I recently finished processing a series of photos I took of a flock of evening grosbeaks that invaded a neighborhood in Sunnyvale, CA, a little south of my home. For several days, the birds were repeating a pattern of flying into the area in the morning, and perching on a row of chinese pistache trees, so I decided to head down and see if I could locate the flock.
I arrived in the neighborhood just after dawn when I figured the birds would be busy eating. I began to walk up and down the streets, occasionally stopping to listen for the distinct crunching sound of the birds eating the fruit off of the trees. All the while I was under the watchful eyes of the residents, who probably don’t often see someone walking past their house with an 800mm lens mounted to a large tripod.
An evening grosbeak perches on a branch of a chinese pistache tree and eats a small seed, Sunnyvale CA.
Finally, I was on the verge of giving up and decided to make my way back to my car. On my way back, I passed under one of the many chinese pistache trees and heard the soft crunch crunch crunch. Looking up I could just see one or two of the grosbeaks in the upper most branches. Thrilled, I set up my gear on the sunny side of the tree (so that the birds would be front lit), and waited until some of them ventured to lower fruit.
An evening grosbeak reaches for food on the branches on a Chinese pistache tree, Sunnyvale, CA.
In all I hung out for about 20 minutes before the birds lifted off and flew elsewhere. It is always a treat to get such opportunities to photograph seasonal migrants.
Recently I was asked by a prospective digital camera buyer about my opinion on full frame verses cropped sensors. The answer is actually not very simple, so I thought I’d expand on my thoughts in this post.
For those who aren’t familiar with these terms, full frame refers to a digital camera that has the same sensor size as 35mm film. This became the prevailing film standard, and most of today’s digital SLR lenses use this size to calculate their relative lens magnification factor. A cropped sensor camera is a digital SLR that has a sensor smaller than 35mm film. These cameras use the same lens focal length scale, but apply an additional “magnification factor” to the 35mm numbers. For example, Canon’s cropped sensors apply a 1.6X magnification factor to lenses as compared to 35mm-sized sensors. If a full frame camera used a 50mm lens, the perceived magnification factor using the same lens of a cropped sensor camera is 50mm X 1.6 = 80mm. In other words, in the resulting photos, it appears as if the camera was zoomed into 80mm when using a 50mm lens on a cropped sensor camera.
So which is better? As with any tool, it depends on the job. I use both full frame and cropped sensor cameras regularly in my photography. When I’m shooting landscape, architecture, or macro, I typically use a full frame camera. My current workhorse is the Canon 5D MkII (now practically a dinosaur of a camera!), which allows me to use a full range of lens focal lengths, including my widest. In these shooting conditions, camera features such as auto focus and frame rate are not as important to me as pixel count and low digital noise. With this camera, I shoot from a tripod most of the time and work slowly and methodically through the scene, getting as much right in camera as possible.
Barrel cactus is just starting to bloom in the Alabama Hills, Lone Pine, CA
The photo above is an example of using a full frame camera with a wide angle lens. Here my 17mm lens truly gave me the wide angle using my full frame sensor, instead of the appearance of a 27 mm lens (17 X 1.6) if I used a cropped sensor. I worked from a tripod, manually focused, and shot at ISO 100.
When I’m shooting bird and wildlife photos, I always use a cropped sensor. This gives my long lenses that extra reach, and cropped sensor cameras tend to have slightly lower pixel count, which allows for faster frame rate. My cropped sensor workhorse is the Canon 7D, which has my most important traits for these shooting conditions – fast auto focus and high frame rate. While low noise is always desired, here the highest pixel count is not as important, as wildlife and bird photos typically don’t end up in huge prints. Pairing this camera with a 400 mm lens allows me to handhold while photographing giving me lots of mobility. When I use it with my 800 mm lens, I get the equivalent of 1280mm due to the lens multiplication factor. This gets me in close to my subjects without needing tele-extenders, which reduce auto focus performance.
Crouching down and ready to strike, a juvenile green heron watches the surface of the water for movement
The photo above is an example of using a cropped sensor camera with a long lens. Using the equivalent of 1280 mm (800 X 1.6) allowed me to be far enough from my subject to not disturb it from its normal behavior. I was also able to shoot many frames per second to capture the perfect body and head position while the green heron was fishing.
Just as a carpenter wouldn’t just use one type of hammer, a photographer won’t resort to just one type of camera. If you are just dipping your toes into the world of digital SLRs, think first about what type of photography you’d like to explore first. That will likely help you list your desired features and point you to the right tool for the job.
Female sooty grouse can be seen in wooded areas, usually on or close to the ground. Males can be heard throughout the Sierra Nevada, but are much harder to spot, as their deep booming vocalizations are difficult to triangulate. Yosemite National Park.
On a recent backpacking trip to Yosemite I managed to see and photograph a female sooty grouse. I had been hearing the booming calls of the male all day long as I made my way up switchbacks out of the valley, climbing ever higher into the high country. Although very vocal, the males are very hard to spot. They create a deep booming call that resonates at a low frequency. This allows the call to travel a great distance, but it is difficult to discern directionality of the sound. In addition, males will fly up into tree branches to broadcast, while most of the life of the female is spent foraging on the forest floor.
A female sooty grouse picks through the forest needles looking for food, Yosemite National Park.
Indeed this is where I found the female – scratching for food in a sparse forest next to a creek. This situation called for me to stretch my stalking skills to the maximum, because my longest lens I had with me on my trip was my 70-200 mm, and this was on a full frame camera. I usually photograph birds with an 800mm on a 1.6X cropped sensor, so I was at a severe disadvantage to my usual setup.
Creeping ever closer, I managed not to disturb her too much. My best shots came when she ducked behind a tree and wandered into a small clearing. I managed to sneak up directly behind the tree, and then peak around the side.
Trying for these shots in a dark forest required I gather as much light to the sensor as possible. This meant shooting wide open (f/4 was the best this lens had to offer), using the lens’ image stabilizer (of course!), and shooting at a high ISO.
Although this is not the most colorful bird I have ever photographed, I was excited none the less. It was a life bird for me, and it was thrilling to have such an opportunity when I was not on a trip specifically geared toward bird photography, and I didn’t have my optimum gear with me.
A little while ago I visited Arastradero Preserve in Palo Alto, CA in order to get some photos of some of the white-tail kites that live there. And I was certainly not disappointed. I climbed a large hill in order to get above some of the trees on which they perch while they are not hunting. I quickly saw one of the kites and slowly made my way toward its tree.
A white-tailed kite perches on a tree branch, surveying the landscape around it
With my eye glued to the view finder, I had my lens tight in on this bird, capturing shots of it flying up and back to various branches on the tree. Suddenly a dark form darted by just above the kite. Luckily, my photography training was to shoot first and ask questions later, and I capture a single frame of what I later saw to be another kite flying at the first one.
A male white-tail kite flies past a female, which reacts to his close proximity
The male quickly mated with the female, and just as quickly flew away. And before you ask, yes I do have photos, but hey, this is a family friendly blog!
A male white-tail kite approaches a female from behind and mates with it
I’ve never seen this before or since, and I definitely know that I wouldn’t have been able to capture these shots if I hadn’t already had the female framed and in focus. Sometimes you just get lucky….
