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Pablo Bluth posted:It depends on the species, but a high proportion of wildlife photography uses food as a lure. It can raise ethical questions at times, but it's certainly not seen as cheating per se. However the trick is to use food while also not photographing said food. That's good to know! My aunt lives up in the north woods of Wisconsin and has a regular cast of birds visiting her feeder, so I took all of those photos in about 30 minutes. I definitely want to plunk down at the park for an afternoon at some point, I guess I'll bring some food with me then.
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Nov 26, 2012 20:17
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dopaMEAN posted:That's good to know! My aunt lives up in the north woods of Wisconsin and has a regular cast of birds visiting her feeder, so I took all of those photos in about 30 minutes. I definitely want to plunk down at the park for an afternoon at some point, I guess I'll bring some food with me then. When I'm shooting water fowl at the park the only way to get them to you is with food. Unless you're planning on getting some seriously long reaching hardware ($$$$) you're gonna have to bring them to you.
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Nov 26, 2012 20:20
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Maker Of Shoes posted:When I'm shooting water fowl at the park the only way to get them to you is with food. Unless you're planning on getting some seriously long reaching hardware ($$$$) you're gonna have to bring them to you. I think for the foreseeable future I'm going to be stuck with what I have. The pictures I posted were with my aunt's 150mm lens, maybe some day I'll be able to buy one of those. Of course, before I can buy anything I'll need to figure out what kind of lenses are compatible with my camera. So much to learn!
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Nov 26, 2012 21:35
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dopaMEAN posted:That's good to know! My aunt lives up in the north woods of Wisconsin and has a regular cast of birds visiting her feeder, so I took all of those photos in about 30 minutes. I definitely want to plunk down at the park for an afternoon at some point, I guess I'll bring some food with me then. http://www.the-digital-picture.com/Photography-Tips/Backyard-Bird-Photography-Setup-Tips.aspx
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Nov 26, 2012 22:00
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Edit: ^^^^^ nice link. I might need to start doing this instead of hitting up the park.dopaMEAN posted:I think for the foreseeable future I'm going to be stuck with what I have. The pictures I posted were with my aunt's 150mm lens, maybe some day I'll be able to buy one of those. There's some pointers posts earlier in this thread, be sure to look for them. I shoot with some low end hardware and still manage some decent bird stuff so keep at it. Just remember that you'll blow through a ton of poo poo shots when shooting birds. For every decent one there's 20 other ones where its a blurry mess. Maker Of Shoes fucked around with this message at 22:12 on Nov 26, 2012 |
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Nov 26, 2012 22:10
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There's a ton of similar links around: http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=1212874 http://www.naturespicsonline.com/introduction/next http://www.digitalbirdphotography.com/9.1.html
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Nov 26, 2012 22:23
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/\/\/\ Cool, thanks for putting up those links.InternetJunky posted:I've been enjoying your bird pics from Tasmanian. That place is high on my bucket list.  ). Tasmania is awesome, definitely get down here with some long glass if you can. I brought my 500mm f/4.5 with me, despite all the advice to the contrary in my checked luggage. Actually, I checked all my camera gear except a film SLR (Pentax ME Super, of course). No problems, but YMMV.My cousin took over my uncle's pet-feed business, and signed me up to an industry newsletter the company contributes to - "Wild Bird Feeding Industry" - they sell a variety of seed mixes designed for feeding wild birds in various regions of North America. They are also running a long-term study of feeding preferences by various species, obviously the corporate motivation is to sell more birdseed but it overlaps with people's desire to see more diversity of birds. It's a common practice, people like seeing birds in their backyards. As far as the ethics of using bird feeding (feeders, or scattering food on the ground or in the water) are concerned, it seems like mostly personal preference, some people don't want to see clearly artificial structures in their wildlife photos. I generally try to avoid it (purely for individual aesthetic reasons, i.e. I'm a pretentious rear end), which means some difficult crops because of course I take pictures of birds at / near feeders. On a related topic, how do people feel about carrion eaters on roadkill? I'm seeing tons of ravens (almost certainly Forest Ravens, Corvus tasmanicus) on and near the roads here, because there's lots of roadkill. They take off as soon as I slow down, so I have little hope of getting a picture of one in these circumstances, but I was wondering if other people had opinions on the subject.
