{"id":3218,"date":"2010-11-29T08:34:19","date_gmt":"2010-11-29T12:34:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.birdsasart-blog.com\/?p=3218"},"modified":"2011-02-24T11:43:49","modified_gmt":"2011-02-24T15:43:49","slug":"flight-photography-considerations-wind-and-sun-direction-subject-tonality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.birdsasart-blog.com\/baa\/2010\/11\/29\/flight-photography-considerations-wind-and-sun-direction-subject-tonality\/","title":{"rendered":"Flight Photography Considerations: Wind and Sun Direction & Subject Tonality"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n
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Canon 800mm f\/5.6L IS lens with the EOS-1D Mark IV. ISO 400: 1\/2000 sec. at f\/8 set manually. <\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n

Flight Photography Considerations: Wind and Sun Direction & Subject Tonality<\/h2>\n

On my busman’s holiday morning yesterday we had perfect flight photography conditions for about 30 minutes: when the wind shifted from the north\/northwest (the worst!) to the south\/southeast at about 8:30 we had the geese landing right at us with the sun at our backs. Birds will always land and takeoff into the wind. The adult blue morph Snow Goose in the image above came in just a shade to my left of right down sun angle. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
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Canon 800mm f\/5.6L IS lens with the EOS-1D Mark IV. ISO 400: 1\/2000 sec. at f\/9 set manually. Fine point: note that for the white morph adult Snow Goose image I used 1\/3 stop less light than for the blue morph image above. <\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n

The adult white morph Snow Goose in the image above came in just a very few degrees off the perfect light angle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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Canon 800mm f\/5.6L IS lens with the EOS-1D Mark IV. ISO 400: 1\/1250 sec. at f\/8 set manually. Fine point: note that for this immature dark morph Snow Goose image I used one full stop more light than for adult white morph image above. <\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n

The young blue morph Snow Goose in the image above came in slightly to my right of perfect sun angle. With the top of the cottonwood tree in the lower left corner of the frame I like the high-in-the-frame upper-right placement of the subject here as it yielded perfect compositional balance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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Canon 800mm f\/5.6L IS lens with the EOS-1D Mark IV. ISO 400: 1\/1650 sec. at f\/8 set manually. Fine point: note that for this immature white morph Snow Goose I used 1\/3 stop more light than for the adult white morph image above. <\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n

Here the wind has shifted to the southwest; this is an ideal condition for creating images of birds landing parallel to the imaging sensor. At this point we have seen images of both young and adult light and dark morph Snow Geese. <\/p>\n

If my comments on exposure (which are based on the varying tonalities of the geese) confuse you, you need to get a hold of the ABP\/ABP II<\/a> combo (and save $10 in the process). Then you need to study the section on exposure theory in the original “The Art of Bird Photography” <\/a>(soft cover) and follow that up with work on the Exposure Simplified section in “The Art of Bird Photography II” <\/a>(916 pages on CD only). If you already own the books and are still confused than you need to either hit the books or join an IPT.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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Canon 800mm f\/5.6L IS lens with the EOS-1D Mark IV. ISO 400: 1\/800 sec. at f\/5.6 set manually. In a given lighting situation I use the same exposure for both Sandhill Cranes and the young white morph Snow Geese as both are gray birds with small patches of white. This image was made as the birds flew into a south\/southwest wind in early morning. The soft early morning light required a slow shutter speed and a wider aperture than I used for the young white morph Snow Goose image above. The crane flying with its feet tucked in indicates that it was a very cold morning with the temps in the teens. <\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n

I will be photographing at Bosque in about forty minutes and fly home this afternoon. Be sure to see the complete Bosque IPT report in the next Bulletin. <\/p>\n

Shopper’s Guide<\/h2>\n

Here is a list of the gear that I used to create the images above. <\/p>\n

Canon 800mm f\/5.L IS lens<\/a>
\nCanon EOS-1D Mark IV professional digital camera body<\/a><\/p>\n

And from the BAA On-line Store:<\/p>\n

Gitzo 3530 LS Tripod<\/a>
\nMongoose M3.6 Tripod Head<\/a>
\nDouble Bubble Level<\/a><\/p>\n

If you are considering the purchase of a major piece of photographic gear be it a new camera, a long lens, a tripod or a head, or some accessories be sure to check out our complete Shopper’s Guide.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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Canon 800mm f\/5.6L IS lens with the EOS-1D Mark IV. ISO 400: 1\/2000 sec. at f\/8 set manually. <\/p>\n

Flight Photography Considerations: Wind and Sun Direction & Subject Tonality <\/p>\n

On my busman’s holiday morning yesterday we had perfect flight photography conditions for about 30 minutes: when the wind shifted from the north\/northwest (the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[89,72,43],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3218","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-89","category-bosque-2010","category-bosque-del-apache","odd"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.birdsasart-blog.com\/baa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3218","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.birdsasart-blog.com\/baa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.birdsasart-blog.com\/baa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.birdsasart-blog.com\/baa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.birdsasart-blog.com\/baa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3218"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.birdsasart-blog.com\/baa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3218\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.birdsasart-blog.com\/baa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3218"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.birdsasart-blog.com\/baa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3218"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.birdsasart-blog.com\/baa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3218"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}