Wildlife Photography across the Water: Experimenting and having fun

Sunday 14 November 2010

Experimenting and having fun

With the advent of digital cameras it made life a lot easier to get good exposures and see what worked and what didn't straight away without all the cost associated with film and slides, It also cost nothing to experiment as if it didn't work then you just deleted it and started again, In the last year i have started to shoot more and more at night doing landscapes or cityscapes, Its something i would have never done with slide film and since going digital i have enjoyed the experimenting that it has allowed me to do, When i was in the Smoky Mountains a few weeks ago i stopped along the Blue Ridge Parkway at a well photographed piece of road, I took some images but the light wasn't great so i returned later in the day and climbed up the hill and up onto a rock and set up ready for the sunset, I did all the normal stuff and got some ok shots, The road wasn't that busy and it allowed me to take some images between cars, The sun was by now well and truly set and i normally wait 30 minutes or so as the best colours can come out after the sun has gone down, The shutter speeds got lower and lower-into the seconds when i pressed the shutter button and then a car came into view, I cursed but when looking at the screen on camera i had some light trails-short at the time, I decided to wait it out and see if i could get a continuous light trail from the cars, I counted as a car would enter the scene and counted between 20 and 30 seconds depending on how fast the car was travelling until it left the scene, I ended up taking around 50 images and it was the very last one that i took that came out how i had envisaged, It was a very enjoyable and fun session, I got the sunset over the smoky's but i also got a fairly unique images of it as well, I have often seen people pack up as soon as the sun disappears but stay until its too dark to shoot and use what's around you to make a common scene into something unique

Image taken with a Nikon D3s with a 16-35F4VR and a 3 stop ND Grad Lee filter on a Gitzo tripod, Exposure time 20 seconds

Dave

1 comment:

mark wood14 November 2010 at 16:50
Stunning DC I love this kind of stuff.

Mark W
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Bio's

David Courtenay, a self taught wildlife and nature photographer, has been capturing images for over 30 years. He has had a passion for wildlife since early childhood and remembers being glued to the television whenever Survival, Wildlife on One and other natural history documentaries were shown. In the 2006 he swapped his established career for the life of a wildlife photographer, such a move demands a measure of uncompromising passion and commitment.

David has travelled extensively throughout Europe as well as spending more than 7 months in India working with local guides and trackers in search of Bengal Tiger, Asian One horned Rhino and Asian Elephant. He has also photographed Wildlife in Australia, Malaysia, Thailand, Sumatra, Africa, Canada and America. Working closely with Conservation companies he tries to raise funds to help Wildlife that has been put on the endangered list by poaching and habitation loss

Martin Dyer has had a passion for avian wildlife since childhood, particularly raptors. Photography was also another keen interest and it was with the specific availability and control of the whole process that digital offers that Martin was then able to combine the two in 2003. Based in the UK, Martin is a regular visitor to Scotland, specifically the Isle of Mull to watch the Eagles resident there. Other trips to Europe and around the UK are usually part of Martin’s agenda in a typical year.

However, as a firm believer on making the most of the local patch, Martin has spent a lot of time and hard work creating a wildlife garden which is reaping the rewards with many new species and varieties of wildlife. A keen member of a number of wildlife photographic groups, Martin is keen to expand his portfolio into other areas of wildlife, and has already established a wide portfolio of images of fungi.