birds – 52 from 52

Picture Info: ISO 100, 35mm, f/1.8, 1/4000 sec

Week 30 (2/24/2014 -3/2/2014): Hoboken Waterfront

Picture taken on 3/2/2014 at 12:14 PM

Photograph description

Wow week 30 and I can’t believe how fast time has flown since I started this project. Doing this photoblog is one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. I have learned so much, made some new friends and have become even more hooked on photography. That being said, I’m excited to see what the next 22 weeks will bring!

I was a little off my game this week when it came to taking pictures. Usually I get out about 1-2 times per week, this way once Sunday hits I have some options for my post. I’d like to say my lack of photo time was because it was hard to find time, but it was mainly hard to find the motivation to get out and fight the cold. Waking up Sunday I felt the pressure to find a good picture to feature and lucky for me it wasn’t too cold. As I have so often this winter, I went out along the Hoboken waterfront to see what I could find.

To get in the mood I threw on some headphones and lost myself in the hypnotic beats of Armin Vann Burren on SiriusXM’s electronic area. Oddly enough electronic music has the ability to both get me amped and sooth me, sometimes simultaneously. This time around Armin’s mix had more of a relaxing effect as I strolled around in the cloudy day. After looping around the newly opened walkway that encircles the 4th street field, I came upon a surprisingly brave seagull. No matter how quickly I moved towards him the seagull would only fly out a few feet then perch right back on the railing. This seagull’s challenging attitude provided me with a unique opportunity to adjust my camera settings to find the ideal exposure and composition.

Photography concepts:

Shooting fast, shooting often and anticipating movement are the keys to photographing birds and most animals. Shooting fast and often seems pretty obvious but the trick is knowing how to set up your camera to do so. Ideally you want to use your camera’s fastest shutter speed. The easiest way to get a fast shutter speed is to shoot with a large aperture. The aperture will vary based on available light, but in most cases your safest bet is to shoot wide open at your lenses largest aperture. My lenses widest aperture is f/1.8. Shooting at my lenses maximum aperture allowed me to achieve a super fast shutter of 1/4000 of a second. You may have noticed that even with shooting as fast as I did, the seagulls wings are still a just a little blurry. It’s possible the blur is due to a little lag in focus but I’m pretty happy with my camera’s ability to focus quickly so it’s more likely due to a small plane of focus.

Now how to shoot often? My camera and most other DSLR’s have different shooting modes which allow for faster frames per second. The fastest my camera will shoot is 5 frames per second. This allowed me to hold down my shutter release button and let my camera fire off lots of consecutive bursts to capture all the action.

Now even with a fast shutter and my camera firing off almost continuous bursts, all would have been lost had I not positioned myself correctly. Birds and other animals usually give away their next move by the way they orient their body or with their body language. In the case of this seagull when he was about to fly he usually dipped his head and obviously started ruffling his wings. I took his flight cues and body orientation as my cue for where to lead my camera and when to start shooting.

One last point worth noting, although I shot at f/1.8 I could have shot with a smaller aperture by increasing my ISO. The reason that I shot at f/1.8 was to get the background totally blurred. If you don’t want the background blurred raise your ISO and shoot with a smaller aperture. Shooting with a smaller aperture will also give you a bigger margin of error in terms your plane of focus. Don’t take my word for it, play around with your settings to find the look that you like. Just remember you might only get one shot at the picture so practice and know what your settings are before you approach your subject.

Picture info: ISO 100, 35mm, f/11, 1/80sec

Week 27 (2/3/2014 -2/9/2014): Hoboken, Maxwell Park

Picture taken on 2/3/2014 at 1:09 PM

Picture description

It’s said that the day after the Superbowl is one of the highest call out of work days of the year. This year I was smart and decided to preemptively schedule myself for a day off on the dreaded Monday after the big game. As it turned out I couldn’t have chosen a better day to take off, not because of a big game hangover, but because of a huge snowstorm that hit our area. While most people were fighting both their hangovers and the weather I was relaxing comfortably in my apartment. Even though I could spend the day sheltered from the storm, I decided it would be fun to head out into the snow with my Nikon in hand. The only problem I faced was how to protect my camera from the wintery elements. The solution that I came up with was simple, rubberband a ziplock bag around my camera and I was good to go, or so I thought.

Once out in the storm my ziplock plan seemed to work in terms of protecting my camera, but it made taking photos extremely difficult. I was able to make the best of the situation by shielding my camera within my coat until I spotted a potential picture. Knowing that I couldn’t preserve my camera’s dryness for long, I decided to hit two nearby Hoboken locations. First I went to my usual spot, the uptown pier at Maxwell Park. To my surprise I spotted a family of geese trying to take refuge in the cove of the pier’s “beach area.” They were surrounded by ice and almost seemed to be frozen themselves. I moved around trying to shoot the geese from the best angle possible without falling into the water myself. Next I moved to the pier on Sinatra drive by the skatepark. Since the snow was creating a nice white out I wanted to take a picture of the gazebo on the water with nothing but a white background. Usually the New York City skyline is the backdrop so I thought this would make for a unique picture of the area.

Gazebo picture

After getting the gazebo picture I decided to head back in for the day. I had been outside for about an hour and it seemed that my ziplock bag was close to losing it’s ability to protect my camera. As I fought my way through the snow back to my apartment, I said to myself next time I’ll be better prepared for the elements.

Photography concepts:

The first time out in the snow with my Nikon taught me some valuable lessons. The first and most obvious is that you need to keep your camera dry. Although the ziplock bag was able to protect my camera for the hour that I was out, it would have been a stretch to sustain it’s usefulness for any longer period of time. As a result my first purchase after Monday’s snow storm was a rain cover or “rain sleeve” for my camera (link below). They essentially work just like the ziplock bag but they’re longer and hug my arm so shooting with them is a lot less clumsy. I was hoping for another snow storm this weekend so I could test the sleeves, but of course you never get the weather you wish for. Expect a follow up review of the rain sleeves usefulness in a future post.

The second lesson I learned is that you absolutely need something dry to wipe off your lens. This seems pretty obvious as well, yet I totally forgot to bring a cloth while I was out in the snow. I had to use some of my inner layers to wipe off my lense. Luckily I always keep a UV filter on my camera’s lens so there was no chance of damaging the actual lens. Using a UV filter is nothing new for me but absolutely essential when you’re out in the elements. It’s much smarter to scratch a $10 filter than the lens of your hundred plus dollar lens.

The last lesson that’s worth noting is what I learned in post (editing). While reviewing my pictures I noticed that I didn’t take advantage of a key feature my DSLR. Most DSLR’s, including my Nikon, give you the ability to shoot with very fast shutter speeds. This is a great tool to have when it’s snowing (or raining) because it allows to you seemingly freeze time and capture snow flakes or rain drops midair. I unfortunately didn’t shoot many pictures with fast shutter speeds. From the pictures that I so happened to have a fast shutter, it seemed that 1/1000 – 1/2000 seconds was the ideal speed to freeze the snowflakes. My guess is the best lens speed probably varies depending on the wind and size of the snowflakes. Lesson learned, my shutter speed will absolutely be on the forefront of my mind next time I go out in the snow or rain.