Gear review -- Lensmaster RH-2 Gimbal

Long lenses (anything above 400mm and 3 kilos weight) are best managed when they are set up properly on a tripod with a Gimbal Head mounted on it.

Yes. I know there are ball-heads that have been lately developed that are pretty good. And I also know that many of the newer version of lenses (both Canon and Nikon -- specifically the FL line of lenses) are light enough to be handheld.

BUT (and that's a big, very valid BUT) ball-heads won't give you perfect results in all conditions. And even with the newer lenses...hand-holding will lead to fatigue after some time. Besides, its almost impossible to properly compose your bird photographs when you are more "bothered" about holding up the lens...so again, we come back to the same point -- a sturdy tripod + a dependable gimbal head.

Gimbal heads at their very simplest are made of two L shaped hunks of metal (or carbon fibre) fixed to each other.

The Gimbal is fixed onto the tripod by means of a thread arrangement at the end of the horizontal arm of the lower L.

Another (slightly smaller) L shaped hunk of metal (or carbon fibre) is fixed at the other (vertical) end of the lower L.

This L has a Arca-Swiss quick release arrangement...and your long lens fits into this by means of a lens plate (that you fix onto your lens's foot.)

There are two soft twist knobs on the Gimbal head...tightening and loosening them gives you various degrees of "tension"for horizontal and vertical movement of the lens.

For instance, when you completely tighten the lower soft twist knob, the lower L arm of the Gimbal is now totally locked into place. This means you can't swivel the lens horizontally at all. Similarly when you completely tighten the upper twist knob, again the upper L arm of the Gimbal is now totally locked into place. So immaterial of an angle of 45% or 60% or even 90% you have a lens that is positioned rock steady!

As you can visualize, nothing beats the versatility of mounting a long lens on a Gimbal head. Especially when it comes to Birds in Flight...and when it comes to tracking flying waterbirds. In fact, if you want to get "set up" for a day of photography, there is no other way that is as "professional".

I use a Lensmaster RH-2 Gimbal head.




And, I must say I am very very happy with its performance so far.

I would definitely recommend the Lensmaster RH-2 to you if you are looking for a simple, no frills and solidly built Gimbal head.

Another very good Gimbal head is the  Nest Gimbal head.

(No, I haven't used it yet.)

Naturally (of course) there are plenty of other Gimbals out there as well...Wimberly, Jobu Design, Really Right Stuff, etc, etc...and its all a question of how much you are willing to "blow".

Personally speaking, I am very very happy with the Lensmaster RH-2 and I think it does a great job! 

A word of caution here though. While not very heavy -- and averaging around 1.5 kilos, Gimbal heads end up adding to your total laden weight. And there will be terrain in which you simply can't move with a lens mounted onto a Gimbal and tripod...where you have no option but to handhold it (or shoulder hoist it) and move on...

As such, I would say, do spend some time out in the field handholding your lens. It will come in "handy" for you down to line, Gimbal head or no Gimbal head!       

       

Gear review -- Dimbu lens bean bag

A peculiar thing about professional bird (and wildlife) photography is that your quest for getting equipped with the right gear doesn't stop with getting the right lens and camera...but extends a long way further...you will need a variety of bags, you will need lens coats, you will need tripods (and monopods) and gimbal heads and so on...

Like with choosing the lens and camera, there are no easy acquisitions to be made here either; there are no short cuts. Choosing the wrong supplementary gear can be as disruptive / disappointing -- from the perspective of getting professional quality photographs -- as in the case of your primary gear, your lens and camera.

While a very basic and simple thing...a lens bean bag is a must to have for every wildlife photographer. After using one for almost 2 years now...I simply can't imagine being out without it, at least when it comes to taking eye level shots...and when it comes to photographing birds and wildlife from a car.

My bean bag travels with me all the time. In fact, during the last year or so, when I have been on umpteen trips, tracking raptors...I have even used the bean bag on car (and jeep) bonnets and car roofs. Many a time, when the raptor swoops down on you and gives you a flypast...this "setting" can give you tack-sharp images...something that you may not get even with the best Gimbal and Tripod arrangement.

Apart from being totally indispensable for photographing birds and other wildlife from a car and for ground level shots...a properly designed lens bean is a great help in numerous other situations...you can rest your long lens on it (if you are not using a tripod and hand-holding the lens) while on a hike / trek on uneven ground and be secure that it won't roll off, while you are panting and gathering your breath; you can use it on the parapets that line ghat roads...and you can even drape it onto a tree branch (if you are lucky enough to find one where you need it).

I speak out of experience, I have done all of the above!    

I use a Dimbu lens bag that I ordered from Toehold.

