Trogon Photo Tours

February 2017 - This month's newsletter features info about photographing waterfowl at local parks.  It includes mostly images from McGovern Lake in Houston, TX.  On my most recent Ecuador photo tour we were discussing local shooting.  A participant from New Jersey lamented the lack of bird photo opportunities in his local area.  I asked him if he had checked every city park in the area to which he replied "of course not".  The reason for my query was that some of the best waterfowl photography opportunities are almost under our noses at local city parks.  The birds in these parks are often very used to people and can therefore be approached very closely for good photo opportunities. 

Ring-necked Duck, female photographed February 2017 at McGovern Lake, Hermann Park, Houston, TX.  Canon 1DX II, 500F4 1/2000 F8, iso 800, Av mode, evaluative metering at -0.3, handheld lying on the ground.  At Hermann Park, Ring-necked Duck is the most common wintering species.  Most of the time I lie on my stomach when I'm photographing ducks at the local park.  This serves to isolate the background and put me on the same level as my subjects.  If you aren't able to lay on your stomach (and I can only do so for a certain amount of time) then sitting cross legged is another option to get fairly low but it won't yield quite as good of a background. 

Ring-necked Duck, male photographed January 2017 at McGovern Lake, Hermann Park, Houston, TX.  Canon 1DX II, 500F4 1/1600 F8, iso 800, Av mode, evaluative metering at -0.3, handheld. In this image I am sitting cross legged so the bird doesn't stand out from the background quite as well.  On the other hand doing so would have allowed me to use a tripod if I wanted to.  The other advantage of shooting from a little bit higher position is that your field of vision and ability to react to action which is not right in front of where you are focusing is much improved.  So if I am focusing on action photography rather than portrait photography I will often be in that position.  One option to improve the background in that case is to shoot more wide open, say F5 or so but be sure to focus on the eye in that case.

Muscovy Ducks photographed February 2017 at McGovern Lake, Houston, TX.  Canon 1DX II, 500F4 1/800 F6.3, iso 800, Av mode,  evaluative metering at 0.  These feral ducks had a huge squabble during which I was able to get off about 30 shots.  In this case I was sitting cross legged and was able to get on the action quickly.  The shutter speed was  a little bit low for this type of action and I should have bumped my iso up to say 1250 here but I still managed some nice sharp images of the fight.  If you look closely the bird on the right has a feather from the left bird in it's beak.  

Hooded Merganser, immature male photographed December 2016 at McGovern Lake, Houston, TX.  Canon 1DX II, 500F4 1/1600 F6.3, iso 800, Av mode, evaluative metering at 0, lying on my stomach.  Besides the more common dabbling ducks, occasionally something more exciting will join the resident ducks as was the case with this young Common Merganser.  I took about 75 images of this bird and ended up picking out 2 to send to my stock agent.  In this image the low angle, head position, lighting and small wave in front of the bird made it the best image of the bunch in my opinion.  

Pied-billed Grebe photographed January 2017 at McGovern Lake, Houston, TX.  Canon 1DX II, 500F4 1/2500 F6.3, iso 800, evaluative metering -0.3, Av mode, lying on my stomach.  In addition to waterfowl other birds may often be photographed at your local parks.  Grebes are one group of birds which respond to calls very well as this bird did, they will often come right in if you play their call.  You may have noticed that on the majority of these shots I am at F6.3, iso 800.  The reason is that photographing with a 500F4, most of the birds are pretty close so I will stop down just more than one stop from wide open to try and get the whole bird sharp.  As to the iso 800 in bright sun I was getting plenty of shutter speed at that iso and F-stop.  Any higher of an iso and it would have produced some noise, any lower and I may not have been able to stop the action if a bird took off or was flapping it's wings etc. 

Redhead photographed February 2017 at McGovern Lake, Houston, TX.  Canon 1DX II, 500F4 1/1600 F6.3, iso 800, Av mode with evaluative metering at 0, lying on my stomach.  Often times the birds are so tame they get too close to get the whole bird in so I am left with cropping to a portrait as with this beautiful male Redhead.  When they are this close I make sure to focus on the eye. 

American Wigeon, male, photographed February 2008, Titlow Park, Pierce County, WA.  Canon 1DMK3, 500F4 1.4x 1/640 F7.1, iso 640, Av mode, evaluative metering -0.7, handheld sitting cross-legged.  This is one of a couple of images I am sharing from my favorite city park to shoot at when I lived in Washington state.  This shows one other advantage of sitting as opposed to laying on your stomach, you are able to get a fuller reflection and it's easier to turn the camera vertical when you are sitting than when you are lying on your stomach.  The iso characteristics of this camera, while good were not as good as the 1DX II, so I used a lower iso here and dialed in -0.7 to hold the whites. 

Male Mallard photographed April 2010, Titlow Park, Pierce County, WA.  Canon 1dMk3, 500F4 1/2500 F5, iso 640, Av mode, evaluative metering at -0.3, handheld standing.  As always I use a combination of the aperture and iso to keep the shutter speed up, preferably above 1/2000 when photographing ducks in flight.  City parks are often a good place to practice your flight photograph as well with both ducks and gulls often in the area.  Mallards and gulls may not be the most exciting birds to photograph but they make for excellent practice.  Note that this was taken in April, many of the duck species will migrate north to breed so if you are targeting them the winter months are best.  However there will usually be a few resident species such as Mallards and Coots in the summer and they are often joined during these months by other birds such as Belted Kingfishers, Red-winged Blackbirds and Osprey.  Good shooting to everyone.