My Annual Long Weekend Feeble Attempt At Photographing Wildlife; I Chose Full Frame This Year

Bald Eagle; Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge, Maryland (click to enlarge)
Nikon D850; Tamron 150-600mm f/5-6.3 G2 lens @ 600mm; 1/1000th sec. @ f/8; ISO 450

Last weekend was the weekend two of my photography friends and I decided we would travel to Virginia's and Maryland's Eastern Shore to make images of wildlife, migrating birds, birds in flight, wading birds, shore birds and any other living thing with two or more legs wading in, flying over or standing near water!  My two companions are primarily bird and wildlife photographers and I just dabble in it to test my patience and work on an opportunity to increase my feeble skills.  We now have made this trip many, many years and continue to enjoy the experience.  On a down note, 2 other friends who normally make this annual outing with us, a husband and wife couple, couldn't make it and were sorely missed.  As good as the long weekend was, it would have been better if they had joined us.

That being said, these kinds of trips are as much about friends getting together and sharing a common experience as it is about making photographs.  It would be the same if we were going fishing, hunting, antiquing, traveling Route 66 or any other activity where friends share time together.  Ours happens to be wildlife and bird photography.  However, that doesn't mean I don't keep my eyes open for anything of interest that crosses my path that I think might make an interesting image.

We all arrived separately on Friday morning.  Of course, it was raining lightly and rained and misted off and on the rest of the day.  Later in the afternoon, the fog rolled in.  Along the ocean front in Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge the wind was blowing onshore and it was a cold, cutting wind.  Is that bad?  Not at all.  As I have mentioned many times, bad weather can be a perfect formula for good photography.  Mid Saturday morning everything changed.  It was still a bit rainy when daylight first broke but it soon ended and the sun came out by 9 a.m.  Sunday and Monday were the same.  Relatively mild weather and sunny all day. 

Tundra Swans; Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge, Virginia (click to enlarge)
Nikon D850; Tamron 150-600mm f/5-6.3 G2 lens @ 600mm; 1/1000th sec. @ f/8; ISO 560

We try to time our yearly visits to catch the snow geese migrating south along the Atlantic Flyway.  It seems each year fewer and fewer stop in Chincoteague.  A couple of years ago, one of the rangers speculated that because of successive severe storms over a few years that caused a lot of damage to the ponds in which the geese rest, the damage might have caused the snow geese to stop elsewhere.  I think he is right.  We did see probably a total of 5000 snow geese but the majority of them were out of range for photography.  The ones that were close enough, whether flying or on the ground, were photographed.

There are many species of waterfowl, migrating birds, shore birds, wading birds, raptors and wildlife other than birds also at Chincoteague.  But, again, it seems they get more and more scare each year.

On past trips, I've taken a variety of cameras.  Over the past few years, I've taken my Olympus M4/3 and my Fujifilm APS-C cameras with long lenses.  This year I decided to do something different for specific reasons.  Last year I calculated the percentage of in-focus images I made with both the Fujifilm and Olympus gear.  Would a Nikon D850 along with a Tamron 150-600mm f/4-6.3 G2 lens increase my success rate?  I wanted to know.  

Snow goose on watch; Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge, Virginia (click to enlarge)
Nikon D850; Tamron 150-600mm f/5-6.3 G2 lens @ 600mm; 1/800th sec. @ f/8; ISO 2200 

Also, since the light is marginal early in the morning, late in the evening this time of year as well as when it is heavily overcast and/or raining coupled with a requirement to use a very high shutter speed to freeze the birds in flight, a very high ISO is necessary in these situations.  For past trips, I have been keenly aware of the digital noise in my files at ISO 4000 to 6400.  This year I wanted to see if using a Nikon D850 would result in lower digital noise at these high ISOs considering it is a full frame format.

What did I discover?  We traveled to 3 different wildlife refuges and I made a couple of short side trips to photograph non-wildlife subjects.  I made a total of 1660 images over 4 days.  Of those about 135 were not in sharp focus.  That is about a 92% in-focus success rate.  On my previous trip my calculations for my Olympus and Fujifilm gear were 66% and 54% in focus respectively.  Last trip had the same subjects but a bit better weather conditions than this year.  My skill level is the same.  The geography is the same.  Everything but the weather during one of the days and the camera and lens used was the same.  I have to say that going from last year’s success rate to 92% is remarkable.  Score one for the big Nikon and its best in class focusing system.

Great Blue Heron at the end of the day. Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge, Virginia (click to enlarge)
Nikon D850; Tamron 150-600mm f/5-6.3 G2 lens @ 450mm; 1/800th sec. @ f/5.6; ISO 64

The images not in sharp focus this year usually fell into the category of trying to photograph those little uncooperative Bufflehead ducks which would swim back and forth the opposite way from which I was trying to photograph them.  I would move one way, they would move the other.  I moved the other way, they moved back.  Couple that with the fact that they are mostly black with white cheeks (or a white head) and place them in a shadowy canal and success was minimal.  Most of those were not sharp.  Those little buffleheads are about as frustrating as the kingfishers.  Both are so shy it is hard to get anywhere near them, even with a 600mm lens, to make images.  You just have to keep at it.

Another area where I found images that were not sharply focused is when I would take a series of images of, say, geese flying overhead.  I found sometimes the first shot in the series was not tack sharp.  I credit this to me pushing the shutter before the camera fully locked on to my subject.  The rest of the series was usually fine.  Also, almost all of the images of the waterfowl in a static or slow moving ground position were sharp.

