Red Kites at Gigrin Farm

Red kite in flight

A few days away in September last year gave Maria and I the opportunity visit Gigrin Farm, near Welshpool in Wales.  The farm is a feeding station for Red Kites, Milvus milvus, a UK bird of prey that had almost disappeared.  By providing supplementary feeding to a few of the remaining kites, initially at Gigrin, and, later, other locations, the populations have increased dramatically and they are now a far more common sight away from their mid Wales stronghold.

Gigrin provides a wonderful opportunity to see these graceful birds en masse.  Feeding starts daily at 3:00pm during the summer months, on a meadow surrounded by an arc of hides.  The birds know this and they start to circle overhead up to an hour beforehand, increasing in numbers as feeding time approaches.  The sky can get crowded as feeding time approaches!

At the time my longest lens was the Olympus 70-300mm f4-5.6.  Lightweight, with a good deal of reach for its small size, I soon found it wasn't really fast enough to acquire focus on these circling birds.  Out came the 40-150mm F2.8 PRO + 1.4x teleconverter and that stayed on the OM-1 throughout.  Bird detect on, of course.  I started getting better shots of individual circling birds though even here I've had to crop.

ISO 800, f4, 210mm, 1/3200 sec

Finally, at 3:00PM prompt the tractor with chopped meat arrived and distribution could begin.

It should be emphasised that these are wild birds, opportunistic scavengers by nature, and always on the look out for carrion.  Gigrin farm merely provides them with some supplemental feeding.  In return they provide a spectacle.

On cue, the first birds swoop down to grab a morsel, rapidly followed by a constant stream as more and more flock in to feed, individual birds jostling for position.

       

At times it's actually difficult to lock focus on an individual bird.  There are too many for the bird detection to settle on one and keep tracking.  But no system is perfect and I got enough good shots to have a selection.

In general the 40-150mm + 1.4x was a good choice.  The birds were close and I often didn't need the full 210mm to get a shot.  I did make one mistake.  It was raining.  Light rain but dull light and I should have taken the ISO up from my 800 setting to 1600 or more to get better sharpness for the in flight shots.  1/1250sec isn't really enough.

Examined at 100% both the above shots are lacking a little in critical sharpness around the wingtips - though still good enough to put on sale.  Every shoot is a learning experience.

A thoroughly enjoyable day for both of us and one I'd heartily recommend to even non bird watchers.  Though, hopefully, you'll have better weather and light.

 Photographing gardens and flowers in the rain

Misty conditions in The Garden House Quarry Garden in pouring rain

There's a local saying (or possibly I made it up) that describes Dartmoor and its environs.  "If you can see the hills it's going to rain.  If you can't it's raining."  West Devon gets a lot of rain.  Prevailing westerlies bring it in from the Atlantic on a regular basis, sometimes for days or even weeks on end.  Which means that I frequently have to photograph flowers and gardens in the rain if I'm to get the regular weekly shots I need for social media posts for The Garden House.  

Equipment isn't the problem.  My Olympus/OM systems garden gear is weatherproofed and I have no qualms in using it in even pouring rain.  Just take plenty of dry lens cloths to keep the front of the lens clear..

The problem is the quality and quantity of the rain.  Heavy rain is generally a no go.  The light is dreary, vegetation is flattened, flowers bend under the weight of raindrops and, of course, it's physically unpleasant for the poor photographer.  Yes it's possible to get shots - the Quarry Garden image above is an example - but it's not one I enjoyed taking.

Better is lighter rain, particularly when imparting a misty background to more distant parts of the image.

Misty background in a view across the lake

Best of all is light, misty rain (mizzle down here in Devon).  The light is soft, saturating colours, while the fine droplets of rain don't weigh down flowers and vegetation but apply a sparkling sheen to everything while still giving a misty background.

Misty rain in The Acer Glade

Similar considerations apply to flower portraits.  It is possible to get good shots in heavy rain, as illustrated by this shot of Sagittaria and Aponogetum in a lake.

But that was special case.  Aquatics aren't really bothered by rain.

More likely is that during and even after heavy rain the outlines of flowers will blur, especially ones with more complex floral structures.  Though it can look good on foliage, as with this Begonia 'Red Robin', out for its summer holiday.

