Tag: north sea

animals, bird, photo-of-the-day, photography, travel, wildlife, world

Monochrome Monday 8-03

solaner

Today is the first day of my summer vacation. I’m supposed to be where I could hear the sound of the seagulls, the wind, and the waves while having a distinct smell of salty air in my nose. But, it’s pandemic time. Still, many regulations although some travel is allowed again for a few days. Fortunately, the weather is still too cold for the end of May, it’s raining a lot and the weather is changing very quickly. It looks more like early April than late May. Thus we’re enjoying (or at least try to) our vacation at home. But, I guess, farmers and rangers are quite happy about the rain. And old farmers rule says: when May is cool and wet, it fills the farmer barn and barrel. ( in German this saying rhymes)

So, this memory of three black-headed gulls standing in the wind captured in April 2019 has to comfort me.


Take care!

 

animals, bird, landscape, nature, photography, technical, travel, wildlife, world

I’m back …

solaner

… from the Dutch coast.

While I was in Wales, my wife changed the destination for our summer holiday. Instead of heading south to the Bavarian Alpes for staying two weeks near the National Park “Berchdesgardener Land”, we were heading north to the Dutch province Groningen. Beach instead of mountains. Fair change in my eyes 🙂

But, what a surprise. No beach 🙂 Only a harbor for ferries and fishing boats. But, a huge lake with no tide and lots of birds was nearby. So, from a wildlife photographers point of view fantastic opportunities. But, this wasn’t her intention. So, she was quite disappointed with her choice although the area was very nice and offered many options for walking, hiking or biking, but no town nearby. The next shops were about 15 km away.

I also was a bit disappointed, because I left the lens, I usually use for wildlife, at home. I didn’t expect these conditions. So, I have to return 🙂 Is anybody out there willing to accompany me?

So, now tons of images are waiting on my hard-disk to get developed. Most of them are birds, but I also have many landscape images. Some of them are a mixture of both kinds, just like the one above: a flock of seagulls is chasing a spoonbill at sunset. In one of the next frames, you can see them attacking the spoonbill. But, I like this one more because of the light conditions.

When taking wildlife images, I use a technique called panning. The camera settings are continuous shutter speed, a fixed shutter speed depending on the kind of animal and expected action, fixed aperture (wide open), continuous auto-focus spreading over a couple AF fields and Auto-ISO with spot metering. The camera has an APS-C sized sensor and a tele-focus lens sitting on a monopod. These settings help me to get pretty sharp images even of flying birds. I start taking photographs in a certain moment and following the movement of the birds with my camera. That’s quite easy because it’s mounted on top of the monopod and follows my turns. So, I’m able to follow the movements of my main subject. Back at home, I have to view lots of images and many of them get deleted. But, this technique gives me the opportunity to not miss a shot.

The exact settings for the above image are: APS-C sensor, 1/1000, f5.6, 80-400mm lens at 280mm (~420mm equivalent for a 35mm camera or full-frame), ISO 500

Some images taken during the trip are already on my Instagram account. Check them out over there and consider following me on Instagram, too.

Take care!

 

 

 

animals, bird, insect, photo-of-the-day, photography, seasons, world

Throwback Thursday: in-flight swallow

solaner


Recently, I showed you an image of an in-flight bee fly. Although it was hard to capture that tiny insect with the long focal-length lens, it was not that hard as capturing this image of an in-flight swallow. Despite, bee flies are very small, their flight is kind of predictable. They are not flight that quick and they are not changing the directions abruptly. They also stay on nearly the same level above the plants.

Barn swallows instead are flying very quickly because they are hunting flying insects and thus changing their flight direction and hight unpredictable. Compared to this, the bee fly simply ‘stands still’ in the air, although she was also constantly moving.

This image is from early April and I was very surprised to see a barn swallow so early. The air was still cold (below 10°C). As far as I know, that’s the minimum temperature for insects to be able to fly.

There were years when swallows came back from the south too early when the air was still cold. The air had temperatures too cold for insects to fly which resulted in hungry swallows. Hunting for flying insects was without results, because of the cold. So they were forced to walk around and pick plant lice from the bushes because they were too weak to fly from all the unsuccessful hunts. A friend of mine, a nature conservationist, reported that year swallows simply falling off the sky. They died of hunger while flying.

I was in that place before and met hundreds of swallows. But, it was June and warm. So I was surprised to see one (two on the next day).

 

Take care!

nature, photography, travel, world

Travel Tuesday: I’m back …

solaner

.. from a short trip to Norddeich. 

We arrived at a beautiful summerly day and were welcomed with a blue sky, mild wind and nice 22°C.
Unfortunately, the temperatures dropped to 1 – 8°C for the next days and we were bid a farewell with a gray sky, heavy wind and even some snow and hail between the rain.
But, I won’t complain about the weather at the day we left. I’m happy about the nice days during our stay. Although, the temperatures were cold, the weather was nice and we were outside a lot: walking around, sitting in the beach chair, photographing birds.
This image was developed with the open source raw development tool Darktable. Although it’s installed on my computer for a very long time, I used it only seldom. The user interface is kind of weird. You have to invest some time to understand it. But, it’s worth the effort, as you can see.

Take care!

 

animals, bird, nature, photography, travel, wildlife, world

Travel Tuesday: Isle of Skye

solaner

During the last months I presented many different aspects from the German North Sea cost. So, I guess, it’s time for a change and I take you on a trip to the Isle of Skye. The island is part of the inner Hebrides and is located in the Irish Sea, near the west cost of Scotland. Last year I already published a short review post.

Take care!

 

animals, bird, landscape, nature, photography, seasons, travel, wildlife, world

Travel Tuesday: crab booth

solaner

This is a quite common kind of food selling booth. Despite it looks like a pop-up shop, it’s more permanent. In Germany, you can find these food selling booths nearly everywhere. They are selling ice-cream, fish rolls, French fries, bratwurst, döner, waffles and so on: food to eat while walking or simply standing beside the booths. Some of these kinds of food you could find everywhere, others are more regional like this crab selling booth or booths selling fish rolls.

The writing on top of the booth says: “fresh crabs daily” and “unpreserved”. While the writing in the lower right corner says: “not today” 🤣

 

Take care!