Taking Pictures in the Florida EvergladesDave Blinder captures the lush scenery and native plants and wildlife of Southern Florida with his Tamron SP 10-24mm Wide-Angle, SP 90mm VC Macro, and SP 70-300mm VC lenses. |
Article by Jenn Gidman Images by Dave Blinder |
Nature and wildlife photographer Dave Blinder loves to scout for resident insects, amphibians, and wildflowers in his home state of New Jersey, so he jumped at the opportunity to visit the natural nirvana of Southern Florida late last year. Dave visited various parts in and near the wetlands ecosystem of Everglades National Park, including Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge, Audubon's Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary, Big Cypress National Preserve, and Green Cay Nature Center and Wetlands. During his stay, he photographed everything from Hentz striped scorpions and glossy crayfish snakes to barred owls, gopher tortoises, and squirrel tree frogs. |
"I'm not really a beach or resort person, but stick me in the wilderness and I'm in heaven," Dave says. "I didn't want to come back. It's one of the most biodiverse areas in the United States. I've been to Costa Rica and Panama, and they're both very similar to the Everglades area. There really is a photograph around every corner." |
Dave brought a trio of Tamron lenses to capture the lush landscapes and diverse wildlife and plant life. "The 10-24mm is my 'take-it-all-in' lens," Dave says. "I'll use it to capture vast areas and to take pictures of wildlife in their environment. The lens focuses very close, especially at 24mm, so you can make an animal look larger than life and get that wide-angle perspective." |
The 70-300mm VC lens served as Dave's go-to telephoto lens ("the lens at 300mm is more than enough magnification for most of the wildlife in Florida"), and he used the 90mm VC lens for smaller creatures and plant life. "The 90 VC allows me to fill the frame, and the focus is very fast for tiny animals," he says. "It comes in handy when a telephoto or wide-angle lens won't let me fill the frame as much as I want to." |
The Vibration Compensation on the 70-300mm and 90mm lenses allow Dave to take pictures on the fly, especially useful when trying to capture wildlife. "I usually don't have a lot of time to set up for those shots, so I'm often shooting handheld," he explains. "This is especially true of taking pictures of butterflies or other fast-moving insects. The VC helps stabilize the viewfinder for me so I can get a clear look at the insect itself and also negates any movements of my hands, so I get a very sharp photo." |
Shooting From Sunup to Sundown |
After taking a few sunrise pictures, Dave would spend a full day interacting with nature. "I was prepared to capture anything at any given time," he says. "I knew the animals' general activity periods: The larger birds in Florida often perch in the very early morning on handrails before they fly away and start foraging out in the marshes. Reptiles and amphibians are generally inactive in the morning. You won't see the tortoises, for example, until after noon. And they move much faster than you'd think-I took a picture of one tortoise that I had to chase after as it raced back to its den."
|
When composing his animal or insect images, Dave sets them up much like he would a human portrait or fine-art composition. "I generally go with the rule of thirds," he says. "I try to fill most of the frame, with my subject a little off-center so it looks like it has room to move in its environment. The only exception is butterflies: I'll put them dead center in the frame; they just look better that way." |
One thing Dave avoids when possible is what he calls the "hand of man." "I focus on nature, so I generally don't want any people or buildings in my photos, unless I'm specifically going for a postcard-style tourist image," he says. "The Everglades is the largest subtropical wilderness in the United States, so I want it look like wilderness." |
The 70-300 helps Dave eliminate potentially distracting man-made elements in his photos. "If I'm shooting plant life, for example, I want to fill the frame with my subject," he says. "I'll make sure there isn't a building or school bus or a person in the shot, which can be hard, because there are a lot of people visiting these areas. I'll actually pass up opportunities where I know the background is too close to an animal or plant and I can visualize that it's not going to pop out of the screen at the viewer. If there's a person in the background, I usually won't take the picture at all." |
Experimenting with depth-of-field also helps Dave control distracting foregrounds or backgrounds so he's able to get an authentic, natural image. "To minimize and isolate wildlife, I generally choose just enough depth-of-field to get the animal or insect really sharp," he says. "The critical part to focus on is usually the eye - if that's not in focus, you can likely put that image in the recycling bin. Sometimes I'll go up a little bit from the default F-stop. You don't want to go too high, though, because that also makes the background distracting." |
Thanks to 24-hour access afforded by the weekly pass he purchased to many hot spots in the Everglades, Dave was also able to seek out night-dwellers. "I'd go out after the sun went down looking for specific species, like particular tree frogs or snakes," he says. "During the daytime, they don't move and are hidden; at night, you have to track them down by the sounds they make. They're usually noisier when it's moist or drizzly out."
|
Dave positions a small flash on a bracket that puts the flash very close to his nocturnal subjects. "I'll use TTL (through the lens) flash metering using the full auto flash to take a picture to check for brightness and exposure," he says. "After that photo, I'll know whether I'm OK or if I need to brighten it up by overriding the flash power and adding in a few stops of light." |
Just don't overdo it with the flash, Dave advises, no matter what time of day you're taking pictures. "Butterflies especially are unreceptive to flash-they'll flutter away instantly," Dave says. "To some animal species, too much flash can actually be harmful to their eyes: Much of Central America, for instance, has banned flash photography because the brightness can hurt certain animals. In Florida, it's not really an issue, but as a nature photographer, you still want to be sensitive to the animals' environment. Keep your flashes at short durations. Take a picture of an animal and then move on out of respect for the creature so it can go back to its activities." |
To see more of Dave Blinder's work, go to www.flickr.com/photos/davidraymond. |