American Bittern

Copyright © 2012 Deborah M. Zajac. All Rights Reserved.

Copyright © 2012 Deborah M. Zajac. All Rights Reserved

Sunday afternoon I spent with Rainey and Dali photographing birds and waterfowl. Late in the day we saw a Bittern and an Eurasian Wigeon. The lighting and weather weren’t ideal; the sky was getting darker both due to time, and it had been stormy the night before so the sky was still overcast and flat. Monday the sky was blue, and the sun was shining so we decided to go back in the afternoon to take advantage of the better light. The Bittern was there in the same place  we’d seen it before tucked in the reeds under an overpass with the late afternoon sun warming his back. This shot was taken from the overpass looking down on him/her.

I uploaded Lightroom Beta 4 to try it out. I’m a bit lost since this is the first time I’ve ever tried LR, but I have to say the highlights and shadow recovery sliders are pretty good. The white feathers around his neck were pretty blown out due to the late afternoon sun beating right down on him. LR did a great job of bringing back the detail in his feathers on his shoulder, and neck.  I’m going to be using LR4 for the next several weeks. I’ll be sharing my thoughts and feelings about it as I learn it.

Nikon D700| Nikkor 80-200 @200mm+ Tamron 1.4x TC| f8| 1/50sec| ISO 500| Manual Mode|hand-held

Dreams…

Copyright © 2012 Deborah M. Zajac.  All Rights Reserved.

Copyright © 2012 Deborah M. Zajac. All Rights Reserved.

…”but you never know, traveling, around what bend;

The dreams will curve to an end,

And what will happen then.”

Mary Oliver

I hope you have some time today to slip away to dream, to hope, and plan.

Nikon D700| Nikkor 80-200mm + 1.4x TC| f8| 1/1250 sec| ISO 500| Manual Mode| Hand-held| texture by Delany Dean

California country-side a day after a storm

“Soul meets soul on lovers’ lips.” Percy Bysshe Shelley

Copyright © 2012 Deborah M. Zajac.  All Rights Reserved.

Copyright © 2012 Deborah M. Zajac. All Rights Reserved.

Hope you feel loved today!

Nikon D700| Nikkor 80-200 @ 155mm| f8| 1/640 sec| ISO 500| Manual Mode| Tripod

Black-crowned Night-Heron

Copyright © 2012 Deborah M. Zajac.  All Rights Reserved.

Copyright © 2012 Deborah M. Zajac. All Rights Reserved.

When in range the 70-300mm VR really is a good lens! (click photo to view it large. It looks awful compressed to this size!) We had an overcast sky yesterday, but for a few brief moments the sun peeked through the clouds and lit him nicely just as if I ordered it.
This is my best Black-crowned Night-Heron to date. I wish all the birds I chase were within range of my lens.

Nikon D700| Nikkor 70-300mm @ 300mm| f7.1| 1/500 sec| ISO 500| Manual Mode| Hand-held

Nikon Announced the D800!

Announced in Japan first and is on their website the long-awaited Nikon D800 is here! Rumors were right it has a whopping 36.3 Mega Pixels!

Highlights of new features:

New Nikon FX-format CMOS image sensor

New 91K-pixel RGB sensor for the more accurate Advanced Scene Recognition System

Multi-area mode Full HD D-Movie for movie recording using one of two movie formats

Viewfinder frame coverage of approximately 100%*1 and a lightweight and durable water- and dust-resistant body

Support for high-speed continuous shooting and a variety of battery types with the Multi-Power Battery Pack MB-D12 (optional)

Other features:

Other D800 Functions and Features

  • A 51-point AF system for improved subject acquisition and focus performance under dim lighting. In addition, 11 focus points (five at center with an addition three to each side) are fully functional when lenses with a maximum aperture of f/8 are used.
  • A 3.2-inch, approximately 921k-dot LCD monitor with reinforced glass, automatic monitor brightness control, and wide viewing angle
  • A virtual horizon that shows the degree to which the camera is tilted sideways (roll), or forward or backward (pitch) with display in the monitor and viewfinder
  • A new shutter unit that has passed testing for 200,000 cycles and supports a maximum shutter speed of 1/8000 s and flash sync speed of 1/250 s
  • Continuous shooting at 4 (FX-format/5 : 4 image area) or 5 (DX-format/1.2x image area) fps*
    • *When powered by a Rechargeable Li-ion Battery EN-EL15
  • CompactFlash and SD dual memory card slots
  • Support for SuperSpeed USB (USB 3.0)

Read the whole thing here

Rodent. It’s what’s for dinner.

Copyright ©  2012 Deborah M. Zajac. All Rights Reserved.

Copyright © 21012 Deborah M. Zajac. All Rights Reserved

I went out with some photographer friends to hunt for Harrier’s on Saturday. We spent the day on the coast.  We headed further north for some lunch and more birding then headed south again. Hiking back to the field where we had good luck several hours before we found this Male Harrier not too far off the trail eating his dinner. This was definitely the highlight of the day for me. I was shooting him from his shady side so  I got some nice side lighting.

I spent most the day a bit frustrated with the limits of my focal range. I have a definite case of NAS for a super telephoto lens! I should have rented one for this outing.
None-the-less It was a fun, and exciting day.

Nikon D300s| Nikkor 80-200 @200mm + 1.4x TC| f8| 1/500sec| ISO 500| Manual Mode|Tripod

“Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive” ~ William Wordsworth

Copyright © 2012 Deborah M. Zajac. All Rights Reserved.

Copyright © 2012 Deborah M. Zajac. All Rights Reserved.

One never knows if you’ll be rewarded with beautiful color or instead see a flat sky when you get up at 4 in the morning to make the hour journey to a location you’ve wanted to shoot at sunrise for sometime.

I’ve left a Silver Lake a number of times disappointed, but thankfully that didn’t happen on this morning at Convict Lake. The colors in the dawn sky were lovely. There was very little Alpine Glow on this morning. One of these days I’ll hit the jack-pot and get both in the same photo.

Nikon D700| Nikkor 17-35@ 17mm| f10| 1 second| ISO 200| Manual Mode| Tripod w/ release cable| Singh-Ray Grad ND filter