Merritt Island Wildlife Refuge is now full of ducks (northern shovelers,pintails,american wigeons and blue winged teals), roseate spoonbills, kingfishers, and the like. The trick is getting them in the right light. Black Point Drive seemed to have most of the action this past weekend. The early morning or late afternoon light is so much better!
The Viera Wetlands still has numerous nesting great blue herons. The crested caracaras and bald eagles are being seen regularly catching their meals on the 100’s of coots that have populated the wetlands. The early morning light proved to be wonderful for the great blue herons and feeding bald eagle. A little bit of cloud cover or darkened sky make for nice surrounds, but will force you to use higher iso’s, to get enough shutter speed to catch the action.
Remember the secret to using higher iso’s, without the added noise, is to expose to the right of the histogram. Just dial in a bit of plus exposure compensation, either by the exposure compensation dial, if using aperture priority mode, or if using manual exposure, moving into the plus side of the exposure scale at the bottom of your view finder.
Take a few test shots looking at the histogram each time to make sure the exposure is showing at least to the middle of the right side. This type of information is all included in my workshops. For more information please see my website, http://www.naturesportal.net/.
Nancy Elwood
Nancy Elwood is a Florida based professional nature and wildlife photographer. Her interest in the natural world started as a child reading and watching National Geographic. After graduating from Florida State University School of Nursing, she developed her interest in photography travelling with several National Geographic photographers to Africa, Antarctica and the Falkland Islands. With them she started to hone her skills in capturing natures wonders through a camera lens. Nancy now, when not in the field, shows her work in juried art shows and runs photography workshops.
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