six years worth of trips, experiences, passion, sights... all recorded and shared here in 600 posts. Amusingly enough, at three years, I made the claim that I looked forward to three more years but figured a site redesign was in order before then and I'm still using the exact same site. I do think that needs to change, but part of my reluctance is the fantastic compendium that this site has become for me. I quite often refer back to old posts to share things again or even just a reference for myself. So hopefully I can figure out the challenge of upgrading this site while maintaining the integrity of all of the history that I've built here. For now though, I'll focus on continuing to capture and share photos like these!

Thanks for stopping by!

- Bill

PS: If you are interested in exploring further into some of these examples, the section headers and the "button" below are links to the history of posts that have been tagged with that label, so if you want to see more of any specific style of photography, just click and explorer!

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