Well, my plans for getting out and shooting over the winter break were scuttled by a home renovation project, yes, i was on my hands and knees laying down hardwood laminate flooring on our ground level.
now it's only my studio room that has ugly old carpet left, no hurry though as it's tiring and back-breaking work.
Got out before the end of the year to re-visit some of the spots on the north shore i took punkrockbigyear and the hollywood actress to (when i didn't have my camera), Harlequin ducks were still out by Whytecliffe, however the approach to the rocks where they sit gives them plenty of time to see you and they always shove off, meaning a long wait before they return, and never as close as they were when you first saw them.
much farther out than i would have liked.
Mew Gull at Maplewood, a location i've been striking out at recently.
Yesterday morning i finally made it out again properly, my first time this year and nice weather as well.
Decided to head out to Blackie Spit first thing in the morning and had no problem spotting the shorebirds i was targeting. Even though they were in among the vast array of roosting ducks their body shape and colour gave them away to me right away.
Long-billed Curlew with godwit companions
Marbled Godwit chilling out in the early morning
Next i headed over to B Bay and checked out a few of the roads before the dike.
104th had a huge flock of Eurasian Collared-doves but since they were coming into a tree next to someone's house i decided to pass on shooting them.
When i arrived at the dike i spotted a harrier perched in the sun (with a photog camped out deep in the field watching it), i took a couple of long-distance shots and was amazed to see that i had caught the catchlight in it's eyes, even from the distance i was shooting from.
Later, i saw a S-eared owl in the spot one would expect to see it although it was not really close enough for quality looks.
Walking further along the dike i came across a group of photogs and some L-eared owls camped out deep in the bushes. I couldn't see anything decent coming out of the looks but took a record shot anyways and then continued on my way. disclosing the exact location is not something i will do online but it would be naive to think that most people don't already know where they can be found in winter anyways (just give them some respect, and space, that's all).
Really, for me the highlight of B Bay was this Flicker posing so nicely for me, happy camper.
Afterwards i decided to head over to Tsawassen ferry jetty to see if i could find any Snow buntings, i hadn't seen any reports the last little while for them but knew from past years that January wasn't too late for them.
I wasn't the only person thinking about buntings however and met up with a Flickr contact looking for the same. he had started at one end and i had started at the other, when we met up neither of us had seen any and i was starting to think i was going to dip on them again (unsuccessful trip for them late last year) when suddenly two little birds flew by our feet low to the ground :o "buntings buntings buntings!" i blurted out and there they were. It was a Lifer for him and we both secured some good looks as the birds worked their way down the beach, later a few more photogs showed up looking for the same as us, it was easy for them however, we just pointed to the dirt road and said "there they are"
On the way home i got lost.
the roads have all changed and i missed the new turnoff to the highway and before i knew it i was on the Alex Fraser bridge.
talk about taking the long way back to North Van :roll:
I had what i consider an off year, struggled to get back into the flow of shooting on a regular basis, a full work week again after a while of 4 day weeks cramped my style a bit, as did the "burnout" i mentioned in another post a while back now.
Looking back on the year i did achieve some shots that standout from the rest and i'll post them now
American Dipper - Sechelt Feb 01.
An old friend got in touch with me this year and it turns out he lives on the sunshine coast now. Spent a memorable morning taking him out "birding" and finally nailed some decent shots of the sunshine coast dippers.
Yellow-headed Blackbird - Iona May 17.
Some nice looks at the Y-H blackbirds this year in Richmond, particularly like this wing-spread for some reason.
Western Tanager - Grouse Mountain May 24.
was lucky to get some amazing looks at this species this year, kind of like this view the best out of the tanager series.
Yes, it's hard choosing 3 every year, i found it kind of challenging this time.
Best wishes to all in the new year, hope it's a good one bird-wise!
I haven't had much time until now to try out the new D7100 and my plans of doing some shooting today were most definitely smashed by the snow so i'll post up some of the first proper shots, Wednesday morning.
