Entries Tagged ‘Dawn’:

With the weather temperatures becoming colder and the sun lower in the sky. It’s the perfect time of year for giving you a more softer, angled light to work with.

Following on from my previous Wildlife Photographic tip ‘Back-Lighting’ which gives your subject a strong outline and adds a great atmosphere, with a great deal of impact to your image, it’s counterpart ‘Side Lighting’ emphasizes a great deal of texture from the use of light highlighting your subject from the side, and when put to use in your image carefully it can produce a wonderful and dramatic image again with bags of atmosphere, giving the image a three-dimensional feel. A word of warning though from my own personal experiences ‘Side Lighting’ gives you the best results when the sun is low in the sky eg. Sunset, Sunrise.

Side Lighting does not work very well if the background is really cluttered or messy with lots of detail and other things going on so keep it as clean as possible, the idea is to isolate the light against your subject with a clear background illuminating your subject from the side bringing out all the texture in the feathers or fur at the same time creating a great deal of depth to the image. Always expose for the sunlit side of your subject, even at the cost of losing some shadow detail.

The way you use light in Wildlife photography is very important for the overall effect you are wishing to capture, Side Lighting is really effective when shooting close up portraits of wild animals and birds. The contours of the face are really well revealed, the texture of the fur and feathers really stand out a great deal more due to this mode of lighting. Try when possible to use the widest aperture you can on your telephoto lens rendering the background blurred, creating a smooth backdrop to your image.

Use ‘Side Lighting’ alongside ‘Back lighting’ as a part of your everyday Wildlife Photography, from the garden to the air, creating two very different images through the use of natural light which is at its very best during sunrise and sunset, illuminating your chosen subject from the side or the back in the case of ‘Back Lighting’.

I hope my photographic tips on ‘Side Lighting’ has helped you understand just how important light can be and how it will change and effect your photography, should you have any questions or queries then please drop me a line here and I will be more than pleased to answer them.  Lighting and how to use this to the best effect is one of many things I go through on my one to ones, where the sole aim is to improve your own wildlife photography. For more information on these days then please click here to be taken to my one to one page, many thanks.

I’ve now had the Nikon D4 for just over a week and in that short time I’ve used the camera photographing my own work and also on one to ones, and I have to say the camera has performed very well.  Having had the Nikon D3s now for two years, it was always going to be a hard act to follow. The improved ISO and added megapixels are nice, but what’s even better is the improved ergonomics, controls, speed, autofocus, metering, illuminated buttons, processing -EXPEED 3, and video capabilities with the full HD-SLR which are all improved from the D3S.

The overall shape of the camera has not changed much from the D3s, however, the controls and ergonomics are a bit different. The Nikon D4 now provides better control when the camera is used in the portrait orientation which is great if you shoot in this orientation a lot like me. The joystick and auto focus control is closer and easier to manage now when held vertically, with the D3s you had to really reach over with your thumb to get to the joystick. The Nikon D4 is about 5% lighter than the previous D3s and placed alongside each other this difference is clear to see.

Nikon has improved the auto focus system drastically. It can now operate in much lower light; this is a huge advantage, especially for wildlife and where I am depending on my auto focus system in low-light situations to capture what I’m witnessing. The D4’s auto focus has faster accuracy over the D3s from my first findings, performing brilliantly in poor or testing light.  The image below of two Canada Geese taking off in the first rays off dawn light demonstrates this perfectly in very testing light conditions.

Clean, smooth and quick is how I’d best describe the auto focusing on the D4. The buffer is very big too compared to the D3S and starts to fill up while shooting in 14 bit Tiffs around 90-100 images when auto focus is engaged. But when using the new Sony XQD memory cards they fill back up very quickly and your able to carry on shooting. I have never been one to blast and hope for the best. I prefer to let a couple of shots go, recompose and see, always watching what the camera noise does to the subject, as I hate making the wildlife jump and scaring it into next week.  The quiet mode as in the D3S has been retained on the D4 and seems more improved.

