The scissor-tail flycatcher, aka Texas bird-of-paradise, can hover with its tail spread and make abrupt turns in midair. It’s numbers have declined by about 31% between 1966 and 2014.
I found this flycatcher in October, sitting pretty on the barb-wire fence at the Brazoria National Wildlife Refuge back in 2013.
Copyright Rebecca L. Latson, all rights reserved.
Comments Off on It’s Fun Fact Friday 3-6-2020!
Filed under 1DX, birds, Brazoria NWR, Canon, Fun Fact Friday, nature, Photography, Texas, Wildlife Refuge
I’m up early because the inside of my cheek is killing me. I had a back molar implant put in this past Wednesday and my cheek got the brunt of some burring work on the cap and the upper back molar. Bleah. So, I can’t sleep. I’ll take an aspirin after I have something for breakfast later. Whenever I can’t sleep, I get up, turn on the laptop, and work on photos. I’m still (and will be for months, I’m sure) cleaning up my photo website and I happened upon this image in my Brazoria National Wildlife Refuge gallery. It was an awesome morning on that June day. Sometimes, going to the refuge was a hit or miss prospect. I either saw lots of birdlife, like here, or no birdlife. On this stormy morning, not only were there large numbers of egrets and spoon bills, but the clouds were awesomely dramatic. Out of all the images I took at the refuge, this photo numbers as one of my favorites.
Copyright Rebecca L. Latson, all rights reserved
Filed under birds, Brazoria NWR, nature, Photography, Seasons, summer, Texas, Wildlife Refuge
I can’t tell you how many times I have tried to capture a good image of this neat bird. I know, blackbirds are blackbirds are blackbirds (aka ordinary), but those chevrons of bright orange-red are quite the eye-grabber. And these birds have such a pretty song.
This photo was taken out at the Brazoria National Wildlife Refuge, here in southeast Texas, not too far from where I live. I had my Canon 1DX attached to the 500mm prime lens. Thanks for my efforts at losing weight and building up some arm strength, I was able to hand-hold the camera/lens combo (IS turned On) and grab some shots of this red-wing blackbird.
Filed under 1DX, birds, Brazoria NWR, Canon, Canon 500mm f/4L IS II, Canon Lens, nature, Photography, Texas, Wildlife Refuge
I finished every single one of my errands/chores yesterday so I could drive out to the Brazoria National Wildlife Refuge this morning to see what might be there: tall grass and reeds and cattails with lots of water but not much birdlife – at least, not in the area in which I found myself and nothing near to me and my 500mm lens. The clouds on this morning, however, were dark and fluffy and big and presaged the coming storms predicted for today. So I pulled out the other tripod and my Canon 5DSR with the 16-35mm f//4 IS lens, affixed a circular polarizer to it and used my grad ND filter to bring out the texture in the clouds.
Clouds are a photographer’s best friend. They add drama and character to an already lovely scene and can really spice up an otherwise ordinary or ho-hum scene. The thing about photographing awesome clouds, though, is that you also need a frame of reference or some scale. So don’t just photograph the clouds themselves. Your viewers won’t know whether this was a horizon-filling scene or just a small spot in the sky. Add some ground or buildings or *something* to the cloud scene.
Copyright Rebecca L Latson, all rights reserved.
Filed under 5DSR, Brazoria NWR, Canon, Landscape, nature, Photography, Texas, Wildlife Refuge
It is. It’s almost the end of 2015 and I, for one, am ready for it to be done with. Except for my boob job in January, it’s been a pretty shitty year I’ll admit.
My 89-year old mother became ill in early February and subsequently died on the 19th, one day prior to my elder sister’s birthday. We can’t thank our lucky stars enough that we were both there to care for Mom at the end of it all. From then on, life and work went to hell in a handbasket. I’d break into tears every time I thought of Mom or thought of (or heard or saw) something that reminded me of Mom, My sister and I constantly second-guessed ourselves concerning Mom (woulda, coulda, shoulda). I found myself working for a horrible boss who made my work life miserable. I was not in the least interested in photography. And my entire life revolved around being Executrix of Mom’s estate.
