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Welcome to the Pine River Review. Our sight is dedicated to our little homestead located along the Pine River tucked inside the Chippewa Nature Center's 1400 Acres of wild in Michigan's lower penninsula. We love to share our pictures, video, comment, and our own homespun music. Step inside our world as we celebrate this beautiful nook!


Tuesday, May 31, 2011

World Bird Wednesday XXVIII

 Taking a Dim View


                " All round the room my silent servants wait, My friends in every season, bright and dim. "


                                                                                                               Barry Cornwall

I've got to say, May was a hell of a month for water birds around here. Michigan is experiencing it's second wettest Spring ever, or at least since 1880 when these things began to be recorded. The wetlands are filled to the brim and there's plenty of birds fishing and frogging the road side boarders. A car makes a wonderful blind as I idle ever so slowly along Rangle road deep inside Fish Point Wildlife Refuge. This is a hot spots to be sure, a whole lot can be seen here like this young Black-crowned heron lurking in the reeds plying it's trade in the twilight.   



Late in the day is a good time to see Sandhill cranes who seem to get a burst of energy around sunset. The maddening thing is that conditions are continuously worsening as the light dims through evening. The temptation to grab a higher ISO is there every second in the battle to keep the shutter speed up. My 400mm  f5.6 lens is stuck there wide open this time of day and not at it's sharpest sweet spot of f8. It's a juggling act between the graininess of raising ISO, the blurriness of lowering shutter speed, and the thin depth of focus from a wide open lens at it's lowest f stop. I usually shoot jpegs and not in RAW format because of the ease of processing the seven hundred to a thousand pictures I generally take in a day out. I know I can shoot underexposed, therefore at faster shutter speeds in RAW format and retain detail that can be restored by lightening the exposure in post processing, maybe it's time to start doing that. If you'd like to read a wonderfully organised tutorial about these issues as they relate to bird photography in-particular click here. 
   How often does a Sandhill crane fly low and straight over your head? Not often is right!  Mucking through this puzzle of light is the game we play. Getting a picture is the prize for guessing right.



Sometimes you know your ability or your equipment is over matched but you take a shot anyway. You shoot because you'll never be here again, it's fun to try, and you might get lucky! These are all the reasons anyone needs to take an unreasonable chance. This is how us dim witted guys wind up with lovely women!



                            "Experience is a dim lamp, which only lights the one who bears it."
                                                                                                                             Louis-Ferdinand Celine

           Now it's time for World Bird Wednesday

This is the home of World Bird Wednesday. A place for bird photographers from around the world to gather and share their photographs and experiences as they pursue Natures most diverse and beautiful treasurers, the birds.


World Bird Wednesday will be open for posting at 12 noon Tuesday EST North America through midnight on Wednesday.

You are invited to link your blog with other bird photographers in a weekly celebration of these most diverse and intriguing of Earth's residents, the BIRDS.

                                                         CLICK THIS PICTURE!
 
#1. Simply copy the above picture onto your W.B.W. blog entry. It contains a link for your readers to share in WBW. Or you can copy this link on to your blog page to share W.B.W. http://pineriverreview.blogspot.com/


#2. Come to The Pine River Review on Tuesday Noon EST North America through Wednesday midnight and submit your blog entry with Linky.

#3. Check back in during the course of the next day and explore these excellent photoblogs!


You don't have to be a Bird Watcher or expert photographer to join in--just enjoy sharing what you bring back from your explorations and adventures into nature.The idea of a meme is that you will visit each others blogs and perhaps leave a comment to encourage your compadres!

The thumbnails below are links to our contributors blogs. Click on them and view their beautiful posts.

                        Come on it's your turn!

37 comments:

  1. Absolutely gorgeous captures...

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  2. I guess I shoot like a maniac to but not nearly as many as you do but even so, 'once in s while' I get lucky too.

    Love the sandhill crane, lucky you did not get bombed!

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  3. oh those night herons are great shots!!!! love 'em!

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  4. Great pictures Springman; and an interesting link.

    I'm like you; I only shoot jpegs. I like to keep the processing to a minimum, and if it means a lost shot, then so be it ;)

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  5. Excellent shots as usual, Springman! My favourites are the one at the bottom and also the one on top, which looks like a fabulous painting!

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  6. Great bird shots once again, Springman. Thanks for the link to the tutorial. I'm working my way through it.

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  7. You said it well, Springman, balancing aperture, shutter speed and ISO. Too often I get home, look at my shots and moan: shutter speed 200, ISO 3200 and grainy as hell, as well as blurred! Thanks for the link to Mike Atkinson's tutorial! You got some beautiful images, dim but beautiful!

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  8. P.S. Couldn't find you email address. So, what photo software are you using? If Photoshop or similar, try "Autotone" on the first and last image. It makes a huge difference - brightens up the photo without loss of detail, improves the white balance and removes the dim cast.

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  9. Springman, great shots. I particularly like the last one.

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  10. Another great post...lovely images.
    I to take jpeg images but maybe it's time to learn about raw and see what my digital camera really is capable of.

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  11. Excellent captures Springman! The last photo is absolutely exquisite!

