Tag: out-of-focus background

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Green Heron At Sunset

A green heron stands at the edge of a slough in the setting sun
A green heron stands at the edge of a slough in the setting sun

A little while ago I had the good fortune of finding and photographing a juvenile green heron in the last few minutes of the golden hour of sunset. Green herons are much more difficult to spot than their prolific cousins, the great blue heron, and the great and snowy egret. First of all, there are fewer of them around. Secondly, they usually hide out of sight more often, and they are notoriously difficult to spot against their background. Once I was 15 feet from a green heron, and I kept losing sight of him amongst the rocks – not because he was behind anything, but because he blended in so well.

Crouching down and ready to strike, a juvenile green heron watches the surface of the water for movement
Crouching down and ready to strike, a juvenile green heron watches the surface of the water for movement

I found this heron more of less out in the open, but only saw it because it landed a mere 40 feet away from me. I slowly crept down to the water’s edge, lowering my tripod carefully as I went. I crept a little closer but did not want to flush this bird. The chances that it would land somewhere else that was as accessible were slight. As I watched it poke around in the mud at the edge of the slough, it started working its way toward me. All I had to do was remain very still and wait.

Eventually it got within about 20 feet, its body now filling my entire frame. By now the sun was just starting to set behind me, bathing the heron in beautiful warm light. As it settled into its now position, it started to watch the water carefully, looking for movement beneath the surface.

A juvenile green heron pulls a small fish out of the still water of a slough
A juvenile green heron pulls a small fish out of the still water of a slough

In the last minute of sunlight, its beak snapped into the water and out emerged a tiny fish. A quick gulp and it was gone, along with another successful day of bird photography.

Had I tried to approach this bird, I never would have gotten this close. Only by remaining absolutely still did my presence put the heron at ease. Also, young birds tolerate human presence much more than adult birds. I suppose its because they have not yet learned to fear humans, but whatever the reason, I was happy to take advantage of even a temporary trust.

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Dark-Eyed Junco

A dark-eyed junco searches for food at the edge of a field
A dark-eyed junco searches for food at the edge of a field

I’ve been a bit out of pocket lately, between being sick and being very busy with things other than photography. To make matters worse, one of my camera bodies decided to stop working, so it has been away at the Canon repair facility, right in the middle of prime bird season! However, even though I couldn’t be out shooting, I was able to catch up a little on photo processing.

A dark-eyed junco perches on a short bush, surveying the surrounding area
A dark-eyed junco perches on a short bush, surveying the surrounding area

Late last year I came across a small flock of dark-eyed juncos. Being ground feeders, most were darting through the grass at the edge of a field. Usually I try to get as low to the ground as possible when photographing a bird on the ground, but because this bird was so small, the height of the grass many times obscured the bird. I found that working about 2 feet off the ground gave me a better angle to the juncos, keeping grass out of the foreground.

A dark-eyed junco stands at attention as he searches the ground for food
A dark-eyed junco stands at attention as he searches the ground for food

Dark-eyed juncos are fairly common, but maybe not as easily noticed by the non-birder as other common species. They are typically seen foraging on the ground, so are not in your face as much as a house sparrow or house finch might be.

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Swallows Galore

A tree swallow perches on a narrow branch in the sun
A tree swallow perches on a narrow branch in the sun

When I first got into photographing birds, I would often walk along the bay trails and wonder what these incredibly fast birds zooming around at full speed close to the ground were. They never seemed to slow down, and never seemed to perch. They always had somewhere important to be.

A violet-green swallow perches on barbed wire
A violet-green swallow perches on barbed wire

I soon learned that these were swallows, and eventually got better views (and photographs) when I did find the odd one perched for a brief few moments. I also learned that there are six swallow species that can be seen through the Bay Area: barn, cliff, tree, violet-green, northern rough-winged, and purple martins. So far I have satisfactory photos of all but the last two.

A cliff swallow hangs from a nest and feeds a hungry chick
A cliff swallow hangs from a nest and feeds a hungry chick

The problem with photographing swallows is that they never seem to slow down. They fly far to quickly to photograph in flight (at least it is beyond my skill level) and they even feed in flight. I rarely saw them perch, and when they did so, it was for very short periods of time.

A barn swallow perches on barbed wire
A barn swallow perches on barbed wire

Over time, I was able to find most of my target species while they were resting. Finding an active colony of cliff swallows helped because the parents returned on a regular basis to feed their babies. I’m sure I’ll get opportunities with my last two local swallow species soon, and may even catch sight of a bank swallow migrating through the area.

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Use What Ya Got

A yellow garden spider waits patiently on its web for prey to get caught
A yellow garden spider waits patiently on its web for prey to get caught

Throughout the year, we see these yellow garden spiders spinning their webs around our front garden. I came across this nice specimen and wanted to capture him on my camera. However, lacking any real macro gear, I had to figure out how to make do with what I did have on hand. If I had my choice of any equipment I wanted for this shot, I would have used:

1. A small tripod with a swing arm (to get close to the web which was inconveniently placed between some hard-to-reach plants)
2. A Canon 180mm macro lens (so I could keep my distance from the creepy spider)
3. A focusing rail (to achieve that manual pin point focus on the beast)

However, I had none of that. What I did have was a 100-400mm zoom lens (non-macro). None of my tripods work work well in this area because of the spacing of the plants, so I was stuck hand-holding. In order to increase the magnification, I was able to reduce the lens’ minimum focusing distance using 3 stacked extension tubes. This allowed me to move the lens closer to the subject, filling the frame with only the spider.

Because I was not using a tripod, I had to keep the shutter speed relatively fast. That meant a larger aperture, and a smaller depth of field than I would have otherwise used (f/8 in this case). In order to compensate, I decided to try the digital technique of focus stacking to achieve the look of a larger depth of field. This image is actually a composite of two shots – one focusing on the spider’s abdomen, and the other focusing on the legs. The sharpest part of each image was blended together.

So, after all applying all these work-arounds, what is the moral of the story? Get some decent macro equipment! 🙂

Copyright 2017 Hank Christensen