Blue Ridge Parkway, VA 6/21/17

All photos are © Marshall Faintich

Even though I have already taken close to 1/2 million wildlife photos, I am always learning about photography and trying to improve my photographic techniques. I got lucky yesterday on the parkway when I saw and photographed juvenile Cerulean and Worm-eating Warblers, but I wasn't happy with the grainy photos I got of them. At this time of year, birds, especially the little guys, tend to stay in the shadows and out of danger. I usually shoot my 400mm focal length photos at 1/800 second to stop any subject motion, but when the subject is not well lit, a grainy image is the result. I have been experimenting with my fairly new lens by using it only hand-held, now that I have a lens with image stabilization. If fact, all 5,000+ photos that I took on our trip to England, Scotland, and crossing the North Atlantic Ocean were hand-held images. When there is plenty of light, I can even go to 1/1600 or 1/2500 second to stop motion, and this is especially useful when I am shooting from a moving platform such as a car or boat. But in the past, I have only taken photos slower than 1/640 second when using my monopod, and that is tough to do when a bird is high up in a tree.

This morning, I went on a short hike here in Old Trail, and while hiking, I starting thinking about yesterday's grainy photos. And then a light bulb went on in my mind. I had previously tried taking a few test photos hand-held at 1/200 second with my new lens, and they turned out fairly well. So I decided to try this much slower speed, hand-held, on real images. Late this afternoon, I went back to the Blue Ridge Parkway to look for the juvenile warblers, and to take avian photos of subjects in the darker tree cover at a 1/200 second shutter speed. I didn't re-locate the juvenile warblers, but had some success and a surprise.

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Worm-eating Warbler

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Worm-eating Warbler

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Worm-eating Warbler

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Worm-eating Warbler

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Worm-eating Warbler

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Black and White Warbler

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Cerulean Warbler

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Cerulean Warbler

While I was at the south (upper) end of the cirque near mm. 7.5, a Canada Warbler popped up right where I always see this species, but I have only seen Canada Warblers there during the first two weeks of May, and have assumed that they were passing through during migration each spring. Now perhaps, they are breeding there, and I can look for juveniles on future summer trips to that site.

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Canada Warbler

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Canada Warbler

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Canada Warbler

All in all, I am happy with these less grainy shots at 1/200 second, although some of them turned out a bit blurry, and I'm not sure I want to miss a "money shot" in the future to avoid a grainy image. And, of course, 1/200 second doesn't stop motion very well.

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Canada Warbler


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