Rodeo Days

A fun place to practice action photography is at a rodeo.  I had never been to one before and so just seeing a rodeo in person sounded fun and then I was going to get to photograph it.  One of my photography clubs was going to take an overnighter to check it out.  We had a professional rodeo photographer come and talk to us.  He told us what events we would be seeing and what to look for and what was that good shot that you would want to try and get.  Well, for my first time I am pretty happy.  It was a fun event and we had plenty of opportunity to try to get pictures of the bucking bronchos, calf wrestling, bucking bulls, calf roping and barrel races, plus the clowns.

I used my 100-400 mm zoom lens which worked just fine. I kept my shutter speed at 1/1000 of a second and started at the lowest ISO I could. When the lighting was good, I was at ISO 400.  As the sun started going down I went up to as high as 1600.  Then I started to use my flash with my Better Beamer flash extender.  That is when I had to start being a little careful about timing my shots as I couldn't do a burst of shots and have them come out.  For the rodeo in the evening we had reserved seating in the stands where we had to stay put.  Some of us went to the top of the stands so we could take shots and not get the fence in our pictures most of the time.  We had special permission to photograph with tripods the following morning and could roam around the ring (just outside the fence of course) and photograph were we wanted.  There were a few people there in the morning watching the events, but mostly we had the area to ourselves.  For myself, I found it was easiest to track the action hand holding my camera with image stabilization on.  The lighting was good and so I could shoot 1/1000 of a second at ISO 400 and get f8-11.

Here are some of my shots:

Showing off the Colors

Whoa, boy!

Some mighty fine horses.

Taking him for a ride

Off you go!

Doing a summersault over the bull.

Going around the barrel

Coming down the home stretch

I'm going to get you

Roping the calf

Bison Birthday

What does a person who likes nature photography do for their birthday?  Take pictures of course.  I had missed a recent outing with Lake County Camera Club and it was a bright overcast day.  It was perfect for getting animal shots without the sun making everything bright and contrasty.  Instead I had nice even lighting to work with.  So, since I couldn't go to Yellowstone in a day, I took the half hour drive to Lester's Bison Farm to check it out.  I find out they have several fields they rotate the bison to for grazing and it is my good fortune to find the herd is in the field next to the house and store.  I am able to just park my car and walk a short distance to the fence line.  I find that Lester has a herd of about 50 bison plus about 10 adorable calves. 

The problem is sometimes they like to all clump together and you have to separate a couple out to get a good photo.  Then when you think you have that perfect shot, another bison comes strolling in front and your chance is gone.  However, it is fun to watch them and with patience you can get some nice photos because they are contained to an area and can't disappear out past the trees. I used my 100-400mm zoom lens which worked out great, except when they decided to come right up close to the fence where I was at.  Ha!  Here are some of the images I was able to get.

Bison family

"Come back here Junior"

Three Amigos

Don't come any closer

Just resting

Heading out

Hummingbirds

We have bird feeders in our yard, but sometimes we get just too busy to take time out to watch our visitors.  The other day my husband, Wayne, noticed that the hummingbirds were coming to their feeder.   It was such a nice evening outside.  I decided I should get my camera and tripod set up and relax out by our patio table.  I was not disappointed. The male Ruby-throated hummingbird came in and out and actually landed on a branch we have placed near the feeder and posed nicely.

A little while later, the female Ruby-throated hummingbird came and visited the feeder too.  I got several shots of her, even one after taking a drink with her tongue out.  It pays to relax and enjoy the nature God has created around us.  Both photos were taken at 1/1000sec, f6.3 ISO400 with my 600mm Sigma lens on my Canon 7D II.

Birding at Magee Marsh

Magee Marsh is a great place to go in May to capture migrating birds in the spring.  I will be posting a few migrating birds that I have found.  I think I will start out with some pairs. First is the Blackburnian Warbler.

Male (f11 1/1000 sec ISO 1600 no flash)

Female (f8 1/1000sec ISO400 flash)

This is a favorite because of its flame-orange coloring in the throat.  It has a triangular black cheek patch and a white wing patch.  Females color is more washed out.  They winter in the mountains of northern South America and summer in eastern southern Canada and northern United States from the Great Lakes to New England area.

Magee Marsh Intro

I finally made it to Magee Marsh after bad weather last year cancelled us out. The weather was great! The birds were great! The camaraderie with all the birders was great. I will be adding birds as the days go by. Today I start with two birds with similar names but very different. What variety! I am starting to get as addicted as the birders. What an amazing creator God is!

I was asked to share info on camera settings on the pictures I take, so here goes. When I shoot birds I use shutter priority mode, especially little 3-4 inch warblers that flit around I use 1/1000 sec and an f-stop from 400-3200 to give enough light to use an aperature of f8-11. I shoot with a Canon 7D II which has a crop sensor. I use a 100-400mm lens with a 1.4 teleconverter that equals 560mm. Some birds at Magee are close and I can fill the frame. Others are high up in the trees and the birds only fill 1/4 to 1/6 of the frame and I crop. I love if the birds have sun shining on them, but that is not always the case since the foliage coverage can put them in shadows. Therefore, a lot of times I use flash with my Better Beamer so it can throw the flash way up in those trees to reach the birds.

Black-throated Blue Warbler- male

Black-throated Green Warbler-female

Serenity

There is a painting at our local Culvers that I have always liked.  It is a picture of a large faded red barn with pasture and sheep walking toward the barn.  To me it is such a peaceful scene.  The picture here I took in Iceland has become one of my favorites and I realize it is because the scene reminds me of the painting at Culvers.  It is quite different but I see the sheep walking down the road and I remember that this was a rather quiet section of the highway, not much traffic at all.  I see the fields in the background and the barn which is quite small in my photo but it still reminds me of home for the sheep.  Then you have the mountains and the waterfall in the background.  What more could I have asked for.  Oh yeah, Jerry Hug you will be happy to know I took this photo with my iPhone (not my Canon DSLR) out the car window to quickly catch the shot before the sheep had a chance to move on. As Jerry would say, "The best camera is the one you have with you."

Yard Work

Working at home makes it easy to go outside when you can just look out your window and see that things look calm.  How many times have I gone to the prairie a few miles from me and found that it was not like at home, but quite windy and so almost impossible to photography the moving flowers.  You can also keep a close eye on what condition the flowers are in without travelling far.  It gives me a good chance to practice my macro photography on the spur of the moment and more often than if I had to pack up all my gear and take a ride. This was a week of lilies and roses.  I like the long stamens on lilies.  In the first picture I tried to accent the stamens against the lighter color of the flower.

With the Michigan Lily, I liked how the petals curved around the back of the flower and so I took this shot from a different angle to show that. It is always a good idea to look around your subject and take pictures from different angles.















Working at home makes it easy to run for supplies.
For this white rose picture I ran to the garage and got a blue piece of plastic to put behind the rose to make it stand out more than the light tan storage shed that was behind it.
















This pink rose attracted me because of the petal near the center that circled around the stamens in the middle.  When looking for subjects, look for something that is a little different than the normal.