Black & Yellow Crowned Night Herons.

It has been a wet month here on the west coast of Florida.  As a matter of fact it is thundering and threatening at this very moment.  With all of the standing water in the Park I am seeing birds in places that I have never seen them before.  This week on a couple of occasions I spotted a pair of Black Crowned Night Herons.  I have never seen them there before.

Black Crowned Night Heron

Interestingly I always have seen Yellow Crowned Night Heron in the Park.  But, since the rain they have disappeared.  Do you think that the Yellow Crowned Night Herons and The Black Crowned Night Herons are having a turf war?  I guess only time will tell.

Yellow Crowned Night Heron

On my walks through the Park I always carry my Canon G1x camera.  This camera only zooms to 105mm making it really difficult to get sharp bird shots.I definitely don't want to get so near  that I stress the bird out. However, my shooting with this camera generally results in noisy unusable images. I feel pretty good about the shots above.   I am making some comparisons for a replacement for this camera with a longer zoom and better Macro capabilities.  

-More later...

Tahiti and The French Society Islands

Lynn and I recently returned from a 2 week trip to Tahiti and The French Society Islands.  I thought that you might like to see the slide show that I produced from this exotic trip.

Packing for Tahiti Trip

Shortly we  will be flying to Papeete, Tahiti for our two week trip around French Polynesia.  Our trip includes spending a few days before and after our cruise at the Intercontinental Hotel in Papeete.  That is one of the hotels that features exotic  bungalows over the water.  They are expensive...so we opted to just spend one night in that type of accommodation and the remainder in more reasonable rooms.  This is a trip that Lynn has wanted to do for at least 5 years.  And something (usually Africa!) always has gotten in the way.  Not this time though!  We heard about the trip and within 30 minutes we were booked.  Our ship is the Paul Gauguin...a small ship (Only 300+ passengers).  Highlights of the trip are snorkeling opportunities and 4 wheel drive trips on the islands.   I will be spending one day  with a local professional photographer, Renaud Sayada.  I assume that we will be taking landscape and nature photos.

We are packing light.  For camera gear this time I am abandoning my heavy Nikon DSLRs for a lighter micro 4/3 package.  I recently bought the Olympus OM-D EM-5 with two lenses a 12-50mm and a 50-150mm lens,  I think that this should be sufficient.  I also purchased the Olympus TGH point and shoot, waterproof camera for underwater shots.  I have never photographed underwater before so this will be a new and I hope fun experience.  I also will be taking my Canon G1X camera for general shooting.  I have included a photo  that I took last year in a dimly lit restaurant in New York City with the G1X in low light at ISO 3200 with this camera.  The resolution that this camera delivers is amazing.  I only wish that Canon would either upgrade the camera or come up with new firmware for this camera.  It suffers when used for macro photography..

More later...