Mother Loon and Baby

[Karen Forderer]

Hi,
This is my first photo posting. I took this from my kayak at 6:40 a.m. a little over a week ago.

D300s
80-400 5.6 VR
400mm
ISO 640
Shutter speed 1/1000s
f 8.0

A bit of a crop, NR and sharpening.

Thanks for viewing,
Karen

[Jeff Cashdollar]

Karen,

Welcome to ETL and I am envious having always wanted to photograph a Loon forever, nice catch. Great field technique using a kayak. The kayak gives you the ability to go where the action is and this is a sweet shot of a mother and chick - great moment in nature. The opportunity here is the crop or subject placement. You did well to remove any distractions from the frame but the foreground is too deep IMO and does not help the photo. Consider taking some off the bottom and maybe adding more on the LHS - this is of course subjective it just seems tight to me.

The image could be sharper,.. as you know the bird and boat are both moving so extra shutter speed is needed. The Nikon will support higher ISO settings and when it is increased the shutter speed can be higher - the rule is when the ISO is doubled you gain a stop of light. I like the f/8.0 and would not change the aperture. On balance a great post, nice field techniques with an opportunity to improve the sharpness and composition, tell me more about the kayak - is this really helpful, how big, how stable?

[Jeannean Ryman]

Welcome Karen! I'm new to posting myself, so am trying to learn from the critiques and feedback and think Jeff is spot on with his. I'd be interested to hear more about the kayak as well. I've thought about it, but a little hesitant.

[Karen Forderer]

Thank you Jeff and Jeannean for your replies and suggestions. I do have some more room I can add on the LHS. I do not have any more on the right. I have the most luck getting sharp photos with this lens at f8.0 but I find that if I have two subjects, one will always be a bit out of focus even if they are close to each other. I am always hesitant to put my ISO up to high but I will try it to get a higher shutter speed.

Most of my loon, oprey and heron photos are taken from our 25 foot boat. Sometimes the engine is still running and others times my husband can turn it off so we drift. But I wanted to try to get the photos from a lower angle and so I got a kayak for Christmas.

The kayak is actually a semi-rigid inflatable (a regular one would be too big to bring on our boat), from West Marine, called a Scout Advanced Elements kayak. It is 10.5 feet long and has a 32 inch beam. It has aluminum ribs on the bow and stern. It inflates in 5 minutes. I find it to be very stable on the lake and I never get water inside. My husband was not keen on me taking my good camera and lens in it so I was taking his D70 and 70-300 lens but I wasn't getting any good photos. After seeing that I had no trouble in the kayak, he was nervous but okay with me taking my other gear. The biggest problem I have is if there is a lot of wake from boats, and when the kayak turns sideways from my subject and I am trying to shoot from the side. Then my camera holding technique isn't the best as my upper body is twisted.

But I was lucky this summer and have seen 7 different loon babies in 4 different family groups, including one riding his mother's back. In a 8 day vacation trip we saw 44 different loons!

Karen

[Randy Stout]

Karen:

Welcome to BPN. Good advice from Jeff.

I have been known to take a loon picture or two, and appreciate the challenge of getting a low angle shot.

I shoot a D300 as my DX camera, and will push the ISO to 800 without too much concern. One of the tricks with any camera, is to be sure not to underexpose the image, and have to bring the image up in post processing . That really brings out the noise.

f/8 is the sweet spot with that lens.

Getting two different birds in focus is quite difficult, esp. if working in close ( DOF goes down with reduced working distance)

If it is a static shot, I will often try and pick a spot halfway between the two birds to try and distribute the available DOF properly. But, there is a limit to how much can fudge this and have any chance of getting at least one in focus.

By the way, this is the dad, not the mom. He is yodeling(you can tell by the pose), which only males do.

Cheers

Randy

[Karen Forderer]

Thanks, Randy.
I always look at your loon photos and hope to get similar photos myself some day.

This year we saw 44 different loons on an 8 day boat trip along the Trent Severn Waterway! We saw 7 babies in 4 different family groups. Unfortunately, we usually see them mid-day while we are passing. They are pretty good about letting us get close, it's just not the best time for lighting.

Karen