Birds in Blooms...Our Version

 It's the time of the year for Birds in Blooms! Some of my favorites so far. 

Duranceau Park

We made the short trip to Columbus to visit a new park for us....Duranceau Park.
The park is on the banks of the Scioto River, making it a trap for migrating birds this time of year. 
Our bird-photographer friend, Arnie, met us there to show us some of the best spots. The best bird was the male Cerulean that pooped up in front of us right at the start of the road!
Here's a few images from Duranceau.

Male Cerulean Warbler

Blue-Headed Vireo

Northern Oriole

Northern Oriole

House Finch

Palm Warbler

Farmer's Moon

Last night's almost full moon from our upstairs window. A farmer was taking advantage by working the fields. 

I get a lot of questions on how to shoot an image like this one, so decided to relate my techniques.
You have two choices...you can shoot two images and combine in a composite, or one shot with some gradient editing. This shot is the later. The key for both techniques is to use spot metering on the moon. 

If doing two shots, you must use spot metering on the first shot of the moon, checking exposure to make sure that there's detail in the moon surface. Then, shoot a second image, metering the background. You can then combine in your editing program and adjust the layers to best show the moon. Note that this type of image works best at twilight rather than in full darkness. 

For a one-shot image like this one, I spot metered the moon. That, of course, underexposed the foreground. I pulled the image into Luminar 4, and using the adjustable gradient tool, I pulled up the exposure and saturation in the fields, and optimized the exposure of the moon. 

Shawnee Lookout

We visited Shawnee Lookout yesterday. Beautiful weather with sun and reaching a high of almost 80 degrees. My goal was to photograph some Cerulean Warblers, as there's a large nesting population there. 
Photographing them posed a few problems....first off, they like to stay high in the treetops. On the first leg of the Miami Fort Trail, I waited patiently for about 45 minutes, hearing males on territory singing, but not coming down from the treetops. 
We moved on and about a quarter mile later we reached a point where the trail edge was a sharp drop-off. Here, the Ceruleans were almost at eye level. In addition to watching and protographing the male, we got good looks and a couple of images of the female as well. What a treat! 

A rare treat to watch interactions between a pair. 

Easy to see why the female Cerulean Warbler is hard to spot. They blend in with the spring foliage. 

Buck Creek Birds

Some migrating birds from Buck Creek State Park yesterday. 
The warblers were moving through at a good pace...sitting at a picnic table between two flowering crabs was productive....and relaxing. 

Rough-Winged Swallows

I spent an enjoyable morning watching some Rough-Winged Swallows monitoring their nests. 
The highlight was when a Carolina Wren tried to invade their territory. They quickly chased it away!

Planets and Moon Align....

On April 14 and 15, the alignment of Mars, Saturn and Jupiter were visible in the pre-dawn southeastern sky.
Both mornings, I took a chance on having clear skies and headed out back to try to get some images.
For these images, I used the "Starry Sky" autofocus mode on the Olympus EM1M3 with the Zuiko 14-150mm lens. The Starry Sky mode allows sharp focus of stars for hand-held exposures; almost impossible to achieve with standard focusing. Both images were 3 second exposures; with a double exposure of the moon for corrected brightness.

Using the website Time and Date (Night Sky Map), I was able to see when the best alignment woould occur. I planned my shots based on this.

Image editing included levels and curves in Photoshop, as well as double exposure of the moon. Without stacking a spot metered moon, the moon was very overexposed in the base image. 

The previous morning, I had been able to shoot the linear alignment.