Depth of Field

Black Skimmers – Down and dirty

By Mia McPherson, on July 31st, 2011%

Calling adult Black Skimmer (Rynchops niger) in breeding plumage
Fort De Soto County Park, Pinellas County, Florida
Nikon D200, handheld, f8, 1/640, Nikkor 80-400mm VR at 400mm, natural light

Anyone who has photographed birds during the month August in Florida knows it is hot and humid even in the early hours of the morning. And it just gets hotter throughout the day. From mid March until November I was always prepared to sweat. And sweat some more.

Part of being addicted to bird photography I suspect. Dedicated bird photographers will endure heat, hunger, extreme cold, blistered feet, numb fingers and much more to get their shots. I’m sure to outsiders we look crazy.

The day I took the images in this post I arrived before sunrise to a light sea fog which burned off rather quickly and after that the heat was on. I wandered around for a bit taking images of shorebirds, egrets and pink fluffy clouds before I noticed a large mixed flock of gulls, terns and skimmers. As I walked towards them I could see hundreds of birds, some on their way out to go get food and some resting on the sand.

According to my EXIF information It was 7:15 am when I first started photographing where the flock of birds were that morning.

Many yards away from the birds I dropped down to my knees then laid on my belly and slowly sand-crawled within range. Sand-crawling is not just a way to get closer to your subject it is also low cost dermabrasion for your elbows, tummy feet and any other exposed part of your skin. It probably took me over 10 minutes of wiggling my way forward in the sand to get into a slight depression where I was close enough to the birds and low enough to get the low angle I wanted for my images.

Juvenile Black Skimmer (Rynchops niger) spying on me

Juvenile Black Skimmer (Rynchops niger) spying on me
Fort De Soto County Park, Pinellas County, Florida
Nikon D200, handheld, f7.1, 1/640, ISO 160, Nikkor 80-400mm VR at 340mm, natural light.

I had seen from a distance that there were juveniles in with the adult birds, my plan was to wiggle into that depression and stay put so that I wouldn’t disrupt the young birds or the adults who were flying in to feed them. The safety and well-being of the birds is always uppermost in my mind.

About the only movements I made were to lift my head to the viewfinder, click the shutter button, reach around to my backpack for my bottle of water to sip and to use my bandana to wipe the sweat from my brow. Long before that day I had learned that if I didn’t move much the birds were likely to come closer to me and they did that day. Dressed in light tans and khaki colors I probably began to look like I was part of the beach. Clearly my sweaty skin had enough sand stuck to it to make me look like something the tide had washed up.

I photographed Forster’s, Sandwich and Royal Terns along with Laughing and Ring-billed Gulls that morning but my main focus was on the Black Skimmers in the large mixed flock. The juvenile skimmers were either laying down on the sand resting or begging for food when they could see or hear the adults nearby. The image above shows a juvenile moving towards one of its parents to get some food. This pose and image reminds me of an old magazine cartoon, I think it was called “Spy VS Spy”. Mad magazine perhaps? Anyway, the pose makes me laugh.

Resting adult Black Skimmer (Rynchops niger)

Resting adult Black Skimmer (Rynchops niger) going out of breeding plumage
Fort De Soto County Park, Pinellas County, Florida
Nikon D200, handheld, f8, 1/500, ISO 160, Nikkor 80-400mm VR at 310mm, natural light

Because I was laying in a slight depression which was below the birds I was able to get very low angle shots. My friends say when my images have such a low angle that I must have been “Down ‘n dirty”. Well I know for sure I was dirty, I had sand everywhere! And I was laying down.

Black Skimmers are very long birds from the tip of the bill to the end of the tail and it can be quite a challenge to have enough depth of field to get all of the birds in focus, to compose the frame well and then there is the difficulty of properly exposing a black and white bird with orange legs and bill. But they are well worth the troubles to get some nice shots.

Juvenile (L) and adult (R) Black Skimmers (Rynchops niger)

Juvenile (L) and adult (R) Black Skimmers (Rynchops niger)
Fort De Soto County Park, Pinellas County, Florida
Nikon D200, handheld, f7.1, 1/640, ISO 160, Nikkor 80-400mm VR at 230mm, natural light

Because I had been so still I was rewarded a few times by the birds moving closer to me than I would have approached them like the juvenile and adult bird above. It felt like an honor. My patience and laying still for so long paid off. I know I took hundreds of Black Skimmer images that morning, some I still have yet to process.

My EXIF information shows that I took my last skimmer image at 9:33 am which means I laid there in the sand and heat for two hours and eighteen minutes photographing those birds and in my mind it was worth every second, all the sand on my skin and the perspiration that at times had burned my eyes.

Maybe I am crazy to be so addicted to bird photography! A good crazy I hope.

Mia

More Black Skimmer images

Bald Eagle and depth of field

By Mia McPherson, on December 30th, 2010%

Perched Bald Eagle at f/6.3

Perched Bald Eagle at f/6.3
Bear River National Migratory Bird Refuge, Box Elder County, Utah
D200, f6.3, 1/800, ISO 400, +0.7 EV, 200-400mm VR with 1.4x TC at 400mm, natural light, not baited

I found this Bald Eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) perched on an old post going into Bear River National Migratory Bird Refuge in northern Utah. The eagle was “sticky”, a term my friends and I use when the weather is cold enough to make the birds less likely to fly upon approach. Because I had time to photograph this eagle I tried using several different depths of field which can make and impact on the fore and backgrounds of an image.

For the image above I selected an f-stop (aperture) of 6.3, the eagle and the perch are sharp and in focus while the distant mountains, water and vegetation are out of focus and have a soft appearance. The foreground vegetation is softened and out of focus as well.

Perched Bald Eagle at f/22

Perched Bald Eagle at f/22
Bear River National Migratory Bird Refuge, Box Elder County, Utah
D200, f22, 1/80, ISO 400, +0.7 EV, 200-400mm VR with 1.4x TC at 400mm, natural light, not baited

For the photo above I selected and f-stop of 22, the eagle and the post are as sharp and in focus as the first photo, but there are differences in the fore and background of these two images taken just 5 frames apart.

The foreground vegetation has more definition and the shapes of the stems are more clearly identifiable. The water has more texture to the surface than the image taken at f6.3 and the vegetation in the background between the water and the mountains show more detail. There are also visible details in the the distant mountains that show the shapes of trees and the brush on the slopes.

I believe these two eagle pictures illustrate what changes the depth of field settings can have on the appearance of an image. Some photographers “blur” the background of their images in post processing, I prefer to use the bokeh of my lens and aperture settings at the time of creation to create a more natural effect without manipulation.

Mia