As far as digital noise, I don't see a whole lot of difference in the digital noise I found with my Olympus and Fujifilm gear versus the Nikon D850 at ISO 6400.  The noise, when looking at an unedited RAW file at 100% was pretty objectionable in all three systems.  I haven't yet had time to try the new Topaz DeNoise AI on those files but will in the next week or so and report back.

Young male Sika elk; Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge, Virginia (click to enlarge)
Nikon D850; Tamron 150-600mm f/5-6.3 G2 lens @ 240mm; 1/800th sec. @ f/8; ISO 6400

I found working again with an optical viewfinder tedious as compared to an electronic viewfinder (EVF).  Very inconvenient.  I did not like it at all!  I don't care to use one in the future either.  I'm spoiled by EVFs, I guess.  The optical viewfinder does not reflect the level of exposure as does an EVF so I found myself often times making a test image, then looking at the histogram before continuing on.  In fast moving situations it was impossible to make test images and I found that many of my images were not optimally exposed—some were either properly exposed for the scene but the white feathers of the birds was blown out.  Others were underexposed but the white feathers held their detail.  They needed either some positive or negative exposure adjustment using exposure compensation.  I should also say that the entire weekend, I used manual exposure and Auto ISO.  That system work admirably and I set my cameras this way most of the time now.

One feature I did appreciate having on the D850 was the ability, at the push of a button, to change focusing points and patterns.  I programmed the two buttons on the front of the camera for each to switch to a different focusing pattern at the push of the button.  I set the camera to a single focusing point as default since most of my subjects were anticipated to be static and I could place the single point over the animal’s eye.  If, all of a sudden, I spotted a moving bird or animal that was difficult to track with a single point, I pushed the top front button and the pattern changed to Group, a 5-point pattern.  A push of the bottom button would bring up a 21-point pattern.  I found this very convenient and used it often.  I think this ability increased my in-focus success rate.

The 47mp files of the D850 are huge!  I've never filled a card in one day before but I did fill a 120gb XQD card on this trip.  Couple that with working with huge files in Lightroom, which is slower than with cropped sensor files and the large files, while nice, are just too large for my purposes.

Snowy egrets; Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge, Virginia (click to enlarge)
Nikon D850; Tamron 150-600mm f/5-6.3 G2 lens @ 600mm; 1/800th sec. @ f/8; ISO 2800

I did not enjoy the bulk and weight of the full frame system.  In anticipation of using the D850 and the Tamron lens, I actually lifted weights for a few weeks before the trip to strengthen my arm and shoulder muscles as I knew that I would be handholding this large heavy combination out in front of me and I wanted to ensure that holding that much weight straight out from my body didn't cause my arms to start to get shaky.  The weight lifting worked.  I did fine but I never have had to do that with Olympus or Fujifilm gear.

Finally, I can't see myself ever buying another DSLR for all of the reasons above, but mainly because of the lack of EVF.  I can't explain in words what a negative difference that made in my photographic experience.  It was just frustrating not knowing you nailed proper exposure before pressing the shutter button.

My notion is that if Olympus' and Fujifilm's next generation of sensors and image processors can get the focus capabilities to the next level—close to the Nikon's—I think those improvements will make full frame irrelevant in my opinion.  Comparable lenses already exist (with some very long telephoto exceptions), the feature list is more comprehensive, the digital noise difference is minimal with the new AI noise reducing software, the weight and bulk is less and the prices of the smaller sensor gear is less.  To me, focusing capabilities is the only relevant different to me.

Snow geese in protection mode; Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge, Virginia; (click to enlarge)
Nikon D850; Tamron 150-600mm f/5-6.3 G2 lens @ 600mm; 1/800th sec. @ f/8; ISO 1600

Great Blue Heron; Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge, Virginia; (click to enlarge)
Nikon D850; Tamron 150-600mm f/5-6.3 G2 lens @ 600mm; 1/1000th sec. @ f/6.3; ISO 6400

Belted Kingfisher; Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge, Virginia; (click to enlarge)
Nikon D850; Tamron 150-600mm f/5-6.3 G2 lens @ 400mm; 1/800th sec. @ f/8; ISO 6400

One of the famous Chincoteague wild ponies; Assateague National Seashore, Maryland (click to enlarge)
Nikon Z7; Nikon 25-70mm f/4 S lens @ 70mm; 1/500th sec. @ f/11; ISO 400

DelMarVa Fox Squirrel; Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge, Virginia; (click to enlarge)
Nikon D850; Tamron 150-600mm f/5-6.3 G2 lens @ 380mm; 1/800th sec. @ f/6.3; ISO 6400

Cattle egret; Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge, Virginia; (click to enlarge)
Nikon D850; Tamron 150-600mm f/5-6.3 G2 lens @ 600mm; 1/800th sec. @ f/8; ISO 5000

Great Blue Heron; Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge, Virginia; (click to enlarge)
Nikon D850; Tamron 150-600mm f/5-6.3 G2 lens @ 600mm; 1/800th sec. @ f/6.3; ISO 280

Great White egret; Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge, Virginia; (click to enlarge)
Nikon D850; Tamron 150-600mm f/5-6.3 G2 lens @ 600mm; 1/1000th sec. @ f/8; ISO 1800

Certainly nothing portfolio worthy in any of the images I made.  As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, I made a feeble attempt at capturing wildlife.  Additionally, the wildlife moving through the Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge in early winter is sparse compared to many years ago.  Many of the species I photographed years ago no longer are seen.  But, nonetheless, it was a memorable and very pleasurable weekend.

Since the rainy foggy weather was good for landscape images, I seized the opportunity to make a few of those along with the wildlife images.  I'll have those for you next week.

Join me over at Instagram @dennisamook or my website, www.dennismook.com. 

Thanks for looking. Enjoy! 

Dennis A. Mook 

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