It's certainly possible to shake the excess water off the flower(s) - but is it worth it when the raindrops produce an attractive patterning to the image.  The only problem with shots like these is specular highlights on the drops.  These can be dodged out in post if they cause a problem but it does add an extra step to the processing workflow.

Galanthus 'Das Gelb von Ei'

Shaking off the excess water isn't always possible.  I'd been eyeing up this more distant snowdrop shot while the rain was falling but it was inaccessible.  I had to return later after the rain had stopped and a breeze had removed the excess moisture before I could take it.  There are still enough drops on the petals to make it an effective rain shot but not enough to bow the snowdrop heads or blur the flower features.

Best of all is when conditions are just right, with soft, misty rain that allows micro droplets to gather on the surface of petals...

Moraea alticola

...rim the edge of a bloom...

Stewartia sinensis

...or coat the protruding stamens of this white Azalea.

In the rain photography of plants and gardens has its discomforts.  We've all known the dubious pleasure of rain running down the back of our neck.  But to get shots that stand out a little suffering is worthwhile.  Isn't it?

My garden photography gear and how I use it

It should be pretty obvious that I'm primarily a plant and garden photographer.  I'm also currently 75, reasonably fit for my age, but without the strength and energy of even 10 years ago.  Three to four hours intensive walking and photography in a garden is about my limit and I can't carry a lot of weight.  So I have to be selective in what I use to get the quality shots I need without exhaustion kicking in.

Which has led me to my current Olympus/OM system garden photography line-up.

I use two bodies - not just for redundancy / just in case reasons but to allow me to switch body lens combinations quickly without having to field swap lenses.  The two bodies are the older OM-D EM-1 MkII and the newer OM Systems OM-1, both bought used from MPB.  Both bodies are set up with the focus bracketing I've described in an earlier post, the better stabilised OM-1 with a 5 shot bracket and the EM1 MkII with a three shot bracket.  Both bodies produce excellent 20Mpx RAW files and readily generate publication quality images.  Why two older bodies?  Budget limitations - and they still do the job.  Each body has spare batteries though with my working day limitations I rarely need them for both cameras.

The three lenses I take with me are the :

• OM Systems 8-25mm f4 PRO.  This is my wide angle to normal lens for garden scenes, allowing me to rapidly frame a shot both where space is limited or the vista needs a wide angles approach.  I actually bought this one new during an Amazon sale and it's served me very well in the two years I've owned it.  

8mm

12mm

21mm

25mm

I usually use this lens on the EM1 MkII and, in many cases, with manual focus on (the manual focus clutch is a wonderful thing!).  Why manual focus?  Because with the focus peaking set on I can far more accurately judge whether all the scene is going to be in focus.  And if it's not - well that's where the focus bracketing comes in.  With a wide angle zoom depth of field is large but even then it sometimes needs to be augmented.

• Olympus 60mm f2.8 macro.  Life size reproduction in a tiny, lightweight body with image quality to match my two PRO lenses.  For small flowers, fine detail and, of course insects.

Of course, even with the IBIS of my two bodies close up and macro work needs extra stabilisation, particularly for ground level work like the snowdrops above.  While I carry a full size tripod in the car I often find I can manage with a little Gorilla pod tripod.  It's very versatile and doesn't get in peoples way.

• 40-150mm f2.8 PRO.  My most versatile lens for its ability to isolate subjects against backgrounds, pick out plants at the back of borders or flowers on trees as well as as allowing me to take compressed field of view garden scenes.  Add in the 1.4x teleconverter and I have an effective 420mm close focusing reach.

   

Geranium x oxonianum f. thurstoniana

Tulip tree flowers high in the branches

Snoe

Do I miss the gap between 25 and 40mm?  No.  If it saves me weight it's a very minor limitation requiring only a step back or forward.  Plus I carry a 72mm filter thread circular polarising filter which fits both the 8-25mm and 40-150mm lenses.  One less thing to carry.

I very rarely need more than this.  It all fits in a single, not very large camera bag and comes in at a little over 4kg.  Manageable for me.  And even then I usually distribute the weight a little more easily by taking a separate camera bag with the OM-1 + 40-150mm and teleconverter in one bag, the rest in the other bag, slung on opposite sides of my ageing body.

Yes, I could carry less - but I couldn't get the results that sell my images to books, magazines and papers worldwide.