Eastern Phoebe, Canada Goose, crab spider

[centuryplant]

I have a new toy: an Olympus E-30 camera. This is the first SLR of any kind I've ever owned; all the photos I've posted up to now were taken with fixed-lens digicams, mostly the Nikon 8700. These cameras actually have some advantages for insect photography because their tiny sensors give more depth of field at a given aperture, but I've become increasingly dissatified with their limitations. For one thing, I wanted to photograph birds, and the 8700's lens just wasn't long enough.

This is an Eastern Phoebe, perching next to the path at Elm Creek Park Reserve. I like how resolute it looks -- as if it's about to fly off and conquer something. Actually, its chest is all puffed out because it's just been grooming.

It's not clear that the world needs more pictures of Canada Geese, but I like the orca markings on their necks and the subtle browns on their wings. I like their insouciant attitude toward humans, too. Pamela and I once got stuck for quite a while behind a goose that kept walking slowly ahead of us on a narrow, overgrown path, refusing to speed up or fly away; clearly, we weren't worth the trouble of fleeing.

This one looks a little wary of me, but what you're seeing is just a momentary pause in a long preening session.

"And just what do you think you're looking at?"

Back into the water. I'm going to need a lot of practice taking action shots of birds -- I messed up the framing and wound up with the tips of the wing feathers just touching the edge of the picture, then had to try to crop it so it looked intentional. Still, I'm pleased to be able to take shots like this at all. This camera actually takes a picture when I press the shutter release, not at a time in the relatively near future of its own choosing! Such luxury.

Pamela found this crab spider when she went over to look at the new leaves on a tree and saw legs waving out at her. It never came out into the light, but you can just see it stretched out between the leaves here.

Comments

[graydon]

That's a splendid phoebe shot.

My experience is that anything that hawks insects is less than delightful as a photographic subject, and that one looks like it was really sitting still. One could be envious. :)

[centuryplant]

It was awfully sedentary for a phoebe -- maybe because it was 4:00 in the afternoon.

Dragonflies that hawk insects from a perch are very nice subjects because they will often fly up to take prey and return to the same position to eat it, over and over and over. Too bad birds aren't as orderly in their habits

[graydon]

The birds will often cycle through a set of nearby perches; at least, I've seen kingbirds and phoebes do that. Predicting which perch and pre-focusing is not trivial, but can be done. It's developing the patience I find most challenging. (There's a phoebe at an island in the Canada Domain pond at the Metro Zoo I have yet to manage a clear shot of, despite 3 years of attempts, for example.)

But I agree that dragonflies are much more regular.