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Nov 27, 2012 01:20
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The only time I think I've taken exception to people feeding birds for pictures was when a whole bunch of people were taking snowy owl pictures on another forum and they were all the iconic "snowy with wings spread and legs out a split second before grabbing its prey" shots. I later learned they had been buying mice at a pet store and releasing them for the snowy. I think that same owl was hit by a car later in the year on top of it all. It's just my person opinion of course, but I think learning they had baited the owl really ruined those shots for me. Birds at a bird feeder isn't exactly in the same league. ExecuDork posted:On a related topic, how do people feel about carrion eaters on roadkill? I'm seeing tons of ravens (almost certainly Forest Ravens, Corvus tasmanicus) on and near the roads here, because there's lots of roadkill. They take off as soon as I slow down, so I have little hope of getting a picture of one in these circumstances, but I was wondering if other people had opinions on the subject.
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Nov 27, 2012 02:28
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I think it sounds like an excellent opportunity. If you're patient, they'll probably return to eat some more. You can even perform a service to the birds by moving any roadkill that is in a dangerous position. The pet-store mice for snowy owls was what I had in mind when I wrote my earlier reply. Another one is Kingfishers; a lot of the best photos of those will have been proceeded by the photographer catching fish and keeping them in a container/net below a photographic perch. Now I've been there with kingfishers and in the summer I'm off to Finland to a place where they've been leaving dead salmon for bears since the mid-90's. On the other hand, I know somebody who objected when he found out people where using dewd fish to get good Bald eagle shots (google Lock and Dam 14) so it's very much a personal thing. You need to ask yourself 'Is it unfair to the bait', 'does it induce behaviour that then puts the subject at risk', etc. Also; everybody go out and properly clean your bird feeders if you haven't done so recently. Minimise the risk of disease transmission.
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Nov 27, 2012 10:00
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Pablo Bluth posted:I think it sounds like an excellent opportunity. If you're patient, they'll probably return to eat some more. You can even perform a service to the birds by moving any roadkill that is in a dangerous position. Welp, now I've talked myself into a new photographic goal. Seems difficult, but if I ever succeed I'll post it here. The petstore mice thing is pretty bad. There seems to be an ethical line, with seeds piled on a rock on one side and live bait on the other. I don't know where that line lies, exactly, but I'm not particularly interested in exploring that conceptual space. Besides, how the gently caress am I supposed to bait for Little Penguins?
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Nov 27, 2012 12:47
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InternetJunky posted:The only time I think I've taken exception to people feeding birds for pictures was when a whole bunch of people were taking snowy owl pictures on another forum and they were all the iconic "snowy with wings spread and legs out a split second before grabbing its prey" shots. I later learned they had been buying mice at a pet store and releasing them for the snowy. I think that same owl was hit by a car later in the year on top of it all.  Jesus Christ that's terrible. I was thinking urban birds at a feeder or park lake. That's a whole other level. Like you, I'm not sure where the line is but that snowy owl thing is definitely over it.
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Nov 27, 2012 18:51
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All that driving finally paid off. Found not one but two snowys today! He (she?) flew off before I could move to get the sun in a better spot. I'll take it regardless.  The next one was down in a field, but stupidly I left the car running when I took this shot so the vibrations carried through to my lens.  
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Nov 28, 2012 00:46
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InternetJunky posted:All that driving finally paid off. Found not one but two snowys today! God drat that is a beautiful bird.
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Nov 28, 2012 00:48
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InternetJunky posted:All that driving finally paid off. Found not one but two snowys today! drat. I know you did a lot of driving to find this, but you certainly made it count when you did. From what I understand, males are less barred than females (Juveniles are more barred as a whole) so that may be a male.
