The Tundra Swans have returned to Grand Bend


On March 10, 2022 we drove down to Grand Bend to view the Tundra Swans,  and while it is not as great as the view of birds at Boshe del Apache in southern New Mexico.  It still is a great reason to grab the big lens, tripod, binoculars and head off for some bird photography


Above is shot looking down the road towards the east.  Birds on both side of the road.  This is on Greenway Road, south of Grand Bend, just east of the Museum. 


Looking North into the field  (aka pond) thousands of birds in the area, landing, taking off, flying from one side of the road to the other

 

On this photo, shots taken at ground level have a lot of heat induced mirage effect from the sun warming the ground.



A close up of the shot from down the road, you can see the highlights are ripply looking. Same thing happens to the birds further away in the fields.  So I did not spend a lot of time shooting birds on the ground.  

In the air was another story,  I did find that with the partly clouded sky, I needed to track to the birds until blue sky was behind them.




 











The above three shots taken with Canon 7mk2 body and Canon 600mm F4 lens at f5.6 iso 100 about 1/2500 sec

If you get a chance, take a drive over.  Check with the Museum for info visit on the status

https://www.lambtonmuseums.ca/en/lambton-heritage-museum/return-of-the-swans.aspx


Popular posts from this blog

The Demolition of the Bogdon and Gross Plant, Walkerton

Image
  Over the last few weeks we have been walking over the site of the old Bogdon and Gross furniture factory, which is being demolished to make way for another sub-division. Originally built in the late 1890's by the Knechtel Furniture Co.,  It operated until 1934, closing during the great depression.  Purchased by Bogdon and Gross in 1938. They operated a furniture manufacturing operation until 2017 when it closed and has sat empty since.   A fire in 2020 caused some damage and a permit was issued for the demolition.  I am posting photos taken (usually just with a cell phone) showing the events and the changing landscape. Old photo of plant from the internet archives  Satellite image from google earth before anything happened     2021 02 20 before destruction   2021 02 24 still no changes 2021 03 11 Work has started     Fencing has been put up to keep people out.   Keep an eye on that rail car to right of building. it is sort of an anchor point  2021 03 13  2021 03 15 The rail car i
Read more

Using the Histogram to get the best exposure

Image
  Y our DSLR has a very powerful exposure meter on it, but it also has a useful feature to go beyond simple metering. When you review a photo on you screen and you press INFO it should show a histogram similar to the image at the top.  In the case of Canon camera,  the more to the left the darker the image, the more to right the lighter the image.  This eliminates any errors or failure of the rear screen viewer to render the image properly, particularly in difficult to view lighting. To do so, take a test photo of your subject and look at the histogram.  Now if it is too dark, adjust exposure compensation a click or two brighter and take another,  review the histogram.  The intent is to just get the right most area of the graph just at, but not against the right limit.  The example at the right above for Bright Image shows too much bright, that is, information in your photo is be bleached out, and no amount of post-processing can fix it.  On the other hand, the Dark Image sample could
Read more