Poor Mom. She thought she was leaving my sister and me with a nice little nest egg of her savings. As it was, my sister and I spent every single penny of that nest-egg savings getting Mom’s house up to snuff so we could finally put it on the market; fingers crossed that this sale goes through smoothly so we can be done with it. These upgrades included a total re-grade and re-sod of the entire front, back and side yards around the house (including the addition of what they call “French drains” to get the standing water to drain into the ditches around the house thanks to the horrid spring thunderstorms Texas constantly experienced all April and May); installation of more foundation pillars in the hallway; patching and repainting the cracks in the walls caused by the foundation work as well as the house’s normal settling issues here in southeast Texas; re-carpeting the hallway, one bedroom and the large den; getting the electrical issues worked out; installing a new roof to replace the one damaged by a freak April hailstorm; fixing the garage door, removing all of the high-tech hurricane storm shutters; and a number of other smaller issues – all required by the home inspector’s and the structural engineer’s report and the current realtor’s suggestions to make the house more – well – salable. This work has all taken two months shy of a year since Mom’s death. It’s been an albatross around my neck and I can’t thank my sister’s husband enough for all of his help – his 30 years in the construction business has enabled me to keep from going mad and throttling most of the people and businesses within this horrid little Podunk Texas town in which I currently reside. My experience this year has lead me to believe that there is absolutely no business here in this town that is totally trustworthy. At least, not when it comes to dealing with a divorced, middle-aged woman such as myself. Fuck ‘em all, I say.
As you can probably tell by now, this entire experience has given birth to the New Me: Angry White Woman.
I don’t take shit off of anybody anymore and I’m far more vocal about my feelings, opinions and beliefs (this includes my political and non-religious leanings, much to many of my Facebook friends’ annoyance). I have discovered I am also far more willing to stick my neck out at work and push back to the dirty politics I experience on behalf of myself and my friends who either cannot or will not push back themselves (it’s easier for me to do it since I’m close to early retirement and I don’t have a family for whom I must provide – this allows me to follow the courage of my convictions).
It’s taken me 54 years, and I’m absolutely certain Mom’s death was the catalyst to make me realize what is truly important in my life. Hint: it aint work. Work is not my life and never has been – it just pays the bills, pays for my camera equipment and allows me to travel. No, what is really important – to me – is family and people who love me.
I no longer have family here in Texas. They all live out in the Pacific Northwest, and sooner rather than later, that is where I will move. I am making my plans little by little. I don’t want to grow old and spend my remaining days alone in a Texas nursing home, waiting to die, far away from people I love and who love me. Besides that, I’ve never been a huge fan of Texas and am ready for the next adventure further west where the mountains and my family live.
I’m also trying to regain my photo mojo. I’ve done a few small photo projects this year, including:
Using my new 11-24mm, 100mm macro, and 500mm prime lenses at Brazos Bend State Park, Brazoria National Wildlife Refuge, and around my home and my mother’s home;
Spending a wonderful sunrise photo shoot as well as an entire day in the photo pit at the 2015 Wings Over Houston Airshow;
Performing my duties as staff photographer for The Merchant Prince and capturing images for his use out at the 2015 Texas Renaissance Festival;
Photographing my newest great niece whom I have never met until last year (for only 20 minutes before getting to the airport) and who is now almost 3 years old;
And photographing my company’s annual gingerbread decorating event.
I haven’t really taken any photo holiday because almost all of my annual vacation days were spent caring for Mom and thereafter taking care of the estate. I did take a short trip to visit my sister and her family in eastern Washington over Labor Day, spent a weekend in Santa Fe NM during the Memorial Day holiday, and visited my sister and her family, again, during Thanksgiving.
My main vacation is coming up and I hope it will be the jump start to much more photography in 2016: I’m going to be spending 10 days in Europe (including Christmas and New Year): 8 days in London and 2 days in Paris. Everything is paid for, I printed out all of my tickets, and I am all packed, including my camera backpack:
I’m not taking my 70-200mm lens because it’s heavy and my backpack is already heavy enough (plus I’m taking two suitcases as well as my laptop bag with travel laptop, mouse, memory card readers, 2 external hard drives – 1 TB each, iPhone, iPad, book, and folder with all of my ticket information for the various venues I will attend). I can only take so much – don’t even ask me what I’ve packed in the suitcases (grin).
