I made the trip back home yesterday. For a change, I found some very co-operative birds and the weather for the most part was fairly decent. My first lucky find was the Bald Eagle who had been sharing a brunch on White-tailed Deer with a few un-cooperative Ravens. This guy flew up into a snag behind the carcass and seemed content to let me get a few shots of him. About an hour later, I saw what I thought was a grocery bag way up in a poplar tree. I had been speaking with a friend just yesterday who has been actively shooting Snowy Owls, but so far I have not seen a one. I pulled over, and sure enough thats what it was. I stomped out into the hay field and got pretty much underneath this fellow before he decided to leave. It was a good trip.

The weather here in NE BC has been absolutely horrible this past few weeks. On the rare accession that the sun pokes its head out I always seem to be previously occupied or not ready to shoot. On the subject of the latter, I have been getting some excellent advise from some of the talented members of BPN forums on long lens issues when shooting in cold weather. My suspicions were true, although I had no idea how problematic it can really be. One gentleman from New Brunswick went so far as to say he gets "universally poor results" trying to get grab shots from a warm vehicle such as I was trying. I went a step further than some of the suggestions on testing and kept a record of how long it took for the lens to "equilibrate" (learned some new words, too!) I set up a shot outdoors at a stationary subject and shot every five minutes until I saw the images clearly and not appearing to get any clearer. For my situation, in a modest -10c environment, it seemed that 1/2 an hour was sufficient. (I am going to repeat the test on a beanbag as the tripod and gimbal head still displayed some movement in the wind. This made it difficult to see when the shimmer was gone thru live view at maximum zoom)
As for a photo for today, I'm sure that no one wants to see spider lens cal shot thru heat shimmer, so I'll post another RedPoll, I'm sure my wife-and the cat-will be thrilled.

Well, my daughter Syd and I finally caught up with the Bohemian Waxwings in town the other day. My Mom had called to say they were swarming her backyard, but by the time we got into town (I was scouting a new eagle watching location-more to follow on that once calving season starts) they had moved on. Syd and I hopped in the truck, and after 15 or 20 minutes found a good sized flock(?) behind the Catholic church. They aren't overly nervous birds, and seemed fairly content to stay put as I sneaked up on them-at least as sneaky as one can be with 15 pounds of glass and camera on a tripod.
If you've not seen a waxwing, you're missing out on one of the most colourful and beautiful birds in western Canada. Here's a quick preview:

   Haven't had a chance to post much lately. It's been very hectic here. I've recently taken over the photography studio that was being leased in my wife's building here in Rimbey (the lady who had the place has opted to do some work outside of photography and didn't want to continue by herself. She going to stay on with me working out of the studio, but on her own time, and shooting what she truly loves to shoot instead of having to take whatever comes in the door to make ends meet).

   I've been sourcing out the items we need to keep this little studio running, namely lighting. The good folks at Vistek in Edmonton set me up with a great set of Elinchrom strobes with built in sky port wireless transmitters. Totally painless to set up and an absolute joy to use. While Tresa did manage to get a shoot in with the new set-up, I didn't really get a change to tough test anything yet, just some product shots for my wife's store and my daughter hamming it up in her version of "baby on a box"- the results of which you'll find below on today's post.