Rockin' It!

Yesterday afternoon I found a nice medium sized rock covered in moss and lichen down by the creek. I carried it up to my bird feeder and gently placed it on top of the bird feeder. This morning I cleared all of the seed off of the feeder except for the side facing my photo blind. That way the birds landing on the rock would be facing either sideways or looking down at the bird seed. Here are a couple of my favorite images from the morning.A male House Finch and a White Breasted Nuthatch. God bless, chris Both images were created with a Canon 7D MkII and a Canon 100-400 IS v.1 lens. Settings used were AV mode, ISO 800 at F 8.0. Shutter speeds varied.#TeamCanon

House Finch Friday

Friday morning I went out to the Little Lake Valley and made a very simple set up in the Burris Ranch garden for some bird photography. I used a Hawthorne branch in bloom for the perch and for a background I had a sheet of hand painted masonite. Considering that I only just put up the bird feeder earlier this week I was very impressed with how many birds were coming into the feeder. The majority of birds were House finches though a couple of White Breasted Nuthatches stopped by as well as some Lesser Goldfinches and one Scrub Jay. When I got home I edited them pretty thoroughly and this was my stand out favorite. God's love and blessings upon your week, chris #teamcanon, #tamron This image was created with a canon 7D MkII and a TAMRON | SP 150-600mm F/5-6.3 Di VC USD G2lens at 450mm. The camera settings used were AV mode, ISO 800, F 8.0 at 1/200th of a sec. Fill flash was provided by a Canon 500 EX flash st to -2 stops.

Back From a Mini Vacation

I took some days off for a mini vacation and now my brother Eric who is a wildlife photographer is visiting from Colorado. Yesterday we went out to the Little Lake Valley to do some bird photography. He got a few images of birds that he hadn't photographed before. There wasn't anything new for me but I had a great time spending time with my brother. This was my favorite image from the morning. Here is a White Breasted Nuthatch in a classic pose. God's love and blessings to all, chris

Loving That Over the Shoulder Look

This morning Lenore and I were both up early. We had one of our cars serviced yesterday so we rode down together this morning to pick one of the vehicles up. I thought it would be a great opportunity to do some bird photography out in the Little Lake Valley on the ranch. When I arrived at the ranch the first thing I noticed was that all of the bird feeders were empty save one and it had four birds crowded around it with just a little bit of seed left. So the first job was to restock all of bird feeders. When I was done filling the feeders there wasn't a bird to be seen. I sat in the blind and waited and waited. All the while the good light was disappearing fast. I was almost to the point of nodding off when the birds started coming in. It started with a trickle and soon they were competing for spots at the feeder. Away from the feeder I spotted a White Breasted Nuthatch on the edge of a mossy log. I immediately swung the lens over to it. It caught the motion of the lens and looked back towards the blind over its shoulder. I was able to squeeze in two quick frames before it was gone in a flash. It ended up being my favorite image of the morning. I love that over the shoulder look. It really shows off a birds plumage. May you have a great evening. God bless, chris Image created with a Canon 7D and a Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS USM at 320mm on a Manfrotto 190XPROB tripod with a Bogen 3055 Heavy Duty Ballhead. My camera settings were AV mode, ISO 800, F 8.0 at 1/2500 of a sec.#TeamCanon

Images From the Old Garden

Once summertime hits there aren't many birds to photograph where I live. My house sits in the forest on a ridge top so after awhile I run out of bird species to photograph. For more variety I go down into the old garden of a ranch house in the Little Lake Valley. The ranch sits astride a small creek with some riparian habitat on both sides. There is pasture land to the west and oak woodland to the east. With this great mixture of habitats there is a nice mix of birds to photograph.This morning I photographed White Breasted Nuthatches, House Finches and one Eurasion Collared Dove that landed on the bird feeder as I was packing up to leave. All the images were photographed with a Canon 7D and a Tamron 150-600mm lens on a Manfrotto tripod. God's light and love to all, chrisIf you are interested in learning about photographing birds in your backyard please check out my book, "Secrets of Backyard Bird Photography". It is available at most online booksellers in both hardbound and as an Ebook. Copy and paste the following into your browser to see it on Amazon. http://www.amazon.com/Secrets-Backyard-Photography-Chris-Hansen/dp/1937538559

Catching Up on the Birds

I'm getting caught up now that I can upload images directly to my main computer. Last week I had two great mornings with the birds out in my photoblind in the Little Lake Valley of Northern California. There were a lot of birds and I had a great time photographing them. Editing images isn't as much fun but it is a necessary part of photographic process. Here are my favorite four images from those two days. All these images were created with a Canon 7D and a Tamron 150-600 mm lens. I prefer shooting with a zoom lens over a straight telephoto lens because it makes bird images much, much easier to compose with. Especially when you are photographing from a photoblind and it is difficult to change your position relative to your subjects. The camera was on a tripod and was in AV mode with an ISO of 800. Shutter speeds and F stops varied. Enjoy the images and God's blessings to you, chris #TeamCanon Please check out, "Secrets of Backyard Bird Photography", on Amazon. http://www.amazon.com/Secrets-Backyard-Photography-Chris-Hansen/dp/1937538559

