Monat: Mai 2020

Look, how big I am!

,
Chris Renk

Day 56 of my 365 Photo Challenge.

Today I revisited our local lake to check whether the swan chicks had already arrived. Unfortunately, the Swan Female was still sitting in their nest and no signs of the swan offspring.

Instead, the male swan was very active in exploring its surroundings for additional food sources.

He did not show any scariness at all and willingly posed in front of my camera.

I hope it will be the same when the little chicks arrived.

It is not funny to be attacked by a male swan, trying to protect its offspring from assumed enemies!

Moving Sky

, ,
Chris Renk

Day 55 of my 365 Photo Challenge.

After concentrating on nature and landscape photography in the past days, I decided to shoot an object in the urban area.

Because of the fantastic cloud drawing in the sky, I had the idea to include the Oskar-von-Miller Tower of the Technical University of Munich in the photo again. As a meteorological measuring tower, it offered itself as a foreground for the fast-moving clouds.

A polarization filter and a 10 stop neutral-grey filter were used. Thereby I could extend the exposure time to 3 minutes to capture the movements in the cloud layers.

I hope you agree with me that the cloud play is impressive!

Awaiting food delivery

,
Chris Renk

Day 54 of my 365 Photo Challenge.

It is always fascinating to see how much effort birds put into nest building to give their young a protective home.

The young birds are the offspring of a pair of dippers.

The nest was located in the area of a rock face near a stream.

Just observing the young birds and their parents were so much fun that taking pictures became a minor matter.

Abandoned Places

, ,
Chris Renk

Day 53 of my 365 Photo Challenge.

Today I revisited the Kiental near Kloster Andechs, because, during my last visit, I came across this abandoned building, which reminded me somehow of Aztec ruins in one of the old Indian Jones movies.

So I decided to come back and get it framed.

The dark ambient light and the illuminated canopy of the trees created this extraordinary atmosphere, which really emphasized the ruin.

The reflections in the river additionally underlined the thin atmosphere.

I took the picture with my Nikkor 14-24mm wide-angle lens. I also used a polarization filter and a 0.9 neutral grey filter.

To find the correct white balance was quite challenging since the lighting was coming from multiple directions and sources.
In the end, the image works quite well, and

I hope you will tell me what you see or interpret in the scene!

Cinclus cinclus

,
Chris Renk

Day 52 of my 365 Photo Challenge.

Today I had the luck to get a dipper in front of the lens for the first time.

Actually, I wanted to take another waterfall today, but due to the low water level, it was hardly visible.

All the more I was happy to watch the dippers feeding their chicks.

In the beginning, they were worried about my presence, but they got used to me and continued with their feeding activities.

What a pity that the light conditions were so harsh in the gorge. Therefore I had to take pictures with a high ISO number. Nevertheless, the photo turned out well!

Have fun looking at the dipper!

Andechser Waterfall

, ,
Chris Renk

Day 51 of my 365 Photo Challenge.

Finally an extended tour in the foothills of the Alps again. This time I set out to photograph a waterfall near Kloster Andechs.

Since I did not know the exact location of the waterfall, I had to search the riverbed along the river Kienbach for a length of 5km. It took me almost 3 hours.

Fortunately, there was still enough daylight.

For the photo, I used a polarizing filter and a 0.9 ND filter. I also used my GITZO tripod and my MC-36 Remote Trigger.

It is a pity that the waterfall had a low altitude of water due to an extended reasonable weather period! For sure, I will revisit the fall after a rainy day.

I hope you like the picture.

Rosa rubiginosa

,
Chris Renk

Day 50 of my 365 Photo Challenge.

Today I took the opportunity of a small weather improvement to photograph the remaining spring flowers again. Initially, I planned to take more pictures of wildlife in the local floodplains, but due to the approaching rain, I had only a short time window.

It was so short that I didn’t even find the time to change the lens. So I had to use my Nikon 200-500mm f5.6 lens to take this shot of the sweetbriar rose freehand.

It was a bit surprising how sharp the image became in the end.

Now I just have to get used to the relatively long distance for the close-up limit of the lens, then the photos succeed right at the beginning.

I wish you all a peaceful start to the week.

Fulica atra

,
Chris Renk

Day 49 of my 365 Photo Challenge.

Another day at our local lake. After the weather was still very stormy in the morning, it cleared up towards the afternoon, and the sun came out more and more behind the thick rain clouds.

So I grabbed my bike and set off. Fortunately, the rush was limited, and only a few visitors made their rounds around the lake. This left me enough space to concentrate on the wildlife and plants on and around the lake.

Today I dealt with the coots. Since there are already enough pictures of coots on the water, I tried to take photos of them on land. This one was not shy at all and grazed peacefully while I was looking for the best composition and angle. 

Since I was photographing freehand, I manually selected the aperture and shutter speed. To avoid blurring, I set the shutter speed to 1/640 sec. For a soft background, I utilised an aperture of F5.6. Only for the ISO value, I used the automatic of my Nikon D850. 

I had thought for a long time about which Super-Tele I should buy and I thought about buying a Nikon 600mm lens. 

After intensive online research, I decided to buy a Nikon 200-500mm 5.6 VR, and I don’t regret it at all. For the price of 1048,- Euro (400 Euro cashback offer) you can’t buy a better lens with such advantages.

Have fun looking at the coot!

Being lonely

,
Chris Renk

Day 48 of my 365 Photo Challenge.

The motive of the day was a poppy flower, which bloomed lonely in the middle of a field.

Its red colour makes it easy to focus the eyes of the viewer on the red flower!

For you the 3 guidelines for a good photo:

  1. know your subject
  2. draw attention to the subject
  3. simplify

In this case, the flower was the subject. I drew attention to it by following the rule of thirds and placing the poppy on one of the intersections.

Then I simplified the scene by using an open aperture to blur the background.

Besides, I applied the selective sharpness to the blossom of the poppy flower.

So go ahead and show me your implementation of the 3 guidelines!

Have fun with it!

Basic Instincts

,
Chris Renk

Day 47 of my 365 Photo Challenge.

Today I went on a tour along the river Amber in the area of the city of Fürstenfeldbruck. On this tour, I encountered a variety of wild birds as well as plants and insects. My favourite picture of today shows a pair of ladybirds, closely entwined during mating.

I must admit that this is the first time for me to observe a pair of ladybirds mating. It wasn’t easy to get a sharp picture of the two of them, because the male ladybird was making a significant effort!

In the end, I was lucky again!