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  12. Great photos - even for dim light! I especially like the Crane flying overhead.

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  13. Hi. Do not know if you are awake. this is the situation. As you know. we are living in Drammen.
    We have a flat in Poland, Gdynia. Today we found on the balcony a pigeon mother with two eggs - and we do not know what to do. We cannot use the balcony and some people tell us to throw away the eggs. For us - a real tragedy! You are a bird man - what do you think we have to do?

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  14. Beautiful pictures Springman. I'm taking a break from the computer this week (can't you tell ;>)...but just had to drop in to see what you shared with us. See you soon.

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  15. great photo talk in this post Springman.... very thought provoking. We all have to battle with these thoughts whenever we take the camera out. Here in the UK i think we have to battle a little more as we often have the overcast skies..... a blue sky background is a rarity for me in the N W of England.

    Anyway, back to the birds... herons are superb, I guess the last one is a night heron?

    As you say, shoot away, you may not get another chance

    Regards
    Dave (Bfb)

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  16. great shots as usual. But today I fell in love with your new header. Keep it for long, please! It is a "one of a kind" shot.

    Shooting birds is always a challenge. I wish I could afford some better equipment. Some wetland liek yours would be nice too. To be able to use the car as a blind. Thats a dream. :)

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  17. Gorgeous photos, as usually!
    Best regards
    Joo

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  18. Awesome birds and photos. The flights are just wonderful of both the Night herons and the Cranes. Great captures!

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  19. Hello everyone! Welcome to WBW! What a great group of blogs we are blessed with this week and it is early. Dina's spoonbills have me doing cartwheels.
    A quick note for Photokarusellen. Good luck with your mission of mercy. Saving bird eggs are a tough assignment. Check out this link for information that will help your cause!
    http://www.wild-bird-watching.com/bird-egg.html

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  20. Beautiful birds! And you take relly great photographs! My favorite picture for today will be the crane flying. Have a nice day/week :)

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  21. Love the sandhill crane shot! Wow!

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  22. Super Shooting--Love your new header too...ITS a crap Shoot Right? By you time one finishes dialing up the trifecta, the dang bird has flown the coop~~~
    Ive been quite frustrated of late...Wonderful that you have had a just the right conditions for these waders--I love that shot of the NH and the crane!!

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  23. I found your post interesting and incredibly enough I understood it! :) It wasn't too long ago that I was shooting only in auto (but no more). I think your photos are amazing - if I had to pick a favourite it would be the last one.

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  24. Excellent series Dave despite all the issues of settings and light that constantly test us. I often point and press more in hope than judgement ... you never know it might be a good outcome. I'll definitely check out the link when I have more time.

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  25. These are just plain awesome. I love your pictures! and am so envious too!
    B

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  26. Your shots are wonderful, as usual!

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  27. Great photos, all of them. I'm partial to the sandhill crane because I see them frequently nearby. I think they may be the prototype of Sesame Street's Big Bird.

    I haven't gotten 'round to visit everyone yet, but even seeing the thumbnail images is great fun.

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  28. Fabulous photos! Thanks for sharing the link.

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  29. Hi there - Great picture of the egret at the top of the page. I think the RAW vs JPEG argument comes to us all in the end - and I think it may come down to end use. What are you taking the pictures for - at present I still shot in JPEG - but I can hear the call of RAW. But I may have to get more rocket ship computer if I do that!!

    Cheers - Stewart M

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  30. Great shots again, Springman! Looks like you have a wonderful area to go birding there. I guess the balance between ISO, shutter speed and aperture is something we all have to deal with, but maybe the future will bring new cameras with better ISO performance to help us. I know I want that!

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  31. Once again you had me ooohing and ahhhing at your stunning photos! So beautiful! The ISO talk is lost on me because I just can't seem to get it. All I know about RAW is that is what I shoot in---because DD2 put the setting there. Geez, I need a class! LOL

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  32. Springman, The Sandhill Crane shot is wonderful with the light showing though the wings!
    Thanks for a link I sure could use. I rely on "luck" way to often.

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  33. You just keep getting better & better at photographing birds,capturing them flying overhead like that is amazing.I agree with you,just keep shooting hoping for that one of a kind photo.You have alot of those! Thanks for sharing the link too as well as your beautiful photos.phyllis

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  34. These are beautiful! I particularly like the last one.

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  35. Some beautiful shots in this series, Springman! Shooting around the edges of the day is challenging, but so rewarding when you get a sharp one. The tricky balance between getting a good exposure and a sharp image is a difficult one, especially for those of us with gear that isn't as fast as true pro lens or without the latest ISO technology in our cameras. For me personally, I'd rather have noise in a sharp shot than a blurry shot at a low ISO -- so I'll readily bump up to ISO 1600 to increase the shutter speed, and then work on reducing the noise a bit in post.

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  36. I'll add to my comment that by shooting in RAW, you'll also have the potential to reduce the noise further with future updates to the processing algorithms. While no post-processing will ever take away all of the noise, the improvement from Lightroom 2 to 3 is incredible. So if you get a sharp shot at a high ISO now, in a year or two you may be able to reprocess with better results. Just my two cents.

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