Seabird Photography

KapsturmvogelAn Albatross sailing the seas, an agile Petrel, a dynamic Shearwater. These are real challenges. Bird photographing in general is quite a difficult task. Add in a rocking, heaving boat, crowds of people, salt spray and fast moving agile targets and you have a most challenging undertaking. For certain digital photography has not revolutionized bird photography, but has made Bird Photography a lot more less strengous. This is true in general and has been especially so in seabird photography. If you look back on some of the so-called analog (or predigital) “Seabird Photo” books you will see the amazing steps forward that have been made in the last 15 years. For Seabird Photography I personally have been using a consistent set-up for the last years. This includes the professional flagship Canon “sports & journalism” camera currently the EOS 1 D X with a Canon f4.0, 400mm DO lens. This in most cases without a teleconverter (TC). If using a teleconverter, it is a 1.4 Canon teleconverter of the II-series. The Canon EOS 1 D X with a Canon f4.0, 400mm DO is a very fast set-up with a unique ability to achieve very high shutter speeds even in relatively low light conditions. It also can rattle off 12 frames per second which is extremely important to take the best out of a flyby of a Albatros, Shearwater or Petrel. This is especially true for the lightening-fast Pterodroma petrels. If you really want to seek out new destinations, try the challenge of seeing all the worlds seabirds. This quest will require you to visit many of the worlds most remote and rugged land and seascapes. From the Galapagos to the Bismark Archipelago, from Tristan da Cuhna to Amsterdam Island, from Monterey to the Aleutians, from Cape Town to Antarctica and on to Mauritius, Hatteras, Cape Verde Islands, Madeira and the Canaries. Spots on a map which are known to few -visited by still fewer. I am hoping the galleries on bird-lens.com of seabird photography off-shore Cape Town/ South Africa, Hatteras/ North Carolina, The Scillies/ England, Monterey/ California will serve as a resource for seabirders. With a focus to birds occurring in the western palearctic I plan to provide as many pictures demonstrating diagnostic details and individual variation in as many seabird species as possible. An example is the Cape Petrel or Pintado Petrel (Daption capense), the image of the blog. A bird quite common at least in winter off-shore Cape Town. But a rare vagrant to northern Atlantic waters as well. Enjoy! To cope with the growing demand for top shots of the rarer species of the Palearctic Bird-Lens is keen to enrich the range of pictures of birds you can find in the western palearctic.  Trips to remote places like this one to capture images of rare birds of western palearctic were very successful. The nice images of the blog is only a first impression, what you will find in the gallery in the “Pictures Shop” very soon. Just give a message, if bird-lens.com could serve you with an image needed before the new pictures are online.

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