(There are other bean bags that you can buy as well...go here for the Nature Lounge bean bag, and do take a look at this as well :-) )

I have used rice and wheat as a filler for my bean bag. Typically it takes upto 3 kilos of either rice of wheat to fill up the Dimbu till it is fluffed up nicely.

I normally source the rice (and wheat) locally...so that I don't have to contend with 3 more kilos of weight while catching and changing trains.

Do get a lens bean bag.

You will curse the 3 kilos that it adds to your laden weight to begin with (assuming that you do birding on trails / out in the open), but when you will get used to it pretty fast, and soon have no problems with it sitting on your shoulder like a quiet, well-behaved monkey.

Any comments? Questions?

Fire away... the Birdman will try his utmost to help!

Some close encounters with Greater Painted Snipes

 Another "exotic" bird (at the Buffalo Wallow!)

Ringed as it is by a colony (and many a high-rise)...and not much more than a mere of water held back by an earthen bund, the Buffalo Wallow is a replete with murky pockets and shadowy, reed-fringed pools. Especially so, in the mornings and evenings, when the light is best for photography.

At other times, the surface of the water can be so dazzling as to be blinding...and the light so rude and harsh that photography is just an utter waste of time

And if that wasn't enough, a lot of the time, when the action happens, the sun is right behind the birds. One can of course walk around and get the sun behind one's camera, but then, it would mean having to be able to walk on water.

That too, water that is far from clean, even by the standards of a Buffalo Wallow.

Cumulatively, all these occupational hazards mean that, I get to watch more than I can get to photograph...which I will honestly admit, is a good problem to have.

Cumulatively, it also means that, many a time, months pass before I can get the chance (in my "stumble upon it" fashion) before I can get to properly photograph a bird that I am sure is somewhere there -- in that vast realm of "murky pockets and shadowy, reed-fringed pools".

Like the Greater painted-snipe for one.

Seen here is the female bird that I photographed today -- spending almost an hour to get not more than 10-12 usable photographs (because at first sight of me, the bird would simply sink into the grass, and become immobile, merging with the brown of the mud).

Surprisingly, it was only after Lady Painted-snipe did it for the umpteenth time (and when the light had more or less gone) that I could see the male bird. Relatively dull and smaller in size, and totally out in the open.

But then, with the way our water bodies are littered, even totally out in the open means a frame full of plastic and other shit of civilization.

So I will hope that I can get to photograph this couple again. And get to showcase the male too. In a frame worthy of such magnificent birds!

(First encounter, April 21st, 2015)

Her & Him...

One of the most peculiar things about the nomenclature of birds, and a very evident ornithological oddity is that it is mostly (almost always) the male of the species that is used to name (and ID the) bird.

When you think about it, it is natural...because among birds, it is (mostly) the male of the species that is dazzling and resplendent, while the female is relatively dull and drab.

But then, there are exceptions too; after all, these are birds we are talking of :P

The Greater Painted Snipe is one of them, and gloriously so. Not only is the female the nominative half of the pair -- by virtue of being both "greater" and "painted", relative to the male, it also "outshines" the male in other areas.

Like, for instance -- courtship. It is the female bird that actively courts the male bird...and from what I can see -- the female bird is by far the bolder of the two, many a time feeding out in the open unconcernedly, while the male is to be seen nowhere.
 
Hmmm....

(This photograph was made at the Buffalo Wallow today...and is as serendipitous as it gets. I was hunkered down and waiting for a male Greater Painted Snipe that had well and truly gone to ground in the grass and slush, when I saw movement out of the corner of my eye. And spied these guys totally out in the clear. By the time I could blink, these guys went to ground as well. Meanwhile, the camera did its work.)

(Second encounter, April 30, 2015)

The courtship rituals of Greater Painted Snipes  

With close to three days of (what the Met. Department is calling) pre-Monsoon showers here in Hyderabad, the heat wave that battered most of Telangana (and AP) now seems to be a thing of the past...but while certainly not as beastly, the humidity that the rains (and cloud cover) have brought with them is no less intimidating than the heat.

This relative "cooling down" and humidity is the trigger for a number of bird species which have paired (and probably even mated) to get around to the serious job of parenting and bringing in more birds into the world.

At the Buffalo Wallow, the star couple among these parent birds is a pair of White-throated Kingfishers, who start on a flurry of activity beginning about now.

But this is not their story :-)

While waiting for the Kingfishers, I tried sneaking up on the other star couple -- the Painted Snipes...and surprise, oh surprise, found both of them out in the open (at least by their standards) and gazing at each other in the lovelorn fashion of birds with barely 4-5 feet separating them.

While I waited and waited and went down on my haunches and then onto my knees -- sweating so profusely in reminded me of my hike up to Tungnath -- the birds stayed more or less in the same place, in the same pose, almost as if they were carved of stone.

