Road conditions were abysmal to say at least as I drove into my chosen spot. Fortunately the passing ship traffic has kept the water uncovered to offer steel grey compliment color against the prevailing snow everywhere.

Afterall I think my move away from fishing was right one: this was better day for photography than I anticipated. I'm regularly packing up too early on sunset sessions, another lesson to be learnt for future.

If the next decade starting January 1st 2010 would be half as good as this one has been, I would be very happy indeed and could cease a few projects during end of the next decade. Projects are coming and going, and in my opinion that is the way it should be in one and the only life we have got.

I wandered to local lake in almost total silence: I could hear a distant Black Woodpecker and maybe a Goldcrest while walking through slightly snow covered forest. Lake had just got ice cover and I studied for something, anything: shapes, directions, disorder, parallel lines... colors were somewhere near dark, with some blue tones smattered in with a little snowy frost. My compositions were as fragile as fresh ice cover of the lake. But I had decided to bring something home for computer light table, so here we go.

Our dynamic quartet entered into park proper with high hopes. I was using 300/4 + 1.4 extender hand held and had decided to use my new Canon Speedlite 430EX II flash as a fill light to get live for details in forest shadows. The photography was tough enough with group and relatively short focal length lens for birding. A bunch of crappy documentation shots were best I could get while we were walking along lagoon path. I used manual mode with flash set 2+ stops below.

At the end of walk we noticed White-vented Plumeteer defending its territory. I noticed my chance and grabbed a few shots with servo focusing of hovering hummer. I thought I just got it right, but then looked at camera lcd: holy shit, blinking highlights all over! I had not controlled manual fast enough and back light pushed it too close to be comfortable. Good thing with raw files is that you can almost get details back from death occasionally:

As we were driving back I noticed a gorgeous Blue-necked Tanager feeding close just right side of road. I asked stop and shooted from my heart contents from backside of car. Then a look into lcd: No, oh no, not, what the f..!? All pictures were blurred like hell. I still wasn't smelling the coffee: I suspected the car engine was the problem with movement. Car was stopped and I was shooting Tanager, it was in feeding frenzy and without worries. Another look into lcd: still blurry, wait a moment, f29 on aperture mode, camera has rolled on car floor... I switched into f8 on in no time but Tanager has got tired of posing. Two mega f..k ups, not a single half decent picture for a day in the most bird specie rich country on Earth. I was devastated.

I thought this was perhaps my worst bird photography day abroad ever. Then Juan suggests that we could still have one site to check. I collected my broken ego, set up camera carefully and off we went alongside path near smelly river. Our female guide spotted something at riverside scrubs. A quick look of gorgeous Antshrike moving quite close! For non-birder half of readers, Antbirds are just small and dull ordinary birds, but for Neotropic bird aficionados like me they are the birds of South America to be looked for. Elusive, skulking, hard to see, sometimes rare and hard to identify. Can you imagine a better family of birds? ;)

I stalked around bushes, spotted a potential shooting position from left of bird and noticed it perching on bamboo stick maybe for 2-3 seconds. That was enough this time, another valuable species picture of a real gem has been taken. It is easy to go with the flow when everything is going right. To hang on with bad spells is totally another level of challenge.

I desperately tried to look good compositions at my proven location nearby. I thought I just had it o.k, but later at computer it was obvious that I have done quite miserably at my first outing at noon. Static, not interesting compositions all over. This picture of frosted flowers was heavily cropped, and things as they were, all I could muster out:

I decided to concentrate 100% for color details and mushrooms, shoot all the day and begin with 50mm lens, but possibly, depending on conditions deviate to wide angle zoom or 100mm. Keeping it simple and taking advantage of the conditions, right? Some more wine and no whine, life can be so good sometimes.

I woke up quarter to eight, a quick glance out of window: holy shit, there is classical magical sunrise going on with clouds, mist and everything over the lake! And I'm half an hour late for the peak action, what a jerk... Anyway I hurried into lakeside, only to find that I have no clue on composition + peak light is over and done. I set up some kind of composition with boats on front and so on, bracket a few different exposures for the final picture and that's it. As you can see I could develop my passion and therefore commitment to landscape photography quite a bit! Yes I could set alarm clock and I also could check the composition beforehand.