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Nov 28, 2012 04:05
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InternetJunky posted:He (she?) flew off before I could move to get the sun in a better spot. I'll take it regardless. My understanding is that adult males are pure white, females and subadults are barred. But it's early in the season so even the adult males might not be rockin' a full mating season plumage. I've left the car running while shooting a long lens before, too - usually the pictures aren't worth lamenting the additional bit of blur from those vibrations, your example will hopefully drive it home (pun not intended) for me.
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Nov 28, 2012 13:20
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InternetJunky posted:All that driving finally paid off. Found not one but two snowys today! Very nice, I'm hoping to go out looking for snowy owls on Friday, provided it does stop snowing by then and the clouds go away.
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Nov 28, 2012 17:12
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neckbeard posted:Very nice, I'm hoping to go out looking for snowy owls on Friday, provided it does stop snowing by then and the clouds go away.
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Nov 28, 2012 17:40
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InternetJunky posted:You're in Edmonton as well, right? Highway 21 and Township Road 540 seems to be where the two I found yesterday hang out. Some bird watcher list I signed up for mentioned them there 3 days ago and since they were still there yesterday I assume they're in the area for the winter. Good luck though -- that's still a lot of country road to cover in that area! Cool, I was going to check around the airport this week, but I'll probably check that area out next week, looks like there's hawk owls in the area too http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/bird/map?&fLat=53.6096&fLon=-113.2119&zl=13 Staring out the window at work about 15 minutes ago, there were some mapgies trying to chase away a bald eagle flying around the Hotel MacDonald
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Nov 29, 2012 20:11
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neckbeard posted:Cool, I was going to check around the airport this week, but I'll probably check that area out next week, looks like there's hawk owls in the area too  Not the best picture but he didn't give me long to set up. I would love to find different types of owls but don't really know the first thing about tracking them down other than looking for the bones/fur of their victims at the base of trees.
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Nov 30, 2012 00:07
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InternetJunky posted:I would love to find different types of owls but don't really know the first thing about tracking them down other than looking for the bones/fur of their victims at the base of trees. Northern Hawk Owls are probably going to be your next best option for photographing owls since they hunt in the daytime. Not particularly common that I know of, but you might get lucky. I drove around an entire day looking for owls this spring when I was up there for work and found nothing Short Eared owls also hunt in the day. Northern Hawk Owls will be perch hunters and Short Eared Owls will fly around constantly looking for meals. Great Horned, Great Gray, and Barred owls are also found in Alberta this time of year (according to eBird), but I believe they all hunt almost exclusively at night so unless you stumble upon their sleeping spot you probably will have a hard time finding them. There was a Barred the was seen frequently in some park I'm too lazy to look up and someone posted photos here last winter. Might still frequent the area.
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Nov 30, 2012 02:46
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  Haven't had too much time for photo stuff lately, but I processed a couple pics from just before the ICF closed for the season. I love cranes 
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Nov 30, 2012 07:08
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BeastOfExmoor posted:Northern Hawk Owls are probably going to be your next best option for photographing owls since they hunt in the daytime. Not particularly common that I know of, but you might get lucky. I drove around an entire day looking for owls this spring when I was up there for work and found nothing  
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Dec 1, 2012 16:32
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hahahahahahaha I love this shot so much.
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Dec 1, 2012 17:01
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I like the second image, but it'd benefit if the owl wasn't quite so central (IMO). For some amazing owl in snow photos, check out this guy.
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Dec 1, 2012 17:53
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Nice IJ, I saw one Snowy yesterday on a fence post along Highway 19 between Range Road 252 and 253. But it was on the other side of the road and when I was finally able to pull a u-turn and get back to the spot, it was gone.
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Dec 1, 2012 18:20
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InternetJunky posted:I went out in the same spot as my snowy yesterday and found him again, but I think I'm going to have to just hope to get lucky for any other owls at this point. Owls are great. Shoot more owls. I have been told I'm missing a "lovely winter" in Saskatoon. I'm missing driving along empty highways, scanning powerline poles for flying Arctic dinosaurs.