Beautiful Birds

This morning I had a fantastic time photographing birds for close to three hours. The conditions were perfect! It was overcast and the lighting was really nice. Now I have a lot of bird images to process and I can't easily do it because of compatibility problems between software and the operating system on my computer. So here are a few images form this morning. I'll be taking some time off until next week to try and sort these issues out. God's love and blessings to all, chris All images created with a canon 7D and a Tamron 150-600mm lens. AV mode, ISO 800 #TeamCanon

Beautiful Day For Birds

Today was the perfect day for bird photography. The fog in the Little Lake Valley didn't clear until almost eleven. I'm not fond of sunny mornings for bird photography as it gets bright way too fast. This morning was just right. After I arrived I put up a new bird feeder and moved one of the older ones. Before I could even get back into the photoblind a White Breasted Nuthatch was already using the new feeder. This really surprised me as most of the time it takes the birds little while to use a new feeder. As it turned out it was just one smart nuthatch because only two other birds used that feeder for the rest of the morning. There were plenty of Acorn Woodpeckers though and now my collection of images of them is growing by leaps and bounds. Here are a couple of White Breasted Nuthatch images that I'm really happy with. May God bless you with his tender mercies and love, chris All images created with a Canon 7D and a Tamron 150-600. Camera settings used. AV mode,ISO 800, F8.0 shutter speeds of 1/640th and 1/800th of a sec. Camera was supported by a Manfrotto 190 XPROB tripod with a Bogen 3055 Ballhead. Spring is a great time for bird photography. If you haven't already done so please check out my new book, Secrets of Backyard Bird Photography. It's available in both hardbound and as an e book at most major on line book sellers. http://www.amazon.com/Secrets-Backyard-Photography-Chris-Hansen/dp/1937538559

Strike a Pose

This morning I went out to the Burris Ranch in the Little Lake Valley to photograph Nuthatches. I wanted to capture an image of one in soft light upside down under a branch. Things didn't go very well. In setting up for the image I stabbed my thumb with the hand drill. Ouch! Do you know that hurts a lot and bleeds like crazy? Then all the images that I did get of nuthatches under the branch the focus was off just enough to make them unacceptable. Later I did create one image though that is just gorgeous. It made the whole morning worth while.I photographed a White Breasted Nuthatch coming down an oak limb in nice soft light. It stopped in the classic Nuthatch pose with a beautiful, light brown background from the oat grass behind it. I was very pleased with this image. Thank you Lord for giving me such a wonderful place to photograph. chris

Some Birds Today

I spent the last two mornings in my photoblind photographing birds out at the Burris Ranch in the Little Lake Valley in Northern,California. I also posted a how to on how to build a feeder on my original blog which was the parent to this blog a few years back. I still post DIY tutorials there once in awhile for up and coming photographers to use.It can be found here. http://diyphotocheapodepot.blogspot.com/ Here are some images from the past few days.My favorites were the Oak Titmouse and the White Breated Nuthatch. A California Ground squirrel also paid a visit to the feeder. Love and God's blessings, chris

Going Post (al)

Yesterday I spent a great morning in the photography blind. For my set up I placed two mossy posts next to the feeders for the birds to land on when they came into the feeder. I had plenty of House Finches and Nuthatches and Juncos come in for for some seed to eat.Here are a few samples from the many images I created.

God's love and blessings to all,

chris

A Bit of Fence and a Rock

My photography blind at the Burris ranch is in an old garden area set aside from the pasture by an old beaten down sheep fence that is topped by two strands of barbed wire. For those of you that know what kind of fencing this is you probably already know that it isn't the prettiest fencing around. It isn't what I normally like to photograph birds on anyway. Recently I did photograph some quail on it and it's ok, but it isn't as nice as an old wooden fence. So I found some old redwood split rail fencing and wired it up to the wire fence and now I can at least get a few more images that aren't on wire. The birds were landing on both the posts and the rails today. I also have been getting a few images at my new water feature that as it starts getting warmer the birds will be using more and more. Today a few of them came in for a drink and landed on the biggest moss covered rock in the set up. There is always something I can do or change to shake things up a bit.

God's love and blessings to all,

chris,

A Piece of the Rock

Yesterday I didn't do a blog entry. I was really busy working in the office editing images and working on my book. Today I was back at it with the birds again and I created some nice images with a piece of the rock. The rock is a lichen covered piece of quartz. On the way back home I spied a tom turkey out courting his hens. A lot of photographers don't photograph turkeys much because they are so common around here. I'm sometimes of that feeling too. But today for some reason I stopped and took a few images.

God's blessings and love to all,

chris

Some Birds From This Morning

I was back at it with the birds out in the Little Lake Valley this morning.

Images from Todays Photo Adventure

This evening I finally got some time to sit down and process some of the images from this morning. I think my favorite was the Oak Titmouse. I also processed some of a Scrub Jay, White Breasted Nuthatch,House Finch, and the ever present Dark Eyed Junco.
Enjoy.

God's light and love to all,

chris