Easing off the gear for comfort, very limited time and zero local experience are a good bunch of reasons to *not* perform with bird photography. Or in matter of fact with any photography. I always have to struggle with all of those limitations during my traveling but never ever has pushed it so hard, and consequently been hit so badly resultwise as I had now in NYC.

During this trip I wanted to limit my time with camera and decided to try what I can get with only very limited set of subjects: so no street photography or spontaneous detail picking, no no no. I had my birding 1DMKIII attached with 17-40/4 zoom which I carried around in a tiny back bag sometimes.

Tripod for perfect composition rather than shutter time would be necessary for this kind of shooting. Foreground people, cars etc. are constantly moving random factor which should be considered in for a perfect near - far relationship in the picture. Add to that light and you can see why local photogs have 10,000 times better pictures of iconic subjects than ordinary tourist as me has. Knowing your subject, spending your time and commiting to the task, those elements are the deciding factors equally in both sides of pond.

For each of these sites pictured below I spent 5 to 15 minutes and for composition I spent maybe 0 to 2 minutes. They are my personal memories and reminds me of the locations in context 'before and after' as I have seen them hundreds of times in pictures before even visiting the city.

Despite of all the the soakening threats I eventually decided to let myself go. As I drove towards my site there were not too many breaks between showers. But luckily as I stepped out from car at site I felt rain easing off a bit. To follow the war plan I went into forest with my back pack and tripod. My chosen spot had Hericium coralloides, a cool looking white coral-like fungi. As I studied the celebrated subject my heart sank: the whole beaty was covered with hard to be removed litter and the low position was very challenging for any better pictures.

I took some formal shots but felt there weren't really anything to mention about. Anyway water has saturated all the colors and I should only persist with mushrooms nearby. Well, in fact very close: the very same trunk supported a couple of nice ones with some background to work with my 50mm:

Fortunately I ended my rainy day with a real stunner, found a a few bunches of perfect Armillarias attached to birch. I'm talking about sense of drama again: a photographer should understand in nanoseconds the momentum, the most important subject of day or month. I was at it and took no risks: bracketed it all the way, close-up pictures, more environmental shots far away and what else. I took enough pictures to be sure to not get disappointed later at computer. Or at least that was my intention..

IMO the basic setup will consist a tripod with ball head or similar, dslr and a macro between 50 and 100mm focal lengths. Mushroom handbook, angled viewfinder, white cardboard reflector and a simple foldable 'seat mat' as a knee support are also bordering necessary items. For extra small fungi you would also like to have an extension tube or two. A long macro plate and L-bracket attached into dslr tripod mount are helping quite a bit, but I would not recommend them for beginners because of their steep price.

My normal shooting is going pretty much like flower shooting (described below), excluding the fact mushrooms are not moving a lot, so you can cope with ISO100 or 200 and very long shutter time if needed. Oh and let's not forget the depth of field: 'artsy' looking partially sharp fungi is looking only amateurish, you can go as down as f16 and still have heck a lot of subject out of focus. I go nowadays down to f22 (with full frame dslr) to get most of subject sharp. You should not be afraid of diffraction as mushrooms are looking really detailed even if a good quality picture is shown at full resolution. Try it yourself if you don't believe me.

About reflectors: Underside of fungi needs compensation to open up shadows more often than not. Under cap of mushroom there is really dark compared to upper parts, so to make things more equal we have to do something for it. By experience a simple reflector is looking more balanced and natural than a flash for a variety of conditions I have met during years. I prefer the more subtle white cardboard reflectors rather than mirrors or other silvery materials. I think straight bouncing light of silver is too easily making the picture that 'overdone' look. My piece of cardboard is quite dirty and weared out, but I even like the effect more as it is now ;) Otoh if I occasionally need stronger reflection, my seat mat couples as a medium white/silver reflector.

My personal aim is to get natural looking subject without typical hand book picture where there is a collection of tumbled down mushrooms mixed in with standing ones, shot above to show them from a perspective of a standing person. No I want to step down and photograph them on ground level and ideally show some surroundings as well. But if I'm thinking it now: lately I have gone overboard with my quite new 100mm macro, I should have done more 50mm and wide. Tele is easy and trouble free but very quickly you have much too static, tight compositions with very little connection to environment. Bigger groups of fungi, interesting backgrounds: that is the way to go!