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Dec 2, 2012 00:29
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Decided to take a break from Snowy hunting today so the wife and I went on a cold nature walk instead. This one was a first for me: female Pine Grosbeak  I also found some very cold-looking waxwings 
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Dec 3, 2012 00:53
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Just to contrast with you guys in the northern hemisphere, here's a photo of a nesting coot. Coots
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Dec 4, 2012 10:41
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Trambopaline posted:Just to contrast with you guys in the northern hemisphere, here's a photo of a nesting coot. We have coots here too!  American Coot (Fulica americana) by Paul Frederiksen, on Flickr
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Dec 4, 2012 16:00
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Coots have the weirdest looking feet
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Dec 4, 2012 18:18
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Oh haha, not trying to imply that coots only exist in the southern hemisphere, just wanted to post some more spring type photos to contrast with all the snow in the last few posts.
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Dec 5, 2012 00:04
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My "Birds of Tasmania" lists 3 species of gulls; Silver Gulls (Chroicocephalus novaehollandiae) are apparently only found this side of the Wallace Line, and are very common. I used one to give my 70-210 a workout a couple of weeks ago, and then got a bit silly in the processing. Gull Tryptich by Execudork, on Flickr I've got decent (to my standards) shots of the other two species, but I haven't ploughed through those photos yet. Not that they're spectacularly unusual, gulls of one species or another seem to be pretty common most places, and willing to not disappear over the horizon at the first sight of a big front element.
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Dec 5, 2012 06:36
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Local owl. This is heavily cropped at 400mm.  Birding Is Hard by torgeaux, on Flickr Also, on the "feeding on carrion" thing, I've posted these before. Turkey vultures, eating a dead banana rat.  ratvultures2 by torgeaux, on Flickr Turkey vultures eating a dead cuban boa.  vuleatsnake by torgeaux, on Flickr
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Dec 6, 2012 03:05
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Wow- that landing vulture is pretty great. Pretty sure that's a red-shouldered hawk. Jealous of the winter birds all you canuks are seeing!
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Dec 6, 2012 03:28
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torgeaux posted:Local owl. This is heavily cropped at 400mm. Definitely not an owl.
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Dec 6, 2012 03:30
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BetterLekNextTime posted:Wow- that landing vulture is pretty great. Red shouldered hawk it is. Profile fooled me.
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Dec 6, 2012 04:11
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Someone from a local nature society posted this yesterday:quote:Everyone know what a Borsch Bird is? ExecuDork posted:
torgeaux posted:Also, on the "feeding on carrion" thing, I've posted these before. I just spent hundreds of dollars on bird feeders and bird feed this week. Took less than a day to get noticed. These are shot through a window -- if I try with an open door the heat shimmer from the house ruins the shots worse than the window does.    All these bastards are going to eat me out of house and home. The magpies especially, as they come non-stop for the peanuts and stash them in their hidden vaults all over the place. [edit] It's interesting to see how crappy my processing was, especially in that Flicker shot. All three birds on the same perch and the perch looks different in each. InternetJunky fucked around with this message at 18:07 on Dec 7, 2012 |
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Dec 7, 2012 17:43
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Really like this. The snow on the head is a good catch.
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Dec 7, 2012 17:56
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I drove more than 10 hours today and the temperatures were below -30, but still managed to get a keeper shot of the Northern Hawk Owl: 
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Dec 9, 2012 03:05
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I only learned Northern Hawk Owls are a thing that exists this past summer, when my GF and I followed some freaking weird calls at dusk in a Saskatchewan Provincial Park. Too dark for photos, I only had a film camera loaded with iso 100 (and not highly pushable film) anyways. Some internet detective-ness when we got home, and we settled on a sub-adult. But a few days later the GF got second thoughts. Your picture is gorgeous, regardless. Why don't you have a flickr or something where I can over-enthusiastically "favourite" your owl shots? I'm going through the photos I took today, a goddam Kookaburra was sitting on a short road-side post, right freakin' there! when I drove past. I turned around, drove past again (he just sat there, watching me), parked a ways down the road, then started walking towards him while snapping periodically with my (not at all living up to expectations) 70-210. He hosed off before I got close enough for a good shot. First glance at some more Black Currawong shots look decent, though.
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Dec 9, 2012 12:53
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