Photographing Kiteboarders on Bodega Bay

This last week I was down on the Sonoma Coast for a couple of days. When I rounded the first corner on Highway 1 into Bodega Bay I could see kiteboarders racing across the bay close to Doran Beach on the bay side. I drove down to the beach and found a place to park. The conditions were perfect. It was high tide with small waves and there was a really stiff breeze blowing. The kiteboarders were really moving. I talked to one of the group on shore taking a break. He stated that it was quite unusual to have windy conditions like this so early in the year. He went on to say that they usually have to wait until early winter for conditions like this. This was the first time I have photographed the sport of kiteboarding and I really enjoyed it. God's love and blessings upon your week, chris All images were created with a Canon EOS 7D MkII camera and a Canon 100-400mm F/4.5-5.6 L IS USM EF Mount v.1. #TeamCanon

By the Old Watering Hole

For the past couple of weeks I have been periodically going out and sitting next to the pond in the yard. It's a great spot for photographing the birds and squirrels that have been coming for drinks and to bathe. Sometimes there can be some really long waits between subjects. It requires a lot of patience. Here is part of a sequence of a Dark Eyed Junco that stopped by. When it first arrived it sat on the bank for quite some time before tentatively stepping forward to take a drink. Then it very slowly moved into the water. Once it got into the water it really got into it by diving under and splashing with its wings. God's love and blessings upon your week, chris All images were created with a Canon EOS 7D MkII camera and a Canon 100-400IS v.1 lens. Fill flash was provided by a Canon 550 EX speedlight. #TeamCanon

Simple Four Flash Set Up

Yesterday after a long hiatus from photographing hummingbirds I created a simple four flash set up in the backyard for photographing hummingbirds. The first step was to take down all the feeders except for two feeders next to where I was photographing them in the shade of a 10' x 10' pop up erected behind our garage. Next I propped up a 4' x4' green backdrop on the seat of a garden bench. Rather than using all the fancy light stands and flash brackets I opted for going simple using flash clamps attached to two more garden benches. Then I placed three cone flowers stuck in florist foam on a low table in front of the camera. Following that I climbed into the photoblind and started photographing. There was no shortage of hummingbirds as there had to be at least thirty hummingbirds buzzing around for two feeders. Here are a some of my favorites. Have a great day and God bless, chris #TeamCanon, All images were created with a Canon 7D MkII camera on a tripod. The lens used was a Canon 100-400mm F/4.5-5.6 L IS USM EF. The camera settings used were Manual mode, ISO 400, F10.0 at 1/200th of a sec. The flashes used were four Canon 540 EZ flashes. Two on the subject and two on the background.The flashes were in manual mode and were set to 1/128th power.