New season, new adventures

Goodbye Winter! We’ve had some good (mostly cold) times, see you again next year. To say goodbye, here are some of the last winter shots.

This was quite fun! Almost 2500 Crane’s that spend the night at National Park the Meinweg and I was there when they woke up and took to the skies .

And since Spring is upon us:

While looking back, I can’t help but wonder what the next seasons will bring me. Most of the times, opportunities find you instead of the other way around. While exploring new grounds, I often stumble upon something to turn into a new project. I also wonder what new opportunities (and challenges..) my new, yet to be bought :p, camera will bring me. 36MP is a lot of fun but it has its drawbacks of course.. I’ll hate the small AF area coverage (compared to DX) and the massive file sizes, but I’ll love the additional cropping, detail, better noise handling, dynamic range, and AF performance…. O well, nothing is perfect in life.

And now, time to go after that Pheasant that just walked into my garden. Good to know he survived the killing spree of the local hunters.

Until next time!

Hen Harriers – revisited

This will be the first of two winter posts. This first one will cover my latest Hen Harrier adventures whereas the second post will show some other more common birds in a winter setting. For the first time in many years I haven’t had the feeling of spending the winter in hibernation. I actually went out into the blistering cold and got great results! I focussed all my efforts on capturing birds in the snow that I didn’t have any time to go out and shoot some landscape shots. Yes, the winter of 2012/2013 was great but I’m glad that it’s over and I’m ready for Spring now. I already have a few small colorful projects in mind but more on that in a few weeks. I will also be buying a new camera as I’ve set April 1st as a deadline to buy one. I’m afraid Nikon won’t release a D400 any time soon so I’ll be buying a D800 and 24-70mm lens (full frame instead of APS-C (crop)). I will still be using my D300 for when I need the additional reach and speed but the D800 will be great for more controllable projects such as macro, light rays, and king fishers. I’m a bit worried though about storage space on my computer so I’m going to have to increase that as well. Luckily my 2008 Mac Pro seems to handle large D800 RAW files very well. Anyways.. enough blabla and time for the pictures:

I do wonder what adventures 2013 will bring. Where do the kingfishers decide to nest? Will we see any new rare birds? How about the beaver? And will I see Roe Deer fawns again? I can’t wait!

Until next time!

On graceful wings..

It’s 6am when the radio alarm clock tries to wake me up but fails. In anticipation of this failure, the evening before I set another alarm clock to go off right next to my head at 6.05am. Unfortunately I forgot to turn down the volume a bit causing me to wake quite abruptly… mission successful though, I’m awake. Next step is putting on 2 thermal underwear sets, a shirt, 2 fleece sweaters, 2 pair of thick socks, and 1 pair of glasses. I go down for breakfast, trying not to fall off the stairs with 20+ kg of camera gear (and a lot of other stuff necessary for my project of the day). I have breakfast, load everything into the car, program the satellite navigation, and set off for a 30 minute drive into the cold morning. There’s no traffic on the road this early causing me to regularly break the speed limit. I make it to my destination in just under 25 minutes, a record :p. I unload everything from my car, put on snow boots, and start to hike up the side of a hill. There’s a stiff and cold wind blowing with very little light present, causing me to almost tip over a few times due to bad weight distribution of my gear (heavy tripod swinging off the side of my backpack). The slippery slope isn’t helping much either. After a 15 minute hike I finally reach the top and make it over to the spot where I’m going to spend over 5 hours waiting for a few birds to occasionally fly by. 10 minutes later, I’m fully camouflaged, sweating like a mad man from the hike, and ready to go. After witnessing the sunrise I’m starting to cool off a bit and after 1-2 hours my toes seemed to have lost the connection to the rest of my warm body. Meanwhile, I’m just scouting the horizon for the typical shape of a hunting Hen Harrier (in Dutch: Blauwe Kiekendief). There’s no time for checking email or reading stuff since the moment can be over in 5 seconds… so just as my camera I need to stay sharp and focussed :p. Anyways, copy the above into 4 cold mornings and this is what you’ll get:

Amazing, graceful hunters. The Harrier jet actually got its name from these nimble and acrobatic hunters.

The next photo was taken in my garden where large amounts of birds come to dine when there’s little to be found because of the snow covered ground. The same is true for bird of prey that have difficulties with finding food. What an intense moment that was… incredible.

The last one was taken while waiting for the Hen Harriers. They must be quite skilled air traffic controllers these pigeons

Until next time!

The rise and fall of Fall..

Time for my yearly Fall post! I have seven images to show you that basically represent what I’ve been up to in the past 2 months. Due to bad weather, shortening days, and travels I haven’t been able to do what I initially planned to do. This colorful season went by too quickly for me this year. No reason to complain though as I’m still very satisfied with the images below. I’ve come up with an awesome new idea that, if successful, should take my work to the proverbial ‘next level’. I won’t give out any details as I don’t want anyone else to try it before I do and I need to wait either for Spring or Fall 2013… and I need a new camera for that as well but more on that at the end of this post.
Anyways, enough blabla and time for the latest photo’s.

This was a magical morning. Dense fog and clear skies above..



I have to start finding new locations for these sun ray shots as most of the ones taken thus far have been in the usual spot.

Time for the Fall shots:

Furthermore, I’m thinking about buying a new camera. If Nikon won’t announce a D400 before April 2013, I will switch to either a D800 or a D4. This means going FX and losing the crop factor which I still find essential for wildlife and small birds. I would however gain unsurpassed speed, low light capabilities, and dynamic range etc…. we’ll see what 2013 brings us. My D300 has a 5 year old sensor and AF system which, I believe, are starting to limit my ‘development’ as a photographer.

Until next time!

