Weather has been crazy recently and looking at it from this angle, we can say it is quite constant. Generally it got quite cold and during one day it can be sunny, cloudy, raining and snowing and again sunny. Great photography opportunities and I tried to take my chances and visited places I know quite well and wanted to see them under those changing light conditions.
The other day I got up for "sunrise", which is not so problematic now in winter. I placed word sunrise in quotes because I was not really after rising sun light, I knew there would not be any. Forecast was clouds and rain. But I wanted to witness dawn by Danube river and shoot some birds. Thick clouds in this case can really help. OK, you do not get great colours, but birds do not care about this, they stick to their business and I just wanted to be there.
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| Sleeping Swans, 600mm, 1/640s, f/5.6, ISO 6400 |
When I arrived to Haslau an der Donau (Donau Auen National Park), it was still pitch dark. With dawn approaching it started to rain, tens of swans kept on sleeping. When they heard me coming, some of them raised their heads, scanned environment, seeing no threat, simply went to sleep again.
I looked around for a good spot where to sit and setup my gear and waited enjoying the silence, fresh cold air and simply nature.
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| One behind was way more in playing mode 600mm, 1/500s, f/5.6, ISO 6400 |
New day has come and swans started slowly waking up and carried on with morning cosmetics so to speak. Some were more active and some still in waking up mode. There were two or three young ones more energetic than other and I concentrated on following them with the lens, at the same time still keeping an eye on others.
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| 600mm, 1/640s, f/5.6, ISO 6400 |
At one point this pair of young swans started to chase each other, seemed like one wanted to play and the other still was a bit sleepy and was not in the mood to any extra activities right at this time. Then a moment happend, one simply "attacked".
Rest of swans family completely did not care, most of them still kept sleeping or cleaning their feathers. Only those two had kept on teasing each other.
Few words about shooting in terms of settings. I was using Aperture Priority mode (AV) with spot metering. Great thing about new camera now is that spot metering follows point of focus. It has to be set in custom functions though. I used single focus points trying always to point on the head. Another cool thing is that when camera is rotated from horizontal to vertical, it remembers previously selected points so there is no need to reselect focus points again. Of course depending on the scene it may be required to change them, but that is normal. And here comes the importance of knowing exactly all the buttons on camera body, so it can be done instantly without thinking about which button to press etc. It must become natural and instinctive.
Important thing about spot metering in such light conditions, where almost everything in the frame seems quite bright, and swans themselves are almost white. Camera will terribly underexpose. In most of the shots I used 2 stops positive exposure compensation to get correct exposure. It is like shooting snow, when metering system is fooled by so much brightness. With 2 stops compensation I had to make sure my shutter speed does not go below 1/500s thus I needed to raise ISO to 6400. I prefer to have a bit more noise than not frozen movement image.
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| Danube Cormorants; 600mm, 1/1250s, f/5.6, ISO 3200 |
It was time to change the position and I wandered to main river bank to find some shots over there. Danube was very low, I was able to walk quite deep into normally flooded bank. When I was here few weeks ago, waters were almost covering footpath, now I could go something like 50-60 me into rivers' stream. Lots of mud, but that is not a problem for a photographer :) mud, rain, snow, cold, and other obstacles should never stop us. From quite a distance I spotted number of cormorants lazily occupying few rocks sticking out of water. Looked through 600mm, and no... way too far. Need to get closer. I kept stalking in small steps, few metres, and stop, sit down and wait for few minutes. And again, this took me something like an hour to get relatively close. There was absolutely nothing to hide behind, completely open space and I did not want to scare them away. Thanks God they were quite patient. When I got really too close in their opinion, they decided to flee.
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| Danube Cormorants; 600mm, 1/1600s, f/5.6, ISO 3200 |
On the other hand it was good exercise and I start to enjoy following birds, still need longer lens and perhaps with time I will get deeper into the subject. It reminded me of the trip in Poland to Cormorants Island where there were thousands of cormorants and they completely ignored me. Perhaps I should visit the place again, as I am planning a trip to Poland.
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| Cormorants Island on Vistula River, Poland; 400mm, 1/500s, f/5.6, ISO 200 |
Cormorants Island was awesome! I had to rent a boat to get there, before sunrise and it was May, so I had to get up at 2 a.m. to reach meeting point. Totally human deserted location with swamps and fallen trees and bushes and thousand of birds. Simply fantastic. But this another story and I am sure will have its own chapter when completed.
Coming back to Danube morning, I was happy with the session, perhaps not greatest pictures but I really enjoyed simply being out and digesting environment around me - pure nature.
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| Heidentor, Carnuntum 24mm, 15s, f/11, ISO 50 |
Then today, I wanted to play with tilt shift and some ruins and clouds.
As I wrote at the beginning of this post weather was crazy and kept changing every half an hour. Best possible conditions for photos, with wind, lots of clouds and frost. While driving towards Carnuntum...
I hit... snow storm. Something I have totally not expected.
15 minutes from home where I had nice clean clouds and blue sky getting ready for sunset, and all of a sudden I have to slow down because of massive snowfall. And I thought, it is absolutely fantastic, I might get some decent shots of Heidentor covered with fresh snow. Well, once I arrived 50km later situation changed again. There was some snow cover, but the storm stopped... leaving space to... great sunsetting colours, so again quite good. But plans and shots I had in mind had to be replaced by plan B and C and D.
I love those delicate blueish colours and moving clouds. While driving in the snow I hoped to be able to capture falling snow, but at the location all storm was gone, at least looking south east. The picture is almost untouched besides white balance correction, I wanted to stay away from contrast and vivid colours. This is how the scene looked like.
Look at the sky here above Heidentor in Carnuntum... then I simply turned around to face exact position of setting sun. My original concept was to get this Roman gate illuminated by setting rays of sun with red clouds above. Did not happen, but... south west looked really spectacular just as well. Storm was moving away...
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| Setting sun. Carnuntum. 24mm, 2.5s, f/16, ISO 50 |
opening really nice sky scene. I quickly composed new frame and had to really hurry. Clouds were moving extremely fast. Within next few seconds sun was hidden again by this thick layer of storm clouds. I was happy to capture at least some of the magic.
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| Heidentor, Carnuntum; 24mm, 5s, f/16, ISO 50 |
Weather changed from one extreme to another in less than 30 minutes and 50 km away in Vienna was totally different. Great stuff. I will still come to Heidentor in near future to get the shot I am after.
For now I have got what I got and I will keep on chasing the light despite freezing cold.
It was not really cold in that sense, barely below zero centigrades, but the wind and that we are just starting winter and are not used to minus zero temperatures took their toll.
It will get better i.e. colder!
Cheers
Jerzy
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