In the following are a few picture examples of small groups of tiny mushrooms from recent outings. The ideal is to get more than a one mushroom into composition, fungi has lively colors after rainfall and the cloudy overcast light is extracting more detail and color than with 'normal' conditions:

Good start for me for flower photography was a serious tabletop shooting project couple of years ago. I have to really concentrate on light and composition with still life. Very different problem domain compared to traditional bird shooting. Yes I have more time, but any slack on process will be punish me in quite different way than with active wildlife photography.

I have been investing heavily on gear with several extension tubes, L-bracket, tripod head rail etc. Working mostly on the ground level and close to miniscule subject, any little gadget can help more than one could possibly imagine. To keep your camera stable at difficult low position and same time examining all the details from viewfinder requires more patience and effort than lugging around 10kg bird gear, in my opinion. Your concentration has to be 100% on what you see at angled viewfinder attached to camera or lcd -screen.

Another gadget I always carry with me is inexpensive and foldable 'seat-mat' with reflective silver and white sides. It serves dual purposes for comfortable low level work knee support and as a spare reflector for flowers. Another thing I may need is a simple piece of white cardboard to reflect extra light onto subject.

Sometimes I take a few documentative pictures by handhelding camera. It is very easy to cheat yourself by determining it is not necessary to use tripod as you need 1/125s or faster shutter to combat movement. Nonsense. The truth is that I first and foremost need tripod to determine the composition of flower, not to freeze camera movement. Careless framing and composing is only a road to more time at post processing, with 'non-manipulated' tag for competitions and publications going down the drain along with it.

Another factor between good keeper pictures and throwaways is the clean composition: flowerbed is usually full of distracting elements. First you have to see a good composition, then fine tune it even further by eliminating all the stuff you don't want to include into picture. That means cutting some weed stems, removing debris and maybe forcing a twig away from sight before releasing the shutter.

I have found that 50mm focal length is quite ideal for my basic flower work: close enough to not include too much from foreground and far enough to eliminate too much from background. 100mm macro is brilliant for ultimate close-ups with a few out of focus elements nicely blurred on background. Sometimes I also use wide angle to include more environment into picture:

Wind is a pain most of times nowadays, fortunately with current cameras you can reduce shutter time with ridiculous high ISOs compared to film times. I'm using ISO800 constantly, and cannot see too much color or detail degration with my 5DMKII.

Camera operations are 100% manual: auto focus, shutter and everything. It's much more easier to determine proper exposure from test shot rgb -histogram than trying to wrestle with exposure compensations. Same applies for focusing: currently there is nothing to beat the combination of 10x live view and angled viewfinder focusing for different situations. Unless you want to carry your laptop to forest and shoot tethered;)

I entered through well-known stones into valley proper. That sight with morning scents and all prospects for birding were making the peaceful half of my soul very happy indeed. But there were more than calmness that I came to search from here! Yes bird pictures, the more the better was my tall request. I set up usual EF 500/4L IS with 1.4TC, 1DMKIII and Gitzo carbon fiber tripod with Sidekick gimbal head. As I put up my rig I noticed a middle-sized bird flying past me. I immediately thought Blue Rock Thrush and saw it landing 20 meters away!

A dream start if there ever will be one, I approached a little and then launched a few short bursts to get the normal perching picture and quite unusual for BRT: bird just keep sitting. I took this as an omen and went towards sea end of path with full confidence of good spell coming around. I can smell a bad spell (nothing but crap pictures) kilometer away too, been there done that and suffered it only too many times..

Not too surprisingly I kept in high moods with good keeper shots of many of the Mediterranean species that have been avoiding my lens so far: Cirl Bunting, Stonechat and Sardinian Warbler were joining into my slideshow at regular intervals. Light was improving for species style of pictures, birds were confident and I could experiment a bit with different settings and perspectives. Dry bushes were warming up with sun and birds took their peak action for a day.

