Birds on the Coast

The owls of Canada Cove - Stuart Nafey photo

Looking for wildlife to photograph? A recent blog post by Scott Bourne lists his top 7 bird and wildlife photography hotspots in the states.

Reading this article, I realized that many of the birds he mentions to be found in these refuges can also be found here in the San Francisco bay area. According to information provided by the Don Edwards Wildlife Preserve, the bay area has "30,000 acres of wetlands, open water, and upland habitats, are home to at least 800,000 birds at any given time and to millions during peak migration". That link takes you to a comphrehensive list detailing when you might find which birds.

Just a partial list of birds we have spotted here in Half Moon Bay include:

Barn owls
Pacific Great horned owls
Great blue Herons
Cattle egrets
White herons
Green herons
Cormorants
Lesser murres
Oyster catchers
Snowy plovers
Red tailed hawks
Golden eagles
Turkey vultures
Kestrels
Kites
Peregrine falcons
Hooded oreoles
Downy woodpeckers
Acorn woodpeckers

Not to mention all the other sea birds, finches, hummingbirds and other North American varieties. It is a worthy project to document the birds of the bay area.

Timing the Sun and Moon

Our ancestors quarried and hauled gargantuan stones many miles to build monuments that could predict where the sun and moon would rise and set. Photographers now days have it a little easier.

The Photographer's Ephemeris is one tool that combines centuries of observed astronomical and gravitational data with Google maps and shows you in exqusite detail where the sun and moon will be directing their light and the corresponding shadows, at any time of the day or night, at any place on earth, even allowing for elevation of the surrounding terrain. Well, maybe not every coordinate on earth, yet. I have not tested it's limits.

Stephen Trainor is the author of this free program. An iPod app will also be available on April 17.

Watching the short tutorials reveals the power of this program. Mark my words, this is something we all will applaud today, take for granted tomorrow and some will actually complain about in the future. Since this will actually save you time and money, Stephen provides a donation link to help maintain the service. Please consider contributing.

Here is the link to his blog or click the picture above. Thank you Stephen, for making my life that much simpler.

Kite Aerial Photography

Kite Aerial Photography is a technique I am itching to try and this photograph taken by George Lawrence after the 1906 earthquake in San Francisco is inspiring. Someone (at the USGS?) did a great job of creating a zoomable high resolution version.

Golden Hour

Ah, the golden hour, that period of time 1 hour after sunrise and 1 hour before sunset when our ultimate light source filters through the maximum amount of atmosphere. There are only 2 in a day. I took this picture in Bossier City, Louisiana during the evening version. More often then not, I miss the morning occurance. The musician in me refuses to recognize two 7 o'clocks in the same day. I do take advantage if I am forced to rise early, if I must take someone to the airport at 0 dark thirty for instance. I rationalize and balance what I miss by staying up late and developing pictures in the dark of night.



If you want the Golden Gate Bridge to be lit from the city side, you have to be there before noon. If you want to take advantage of that atmospheric phenomenon instead of buying filters or warming it in post production, get there early. This shot was taken at 07:30 am, not too bad. Click on it to get the full effect.

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Why lenses cost so much.

The Canon Library gives you a "How They Do It" tour of a virtual lens factory, showing every step, from raw material to a finished product of producing a 500mm lens.

Pictures from Antarctica

Gentoo Penguin_DSC4143, originally uploaded by jc_on_vacation.

Friend Justine Carson recently returned from a month long, photography workshop/trip to Argentina, the Falkland Islands, South Georgia Island and Antarctica and brought back incredibly beautiful and amazingly close-up pictures of penguins, seals, birds, ice and mountains. When they were not on land taking pictures, they were studying wildlife photography techniques and listening to lectures about the animals and geology they had travelled so far to see.

Only back a few days, Justine kindly threw together an excellent presentation for our February workshop. Those pictures and many more are now up in her Flickr gallery. Thank you Justine!

King Penguin_DSC4613, originally uploaded by jc_on_vacation.