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Birds in Nature - images of wild birds by Richard Ditch |
I've been looking at birds and taking their photographs
since the early 1970's, when I caught the birding bug from a friend
at work. I've had no formal training in either ornithology or
photography and have picked up what I know about each through
reading, people I've met, or trial and error.
I was very active as a birder when I lived in New Jersey (1970-1994),
maintaining lists of all the birds I saw each year in the state and
elsewhere. I was a volunteer and field trip leader at the Owl Haven
Nature Center; part of the New Jersey Audubon Society (NJAS). I was a
member of the Board of Directors for NJAS for many years and a
frequent contributor to the quarterly magazine and to Records of
New Jersey Birds. I participated in three annual Christmas Bird
Counts (CBCs) each year: Sandy Hook. Long Branch; and Assunpink.
I taught a few photography courses for NJAS at the Owl Haven center,
and developed a lot of the tutorial on
this site as part of the process.
I moved to Phoenix, AZ in 1994 when I changed jobs. Since the birds
are a lot different in AZ compared to those found in NJ, I went
through a rapid period of learning new species and new forms of
species I thought I knew well from the east. I joined Maricopa
Audubon Society, the Phoenix chapter of National Audubon, and quickly
got involved in local birding. I was editor of the Cactus
Wrendition, the MAS newsletter, for about 4 years. I've
participated in at least one CBC in the Phoenix area since 1994.
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A number of my record shots of rarities seen in NJ were
published in B&W in Records of New Jersey Birds. Other
images made it into articles and separate publications of NJAS.
A number of non-bird photos have been published in NJ Outdoors
and other places.
My Laughing Gulls in flight image took
third place in a contest sponsored by American Birds, and
appeared in the September 1982 issue.
A two-page
spread of my work appeared in the March 1988 issue of
Audubon magazine, published by the National Audubon Society
under the title A License to Bird. The subject of this essay
was birder vanity license plates taken at birding hotspots in the mid
Atlantic states. I still photograph these plates whenever I encounter
one, and my collection is over 150 now. Some day I will try to add
them to this web site.
One image from a series of Eastern
Screech Owl photos was published in the June 1993 issue of
Birding, the journal of the American Birding Association.
Western
Birds, Vol. 28, 1997, used my Eared
Trogon for the cover.
One of my Laughing Gull images was used in a field guide authored by
Kenn Kaufman.
A shot of a female Anna's Hummingbird feeding at a sapsucker hole was
used in Hummingbirds of North America, Sheri L. Williamson,
Houghton Mifflin, 2001.
My Spotted Towhee appears in the new photo
guide to sparrows by Jim Rising and David Beadle.
Four images (Black-crowned Night Heron,
Loggerhead Shrike, Greater Roadrunner,
Burrowing Owl) appear in Michael J.
Rupp's Birds-eye Guide to 101 Birding Sities (Phoenix).
A Costa's Hummingbird image was used in the Ultimate Desert
Handbook by Mark Johnson.
Details on the major
book publications are available.
Other bird photos are pending publication.
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This site is about birds and bird photography, so it is
image intensive. Each image is a jpeg file with a maximum size of 600
pixels on the longest side, and a file size ranging from 52 KB to 192
KB. Most are in the 85-100 KB range. Each image page contains
information about the bird, the photo equipment used, and the film
selected.
Each image can be accessed from three separate lists: one alphabetic,
one by location, and one in taxonomic or checklist order. Use
whatever suits your tastes, or mix and match. The images and text you
see will be the same. I've not loaded up these selection lists with
thumbnail images to save page loading time, so you'll have to try
each link to see what the image looks like.
I've included a tutorial page that covers most of the topics any bird
photographer might be interested in. This material is, of course, all
my own opinion based on many years of experience. As with any
information source, you may trust me, test what I say on your own,
find other material that contradicts me, or ignore me completely. I
encourage you to gather input from other sources and try things for
yourself.