Then I heard a vague Sylvia -call in close by bushes. The sense of drama required now to set up my camera for fast and bold action: ISO1600, servo focus, full aperture at f5.6 were changed on in no time. No prisoners, no bullshit. I entered uphill left to observe bushes. Soon I spotted the little blue-gray feather ball low on bushes, moving all the time. I shot from tripod as fast as I could, a lot of misses since bird was visible for very short bursts. I followed him mainly by listening calls and tried to estimate the next point of appearance with them.

Eventually I got a burst of five shots of which you can see the best one below. The non-birder half of the audience may wonder what is all the fuss with these 'little brown jobs'? I have been watching birds for decades and been photographing them quite seriously since 2002. You may prefer snorkling, shopping or whatever in your holiday but for me this morning was a special one to be remembered for lifetime.

At Birini Castle, Latvia (picture below left) I woke up with no knowledge of surroundings since we have arrived there after sunset. I was positively surprised to find a lot of forest around, conifer, mixed and old broadleaf park trees of course.

I wandered to lake shore to start with a few landscape pictures for a new day. Soon after returning I found a couple of agitated Grey-headed Woodpeckers. Usually they are very shy so I could be quite sure of nest location. I quickly went away but with my usual trick soon came back with ready set up camera. Yes, female was peeking from nesting hole while male was a little behind. I shot a few quick ones of female and as soon went away again to minimize the disturbance at nest. This was my first shootout of (at least for me) difficult Grey-headed and I couldn't be happier.

Later we enjoyed the forests by walking through with binoculars only. We saw and heard many interesting bird species, and other members of group had seen Three-toed Woodpecker among other good birds. For those who are interested in flowers, landscape photography or whatever wildlife, these castle accommodations are joyful places to stay.

After fifteen minutes I could hear Middle-spotted Woodpeckers and soon they were around. Nice light helped me to get some close-up species pictures as well as more environmental ones. Middle-spotted is a good one where ever you go and I was elated to say at least. I thought that was it and headed back towards castle. But wait a second, what is the excitement with those Starlings and Thrushes up in the trees?

I glanced up and immediately saw a figure of Tawny Owl. Holy moly, in owl terms good light and pose too. Not everyday stuff up here in North anyway. I shot a few pictures with different head positions and packed up. Other folks were just beginning birding and I told them about Owl.

Baltic Castle Birding in future again? For me? Definitely yes!

Shooting from a commercial hide hasn't never been a big thing for me: I rather go my way, in my time and work for my own project. I hate the very idea where someone is telling me when to go out, pointing me out a hole for a camera and another slot to peek through what is happening around. Some guy used his brain cells and vision, sweated his back for that project, then he photographed it to death and now he is juicing out the rest of it moneywise. All kudos for him/her, but after all a few hundred other guys have been shooting the same scene before me. I have to say: thank you but no thank you!

I do not like to have a good copy of someone else idea and work but rather work out my own vision of whatever comes through, no matter if I have to settle for a poorer one occasionally. In wildlife photography here that is cutting out some projects straight off: Bear and Wolf photography comes first to mind. Hide photography enables getting closer to a subject in general: arguably the basic goal for a lot of wildlife photography.

During last couple of years I have been doing some early morning birding by driving around small countryside roads and using car as a hide. Most animals tolerate car much better than approaching them, well for example by creeping. To maximize reach from car I have been using my longest possible focal length: EF 500/4L IS with 1.4X teleconverter (now on 1DMKIII). I shoot from my car window and ideally turn off engine and rest camera lens on window frame.

Black Grouse lek at my surroundings is at it's peak in clear early April mornings. Dominating males have a huge flock of females but the less attractive guys have leks of their own (no females at all, of course) in some distant tiny field. Life in wild is not about fair game and equal opportunities. First lek I found had this super stud with 10 to 12 females around. He was at full steam and made no notice of me, I could shoot as much I wanted from my car:

Clear sky before sunrise is the telltale to go for it: I had 1DMKIII attached to EF 500/4L IS with 1.4x teleconverter ready in my back bag. I drove to my chosen place and attached camera on sturdy carbon fiber tripod with gimbal head. As I approach the place I usually set angle finder to camera. This enables lower perspective closer to subjects: Waterfowl, Shorebirds, Gulls, Terns or like.

