Saturday, June 05, 2010

Coastal Photo Expedition: Part 6

I'm back from my temporary blogging hiatus. I still have a bunch of shots from my trip to the Texas coast last month that haven't been sorted through, so here are a few more that I thought you might enjoy.

If you haven't been following the photos from my "Coastal Photo Expedition" you can catch up by reading these posts:

My Texas Coast Photo Adventure: A Sneak Peak

Coastal Photo Expedition Part 1
Coastal Photo Expedition Part 2
Coastal Photo Expedition Part 3
Coastal Photo Expedition Part 4
Coastal Photo Expedition Part 5

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Sanderling






Green Heron


The Beach



Beach Houses near Port Aransas



4 comments:

AndraLea Rose said...

Whoq, that's some beach house! The Green Heron is a really unique looking bird. :)

JessicaCynthia said...

Benji,
Seriously, if I had not known you, and had seen your pictures... I would have thought you worked for the National Geographic. No joke. Your pictures get better and better as days go on. But one question....How on earth do you find all of those different kinds of birds and have them STAY?!?!? I tried to go out in the woods, or just where-ever, to get pictures of ANY kind of animal, and 1. I don't find them, or 2. I find one and then they fly away before I can get my camera to focus. Talk about pactience trying! Ug! Do you just go 'bird hunting' alot?

Benjamin Berkompas said...

Jess, that's very kind of you.

Here's a quick answer to your question - I hope it helps.

When I had just started birding, I did exactly what you described. I sat on a stump with my camo on, and some birdseed scattered around me and assumed that they would naturally just come to me... It's not quite that simple.

I really should do a post on this, but in the meantime here are a few pointers:

1) Plan ahead. Different animals will be more or less active during different times of the day. For instance, birds are up and about in the early hours of the morning and then again in the evening - coincidentally this is also the time of day where you get the best light.

2) Don't expect the animal to come to you, you will have to find a creative way to approach it without scaring it off. There are different techniques for this which I won't go into in this comment, but maybe in a post.

3) I took all of these bird photos with a telephoto lens, which provides much more magnification than a standard lens, meaning you don't have to get *as* close to get the shot (though I was still 10-15 ft. away for most of these).

I'll write a post on this sometime soon, but for now those are a few pointers.

JessicaCynthia said...

Thanks Benjamin! That was really helpful. *smile* Though I cannot see you waiting in the woods with camo on and bird seed around you. :) That was funny. :)

I want, one of these days, to go some place 'specially' to take pictures of birds and such. That would be SO much fun! I am having loads of fun with my new camera. Maybe when you come in 3 weeks, (?) I can show it to you, and see what you think! ...I have got a weird story that happened to my camera that maybe you will know what happened. But It'll be a long one to wright! I'll tell you later. :)

Thanks again for all of your help!
~Jess