I apologize for not publishing more blog posts. I know one is supposed to do that to keep readership and to keep one’s writing skills in tip-top shape. I’ll get back into the groove, I promise. I’ll have free WiFi in my London and Paris hotels, so I know I’ll be editing photos and writing about my experiences, uploading to both my Facebook photography page as well as my Twitter account. I may even publish a post while there. For now, stay tuned to forthcoming imagery from my 2015 trip, as well as the trips I have planned for 2016. I plan on making up for lost time.
Filed under 1DX, 5DS, Attitude, Aviation, birds, Brazoria NWR, Brazos Bend State Park, Canon, Canon 11-24mm, Canon Lens, Equipment, Landscape, Life, macro, nature, Photography, Texas, wildlife, Wildlife Refuge
Soooo, in my last post, where I describe my weekend trying out a rental Sigma 50-500mm on my Canon 1DX, I mentioned my next bit of fun would be with the brand spankin’ new Tamron 150-600mm lens. Unfortunately, Lensrentals doesn’t have them in stock yet, so my reservation had to be moved further back for a time when the lens *is* in stock.
Therefore, I thought I would publish a post with more photos taken using the Sigma and my 1DX. Apertures were set between f8 – f10 and the ISO ranged anywhere from 250 to 2000. This setup was either anchored to a Wimberely gimbal head and tripod, or it was steadied atop a pillow as I photographed from my car window (I now own a Grizzly bean bag as this taught me a lesson about big lenses and shooting from car windows)
Migratory Snow Geese
Ibis and Geese Amicably Breakfasting Together
Ready to Do Battle (Crayfish aka Crawfish aka Crawdad)
The Runway is Clear for Landing…..?
Poetry in Motion
This coming week, I will be receiving from Lensrentals the Canon 600mm L II lens. I want to see if it fits into my new Tamrac backpack that I ordered specifically to fit this lens during my 2-week stay in Alaska this August. Plus, I just couldn’t stand it and wanted to play with another big honkin’ lens on my 1DX and Wimberley.
Filed under Brazoria NWR, Canon, Equipment, Photography, Sigma lens, Texas, Wildlife Refuge
Blue-winged teal (I think) at Brazos Bend State Park, Texas
As of late, I’ve been suffering a little cabin fever on the weekends. I want to do something photographically (other than edit archived images), but don’t know what. My part of southeast Texas is not the most photogenic for landscape imagery, but it is definitely a treasure trove for bird photography; Brazos Bend State Park, a number of wildlife refuges including Brazoria and Aransas NWRs, the wetlands parallel to the Gulf Coast and Padre Island National Seashore are all within a 30-minute to 4-hour drive away.
I go out to the nearby state park and Brazoria NWR often, but the birds tend to be skittish and are generally too distant for the reach of my Canon 100-400mm lens, thus requiring some degree of image cropping during the editing stage. After seeing others with their big honkin’ primes out at these places, I always suffer a little angst over the fact that I don’t own a super-telephoto, myself. So for yucks and giggles, I reserved a number of super-telephoto lenses with Lensrentals.com to try out over the next couple of months: The Sigma 50-500mm, Tamron’s new 150-600mm lens, Canon’s 800mm prime and I even decided to try out (for the fun of it) the Nikon D800 camera and Nikkor 600mm lens.
This particular post is about my thoughts (with samples) of the Sigma 50-500mm lens at its longest focal length (because I only want the long length for birds – I’m not interested in any of the shorter focal lengths since I already own that aforementioned Canon 100-400mm which I love…well, except for that damned push-pull zoom mechanism).
This is a TOTALLY unscientific review. Everything written here is my opinion only. I’m going to try not to be much of a “pixel-peeper”, either, but I do have high standards that I expect from my full-frame Canons and a good lens.
The photos in this post are relatively low-res; if you want to see a higher-res shot, just click on the photo and it will take you to that image that I’ve uploaded to my photography website.