Today I chose a little pond with lots of birds and usually they are here at closer distances too. My starting point has Sun behind and a little side, as normally with my shoreline bird photography. I love the palette of blue and pink in surroundings, same as how frontlight enhances out feather details of birds. I sat down and set up tripod as low as I can comfortably manage it with angled viewfinder.

Long focal length (700mm) arranges perspective easier than any shorter one, as it is not necessary to lower camera so much for equal framing _and_ equal vertical perspective on water level. Many beginners are shooting from very high position and same time using shorter focal lengths. Result is that in picture perspective is looking down to subject from a viewpoint of a walker. Getting more into level of birds is the key for my approach.

Initially my chosen spot was void of birds but I knew they are moving a lot this time of year. And not surprisingly, several mating and each other chasing groups of waterfowl were passing my location during one hour of shooting. Actual photography is very much about changing settings: manual, aperture priority, back to manual, focusing point to right, middle, forth and back, tilt camera back to horizontal, one shot to servo auto focus, back, check highlights for that new specie, follow subject.... a good birding morning is taking your everyday problems out of your mind in no time.

One Coot has been feeding further away, but now a couple of more joined in and they began to chase each other. One of them was sliding closer and at same time doing some strange looking maneuver. The bill of Coot clips highlights from digital picture very easily, but fortunately close by trees feathered light enough for my shutter time. I moved autofocus point lower and grabbed a short serie of Coot. Only later at computer I saw parallel horizontal ripples, which in my humble opinion makes this picture for me. Together with delicate tones of Coot feathers, bill and eye color of course.

Many photographers let us know they are creating masterpieces in nature by seeing things better than masses. Maybe true but when photographing wildlife one has for most part settle for what nature has to offer. To be prepared and staying peak light at location is the cornerstone of the process, no matter if you are doing artsy fartsy stuff or strictly documenting species.

It would be very easy for me or anyone else to explain that he/she anticipated everything in some particular bird picture. The trick is, at least in my case, opportunism: I determined beforehand the camera setup, peak light for my style and the position where some cool things may happen. And when cool things are happening with wild animals, thinking time is over in seconds anyway.

Earlier I used only prime lenses, 28mm and 35mm were the usual workhorses for landscaping. But not any more! I chose delicate looking boulder in front, stepped closer and twisted zoom ring strongly to right, yes 17mm. Still no luck, let's try then tilting lens downwards.. a little better. Foreground subject is now more in conjunction with massively bigger background stones. In the second picture you can see the location photographed with more 'normal' 30mm focal length:

I began to work with wide angle zoom, having some reedbeds as a foreground subject. Light is nice, but compositions are bland, not really much anything to write home about. I moved towards little headland on left, now I can shoot against Sun and use lakeshore as a leading line in my picture. I tried several framings, but once again I felt 17mm and tilting down were doing the trick for me. Am I going overboard with this ultra wide thing? Is this only about following the rule 'if your composition is boring, get closer and use wider lens'? My photography is usually going through phases, maybe I'm only into something different again. I have to get things out of my system, test them and sometimes discharge them.

Our aging summerplace is asking a lot of maintenance, chopping wood etc. But as you can guess I have developed a string of excuses to slip out for a few hours photography. I knew my explanations were a bit thin on the ground: now I couldn't really explain light is too good to be missed. So I had to be honest and tell: I have to ventilate my lungs, let the ghosts out and go photographing in rain!

I chose 300/4 tele attached with 25mm extension tube to 5DMKII. That would isolate the subject from background and hopefully give some closeup drama too. There wasn't much sense to swap lenses in rain, so I had to just keep on and do my best. I also carried a small swimmer's towel to protect and dry my camera in rain.

Keeping stability with longer lens and macro shutter times proved to be a problem. Wind movement in branches is another reason to reduce shutter time. I put ISO up, bracketed with several shots to get out one without movement, and still came with a lot of blurry pictures. But conditions given I think it is only the name of the game. Taking 25 pictures of flower bud is sometimes needed to secure one keeper.

I returned back with soaked clothes and several dozens of branch pictures. I recovered from shootout by brushing wood conditioner on sauna walls.

