How I Photograph Birds - Part 2

July 21 2010. Remember ?? I posted here a short video footage of "How I Photograph Birds" few weeks ago. Now, here is the part 2 of the same topic :



Thanks for viewing.

Chestnut-naped Forktail

July 16 2010. Over the past few days, I was trying very hard to photograph the Chestnut-naped Fork-tail at Ulu Paip lowland forest. I was lucky and successful in getting the Blue-banded Kingfisher but it was non-success for the Fork-tail. 

I realized that the Chestnut-naped Fork-tail is a very shy and smart bird. It always sensitives to human present. During a few instances, I was wearing a camouflage netting and hid under a tree.  The Fork-tail some-how knew about my present there. It diverted away from me when it approached my hiding location although I was along the flight path. I only managed to get 2 blur pictures of the Fork-tail so far. I am still looking for ways to get near to it. Hopefully my hard work will bring success soon. Here are the 2 blur photos :

Photographed on July 15 

Photographed on July 16

Thank for viewing.

A Closer Encounter With the Blue-Banded Kingfisher

July 15 2010, I decided to take a half day off from work. I spent the entire morning at the Ulu Paip lowland forest searching for the Blue-banded Kingfisher. At 10 am, I found the subject at a small pond near the waterfall. The male Blue-banded Kingfisher perched at a rock under a tree. He was very kind to let me photograph him for 5 minutes. Due to the poor lighting condition, I had to use an ISO of 1600 to 2500. Even with this ISO range, the shutter speed was between 1/20 to 1/40, most of my shot ended up with motion blur. Here are some better one, out of the 60 shots :

This morning he allowed me to get nearer, compared to my first encounter last week.

1 D mkIV EF800 IS + TC, Center point focus, 1/20 F8 ISO 2000

Thanks for viewing.

Blue Banded Kingfisher

July 11 2010, My efforts of searching for the Blue-banded Kingfisher at Ulu Paip came into success. This morning, I managed to get my photo lifer of the Blue-banded Kingfisher.  It was a male species that I successfully photographed. It was three and a half hours of waiting at the riverbank. During the wait, I saw the Blue-banded Kingfisher and the Chestnut-naped Forktail flew upstream and downstream. It was so frustrating to see the subjects flew past without stopping and perching at the rocks nearby.

I had some coffee and sweet potatoes to keep me awake and occupied. There were a lot of mosquitoes bugging me, that I had to put on my insect repellant.

A Lizard on a mossy rock

At 11.15 am, I saw the Blue-banded Kingfisher flew upstream. Out of sudden, it landed on a river rock in front of me. Bingo, I quickly pressed the shutter of mk IV and triggered a series of long burst.

1 D MK IV EF 800 IS

1/60 F5.6 ISO 2000

After a series of shots, I had a quick check on the images on the LCD. The subject looked small on the the LCD, I decided to put on the 1.4 TC in order to get more reach to the Blue-banded Kingfisher. Unfortunately, my sudden movement of mounting the TC must have alerted the Kingfisher. It flew away while I was trying to gain focus on it after mounting the TC. 

It started to rain heavily 10 minutes after the Kingfisher left. I decided to pack and head home. It was a very satisfied outing. Thanks for viewing, your comments are welcome.

Silky Waterflow

July 10 2010, How you tried photographing the water flow of river ? This morning I went to shoot the river landscape at the Ulu Paip Recreation Park. In order to get a more dramatic effect, I shot from middle of the river. My gears for this morning shooting were the 7D, 16-35 L, manfotto tripod and a cokin ND 8 filter mounted on the P filter holder. I packed all the gears into my Think Tank Photo Speed Demon belted bag. 

In order to get a silky effect of the water flow, I shot with a slow shutter speed of 10 second to 30 second. The normal shutter speed will freeze the water flow, thus it makes the picture less dramatic. How to achieve a slower shutter speed in the broad daylight ? There are a few methods, use the lowest ISO, smaller aperture or using a ND filter to reduce the light going into the sensor. I achieved the slower shutter speed by using the combination of the 3 methods.

Here are some photos from my morning outing :

Thanks for viewing. Your comments are welcome.

How I Photograph Birds

July 8 2010. Are you curious on how I photograph the birds pictures ? Well, there are a few methods. One of my favorite method is shooting from car by mounting the camera and lens on my car window. You need  a kirk window mount and a big ball head to support the camera and big telephoto lens. This method is suitable for shooting birds at open land, paddy field or mangrove area. You can either drive around to look for the target or position your car at a particular place to wait for the subject to appear at the pre-set perch. 

No birds have been harmed in making this video. Thanks to my younger brother who shot this video during one of my outing.

Your comments are welcome.

Here is a short video footage on shooting from car :

Unable to Post Comments

July 6 2010. This evening I received an email from a fellow blogger, madibirder, who informed me of the problem in the comments button. I have ratified the problem. Now the comment box will pop out for the readers to post their comments. 

Thanks to madibirder for highlighting the problem.

Sights and Sounds of Ulu Paip

July 4 2010, This morning I decided to visit the Ulu Paip Recreation Park. This is a low land forest with a waterfall and fresh water stream running through it. It is an ideal habitat for the Blue Banded Kingfisher and Chestnut-naped Forktail. The park is a popular place for picnickers. In order to avoid the picnickers, I decided to explore the park before the picnickers arrived.  

Hiking along the stream

The Blue Banded Kingfisher and Chestnut-naped Fork-tail are 2 very shy birds. One the first occasions, as my partner and I hiked along the trail parallel with the stream.  I heard the thin shrill whistle of "dir-tee, dir-tee, dir-tee" voice. My partner Tsien quickly pointed toward the river direction, I saw the subject flying across the river headed toward the dense forest. It disappeared into the dense forest. That was the only sighting for the entire morning. The same thing happened on the Blue Banded Kingfisher. As we were approaching some bamboo trees (30 meter away), my partner and I saw a blue color bird took off and fly away toward the dense forest. It was a frustrated outing. We ended up empty handed with zero photos of the subjects.

Yellow-breasted Flowerpecker (Better than nothing !!)

A chick of the Scarlet-Backed Flowerpecker that just fled the nest being feed by the parents

Besides birds, there were frogs and lizard. 

I concluded my writing today by featuring a shot video footage of my outing titled "Sights and Sounds of Ulu Paip"

Thanks for viewing.