My thoughts:
A Canon 1DX and this lens are a little bit heavier for my small hands than my 1DX and 100-400. But then I had no intention of hand-holding this lens as I planned on attaching it to the Wimberley gimbal tripod head I recently won off of eBay (saved myself $200 and it works like a charm).
The Sigma 50-500 at it’s 500mm length, attached to my Canon 1DX on a Wimberley gimbal head and Induro tripod legs
I like Sigma’s focus ring (unlike that stupid push-pull of the Canon 100-400 – what the hell was this company thinking at the time it did that??).
I also like the easy lock switch (My Canon 100-400 has a ring that you have to turn to get the lens to lock at a certain focal length – to get it to stay locked, you need to make sure that ring is turned clockwise as tight as possible).
I’d read in other reviews of this lens that one needed to set the f-stop to at least 8 for optimal sharpness. So all of my images taken at Brazos Bend State Park and the Brazoria National Wildlife Refuge were between f8 and f10. Because the weekend has been warm but cloudy and overcast with some rain (and a little bit of sun here and there), and to offset the small amount of light getting in through the aperture because of the f-stop settings, the ISO ranged between 400 to 2000 depending upon the outdoor lighting conditions at any particular moment.
A goldfinch (I think) at Brazos Bend State Park, Texas
Sigma’s OS (analogous to Canon’s IS and Nikon’s VR – image stabilization) is really odd and I don’t like it at all. It was as if the lens took on a life of its own whenever I switched from non-OS to OS. I’d look through the viewfinder and try to focus on a subject only to have the lens actually jump to a slightly different point in the composition. I had to keep moving the lens back to where I wanted the center focal point to be and then quickly snapping the shutter button. I don’t have that issue with my Canon 100-400 or 70-200. As a result, I only snapped a few shots with the OS turned on.
I captured a few images from my car window (cars make good blinds). I did this because had I gotten out of the car (heck, had I even opened the car door), my subject would have flown away. With my 100-400 lens, I don’t need a bean bag for stabilization and it’s easy to hand-hold. With this Sigma lens, I wished I had a bean bag. I’d anticipated this issue, though, so I used a pillow I’d brought from home on which I rested the camera and Sigma lens for stabilization. The bean bag is going to be a near-future purchase.
A hawk on a fencepost at the Brazoria National Wildlife Refuge, Texas – taken from my car window
I had pretty much figured this lens just wasn’t going to cut it for me. I’d read too many reviews about Sigma’s inconsistent QC issues, but I figured Lensrentals would have tested the lenses before putting them out for rent (and this lens was inexpensive to rent for a few days). Nonetheless, I would magnify the view of an image on my camera LCD and what I saw caused me some consternation. So imagine my total (and very pleasant) surprise when I got home and saw the day’s photos after they’d been downloaded to my computer. Ok, some of the shots were a little grainy because of the high ISO, but at an f-stop of at least 8, and on a tripod, my images turned out quite nice! Moral of this story: don’t base your judgment solely by what you see on your camera’s magnified LCD screen.
Conclusion:
I know I only had this Sigma 50-500mm for a couple of days. So, this review is not in-depth. That being said, I totally agree with the comment of one of my Facebook Fans:
This lens will never take the place of a Canon or Nikon prime, but it’s definitely an affordable substitute.
Migrating geese making a stopover at Cross Trails Pond, Brazoria National Wildlife Refuge, Texas
Next weekend (hopefully), I’ll see how the newly-released Tamron 150-600mm measures up.
Filed under Brazoria NWR, Brazos Bend State Park, Canon, Equipment, Parks, Photography, Sigma lens, Texas, Wildlife Refuge
I noticed a number of photographers posting their favorite images taken over 2013 and thought I would do the same. I decided to choose 15 images and provide some commentary about the photo. It was a difficult choice, believe me.
These are in no particular order.
To see a higher-res rendition, just click on the photo and you will be taken to the spot where that particular photo resides on my photography website. You can order most of them for yourself, as a print in all sorts of mediums, or a coffee mug or within a 2014 calendar or photo journal creation of mine. And I even have a 30% discount on orders $30 or over on my website right now through the end of January 2014.
