This was my first real attempt at shooting birds and in particular geese. I saw these guys frozen in the ice as I drove my daughter to school. For a while now I had wanted to shoot the pond when it was frozen and with the addition of all the geese, I thought it would make a nice photograph. The one down side is that I arrived on location a little late. The birds already had their heads up (they were all tucked in when I drove by) and were beginning to mill around. Still great fun to watch these fascinating creatures and to try and learn their behavioral patterns.

This morning I wound up shooting with the pan tilt head having left the gimbaled head at home. My original thinking was that I would be using the 24-70 or the 70-200. I wound up switching to the 300 with the 1.4 extender almost immediately. The pan tilt head made it a little difficult to follow the birds in flight but it worked out OK. Next time the gimbaled head will be the way to go (for obvious reasons).

Temp: 17F

When shooting an area such as this with houses or buildings in the background, see if you can get to slightly higher ground. This will allow you to use the banks of the lake or river as the background of the shot and eliminate man made objects. I was originally going to shoot from a lower angle down along the pond and decided that a slight down look angle would allow me to use the ice on the pond as a foreground/background. I was probably only about 6-8 feet higher but it made a difference. With the background that I was dealing with, I think this was my best bet. On the other hand when the birds took flight, it might have been more dramatic from a lower angle though, so I should probably try that some next time just to see.

Geese are interesting creatures. Before they take flight there appears to be a group leader who stands up and starts talking to the others. The others will then get up, stretch their wings a bit (I even saw one stretching its legs) and then they will start milling around. At this point everyone in the group were pretty much standing erect with their heads high and their necks stretched out a bit and looking forward. When the leader starts to head off, the rest of the group follows.

Just some thoughts after thinking about this image and the other frames that I captured last night.

What I realized this morning is that I did not capture enough frames with this set. When capturing the shadows, I need to make sure that there are enough frames to capture the detail there. I think that what happened when I merged to HDR is that there were gaps in the information (detail).

The other thing that I had changed in my work flow was that I switched to manual and therefore the man in the loop caused a bit of lag in image capture. When I started shooting this scene the light continued to fall off even though it was late in the evening. When I arrived, I was able to expose at f/11 for 30 seconds at ISO 100 and 10 minutes later I had to go to ISO 800 to be able to capture the same exposure. This and the fact that I was only grabbing 3 frames contributed to the problem.

So the issue may not have been the ISO per se, but the post processing that tried to make something out nothing (you can't create detail if it is not there).

There is kind of a dilemma when you are trying to post a "quality" photo a day (not that I have achieved any kind of quality yet) and you wait to the last minute to try and capture an image and that is compounded by being called home early for some reason or another. Not a big deal really, just a little frustrating. There has been at least 6 times to date that I would not have posted anything because the image was either of poor composition, quality or not an interesting subject. I really need to sit down this weekend and come up with an overall plan to keep the images interesting and organized by some sort of theme.

These images were created during a pretty heavy snow storm. I tried to capture the snow flakes as part of the foreground but did not succeed. I need to learn what works and what does not. I tried to add fill flash but that did not work.

Here is the list of what I tried:

• Normal brackets with 1 stop increments
• Fill Flash w/Gray Fong diffuser manual at 1/1
• Fill Flash w/Gray Fong diffuser manual at 1/1 - 2nd curtain

I did not try shooting with the flash without the diffuser. Perhaps this would have worked. I also had the flash pointing almost straight up (with the diffuser on it) rather than at a forward angle. Next chance that I have, I will shoot forward with the built in diffuser on. I need to talk with some of my friends to see what they are doing. I know that they should be able to set me straight. :-)

Surprisingly, there were many people out today. I met two ladies who came down to take a snapshot of the bridge. One of the ladies was paying more attention then I was when she asked me "Are you standing on the river?" I looked down and said "I guess I am" not realizing that I had wondered out on to the water to get a better angle. The ice held and I took advantage of it to get a better composition of the bridge and down the river bed on the opposite side.

I met a fellow photographer (Nathan) that was there to grab some images. He was a pretty cool guy. He works in the aviation industry and leverages his work to be able to get great images of airplanes on the ground and in flight - he is able to do air to air shooting as well. That would be pretty cool. Thinking about it, I now want to get out and shoot some of the air shows this spring. Enjoyed my conversation with him. I think we talked for almost an hour.

Also met another kind gentlemen as I was leaving. He was out taking photos of the snow and came down to say hello and snap a few photographs.

As I was leaving, I could not resist wandering into the near by fields and shooting some of the nice contrasting grasses and trees. I wanted to shoot some more but by the time I made it to the field my fingers were gone. I have a hard time switching the focus point and focusing when my fingers freeze up. I had a great shoot this morning even though a sinus headache was dragging me down. It is funny that I can go out and shoot and I kind of forget about my troubles.

I am very thankful for another beautiful day to be able to shoot and get out and enjoy the fresh air.