Trading hours for seconds…

Time for another post! It has been some time since my last post but I’ve definitely spent that time usefully. Fall is setting in which means relatively cold nights, dampened forest floors and… light rays, if you’re lucky and know what to look for. I’ve been quite successful in matching last years light ray shots. The best ones from last year were at the peak of the autumn but unfortunately I have to travel to the US for work in the week that I expect Fall to reach its climax over here. Have to see if I’ll be able to go into the woods before and after my US visit. Next to the light ray shots I’ve also been busy with a family of Roe Deer that are currently residing in the corn fields near from where I live. A family of three, mom and her two calfs. Very nice to see them come out of hiding when the sun is setting and interact which each other.
Anyways.. this is not the only place on which I upload my photo’s as I also make use of the Flickr photo community website. The concept is that everyone can get a free account and upload up to 200 photo’s and then share it with everyone else. You can comment on each others work, join communities, look for inspiring work of other great photographers around the world, and if you’re lucky you get your shots on Flickr Explore. This is basically a large billboard for the entire community which showcases the best uploads of a particular day. On an average day millions of photo’s get uploaded and only 500 are selected to be shown on Explore. The white dove below got to spot #1 on Flickr Explore and one of my light ray shots got to #4. This meant that I got over 5000 views between those two shots. This also lead to a lot of comments and favorites and to over 300 emails which I had/chose to respond to :p. But, enough blabla and time for some of my latest work now.

First up, magical light:

Note the heart carved into the tree on the right.

A slightly different point of view:

More can be found on my website. I’ve created a new gallery especially for these sun ray shots (see link at the bottom of this post).

Next up is the dove photo I was talking about earlier:

And last but not least, the Roe Deer family, a sunset, and a Kingfisher I hadn’t uploaded yet.

So all in all, these kind of shots don’t come easy. You really have to trade hours for seconds. But boy, are those seconds worth it!

Until next time!

P.S. I’ve also updated my website with my latest work, including a lot of photo’s I haven’t uploaded on Flickr or this blog. I’m planning to modernize it a bit more this winter but haven’t thought of how I’m going to do this or what I’m going to change. I have to learn that programming stuff all over again as I’m getting a bit rusty in using HTML…

It’s good to be the King!

As already mentioned in my previous post, I still have some new deer fawn photo’s to share with you. Again such an amazing moment! I went back to the usual location and already saw two young deer fawns playing along the creek bed. I slowly moved closer, playing red light – green light with them (freeze when they looked, walk when they didn’t). I came within 40 meters or so when I positioned myself behind some long grass and underneath a bush. After a while one of the fawns started running towards me trying to find a gap in the fence through which to enter the field with the high grass. It was completely focussed on finding that opening and didn’t seem to notice the guy making these clicking noises. Even though the light was pretty bad, I was able to get some nice action shots. I was very much wondering how close the fawn was going to come near me. After a few attempts to enter the meadow it kept searching for a decent opening, which happened to be around 10 meters from where I was standing. So basically that’s where the fawn went! She (I guess it’s a she because of her good looks and all) stopped no more than 10 meters from me, stared at me for 30 seconds or so (in the meantime I was shooting away, anxiously wondering for how long she was going to stand there). After nicely posing for me she disappeared through the opening and started playing in the tall grass, leaving me shaking with adrenaline and 50 good shots in the pocket.

Here she is:

Later that morning I went back to my Kingfisher spot where I was greeted by a Kingfisher cleaning session within a few minutes of waiting. Was able to take some action shots and left a good 3 hours later. All in all, some pretty decent weekends lately. Now I’m waiting for the grass to grow higher again as the farmers just mowed it all down down causing the deer to leave for the corn fields much earlier in the morning when there is hardly any light. Lets hope the deer fawns don’t loose their playful behavior in the next few weeks.

Until next time!

The Deer Whisperer

I’ve figured it all out and I’m not going to share my secrets with you . I found the right location, right time, and the best way to photograph Roe deer fawns. It all started two weeks ago when I entered a specific area that seemed to meet all the requirements for a Roe Deer meet. I slowly walked towards a meadow with tall grass and suddenly saw two Roe deer fawns jumping up from the ground, startled by my presence. Both looked at me and apparently saw no danger as they both just kept standing at the place where they landed after their jump. One of them just kept staring at me. I immediately brought up my camera and started shooting away, trying not to make any sudden movements, and anxiously wondering how long this moment was going to last. What happened next was awesome… both fawns accepted my presence and started to eat, groom, run, and play. I was able to closely follow them for about half an hour. Unfortunately the tall grass prevented me from taking any clear shots and also made the focusing quite difficult, especially when you have to hand hold a 500mm and manually focus at the same time. But that’s when those 50 daily push-ups come in handy! What an amazing moment that was. Little did I know that this was going to repeat itself 2 weeks later. More about that encounter in my next blog. Here are the shots:

Wonderful moment!

Mom:

Just look at how graceful these creatures are. I’m sure I’ll go ballistic if I ever saw a hunter kill one. If you ever read in the newspaper that a nature photographer attacked a hunter, it’ll most likely be me :p. Please come and bail me out then by the way .

Next up is a Common Sandpiper. These birds are not very common in the Netherlands and it’s not at all common that one lands on your Kingfisher branch. Amazing moment once again.

Next up are some macro’s I took in the meadow where the deer were playing.

I could have sworn it was saluting me!

Last one for this post. This young Buzzard flew over my head while I was taking shots of the 2 Roe deer fawns. Had to act quickly to change exposure settings and fire away.

Next post will probably be sometime later this week to describe my adventures of this weekend. As said before, I met the roe deer fawns again and one got close, really close .

Until next time!