Best of Long Island Wildlife Photography 2-2-2018

By Mike Busch

The Long Island Wildlife Photography group continues to grow, picking up another 350 members last month! With more members posting great images, putting together this weekly round-up is getting harder. When I first started I would end up with 20 or so photos, this week ended up with 55 and I know some great ones were left behind.

A few weeks ago I passed on a photo tip about back button focusing, I hope some of you tried it. This week I would like to share another one regarding ISO that I find works well in flat light or when shooting in shadows. ISO is one of three pillars of photography, along with shutter speed and Aperture. Simply put, ISO controls the brightness of your photo. In great light, there is really no reason to crank up the ISO, the typical setting of 100 will give you the cleanest shot. When shooting in low light or overcast conditions you will need a light boost. Unfortunately, depending on the quality of your camera, ISO also introduces noise. Yes you can use noise reduction when processing, but that also reduces sharpness and gives the photo a fake look. One way to try to take advantage of ISO technology and keep noise to a manageable level is to the utilize auto ISO sensitivity setting in your shooting menu. You will find it under ISO sensitivity setting. The drop down menu should give you an option to set a maximum sensitivity. Depending on the conditions I will set it to a maximum of 1000 and then adjust my shutter accordingly. Ideally I want the shutter as fast as possible combined with the lowest ISO and adjust from there. Give it a try if you haven’t already done so!

This week’s highlights include a Rough-Legged Hawk and a huge variety of ducks in including Red Head, Goldeneye, Red Breasted Merganser, Hooded Merganser, Wood Duck, Ring Necked Duck, Northern Pintail, Northern Shovler, Greater Scaup, Harlequin, Long Tailed Duck, and Buffleheads. This week’s cover goes to Vicki Jauron with a cool shot of Hooded Mergansers with a Female Common Goldeneye.