1. Evening in the Chisos Mountains, Big Bend National Park, Texas
I was getting a little anxious to arrive at the Chisos Mountain Lodge before it got dark (easier to find my way to my room in the daylight), but I passed this particular spot and knew I needed to turn around, park the car alongside the empty road and capture this mountain-backlit image with the wispy clouds and the century plant anchoring the foreground.
2. They Know All the Words to Her Song, Evening Pirate Pub Sing at the Sea Devil Tavern, Texas Renaissance Festival
Low-light images are difficult to capture well, even at the best of times. This was an image captured with no flash, using my trusty Canon 1-DX. Note the people around the singer, raising their mugs to her and singing along with her. Total groupies at a Renaissance rock concert as they sing along with their favorite pirates. She and her husband (for real) “Captain Basil Drake” are huge favorites out at the festival.
3. Helping the Bride with the Finishing Touches
One of my favorites of all the wedding photos I took of Maegan that day (and I have a lot of favorites from that day, believe me). The natural side lighting highlighted the bride’s excited, expectant look as she stood there while the ladies in her bridal party arranged her necklace. The looks given to her by the other ladies, in addition to each of their actions (look at the hands) make this a memorable moment for me (and I hope for the bride).
4. Park Avenue Snow Day, Arches National Park, Utah
It was a magical morning. I awoke at about 2AM to peer out of my hotel room window and see huge, feathery snowflakes falling to the ground. Talk about excited! There’s something about red rock and white snow. There’s also something about being one of the first people (actually, I think I was the second person) to enter the park and to get to a spot at which nobody else has yet arrived. That was Park Avenue. Those footprints you see in the photo are mine. A total of about 5 inches or so piled up that morning. By late afternoon, it had almost completely melted, and by the next day, only the shadowed areas of the park still sported snow on the ground.
5. Plucking at the Head Feathers
This was the first time ever, in all 8 years of photographing the little ruby-throated hummingbirds, that I had ever witnessed such aggressive (and oftentimes amusing) behavior as exhibited by these territorial little birdies as they vied for perching space on one of the three feeders my 88-year old mother and I set out for the hummers as they stopped for a month-long break during their annual fall migration further south into Central America and Mexico. This just goes to show what going out every morning and/or evening to photograph the hummingbirds during their September sojourn can bestow wonderful images upon the patient photographer using a telephoto lens, fast camera, and flash.
6. Quite A Mouthful: Ibis with Crayfish (aka Crawfish), Brazos Bend State Park, Texas
A few months prior to my Katmai NP trip in July 2013, for which I had reserved a Canon 500mm prime lens, I rented this same lens for a weekend in order to get a feel for the lens so I wouldn’t be totally clueless and clumsy during the Alaska vacation. I lugged that lens out to Brazos Bend State Park, where I knew there would be a good chance of birdlife and I also knew the birds are a little more habituated (and less skittish) to humans there than at the national wildlife refuge. There is a particular spot where the birds (and alligators) like to congregate at 40-Acre Lake and I parked myself, tripod, and lens right at that spot. My entire goal that year had been to capture a sizeable tasty morsel in a bird’s mouth, and with this shot, I nailed my goal.
7. Sunrise at the Refuge, Brazoria National Wildlife Refuge, Texas
Ah yes, I love getting sunrise shots. It helps that I am a morning person. And some of the best sunrises I’ve seen in the refuge are across and to the south of the gravel auto tour road alongside Olney Pond and Cross Trails Pond. The trick here is to getting a decent sunrise shot without having your entire composition filled with sun flare spots – and that’s difficult to do if you eschew a lens hood in order to make use of your polarizer filter and grad neutral density filter. These two filters allow you to use a slow shutter speed or wider-open aperture (unless you are aiming for a starburst effect) to keep the foreground lighter and not blow out the horizon. They also help with making the clouds (if there are any) more dramatic and with adding some color saturation as well.