I've separated out the most controversial views and put them in a
separate area labeled Rants and
Raves.
All the material presented here was put together for other purposes
over time. By collecting it at this single location I find it
reinforces a basic philosophy I've been following all this time, and
that theme is embodied in the banner at the top of every page
here.
I see birds as part of nature, and want to photograph them as part of nature, and show them as part of nature. A bird removed from its natural environment is somehow incomplete and artificial in my view, so I try to show the habitat and environment that is so much a part of the evolution of that species.
All images and text are copyright by the author,
Richard Ditch, and cannot be used in any way without written
permission to do so. Please respect the property and creative rights
of others and do not violate the law.
This is my first attempt at creating a web site, and I've put it
together on an iMac computer using Claris Home Page software. On my
iMac it is best viewed as a screen resolution of 800x600 (see the
Monitors control panel on your Mac if needed), and using current
versions of Netscape or Internet Explorer. Macs and Windows PCs vary
somewhat in screen brightness and contrast settings, and I really
don't know how the images on this site will look if you are a Windows
user.
My design goals have been simple: show my images to best advantage,
and make it easy to see the photos and read my comments. I see no
reason to make the site overly complicated or loaded with trendy
gimmicks as I personally find such sites extremely annoying. I have
not hard-wired the font and leave that decision to the viewer;
however, I recommend Verdana if available on your computer.
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I've used Nikon cameras and lenses since just after I
started in photography in the early 1970's. I have slowly upgraded my
gear from manual focus cameras and lenses to mostly auto focus gear
today. But I still have a few manual focus lenses (macro and wide
angle) that I still use on my AF bodies.
Most of the bird images on this site were made with one of two
setups. Prior to 1998 I used a manual focus Nikkor EDIF 400 mm f/5.6
lens with a matched 1.4x teleconverter (the TC14), for an effective
focal length of 560 mm and a maximum aperture of f/8. This was a
lightweight and compact setup that was easy to use and easy to travel
with, but the effective aperture was a bit limiting. In 1998 I made
the expensive upgrade to better AF bodies, a Nikkor 300/2.8 AF-S
lens, and matched AF converters (TC14E and TC20E). I use the 300/2.8
with the TC20E (2x) for an AF 600/5.6 lens that close-focuses under
10 feet. It is a great lens, and I'd have a lot of trouble going back
to only MF.
My tripod is a Bogen 3021, with a video fluid type head. It is about
as small and cheap as anyone should go with a 600/5.6 lens.
When I started in photography, I shot as much B&W film as color,
but today I use only slide film. I moved up from Kodachrome 64
through various offerings of Fujichrome. I've tried higher speed film
(Kodachrome 200, Kodak E200, Fuji Sensia 200 and 400), but keep
coming back to ISO 100 film. I like Fuji Sensia 100 or Provia 100F
now, and push the Provia to 200 or 320 if I need more speed.
For film processing, I was very happy with the Kodak (now Kodalux or
Qualux) lab in Fair Lawn, NJ, when I lived there. Now that I shoot
Fujichrome and live in AZ, I sometimes use the Fuji lab in Phoenix
(via prepaid mailers), but their turn around time can be slow. Most
of the time I hand deliver my film to the Image Craft lab in Phoenix,
where I've always received excellent results for both their 24 hour
and their 3 hour service, and where push processing is done at no
additional charge.
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All images were shot on 35 mm film and scanned with a
film scanner. Two images on this site (Pied-billed
Grebe, Greater Roadrunner) were
made with a very modest and low resolution scanner from PrimeFilm
called the 1800i. I replaced this with a Minolta Dimage Scan Dual II
when it became available with Mac drivers so that I could get better
resolution and better dynamic range. Scans were made at the highest
optical resolution (2880 dpi) and saved in TIFF format.
All images have been processed (color and contrast adjusted to match
the slide or the scene) using Adobe Photo Shop LE in TIFF format,
then reduced in size and saved as the jpeg files seen here.
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