The D4 has two slots, one for the XQD card and one for the Compact Flash which is something I don’t like. For me they should have chosen two XQD cards as I believe this card from what you read is the future. Having two card readers is a pain, once your home you have to use two card readers to download your images which could have been averted by just picking one card for the camera only. Downloading is quick and I use Nikon software all the way- Nikon transfer, View NX then I do my processing in Nikon Capture NX2. All of which have a new version to accommodate the D4.

From my first images at higher ISO’s there does seem a more improved image from the D4, more so at the higher ranges. I don’t really push the ISO past 4000 alot of the time as I want to try and retain as much quality in the image as possible. But even at 4000 the performance of the D4 is better than the D3S at the same time there’s not a massive difference and I wouldn’t be selling my D3S as that camera has not missed a heart beat in over two years and has earned its brilliant reputation. The two images below from my Great Crested Grebes project were taken with my D3S clearly showing the quality of this camera.

The following images of Red Grouse were taken at high ISO’s, the sun’s light had started to warm the moors here, making conditions for auto focus tricky normally but here again the D4’s AF system locked on in tough and challenging light.

The D4 all round is a vast improvement on the D3S camera, it wont make you a better photographer though but what it will do is give you more options in various testing conditions that you may find yourself among while shooting wildlife. I am still learning about this brilliant camera as in just over a week does not do the camera justice. From what I have seen on the back of the camera and later on my large screen the improvements are good, very good. The auto focusing is one of its biggest pluses from the D3S and I cannot praise Nikon enough for the improvement they’ve done here. The video is good quality and I will be doing a separate blog post on that soon.

I am still learning about the D4 each time I take it out, but from these early stages all I can say is its “just brilliant”. The Internet will be a wash with reviews about this camera by more qualified people than myself all calming many different things. All I can say is make your own mind up like I have, the camera is a marked improvement on the D3S I know I have shot with the aforementioned camera for two years and still do.  This post is not meant to be a whats right or wrong, its just about how this camera has worked for me on the ground, in the theatre of wildlife a place I live and breath.

Thank you to my clients over the last week or so who have seen me test out my new camera, really nice to meet you all. Steven from Ipswich sent me some lovely words below that can be seen on my testimonials page –

“Hi Craig I would just like to thank you for my two days one to one with you, it was fantastic on both days and I did really enjoy all of it. I love the way you had so much respect for the wildlife and how you put all this into your photography skills in which you was so kind to pass on to me. It has give me a better insight into the way I need to work , approach and take the final shot simply just by watching and listening to what was around me, like when you told me about the geese were going to take off before they even beat their wings, brilliant. Once again a big thanks and I would highly recommend anyone for your one to one it was agreat pleasure. Regards Steven”

Before I go I would like to thank Adam from my press agent for getting my Owl images out into the papers over the last week. Many months of hard work were put into these images, capturing moments I’ll never forget. Barn Owls flying towards me, Short-eared Owls flying feet away from where I was hidden, diving for food right in front of me, all just amazing moments.  You can see the story and how much work and the lengths I went to here in the Daily Mail and also here in the Sun. I also made the Telegraph newspaper all the same week so again many thanks Adam as it’s always very nice when you see your work in print.

Also in April’s issue of Nikon’s N Photo magazine my Dartford Warbler image made their “In pictures :Inspirational Nikon photography from around the world” section. Click here to see the article and see one of my favourite photos of a male Dartford Warbler singing in the morning light, stunning birds.

Its an amazing time of year now with Spring well and truly awoken and the start of British Summer time at the weekend. Make sure you enjoy her beauty and capture it with your cameras, good luck.

My photograph taken of a female Barn Owl with prey flying over farmland in Norfolk at dawn made it to the final 50 in the ‘Countryfile Photographic Competition 2009’, chosen from nearly 33,000 entries.Joe Brand had picked my image out on the programme on BBC1 as one she liked saying  ‘I liked this,a barn owl flying home with food’

The image was taken in the first rays of sunlight and I got into place at around 4.00am and waited, then this female dived for something to my front and I followed her in my camera’s viewfinder as she flew straight towards me with this vole she had caught.With the poor light it was hard to get any shutter speed to freeze the action and out of many this one was the best with this beautiful pink,morning light as the sun came up in the left of this photo.

A moment I will treasure forever and never forget as Barn Owl’s are one of my favorite birds and to have seen this was great.