More Shelter in Place Photography

I love photographing birds and squirrels in my yard. It's a quiet time to think and see wildlife up close and unobserved. This afternoon I got to watch a deer walk across our driveway all the way up to my blind until she scented me and then made a hasty retreat the way she had come. I watched several squirrels came and go as well as a chipmunk that grabbed a few sunflower seeds and ran off between visits by the much bigger squirrels. The main thing is it gets me out of doors and in a safe place. Here is a sampling of images from the past two and a half days. All these images were photographed using simple set up created by leaning mossy log over some cinder blocks under my bird feeder. From a photoblind in my yard in Mendocino county, Northern California.God's love and blessings to all, chris All of these images were created with a Canon 7D MKII camera and a Canon 100-400IS V.1 lens. Fill flash was provided by a Canon 550 EX Speedlight. #teamcanonusa

Shelter in Place Photography or Simple Set Up

Yesterday I created a super simple set up for photographing birds in my yard. The chances are that if you have a bird feeder in your yard you can set up something similar. I stacked up two piles of some old cinder blocks underneath our bird feeder and put a branch across between them. You don't have to use cinder blocks you could use trash cans or sawhorses. Just something that would be close to eye level when you are sitting in a chair looking at it. I made one stack higher on one side than the other. Then I removed the perch off of the bird feeder so that the birds would have to land on the branch before they could fly up to grab food from the feeder. I set up my photoblind with an old office chair inside roughly eight feet from the branch. I used a pop up blind from Ameristep. You could use an appliance box or a camping tent for a blind. I had no shortage of birds coming to the feeder! I photographed Steller's Jays, Juncos and Black Headed Grosbeaks along with some squirrels.If you are interested give it a try. For more ways to photograph birds check out my book ,Secrets of Backyard Bird Photography. It is available on most online book sellers including Amazon. God's light and love to all, chris All images were created with a Canon EOS 7D MKII camera and a Canon 100-400IS v.1 lens with a Canon 550 EX Speedlight set to - 1 1/3 rd stops. #teamcanonusa

Up in Smoke!

It has been a long, long while since I have photographed smoke. Yesterday afternoon I was looking for something to photograph. With Shelter in Place where I live in northern California I have plenty of time to photograph on my hands. I grabbed my camera ,a macro lens and a flash. Then I set up a black background with an incense stick in front of it. I had a great time photographing smoke rising up from the incense stick after lighting it. It's amazing to see all of the patterns and shapes that come from it. God's blessings and Happy Easter to one and all. He is Risen! All of these images were created with a Canon EOS 7D MKII camera with a Canon EF-S60mm f2.8 macro lens. The camera settings used were M mode,ISO 100, F 11.0 at 1/200th of a sec. A Canon 550 EX Speed light was used as a light source set to 1/4 power. #teamcanonusa