The 400 DO Rocks the Galapagos /More Spectacular Opportunities in Week Two

What’s Up?

We finished the 2015 Galapagos Photo Cruise with a spectacular morning at North Seymour Island. Our session lasted from 6:00 till 9:30am and was blessed with spectacular early morning light and then again by thickening cloud cover. Just what the doctor ordered. We spent a magical morning photographing fluffy white frigatebird chicks, adults with inflated red pouches both perched and in flight, and displaying Blue-footed Boobies. Best of all was a bright yellow Land Iguana basking in golden early morning light.

When I typed this a few weeks ago, I needed to take a quick shower and finish packing when we got back on board the Samba I had not yet had time to take a look at my Day 15 images. We bid a fond farewell to our ship, our great guide, and our great crew. Most folks wound up tipping several crew members above and beyond the already generous tip schedule. I began working on this blog post late in the trip, continued on the flight to Guayaquil, and am putting the finishing touches on it on my Super Shuttle ride from my Mom’s in Holbrook to JFK for the flights to Juneau with Denise Ippolto. You can check out denise’s brand new Iceland gallery here. Amazingly I nailed her favorite image just from looking at the JPEGS. Then, after a bit of study, I picked her second favorite. She was amazed. I fanned on # 3, but as Meat Loaf said, “Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad.”

The 2017 BIRDS AS ART/A Creative Adventure Galapagos Photo Cruise

I would assume that after viewing the variety and quality of the images in this blog post that most passionate nature photographers would wish to join us on the next Galapagos photo adventure during the second and third weeks of August, 2017. If that includes you, please shoot me an e-mail with the words “Galapagos August 2017 Photo-Cruise” cut and pasted into the Subject Line. Those who previously requested advance notice should be receiving it in short order. The best news is that there will be two great leaders, yours truly and Denise Ippolito.

This image was created at the highlands of Puerto Ayora at 8:55am on July 21, Day 8 of the 2015 Galapagos Photo Cruise. I used the tripod-mounted Canon EF 400mm f/4 DO IS II USM lens with the Canon Extender EF 1.4X III and the Canon EOS-1D X. ISO 800: Evaluative metering at zero: 1/500 sec. at f/10 in Av mode. Center AF point/Spot AF/Shutter Button AI Servo AF was active at the moment of exposure as is pretty much mandatory with moving subjects. The selected bird’s folded wing as originally framed. Click on the image to see a larger version. Image #1: Galapagos White-cheeked Pintail displaying male

White-cheeked Pintail Displays

While photographing a large Galapagos Tortoise in a tiny pond several in the group had the rare chance to photograph the pintails displaying. Heck, just have them at close range was a pretty rare opportunity. To enjoy the best chances I did not hesitate walking into the muddy water with my pretty much brand knew Merrell hiking boots.

The photographic problem was that drakes displayed without any warning and lasted only a second or two as they tipped forward. I was glad to get the sensor on the bird at all in these circumstances. In the image above the AF point as originally framed was on the bird’s folded wing which was in front of the plane of the bird’s eye. This left the eye a bit less than sharp but after doing some Eye Doctor work and applying a Contrast Mask to the face in post processing the optimized image looked just fine. That’s why God invented Photoshop…

This image was also created at the highlands of Puerto Ayora at 8:55am on July 21, Day 8 of the 2015 Galapagos Photo Cruise. For this one I used the tripod-mounted Canon EF 400mm f/4 DO IS II USM lens with the Canon Extender EF 2X III and the Canon EOS-1D X. ISO 800: Evaluative metering +1/3 stop: 1/160 sec. at f/11 in Av mode. AWB. Center AF point/AI Servo Expand/Rear Focus AF (and release) as originally framed. The selected AF point had fallen on the corner of the tortoise’s mouth. Click here to see the latest version of the Rear Focus Tutorial. Click on the image to see a larger version. Image #2: Galapagos Tortoise (Santa Cruz race), 25-year old youngster yawning.

Tortoise Tips

My very best tips for photographing tortoises are to get close, get low, and use some extra depth of field. By getting down to the creature’s eye level you will create more intimate images and effectively move the background farther from the subject thus producing soft, out-of-focus backdrops.

This image was also created on our second of consecutive Hood Island (Espanola) landings at at 9:35am on Day 11 of the 2015 Galapagos Photo Cruise with the hand held Canon EF 400mm f/4 DO IS II USM lens with the Canon Extender EF 1.4X III and the Canon EOS-1D X. ISO 400: 1/4000 sec. at f/7.1 in Manual mode (via histogram check) is the equivalent of the super-bright white in full sun/ISO 400 exposure: 1/3200 sec. at f/8. AWB. Center AF point/Shutter Button AF Expand AI Servo AF was of course active at the moment of exposure as is pretty much mandatory with moving subjects. The selected AF point fell on the tips of the bird’s secondaries and tertials; universal advice for better flight photography: “pan faster!” Click on the image to see a larger version. Image #3: Red-billed Tropicbird approaching cliff nest to land

Manual Mode (Again!)

On our first visit to Hood we had some great chances with the tropicbirds. As noted above, the bright whites were as bright as any I have ever encountered anywhere on the planet. As some of the birds were flying against the sky while others, attempting to land at their cliffside nest sites, flew against the dark blue ocean. It was 100% mandatory to work in manual mode to prevent the severe over exposure of the bird if you had been working in Av mode with a bit of plus compensation for the sky…. As noted here recently, Manual mode is the way to go when it comes to flight photography.

This image was created at James Bay, Puerto Egas at 9:16am on Day 14 of the 2015 Galapagos Photo Cruise with the hand held Canon EF 400mm f/4 DO IS II USM lens and the Canon EOS-1D X. ISO 800. Evaluative metering +2/3 stop as framed: 1/640 sec. at f/6.3 in Manual mode in barely sunny conditions. AWB. Center AF point/AI Servo Expand/Rear Button AF was active at the moment of exposure (as is always best when hand holding). The center AF point was on the base of the bird’s bill. Click here to see the latest version of the Rear Focus Tutorial. Click on the image to see a larger version. Image #4: Adult Striated Heron with struggling Sally Lightfoot Crab

Bingo!

Earlier in the morning someone in the group asked if Striated Herons ever caught Sally Lightfoot Crabs. “Only if you are lucky,” I replied. “They never go after a full sized adult but they will try for younger crabs as large as 3-4 inches across the shell. We had been working on the small heron, a close relative of our Green Heron, and had been creating some crab blurs for about an hour when our patience paid off.

I was set up for the blurs and was well out of position when the heron struck its prey. I scrambled to my feet as quickly as possible, changed the mode to Manual, set the ISO to 800, the aperture to f/6.3, and adjusted the shutter speed to 1/640 sec. which showed the +2/3 stop EC that I wanted. All that while praying and moving as quickly as possible to my left to square up to the bird and get pretty much on the weak sun angle. Many folks fail to realize that on all but the darkest of cloudy days that the light still has direction to it. So when it is cloudy bright or even cloudy I strive to get on sun angle to provide even lighting on the subject. My quick prayers were answered and I was rewarded with a few good frames before the heron shook the crab so violently that the legs began to fly off in every direction. The open, somewhat menacing crab claw was the icing on my cake.

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