The only place in the United States where the beautiful and endangered Snail Kite is found is in the southern half of the state of Florida. Snail Kites are abundant in parts of Central and South America but, in the U.S., these birds number less than two thousand and are considered the rarest bir...
Smack in the middle of a lek, mating grounds for the Greater Prairie Chicken, I wait away the pre-dawn spring morning. My spot is near a U.S. Forest Service blind on the National Grasslands near Ft. Pierre, South Dakota. A better stage for chicken dancing would be hard to find. Imagine the entir...
When the loons didn’t nest on my small lake in south-central Ontario in 2005, I had to find another subject to maximize the summer photography season.
I had been out to a Common Tern nesting colony on a local lake with friends who live on the lake and had been monitoring the colony for 2...
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by Brendan C. Quigley | January 1, 2006
If you were going to write a guide for birding enthusiasts and photographers, what would you put in it? Could it be varied enough for photographers of all skill levels to use, small enough to carry but big enough to hold lots of information, and a book that would help you build a photography out...
The failure to understand the importance of how light angle and head angle relate to both subject-to-imaging sensor plane orientation (or to subject-to-film plane orientation) and to the quality of the final image ruins more bird photographs than all other artistic and design factors combined. I...
by Donald Cohen | August 1, 2005
In early 2005 I was fortunate to be able to take a “trip of a lifetime” with my wife by spending some time on the South Island of New Zealand. We had always wanted to travel to that part of the world, with further research revealing that New Zealand would be just the right destinatio...
Many nature photographers love to photograph Sandhill Cranes. There is something about their sight and sound that stirs us to shiver in pre-dawn frost on the river or wildlife refuge, or sweat and swat bugs in more tropical climates trying for the perfect image. Sometimes we are fortunate enough...
by Brian Zwiebel | May 1, 2005
Migrant warblers are among the most difficult avian subjects to photograph. They hide in the leaves, often in dark shadows, and flit about in the tops of tall trees. These very small birds rarely sit still for more than a second or two, chasing insects frantically. Five seconds with a cooperativ...
A good number of winter Texans and permanent residents of the Rio Grande Valley possess common threads, including their love for the area’s biodiversity and an awareness of the importance of habitat to our native flora and fauna.
Canon’s professional camera bodies (the EOS 3, 1V, 1D, 1Ds, 1D Mark II and 1Ds Mark II) feature a 45-point Autofocus System. The 45 sensors are arrayed in a roughly elliptical pattern that is, of course, centered in the viewfinder. You can activate all 45 points by first pressing the focus...
by Brendan C. Quigley | January 1, 2005
Every profession has its core texts, every industry its “bibles.” As nature photographers, when we want to identify a bird, it’s off to a Sibley Guide, an Audubon’s or the latest revised edition of the National Geographic Field Guide to Birds. But now let me introduce you...
An excerpt from “The Art of Bird Photography II”, a book in progress: When I was a fledgling photographer living in New York City, there were many local camera clubs with lots of members who enjoyed nature photography. In spite of the fact that I was extremely competitive in sports...
The use of artificial lighting to photograph animals is an area of controversy. To review this topic, a basic understanding of the retina is necessary.
The retina is comprised of rod cells for night and motion sensory information and cone cells for daylight and color vision. The ratio of rods...
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