8. Portrait of a Brown Bear, Katmai National Park and Preserve, Alaska
This place is totally amazing. I had never in my entire life ever thought I would be viewing such incredible creatures as these 700+ lb brown bears….in Alaska…with a 500mm prime lens (rented). My favorite thing to do was create portraits of the bears. Sometimes the 500mm lens did a perfect job on its own, and at other times, I did a little cropping to focus the eyes more on the bear’s face. When you first look at all the bears, they sort of look alike. But even after just a couple of hours in their presence, you can begin to suss out differences in appearance, facial expressions, and little quirky movements they have when fishing the Brooks River or looking for berries. I could see that each bear has its own personality and I tried to capture that with my portrait shots. This is one of my favorites. And it’s quite cropped, actually. This bear had been standing out in the river rapids, just below Brooks Falls. It turned away to warily look behind it before resuming its steady watchfulness of the rapids with the intention of catching dinner.
9. Alaska From Above
I had the best time during my one-day bear-viewing trip to Lake Clark National Park; probably because I thoroughly enjoyed the 5-seater plane flight to the park. The windows were clean enough that I captured a number of aerial images of the Alaskan landscape. This is one of my favorites because of the landscape itself, the colors, and the lighting. This image also brings back the feelings of excitement and wonder I experienced as I viewed this remote Alaskan land. Plus, I was pretty darned pleased with my attempt at in-plane photography, since I don’t attempt this sort of thing very often. The key is to use a wide-angle lens and to put the lens as close to the window as possible without touching the vibrating plane glass. It also helps (tremendously) to have a camera with a fast frame-per-second capture – especially if your lens does not have IS (or VR or any of the other acronyms for image stabilization). I did not use a polarizing filter for this photo (or any of the other aerial images) because sometimes a polarizing filter can do wonky things to photography through an airplane window).
10. A Morning View of the Chugach Mountains, Alaska
I had just enough time that Sunday to make a morning sightseeing trip north of Anchorage before having to return the rental SUV and get ready to meet up with the rest of my fellow Katmai photo tour members. My intention was to drive up to Hatcher Pass. I noticed this scene to the right of the highway and passed right by it. All the while, I thought to myself that I really ought to turn around and capture the view before heading on. Surely I had enough time for that. So, I turned around and captured the view.
11. Icy Morning Glow, Arches National Park, Utah
By now, you can see that I have a number of favorites from this February visit to Arches. This image was sort of an afterthought. I’d driven to my favorite viewing area within the park: La Sal Mountains Viewpoint. When I realized the sunrise was going to be a bust, I turned to head back to the rental vehicle. I happened to look down to the slickrock ground and noticed several shallow potholes filled with clear water that had frozen during the night. The creative part of my brain kicked in and I captured this scene.
12. On Top of the World at Delicate Arch, Arches National Park, Utah
Favorite photos don’t have to be people-less. I love this image not only because it proves I made it up the steep, sometimes ice-coated hike to such an iconic feature as Delicate Arch, but it also shows that I had that entire place all to myself! Now that was an awesome feeling! So I set up camera and tripod, then tripped the shutter with my wireless remote to capture exactly how I felt and where I was. Plus, the photo gives a pretty good scale and sense of reference.
13. Sunset Over the Chisos Mountains and Chihuahuan Desert, Big Bend National Park, Texas
I shot this image prior to capturing the image at the very top of this post. I was trying to get to the Chisos Mountain Lodge before it got dark. I’d gassed up at the small Panther Junction station and was heading toward Basin Drive when I looked to my left to see this amazing scene. Naturally I had to get a photo, so I pulled into a small turnout, grabbed camera, tripod and grad ND filter, then hoofed it across the road to get this photo. It was a little tricky to capture with as little flare spots as I got because I was not using a lens hood. You see, my grad ND filter is a 4×6 and I don’t use a filter holder; instead I just hand-hold it against the camera lens. Makes it easier and quicker to move the filter up and down.