ISO 400, f5.6, 500mm f4 + 1.4x tele, 1.3x crop mode.
First impressions on the body are that it doesn't feel as "solid" as the D300 series on the end on my 500mm lens, it is a lighter body of course. Not really crazy about the button placement but i'm getting used to it.
Overall quality of shots at 100% resolution is an upgrade, D7100 shots look nicer at higher ISO's.
a bit slower than the D300s but i'm not a rapid-fire shooter anyway so the much smaller buffer on D7100 shouldn't become too much of an issue (i hope).
Seems to acquire focus quicker though, which is nice.
As with all new camera systems, making sure your software is up to date is usually a hassle.
Adobe PS5 can't handle the D7100 RAW files as i found out, i have to convert all files to DNG format to be able to work with them in PS.
I can upgrade to PS6 but that's $, or i can install my copy of Capture NX2 again and open the files that way..
decisions in the near future.
I've been waiting patiently for the D400 as a proper upgrade to D300/s since it's getting a bit long in the tooth but there seems to be no action on Nikon's part regarding this phantom body.
Notice Nikon is calling the D7100 their "DX flagship" model which leads me to believe there will be no D400 in the near future, alas but the D7100 has 24+ MP.
So i bit the bullet, took the plunge, and caved in.
I got the bright idea of trading in my two spare D300 bodies in to my local Kerrisdale cameras towards a new D7100 body, which had only just come down in price to $1000. They valued the used bodies at $225 each, shutter counts were 100,000 on the older body and only 65,000 on the newer one. Will keep my D300s as a spare just in case the D7100 doesn't work out for whatever reason.
Picked up a Nikon battery grip, 2 SD cards, 2 extra batteries ($100 each, ouch!, don't remember Nikon batteries costing that much before) and the body and now i can't wait to take it out for a first test on the 500f4, with and without 1.4x tele.
Well, close to 1000 shots now and i'm getting a better picture of the camera's capabilities.
the small buffer is noticeable as i found yesterday but it just means being a bit more conservative when firing off to give the buffer time, one good thing is that it's pretty fast at processing so wait time is not too long when in the thick of action.
It's sharp, maybe getting rid of the low-pass filter has something to do with it.
It handles the 500 f4 aptly and finds focus quickly.
I've switched the 1.3 crop factor off for now but may consider it again in the future as it makes for a quicker and smaller-sized image when uploading, i never thought that it would magnify my images in a useful manner, rather it would crop out the "unwanted" parts of the image that i would crop out anyways.
When shooting the oystercatchers in close i forgot to pay attention to the 1.3 crop markers set in from the regular viewfinder markers and found a lot of shots with cropped feet because of it.
I will have to do something as the Adobe DNG Converter seems to overheat my computer when processing RAW files to the extent that my computer shuts down unexpectedly, not cool.
I also don't have to worry anymore about letting my monitor warm up before working on images because it takes so darned long to convert :lol:
It's all good though, happy with the image quality so far.
Went out to Maplewood Flats yesterday and spent far too much time waiting for a Horned Grebe to come in close enough for something decent, didn't happen but this Common Loon popped up out of nowhere and i was able to get some pretty close shots.
another bird seen during my walk was a Snipe of all birds, which i inadvertently flushed by the bridge, i could only watch as it flew right by me and off into the distance, so close!
We went to Lost Lagoon in Stanley Park this morning, my mission was White-throated Sparrow by the stone bridge, i've gotten it there in years past but not this time, Spotted Towhees were seen as well as Golden-crowned sparrows, Dark-eyed juncos, Song sparrows, Fox sparrows and Black-capped chickadees.
Later we checked out a spot in West Vancouver by the lighthouse and got a lone Killdeer on the beach, Harlequin's were out in the water so i decided to try and get some down low shots of the bird, which had landed in front of my setup, the sun even broke out of the clouds then and i had some nice light to work with.
