Winter has begun

This morning I went with my friend and colleague Marijn Heuts to his ‘local patch’. Well before sunrise we were out in the field, the light was bluish, it was pretty cold (-5°C). In the first photo you see me working on a heathland composition. In the second photo you see the result. Thanks Marijn for the pleasant ‘sub-zero’ morning and for sending me this photo (I should really buy a new cap).

* Canon EOS 5D Mark III, 70-200mm/f4 @ 200mm; ISO-100, f11, 1/6s; tripod.
* Canon EOS 5D Mark II, 17-40mm/f4 @ 17mm; ISO-200, f16, 1/2s; +0.3 stop; 2 stop ND hard gradient filter; tripod.

Crane gathering

It was easy to find Common Cranes (Grus grus/Kraanvogel) around the moors near Diepholz, Germany; there were ± 40.000 of them, making a stopover during migration to feed on the harvested corn fields. What was not so easy was to find a nice autumn setting with cranes in front of it. This photo comes close to what I pre-visualized. While I was photographing these Cranes (a few families) a lot of passing ‘Sunday-afternoon Crane- watchers’ told me to go a few km’s further east down the road: “Over 1000 Cranes are standing on a green meadow out in the open, at much closer range”. They didn’t understand why I was so stubborn to stay here at this disturbance-safe distance.

* Canon EOS 7D with 500mm/f4 IS; ISO-400, f5.6, 1/500s; -0.3 stop; tripod.