14. An Autumn Scene on Mount Desert Island, Maine
I’d had the good fortune and the misfortune to visit this part of Maine during the government shutdown. This meant I would not have access to all the places I wanted to see in Acadia National Park, which bummed me out and really cemented my utter disdain over congress. Nonetheless, I managed to capture some beautiful images of Maine during autumn. I had just turned off the road from Bass Harbor and was heading toward Bar Harbor when I looked to my right and saw this autumnal marsh scene with this wonderful tree in the foreground.
15. The Visitor Center View at Dead Horse State Park, Utah
Ok, we know people who travel to this place, – a hop and a skip from both Arches National Park and Canyonlands National Park – generally photograph that iconic scene of the canyon looming over the river oxbow. But, there are other incredible scenes to be photographed in this state park, and this view right next to the visitor center is one such area. The short rock wall provided an excellent frame to the expansive landscape beyond.
So, there you have it: my 15 favorites (actually, I have about 20+ favorites, but this is a long-enough post.
Here’s to 15 more favorites taken from the photographic possibilities I hope to experience in 2014!
Whenever I feel restless and in need of some photographic therapy, I head out to the Brazoria National Wildlife Refuge, a little less than 20 miles from my home in southeast Texas.
This past Saturday morning, I headed out that way with the intention of getting to my favorite spot in the refuge to capture some scenery shots with the ground-hugging mist floating above the landscape.
As I drove along the refuge road, I noticed all these spider webs sparkling in the morning sunlight.
Naturally, I had to stop.
Of course, this meant by the time I arrived at my favorite spot, all the mist was gone.
That’s ok.
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
Note: capturing images of dew-dappled silken strands strung across the air from one tree/fence post / plant stem to another is a bit of a challenge with a telephoto lens. The lens simply doesn’t want to autofocus on something that ephemeral, choosing instead to either focus beyond the web, or not at all. I probably should have used the manual focus except my eyes just don’t focus as well as they used to and manual focus on anything other than infinity is a chore.
For the images above, the ISO ranged from 400 – 500, shutter speed ranged from 1/125 – 1/320, f-stop ranged from 5.6 – 7.1 and the focal length was 400mm.
Filed under Brazoria NWR, nature, Photography, telephoto lens, Texas, Wildlife Refuge
I was going through photography withdrawal, having not taken a picture of anything since my return from my Maine trip . It’s been 3-4 months since I last visited the Brazoria National Wildlife Refuge in my part of southeast Texas, so I thought that would be a worthwhile thing to do over the weekend (now that the government shutdown is over and the refuge is open again).
So I got up Saturday morning (Oct 26) at 5:11AM and was out the door by about 5:45AM. I arrived at the entrance gate, parked my car, and waited in the dark. The sign says the gate opens at “dawn’” and closes at “dusk” (whatever hours constitute dawn and dusk times is anybody’s guess).
At 7AM, I heard the rumbling of the gate as it automatically opened up. So now know – 7AM is dawn.
As I sat there, watching the distant horizon turn from indigo to a deep pink-orange while deep blue clouds drifted past, I kept thinking jeez – I’m missing some good photo ops. Luckily the gate opened up with time for me to get to the spot I wanted.
Once I got there, though, I was a little unimpressed. Nonetheless, I affixed the polarizer to my lens because I wanted to saturate the colors. I also used a graduated ND filter because the area below the horizon was naturally darker than the area above the horizon. Aperture was set at either f7.1 or (in those instances when I wanted to try and achieve a sunburst) f22. ISO was 160 to 250 and I played around with the shutter speed, anywhere from 1/30 to 1 second (I shoot in Manual mode).
I took a few shots (the ones above) then proceeded to take the camera off the tripod.
I happened to look back toward the horizon to see the clouds lined with a brilliant golden-yellow and sunrays reaching past the cloud blockade.
Camera went back on tripod.
Not a bad way to start a Saturday morning.
Here’s a link to the video I uploaded to YouTube of my morning visit to the refuge. I mention in my video commentary that it’s winter. It’s still fall, but here in southeast Texas, the two seasons are interchangeable. And while you may not see much birdlife, you can hear it in the background, along with the crickets and the wind.
Filed under Brazoria NWR, Clouds, Photography, sunrise, Texas, Wildlife Refuge
Where The Trails Take You Photography 
You must be logged in to post a comment.