Avian Naturescapes

Perspectives - Behind The Scenes

Monday, 1, August 2011

It has been quite a while since I last posted a blog entry from a busy schedule of multiple out of town trips and back to back client bookings. I finally had some personal birding time last week - this is when I actually have to find feathered photography subjects for myself! :) and I thought to share a behind the scenes perspective of a big lens as it is shot from a car (used as a moving hide).

The title picture above shows my point of view out of the car window (partially blocked and occupied by my 600mm f4 lens with it’s oversized protruding hood. On the ground somewhere in front of that lens and in the middle region of that picture is a Lesser Ringed Plover - a smallish migratory shorebird that is one of the early arrivals this year.

See if you can spot the bird!

Bird, Nature & Wildlife Photography by Choo Tse Chien

This 2nd image on the Right has a red arrow indicator showing precisely where the plover was sitting. After staying still for about 10 minutes and not making any noises, the bird finally warmed up and got quite comfortable with my presence there. It started feeding, stretching, standing on 1 leg (a resting pose for many waders) and even sat itself down (probably for warmth from the red soil)

Cropped severely from the original image, you can just make out a rough shape resemblance of a bird on the ground in the above pixelated image as indicated by the red arrow.

The uncropped image above clearly shows the bird in an identifiable form and this is what I actually see through my viewfinder and on LCD screen preview on a 600mm with a 1.4X teleconverter on a 1.5X APS-C sized sensor D-SLR body such as the Nikon D7000. The EXIF data shows 850mm total reach and if you factor in the 1.5X sensor crop, this image would be the actual perspective from a reach of 1,275mm (35mm film / FX sized sensor calculations applied)

As the bird was still too small in the frame with too much environment on all sides, I decided to crop it slightly for make the subject larger and also for composition. The final result is the image above.

The above image was taken with a D7000, Nikkor AF-S 600mm f4 II IF-ED with a Nikon AF-S TC 14E II Teleconverter mounted on a Kirk Car Window Mount with a Arca Swiss B1 ballhead.

Ever wanted to learn how to take pictures like these featured here? Gimme a call and sign on any of my Instructional Nature Photo Safaris. Please contact me at tsechien@me.com or by calling +60124748354 (if in Malaysia, just dial 0124748354)