photography

photography

Squirrel pausing for a second from climbing. Nature Photography Wildlife

Squirrel Rant

Squirrel vs Canon 5D Mark IV with the Tamron 150-600 mm G2 Lens

So, it’s been a while since I’ve posted anything. Now, that winter is here and it’s cold outside, I will have time to publish content.

Once in a while, I take the camera with me when I go hiking. While these pictures might not be anything special per se, they are special to me because at the time I’ve just purchased a new camera. As you can see in the EXIF data under the images, I’ve got a Canon 5d Mark IV. Wohooo!

The day prior I’ve done a hike in the same spot, same trail, and figure I’ll just shoot on Auto mode. O boy, big mistake, while at first glance the pictures looked great. That was not the case when I got home and transferred all the images from the card to the computer. The ISO got bumped to the max setting and the images came out super noisy.

Example of high ISO

Sad really, because I’ve got a few great shots of chipmunks. Decided to go again the following day and that’s when I got all the pictures that you see below. This time, I went all out…straight up manual mode. No way I was going to risk getting my images ruined again.

I was lucky enough to find a squirrel that enjoyed getting photographed, so took few decent shots. Usually, they don’t really “pose” they just take off as quickly as possible. This particular squirrel did just that but then stopped after it climbed in the tree and then stopped.

To end the rant, the biggest lesson out of this is not to trust your auto mode all the time and make sure you zoom in to 100% when reviewing pictures on the camera, not 50% like I did. ;p

Happy shooting and see you again in my next post.

Squirrel vertically facing down
  • Shutter speed: 1/125s
  • Aperture: ƒ/6.3
  • ISO: 2000
  • Focal length: 428mm
  • Camera: Canon EOS 5D Mark IV
Squirrel vertically facing down, but slightly tilted.
  • Shutter speed: 1/125s
  • Aperture: ƒ/6.3
  • ISO: 2000
  • Focal length: 428mm
  • Camera: Canon EOS 5D Mark IV
Squirrel pausing for a second from climbing.
  • Shutter speed: 1/125s
  • Aperture: ƒ/6.3
  • ISO: 2000
  • Focal length: 483mm
  • Camera: Canon EOS 5D Mark IV
Squirrel climbing a tree.
  • Shutter speed: 1/125s
  • Aperture: ƒ/6.3
  • ISO: 2000
  • Focal length: 483mm
  • Camera: Canon EOS 5D Mark IV

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great egret by the lake Nature Photography Wildlife

Great Egret by the Lake

First photoshoot with the Tamron 150-600 mm G2 Lens

Just got my first telephoto-zoom lens, Tamron 150-600mm G2, and these are some of my first shots taken with it. I used an old rebel which adds 1.6x crop factor, making the lens a whooping 960 mm on the high end. That is a lot of zoom, giving me the capability to photograph this beautiful Great Egret.

Great Egret

  • Shutter speed: 1/1600s
  • Aperture: ƒ/6.3
  • ISO: 1600
  • Focal length: 552mm
  • Camera: Canon EOS REBEL T1i

Great Egret prowling

  • Shutter speed: 1/400s
  • Aperture: ƒ/6.3
  • ISO: 1600
  • Focal length: 600mm
  • Camera: Canon EOS REBEL T1i

Seagull landing in the water

  • Shutter speed: 1/1250s
  • Aperture: ƒ/6.3
  • ISO: 1600
  • Focal length: 600mm
  • Camera: Canon EOS REBEL T1i

I can’t wait to try this lens on Canon 5D Mark III.

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Holiday decoration Close-up Photography Tutorials

Happy Holidays

Making a Holiday Postcard

Every year after I’m done with my Holiday decorations, I take few pictures because it looks nice with all the lights. I didn’t always do this, but I remember a few years back I was looking at some photography techniques on YouTube. The idea was to zoom in or out with your lens as you are taking a long exposure shot to try to get this “time traveling” effect. Ever since then I just got hooked on taking pictures of various Holiday decorations.

time travel, zooming in at long exposures

  • Shutter speed: 1s
  • Aperture: ƒ/4.5
  • ISO: 100
  • Focal length: 80mm
  • Camera: Canon EOS DIGITAL REBEL XT

It doesn’t take much effort to create a postcard and it’s easy to make. You just have to keep few things in mind when you are taking the picture.
– Try not to center your main subject, place it to either side. You want to have room for your text.
– As you take the shot think about your text placement and try to make that part of the image soft focused so the text can be easily read, when placed over the image.

Christmas Decoration

  • Shutter speed: 1/80s
  • Aperture: ƒ/2.8
  • ISO: 5000
  • Focal length: 100mm
  • Camera: Canon EOS 5D Mark III

Using your favorite picture editing software open the image you just took and place your text over it. In this example below I used Photoshop and the Amatic SC font, which I got from google fonts.

Download my photoshop file

happy holiday postcard with Christmas decoration

Here is another pictures from this session; also if you like any of these images you can download them for free.

Christmas decoration

  • Shutter speed: 1/100s
  • Aperture: ƒ/2.8
  • ISO: 1600
  • Focal length: 100mm
  • Camera: Canon EOS 5D Mark III

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Nature Photography

All about Mushrooms | Photography

Photographing mushrooms while skipping through the woods!

Mushrooms are just so cool to photograph and they look like something straight out of a fantasy tale. Most of the fungi stand out, especially the non-edible ones, in a very pleasant way. They are brightly colored and have interesting geometric characteristics. I think about them as little houses since, on occasion, they can look like little huts.

Mushrooms on the forest floor, gathered together.

  • Shutter speed: 1/500s
  • Aperture: ƒ/4
  • ISO: 200
  • Focal length: 18mm
  • Camera: Canon EOS DIGITAL REBEL XT

Humid, wet and misty environment, a mushrooms favorite environment to thrive. Coincidentally, these are favorable conditions to take pictures that are underexposed and have a gloomy feel to them. Here are few examples of such photographs.

Mushrooms in the forest, bundled up together.

  • Shutter speed: 1/500s
  • Aperture: ƒ/4
  • ISO: 200
  • Focal length: 18mm
  • Camera: Canon EOS DIGITAL REBEL XT

The best way to photograph a mushroom is to get as low as possible to the ground. That way you get a really nice perspective on the subject. This allows for a much softer background, which in turn makes for a greater contrast photo. Getting low can be challenging at times with most cameras since the viewfinder lays flat against the body of the device. Cameras that do have a flip or movable screen are a huge plus. They allow you to get that low angled picture much quicker and with very little effort.

Mushroom on the forest floor.

  • Shutter speed: 1/400s
  • Aperture: ƒ/4
  • ISO: 200
  • Focal length: 18mm
  • Camera: Canon EOS DIGITAL REBEL XT

So go out there and find some mushrooms, take some cool pictures and share them so we can all enjoy!

Camera settings for the first image 

  • Shutter speed: 1/320s
  • Aperture: ƒ/4
  • ISO: 200
  • Focal length: 18mm
  • Camera: Canon EOS DIGITAL REBEL XT

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