Preface

This male evening grosbeak is readily attracted to backyard feeders with sunflower seeds.

I was born with a keen interest and fascination for the natural world. Even as a small child growing up in the farm country of southern Michigan, I spent every possible moment outside learning about animals. I remember countless hours catching frogs or insects. I especially liked fishing and spent every summer day catching bass, northern pike, and bluegills.

While all wildlife fascinated me, I was particularly fond of birds, a passion that remains with me today. I remember seeing and learning the calls of all the common birds such as mourning doves, black-capped chickadees, white-breasted nuthatches, cardinals, blue jays, and robins before I was 10-years old. Nobody around me knew the birds so I taught myself using Petersen’s Field Guides as best I could. Every new bird seen and identified brought great pleasure to me. I especially enjoyed learning winter birds and found each new species sighted most satisfying. Since some species didn’t visit every year, it took several seasons to see most of them that could be expected in southern Michigan such as snow buntings, common redpolls, tree sparrows, red crossbills, evening grosbeaks, purple finches, and pine siskens.

My keen interest in birds and photographing them continues today, four decades later. Recently, I had another one of those special new bird moments. My wife Barbara was riding her horse in the forest near our Idaho mountain home when she discovered a woodpecker’s nest. She finds a lot of woodpecker nests around the Fourth of July because baby woodpeckers make a constant loud buzzing sound. Since she has excellent hearing, she commonly hears the young from distances of 100 yards or more on a still day and tracks the sound down. We enjoy photographing nesting woodpeckers so she finds each nest to see if it is a suitable nest for photography. We are looking for nests that are close to the ground which means less than 10-feet high. By locating a number of nests, we find a couple nests every year that are easy to photograph. She is quite good at identifying all the local species of woodpeckers around our home which include downy, hairy, northern flicker, and red-naped sapsucker. She watched the friendly pair of woodpeckers feeding its babies from 10 yards away with binoculars, but could not identify them. She excitedly rode home to tell me about the mystery birds. I quizzed her closely to find out one looked sort of like a small flicker and the other was mostly black with a bright yellow belly and the nest was only 3 feet above the ground. She said the two birds feeding the young were so different in appearance that they didn’t look like they belonged to each other. I soon came to the conclusion she may have found the nest of Williamson’s sapsucker, a bird I had never seen before. We immediately mounted up and rode our horses 3 miles to the nest. With great anticipation, we awaited the bird’s arrival at the nest tree. Within a few minutes, the unmistakable male Williamson’s sapsucker landed at the nest cavity to feed the young. He was soon followed by the female. It was difficult to contain my excitement. I am certain my hair (at least what I have left) stood up on end when I first saw them. We enjoyed photographing these very trusting birds in the followings days. I am glad my passion for birds has continued for all of these years. If I tend to mention birds a bit too much in this book, please forgive me.

You’ll notice we used our horses to visit the Williamson’s sapsucker nest. We commonly use horses to reach remote backcountry locations to take nature photographs. Horses are an efficient and quiet way to explore the backcountry. Wildlife tends to be much less afraid of humans mounted on horses. A remote waterfall such as Union Falls, considered by many to be the most beautiful waterfalls in Yellowstone National Park, is an easy 16-mile round-trip day ride on horses. These wonderful animals make it possible to explore and photograph in places that would be difficult and time consuming to reach on foot. I believe horses are greatly underutilized by nature photographers today. If you love remote places, do consider using horses to reach them.

My interest in nature is broad. In addition to birds, I really enjoy photographing wildflowers (especially orchids), butterflies, amphibians, reptiles, mammals, frost, dew, fruits, ferns, autumn color, and natural landscapes. Since I live near Yellowstone National Park, I commonly photograph geysers and confess to being a geyser gazer.

I began my photo career with the old Canon FD system which performed well for many years. When Canon introduced their new EOS system, I had to buy all new lenses to go with the new lens mount on the EOS camera body. Since I had to buy everything, I decided to switch to Nikon and shot that system quite successfully for a decade. Eventually, Canon made a series of tilt–shift lenses that included 24 mm, 45 mm, and 90 mm focal lengths. These lenses offered tilt–shift capability in 35 mm format. I shot 4 × 5 view cameras at the time and knew what tilt and shift controls could do for me. I soon bought all three of these lenses and an inexpensive EOS body to shoot them on. Eventually, I bought more and more Canon EOS gear until I finally sold all of my Nikon equipment and went with the Canon EOS system which I continue to happily use today.

You might be surprised to hear that Barbara shoots the Nikon system. She started out with Nikon and continues to love it. It works very well for her and is a fine system. We shoot two different camera systems for some important reasons. First, if you were to ask each of us which system is best, you would get two different answers. Second, shooting two systems gives us access to the best each system has to offer. Third, we teach numerous photography workshops and lead photo tours throughout the year. The vast majority of our clients shoot either Nikon or Canon, especially now that nature photography has embraced digital so it is easy to help them with equipment problems.

Since we shoot the Nikon and Canon systems, it is not surprising that we mention equipment from both manufacturers throughout the book. Nikon and Canon are companies that invest a lot of research dollars into developing their digital camera systems. We love seeing new lenses and camera bodies coming out at regular intervals and having lots of choices. While we have a preference for Nikon and Canon, it doesn’t mean the other systems aren’t good too. Certainly Sony, Pentax, Samsung, Olympus, and Sigma make fine products too. But, they don’t make as many lenses and camera bodies so your choices are fewer.

I remember what Marvin Dembinsky, one of my stock agents, had to say about me decades ago. After reviewing some of my latest images for inclusion in his files, he said, “you sure are driven.” I suspect that he was correct. I started taking nature photographs when I was a teenager. My passion for exploring natural areas and photographing the unique objects I found there burned like a white-hot torch. It still does many decades later! With the powerful tools and capabilities digital capture offers today, my enthusiasm for nature photography is as hot as ever. Digital has energized the nature photography field. So many new ways are now possible for taking wonderful nature images that were not available in the film era. Only now are nature photographers beginning to utilize all the new tools that are available to the digital photographer.

I hope you’ll enjoy this book. I am writing it with the same passion I have for going outdoors and making nature images. I love teaching photography just as much as taking my own photos. Perhaps that’s why our photographic workshops and tours have been so successful over the years. My goal in every workshop is to help my clients take some of the finest nature images they have ever done. That is my goal for this book. I want to help you master those key factors that make it easy to consistently shoot outstanding images. Everyone can learn to take excellent nature images shot after shot. But, you do need to buy some equipment and develop superb shooting habits.

You’ll notice this book stresses field techniques and strategies that produce excellent images. The content is intended to help you shoot the best possible images in the camera, not to show you how to “fix-it” later with software. I am no computer wizard, though Barbara is a borderline computer nerd. If you want a book on the digital darkroom, this isn’t the book for you. There are plenty of other books that cover that very topic. Fortunately, my editors at Focal Press have encouraged me to write a book that emphasizes my strength which is shooting original images in the field.

For years, I avoided trying to get a book contract because I was afraid that it would require me to spend too much time on the computer which is time I wouldn’t be spending outdoors. My fears turned out to be well founded. Writing a book does take more hours then you could believe. However, I enjoyed the process immensely and hope this book inspires others to perfect their own nature photography skills.

I wish you the best of luck as you explore digital nature photography. With enough effort, you’ll be successful and the discoveries you make in the natural world will fill your heart with fond memories!