Fun at the Shore

This weekend Sam Waldron, Lee Webb, and I were lying down by the shore photographing Grey Seals frolicking in the surf zone. Much to our surprise, the area's small flock of Sanderlings seemed either oblivious to, or unconcerned by, our presence.

Sanderlings are small waders roughly the size of plump blackbirds that constantly patrol the shoreline looking for tidbits left by waves. This is amusing to watch as they engage in a never-ending cycle of chasing the tail of a retreating wave, only to be forced back by the next breaker.

I would recommend a telephoto lens of at least 300mm for photographing Sanderlings. Although they are very sociable birds, they are also rather small. I was only just able to get full frame images using a Nikon 80-400mm lens on a crop sensor camera.

Key to photographing almost any animal is to get down to its eyeline. In the case of Sanderlings, this involves lying down at the edge of the sea and being prepared to occasionally be swamped by rogue waves whilst protecting your camera gear at all costs.

To support my camera gear at this level I used a three-way tripod head attached to a frying pan. This not only provides support but allows the camera to be pushed almost effortlessly across the sand.

Photographing Sanderlings is quite challenging due to their frenetic movements. When they do stop moving, they usually do so for less than half a second so you have to be ready to take the shot immediately.

This involves placing a focus point on the head of the bird, continually focusing as they scamper about, and releasing the shutter immediately as the bird stops.

I used an aperture of F8 to give me a little bit of leeway in terms of focus, and an ISO of 400 to allow me to get shutter speeds between 1/320th and 1/640th capable of stopping Sanderling's movement... most of the time!

I photographed the Sanderlings roughly an hour before sunset so the light conditions were fairly challenging. The birds were lit by warm winter sunlight but the background was a deep shaded blue. To overcome these problems I used the technique of underexposing the shots by a stop or so described here.

An additional problem was the directionality of the lighting on the birds. As they ran towards the waves their face was shaded preventing their eyes from being lit by catchlights. I had to wait for the birds to face the sun, usually while retreating from oncoming waves, to get a nice catchlight.

Edit: I have just found two posts by Andrew Parkinson, one on photographing Sanderling at Donna Nook, and one on photographing seals in waves in relation to originality at frequently visited sites.

A Great Weekend at Donna Nook

I am afraid once again the promised Wollaton Park and Bradgate Park articles are going to have to wait. After a weekend with Sam Waldron and Lee Webb at Donna Nook my poor little mind is bursting with thoughts and tips just waiting to explode onto the page. As I am pretty tired after the weekends travel and photography I am just going to give you a sneak peak of what should be appearing in this (hopefully watched) space over the next few days.

I have visited Donna Nook three weekends over the last two years resulting in images like the two above. Although the seals have always behaved themselves, practicing perfect poses in front of my lens, the weather has ranged from "ten foot visibility fog" to "slightly overcast", never reaching the heady heights of "low-angle winter sunshine".

Not only was this the case this weekend, but the light somehow managed to be perfect in every direction in a way I never thought possible. Saturday was a full day of winter sunshine, and during Sunday morning I had a beautiful sunrise behind me, pink fluffy cumulus clouds to my left, spotless blue sky to my right, and a huge stormcloud flanked by a triple rainbow ahead of me.

With stunning light hitting my retinas from all angles, I tried my best to document as much as this as I could through my sensor. I will share how I attempted to deal with the different light types in the next few posts. In the meantime here a few images so you can judge whether I failed or succeeded.

Although they are approachable, photogenic, and extremely cute, Donna Nook is not only about the seals. The area's most approachable wader is the Sanderling. Photographing these birds is quite a challenge as they never stop for a second, constantly feeding to keep their plump physique. An article on Sanderling photography can be found here.

Unfortunately, I am afraid I am going to have to add another less upbeat article. The Grey Seals at Donna Nook are wild animals and deserve the respect due of any wild animal. I will be adding an article on how best to approach the seals to cause minimum disturbance as it appears not all photographers are doing so.

I seem to have promised a lot of articles here, but before getting around to writing them I really must get some sleep.

Until I blog again!