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Canon 1V-HS Camera
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| Periodically, some of my favorite photographs will be featured in this section, along with photography tips and the story behind the making of each photograph. I hope these images inspire you to go out and create your own memorable photos. |
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Canon 1V-HS Camera
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| This was my first opportunity to photograph Acorn Woodpeckers. My friend, Bob, scouted a local park near his home in San Jose, CA., and found an active cavity nest in a dead oak tree. This nest location was as close to ideal for photography as you can hope for. The tree was located adjacent to a popular hiking trail so the birds were habituated to the presence of people, and we didn't have to use a blind to conceal our movement. The cavity entrance was only about seven feet off the ground, and neighboring trees were far enough away to allow for a clean, out-of-focus background behind the birds. | |
| When an adult bird returned with food -- insects or small bits of acorn --
it would sometimes perch at the entrance (as shown in the photo on the right) for a brief
moment before ducking inside to feed the chicks. Quick, accurate autofocus and a smooth
ballhead or gimbal-style head (such as the Wimberley) are essential to quickly acquire
focus on the head of the bird before it ducked inside. On my first visit I photographed with and without fill flash for comparison. Even with front lighting on the bird the exposures made without flash showed considerable shadow contrast and lacked detail in the dark feathers, and simply did not look. When ambient light is bright be careful the selected shutter speed is not faster than the maximum flash sync speed of the camera -- which is 1/200 or 1/250 second for most 35mm systems. |
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| If flash is used, and shutter speed
exceeds the max sync speed, most cameras would provide a blinking warning, but still allow
a photograph to be taken. The resulting image is likely to be overexposed. If the warning
blinks, select smaller apertures until the matching shutter speed is equal to, or slower
than the max flash sync speed of the camera. Fill flash was used with both of the above
photos, and aperture was reduced to around f/11 for a matching shutter speed of 1/250
second. Use depth-of-field preview (or digital review) to check if background is still
acceptably clean at the smaller apertures. Smaller apertures equate to greater
depth-of-field -- a clean out-of-focus background seen through the viewfinder at the lens'
maximum aperture of f/4 or f/5.6 may not look so clean at f/11. Acorn Woodpeckers typically nest in a colony, with adults sharing in communal feeding of young. On some occasions we observed as many as three adults arriving with food at the same time. I did manage to get some images with three adults in the same frame, but did not like them as much as the one featured above with male, female, and near-fledging poking its head out of the cavity nest. |
