Looking around...

When I head out to photograph something specific (like the terns) I am very focused on my subject and often to the point of not seeing anything else that is around. I am trying now to get in the habit of looking around the area to see what else is about before I leave.

When I was out at Makara Beach, as I decided to leave on both days, the oyster catchers flew in on mass. Both times I wasn't ready for them and as they move so fast I missed most of the opportunities put before me. I did manage to get a few shots but had I been prepared and expecting them I would have managed many more.

As we were driving away from the beach we passed one of the trees that the shags nest in and then found a second with two shags sitting right by the side of the road. There was no where to park near them so it was a bit of a hike back from where I eventually parked the car. I think it was worth the trek because I manage to get up real close to the shags.

A second day at Makara

After finding the terns on Saturday I was keen to have a second shot at them, but the weather report on Sunday predicted rain and I had pretty much resigned myself to staying home for the day. Well the rain lasted all of ten minutes and then the sun came out so I bundled up my gear and we headed back to Makara Beach.

It was definitely threatening to rain when we got there but the terns were there so I really didn't care that much if it rained or not. At least not until it got too heavy to keep the lens free of raindrops. In between arriving and the rain coming down heavy I managed to photograph the terns from a slightly different angle and with a  more cloudy and stormy sky behind them.

There were people going past them from time to time at which point they all take to the air before settling back down in formation in a new position on the beach. They didn't quite go where I wanted them to this time but there's always another day.

 

Terns at Makara

We arrived out at Makara to wind and low cloud and not much else, but within minutes of parking the car we noticed a flock of terns taking flight as some people walked past them. After sitting out in the wind for a few minutes we decided it would be just as easy to do it from the car and much warmer! So I moved the car to another car park within lens reach of the birds.

The terns like to huddle close together and all face in the direction of the wind, which for me was a minor annoyance. I couldn't get shots from the front of them so had to make do with side shots, or from the rear of the flock. For the most part it was just a matter of waiting for a bird to turn in the right direction.

The terns were moving about so fast that to capture the full flock in flight I had to be very quick, and totally ready when it happened. There was an old lady on walking on the beach with her cell phone camera trying to take snaps of the terns too and she didn't think twice about going right up close to them to make them fly - something I was not comfortable with at all.

Birds in Flight

In preparation for my trip to the gannets this year, I have been practicing capturing birds in flight with my new Sigma lens. Before I went out this time I did some research on the web to see how others had achieved this and what settings they used to do it. I wrote down the 'recipe' and off I went with a couple of friends.  We sat on the side of the river with our picnic lunches, camera and boots and every now and then you would hear one of us shout "incoming..." and then the click click click of the shutters could be heard.

We did this for several hours before deciding that we had done our dash for the day. From my point of view it was a brilliant exercise because while I shot a lot of images I will discard,  the success rate was high. I am getting more and more comfortable with the large lens and the 'recipe' worked!

All these images were shot with 1/2000 sec shutter speed on TV priority. The stabiliser on the lens turned off and auto focus set to AI servo. ISO was set to 400. The sun was bright so there was enough light for me to achieve these results that I am really happy with.