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Bosque del Apache 2009 : Thanksgiving 2009 was my first visit to Bosque del Apache NWR in New Mexico. This is a world famous location for bird photography, many thousands of Sandhill Cranes and Snow Geese winter there. The photography was challenging, tracking birds in flight takes a lot of practice. It was a lot of fun despite 4AM starts each morning, I hope to return next Thanksgiving.

Bosque del Apache 2009

Thanksgiving 2009 was my first visit to Bosque del Apache NWR in New M ...

Updated: Dec 06, 2009 4:34pm PST

Ramrod Ranch 2009 : These photos were taken during a weekend workshop at the Ramrod Ranch near Soledad, CA (http://www.incredibletravelphotos.blogspot.com/). I had a great time and plan to go back next year, highly recommended! It was my first attempt shooting from a blind which allowed got us very close to the pond. Some of the birds were very tolerant (or oblivious) of our presence, but others in particular the Titmouse and Wrentit were very nervous and rarely stood still. The Gray Fox was a bonus early on the 2nd morning. Not wanting to make too much noise with many bursts of photos I bumped the ISO to 6400 to maintain a reasonable shutter speed. Maybe I won't do that next time, I had to use aggressive noise reduction which has unfortunately reduced fine detail as well. Always learning... All photos were taken with a Canon 5Dmk2 and 500mm f/4 L IS Lens mostly used wide open. For many shots a 1.4x tele-converter was also used. Fill flash using a 580EX2 and Better Beamer was used for all bird photos with a CP-E4 battery pack to speed recharging. It is easy to see why bird photographers like the 600mm and now the 800mm lens, the smaller birds really are, even at close to minimum focussing distance. Fortunately the 5Dmk2 has plenty of mega-pixels to support cropping.

Ramrod Ranch 2009

These photos were taken during a weekend workshop at the Ramrod Ranch ...

Updated: Oct 21, 2009 1:53pm PST

Hawaii 2009 : I traveled to Hawaii for the first time over Christmas 2009. For this trip I stayed on Big Island attracted by the variety of scenery and of course the Lava! I had a great time, it won't be my last trip there. I used the camera a lot on specific trips such as Lava and Whale watching but most of the time I just explored, this wasn't a fine art photography trip even though I was burdened with a lot of gear! I'm publishing this gallery as a day-byday journal, I'll add some other traditional galleries later. I flew into Kona at night and stayed locally before heading south to Volcano National Park for 2 nights, Hilo for three nights then back around the north of the island to Kailua-Kona for 5 nights.

Hawaii 2009

I traveled to Hawaii for the first time over Christmas 2009. For this ...

Updated: Jan 11, 2010 11:42pm PST

San Diego February 2010 : I headed down to San Diego over the President's Day holiday weekend, it was a relief to have a lovely sunny weekend after all the 'bad' weather recently. On Saturday morning I checked out a Hawk Watch at the Wildlife Research Institute in Ramona . It was really busy following local press coverage, clean backgrounds were few and far between; not great photography but interesting. The Wild Animal Park is only a few miles away so I headed there after lunch to see what the Cheetahs were up to. Lying in the shade as usual, but they did move from time to time while expertly staying in the shade. Fill flash with the Better Beamer helped a bit. Sunday morning I met up with a friend from the Bosque trip and I had a chance to shoot 'Dancing Grebes', a walking on water (well running flat out!) courtship ritual. Small birds, quite far away, long lens, moving fast with no warning - quite a challenge. I need to find out if there is a local lake where they dance... Sunday afternoon I headed to Santee Lakes. Using a bag of duck food as a bribe I was able to get some shots I like, especially Wood Ducks. They were great 'targets' to experiment with quickly shifting focus points on the 7D, something that hasn't been practical with my earlier cameras. My planned early Monday shoot of Brown Pelicans on the La Jolla cliffs fell apart when I slept in. The day finished well though, Grey Whale watching off San Diego. Or was it Mexico, within a couple of miles of the harbor AT&T gave up and my phone switched to international roaming on a Mexican carrier which seemed to be offering much better coverage, no news there...

San Diego February 2010

I headed down to San Diego over the President's Day holiday weekend, i ...

Updated: Feb 19, 2010 12:43am PST

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Photography by Stephen Gibbon.
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