The Eagle Conflict

The other day during my lunch hour I noticed an Bald Eagle sitting at the top of the hill behind my house.It seemed pretty content just sitting there.

Then I noticed that it started to squawk

Suddenly a golden eagle appeared. I had missed it because I was so focused at looking through the camera with my zoom lens

    The golden swooped in and tried to chase off the bald eagle

The chase ensued!

I think in the end the golden eagle won the contest over territory!

 

Another Moonshot

I am a huge fan of DSLRs but one of the drawbacks is that they are large and bulky especially with zoom lenses. The advantage of an iPhone is that it is almost always available and is very compact.

This picture was taken with my iPhone SE 2nd generation. This was at 5:30 AM in Colorado right before my son't hockey practice. The moon was behind the clouds and there is a star to the right. I think this is an awesome shot and it's hard to believe, even now, that it was taken with a low end iPhone without much touch up. 

 

 

 

2024 Photos in Review Part 1

Introduction

Each year I publish a summary of my Photos as a You Tube Video, but for 2024 I decided to link to videos and discuss many of my photos to hopefully make my annual summary a bit more interesting. 

In the following subject areas, it was easier to create videos because some of my trips and photos of sunsets deserve their own summaries. 

• Sunsets and Sunrises from Northern Colorado in 2024
• Glacier Excursion 2024
• Erie Ballon Festival 2024

Here is my video showing my pictures from 2023:

• Brian Hochgurtel's Pictures from 2023

Birds of Prey

Bald Eagles

Behind my house there is a hill in the open space that bald eagles like to come and sit for a while. I think part of the reason they do that is the plethora of prairie dogs that exist. The do snag them on a regular basis and some times the local coyote back will come and take their kill away. 

When I took the following photo, I didn't realize the eagle was asleep on the post. The magpie is sitting there keep an eye out. I felt like the magpie was making sure her friend's nap was being preserved.

The next photo was taking during a time our air was affected by several forest fires up in Canada. That gave the clouds in evening an unusual color and I feel that's what makes this photo special

Magpie and the Red Tail Hawk

For some reason the magpie in this photo constantly harassed the red tail hawk. This went on for several minutes, and towards the end of the harassment the hawk gave the magpie this look that seemed to convey "I can end you."

Owls

It's unfortunate that the owls in the following phot decided to fight over a rabbit one of them killed in my neighbors sandbox. We have so much gorgeous open space near our house where they could have had their fight. I still enjoy the photo because I haven't seen many owls previously. I hear them almost every night but rarely see them.

This is another picture of them fighting. My neighbors playground set firmly in view.

I did get some good closeups though:

The Moon

I starting to get into astrophotography more by mistake, I will be out taking pictures of the sunset and I'll find opportunity to get an awesome shot of the moon. I want to expand to other celestial objects, but the moon is a great place to start.

The following photo I watch start to form up while watching TV early in the morning. I grabbed my camera while still in my PJs and got outside with a tripod. I set my Canon 5DS to take pictures every few seconds and ended up with several pics. This was far the best, and my favorite part of the photo is cloud color that just happened I assume because of the really code air probably had some ice crystals.

The following moon terminator photo was just taken randomly while I was shooting pictures of the sunset. I was pretty happy with the results especially since I wasn't really outside to take pictures of the moon

The following photo is of Venus and the moon. I have an app on my phone that sends me notices when introducing celestial objects line up in the sky, so I was out taken photos with the camera automatically taking photos every few seconds.   

Coyotes: How 50 MegaPixels and a Sigma Zoom Lens Make a Difference

 Living up against the foothills in Colorado is almost like being in a constant Mutual of Omaha episode, and I keep my cameras constantly at the ready. My upgrading from a Canon 60D to a Canon 5DS-R with 50 megapixels and a Sigma 150 to 600 mm lens really allows me to get better shots. 

In this article, I shot a picture of some coyotes I saw moving in brush about 1000 feet away from my house. Here is the original photo:

I put a circle around the coyotes to make it easier for you to see them in the original photo. The 5DS-R is 50 megapixel and it gives me a lot of flexibility to zoom in digitally with a crop. Here is the final photo:

So yes you can be a great photographer with a lower resolution camera and a 100-300mm lens, but your job is much harder since you need to be closer.