I decided to act up, show some stamina and went out for a couple of sessions. I wanted a typical cliche with something almost interesting at foreground, maybe some leading lines and ideally partially clouded sun providing back light and fill background without too much negative space. If you think I should go straight into 'my inner self' and skip the cliche part of it, then think again:

At least for me there is enough challenge and personal satisfaction to meet the 'cliche level' of craft, for the first couple of months anyway.. To meet and beat even the mediocre work of some old hands will take a few weeks of hard labor, and probably much more. As with my earlier project I try to be humble, learn the basics and work hard to better my previous pictures.

What I've learned, chasing light is the key of landscape photography, to a degree in more subtle ways than with other outdoor shooting. The light I'm looking for is the typical dodgy one for morning birding sessions: sun is partially covered with clouds while light constantly changes as sun rises and clouds are moving forward. The real kickass light is obvious, but then I should also have some subject raw material to take advantage of phenomenal sky drama. And that is one of the tough parts for a landscape beginner like me. I'm not prepared enough, I'm usually coming too late into location to get a proper grip of the composition. Ideally I should study the location day before, or at least be there at dawn.

Today I thought to have an early birding session, but had backup plan for landscapes. As I drove to the location the rising Sun behind thin clouds told me I should hurry up to get something out of landscape and forget birds. I came to location and was desperately looking for a foreground subject. I found some ice blocks and quickly set my tripod, EF 17-40/4L wide angle lens and attached angle viewfinder on camera. As with my current state is, it was a bit hit an miss affair: busily trying a few combinations and then moving on for next subject. I do not exactly know where my killer shot is: a sure sign of inexperience I have earlier experienced with other disciplines of nature photography.

Camera technique is very similar to macro shooting: always on tripod, ISO100, manual settings and small apertures between f11 and f18. Not rocket science, but sorting out the location and composition in right time is the rough and tough part. So far I have been bracketing the shots with two frames to slap 'virtual gradient filter' on upper part of the picture by underexposing second picture about one stop from foreground.

I do not like.., or rather hate overblown 16 stop HDR -style where picture is looking like it was taken at planet O2z. Here we have one Sun, not many. And for sure we don't have assistants strong enough to carry kilometer high reflectors around. I select upper portion of underexposed picture with lasso tool, feather the selection with 250 and paste layer into picture that is exposed for foreground, with something like 50% opacity. But many times it is enough to only set the curves, white balance etc. without any layers at all. With the second picture below I saved hard disk space and skipped the layer thing altogether.

First and foremost I was looking direct light to get spice to otherwise (for me) grayish and pretty lifeless ice substance. I know guys who can constantly get marvellous pictures of ice formations with soft overcast light, unfortunately I'm not one of them: I need some extra mojo for lighting, simple as that.

Light sorted out, next problem is where to find the location with enough subjects for serious ice shooting? The place wants to be near, has abundance of cool looking icicles and also light directions have to be favorable. I determined the location based on my earlier outdoor activities. First I thought the place is wrong, but soon hit the gold vein enough for multiple shooting sessions. Local guys: sorry I cannot share the location info. I do not want to queue into my favorite spot at peak light! Do find your own venue.

About timing: most photogenic icicles tend to form on cliffs and places like that. The practical problem with light is that I want back/side back light shining through ice. Sun behind cliff or right onto cliff will not do, sideways parallel to cliff is the optimal choice of mine. The time window for optimal light _without moving icicle from it's position_ is thus not too long. Exclude cloudy days, early mornings, noon etc. -> there isn't too much time left to capture the keeper picture.

Despite 'still' quality of shooting, I had to to be alert with subtle changes in light and gymnast with tripod settings all the time on sometimes not very comfortable terrain. When light is at its best it would be a good idea to have your composition ready, but on the other hand you will see a few new compositions at peak light: life is full of compromises.

My other observation was that ice is getting more photogenic as weeks go by: The most weird shapes and reflections are peaking at time when icicles have started to melt properly and are developing a new form out of themselves. As I'm writing this we have had another late Spring cold spell, hmmm maybe I.... .

If you wish you can email me to jussi vakkala at luukku com, I may even answer you if you are not too abusive. Unfortunately I cannot keep reply forum. Anyway it would be too heavily moderated to be useful for anything ;)

Older Gear Articles