Mallards of Humber Bay Park

Mallard (drake)
Nikon D800, Nikon 200-500mm VR Lens @ 460mm
ISO 400, f8 @ 1/640 sec.

About one week ago I made a trip down to Humber Bay Park on the Lake Ontario shoreline in Toronto to see which waterfowl have shown up to over-winter at this location. Unfortunately, it was a rather quiet day without too much activity, however, the usual assortment of Mallards were hanging around. I was hoping to have an opportunity to try out the Nikon 200-500mm VR Lens on ducks in flight, but as I said it was a quiet day and the ducks were not being overly active. With the Mallard ducks it is very easy to lure them in for images – all you need to do is make a throwing motion with your arm as though you are throwing feed into the water for them and they will immediately swim in your direction – without fail.

I never pass up an opportunity to photograph the common wildlife subjects. We tend to pass up the chance to photograph the common species because they are too common. These species make great subjects to practice and improve technique, test new equipment, try new things, teach the younger generations about wildlife, etc…the list is endless and do note that elsewhere in the world they are not so common. Enjoying what we have at our doorstep can be very inspiring 🙂

Here is a few photos of the Mallard ducks created with the new Nikon 200-500mm VR lens. On another note, these images were created with the Nikon 200-500mm VR Lens firmly mounted to a Wimberley Sidekick, which I will be reviewing in an up-coming blog post soon.

Please click on each image to view the larger, sharper version.

Mallard (hen)
Nikon D800, Nikon 200-500mm VR Lens @ 320mm
ISO 800, f8 @ 1/320 sec

 

Mallard (drake)
Nikon D800, Nikon 200-500mm VR Lens @ 500mm
ISO 800, f8 @ 1/640 sec.

 

Mallard (hen)
Nikon 200-500mm VR Lens @ 500mm
ISO 800, f8 @ 1/500 sec.

 

Mallard (drake) – up-close & personal
Nikon D800, Nikon 200-500mm VR Lens @ 500mm
ISO 800, f8 @ 1/200 sec.

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Creative Frog Renderings & Topaz Glow

American Toad (Bufo americanus)
Artistic Rendering using Topaz Labs Glow – Glow Wire Preset

I have been very busy over the last few weeks with print sales, writing projects, and household renovations. Each of the images in this post have had an artistic rendering applied to them by using the Photoshop plug-in Glow by Topaz Labs. To check out various examples of what this great plug-in is capable of doing please have a look at the Topaz website by clicking here. I was very hesitant to give Topaz Glow a try when it was first released several months ago because I was so accustomed to using the Fractalius plug-in available from Redfield Plugins, however, with the release of the newest version of Fractalius I was very disappointed and found it virtually impossible to create my most favorite frog fracts that I used to do. With Topaz Glow I feel that my artistic frog imagery has been given new life and that I am able to create effects that I was never able to create with the Fractalius software. I was able to create a couple of nice custom settings with the new version of Fractalius, but do feel that I will revert to my older versions for my most favorite custom presets that were featured in the eBook Fractastic, which I co-wrote with the very talented Denise Ippolito.

Please click on each of the images to view the larger, sharper version and let me know what you think of these Topaz Glow amphibian creations 🙂

American Toad (Bufo americanus)
Artistic Rendering using Topaz Labs Glow – Fur & Feathers II Preset

 

Bullfrog (Rana catesbeiana)
Artistic Rendering using Topaz Labs Glow – Heavy Metal Preset

 

Amazon Milk Frog (Trachycephalus resinifictrix)
Artistic Rendering using Topaz Labs Glow – Fur & Feathers II Preset

 

Bullfrog (Rana catesbeiana)
Artistic Rendering using Topaz Labs Glow – Glow Wire Preset

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