They did not get down to courting, they did not get intimate. And I couldn't get them both in the same frame. But then, maybe it is early days yet.

After all, what do we know of the courtship rituals of these guys anyway?

Another photo-shoot of two well-behaved young birds

In between seeing the fledgeling Shikras for the first time and the time of writing this post (one day)   as is my wont, I spent a lot of time on the Internet, reading up and researching on my subjects, and it seems (on the basis of some reading material shared by a good friend who is a fellow birder and raptor aficionado) that Shikra fledgelings are more or less totally dependent on their mothers for something like two months!

When I do the math and recollect from my own memory of sightings past of these birds, Juvenile (as opposed to fledgelings) Shikras -- with noticeable barring on the breast and spots on the belly and legs -- seem to make their "first" appearance as the rains are at their fag end, in the first weeks of September.

So there, huh?

But two months does seem such a long period of time, for what look like so capable birds, no?
But then, they have so much to learn -- from their mother and Mother Nature, before they can be skilled hunters worthy of being called the Leopards of the Sky!

Meanwhile, on the basis of what I saw (after yet another long, sweaty and bone-numbing walk) they seem to be doing a good job of growing up and watching the world around while waiting for their mother like well-behaved kittens in the shadows of this protective Neem.

They did sally forth a couple of times, but their flying seemed to be imbued with a sense of wonder rather than the power and grace one would associate with an adult Shikra.

Seeing them fly was both fulfilling and bemusing...I have never seen a Shikra fly so slowly; for a minute I thought I was in the presence of Kestrels trying to hover in a strong crosswind!

(No, I did not even try to make a photograph; somehow I didn't even feel like raising the lens, I was so entranced.)

In between this and other photo-shoots, I spent some time snooping around to see the amount of human footfalls that this area gathers.

Two spotty teenagers with scraggly beards and tattoos were the first. They had come by on a Scooty with what looked like at least 6 bottles of beer, a packet of smokes, some paper plates, etc, etc. Their open air bar was barely 50 metres away from the Neem. I walked over to it and spoke to them at length about littering, Swacch Bharat, the Police, the Indian Army, etc, etc.

I also asked them to go and drink a bit farther, where they would be a bit less noticeable for the Police, the Indian Army, etc, etc.

By now, one of them looked as if he wouldn't notice it if a two headed snake popped up right in front of him and the other seemed genuinely contrite, so I decided I had done enough. Then came along some worthies out for a walk, headed generally in the direction of the Neem. These guys were easy meat. I just brought up the topic of snakes...politely asking them if they had seen any Cobras around.

When it was evident that they weren't exactly thrilled at the prospect of seeing Cobras -- I helpfully suggested that they could go on their walks on the paved roads (and away from the Neem) because Cobras stay away from paved roads.

I waited and waited for them to take the hint, and even turned my back on them...but they walked to the Neem and sat right under it. All this while, when I was indulging in these lies and deception and generally being a badass with both the teenage beer drinkers and the walkers, I was surreptitiously watching the Neem and hoping and praying that the Shikras don't sally out of it.

Luckily they stayed put there, swaying up and down in the breeze, and if I wasn't looking out for them, I wouldn't have seen them.

Two more months...

The acceptance of birds

The little I know about India's wilds, and of the ways of the Ghoom (and hunt) hasn't been learned on Facebook :-)

But, by reading and re-reading classics (of word-smithy and storytelling) by doyens such as Kenneth Anderson and Jim Corbett.

And, of course by sheer dint of being out in the sun, being footloose and fancy free, being in no hurry at all -- like a dim-witted student (in a class of one) who learns each lesson slowly, but learns it well.

So, I acknowledge in all sincerity that the little I have achieved in terms of "pro" quality photography nature and wildlife photography is because nature (and specifically birds) is a good teacher, and because I have being a willing pupil.

While I lug around a "big gun", I am no "set your rig on a tripod and fire away" kind of person...because the "chase" is what motivates me the most. Pitting my wits against the terrain, the bird and the light conditions constitute the chase for me.

The chase, the joy of being outdoors, the awareness of so much of "life" all around me is what constitutes "birding" for me.

The photograph is a bonus.

This is a photograph made in January of this year (2015) that is close to full frame, taken with the sun almost below the horizon, and like most taken by me, handheld. 

But, that is not what matters.

This bird has been the reason I have been on a Ghoom for more than a month. But that is also, not what matters.

What matters is, though the bird -- perched deep in the foliage of a tree -- could clearly see (and hear me) approach and repeatedly point a long thing at it, till I was just 8-10 metres from it, it did not fly away.

Even when I walked away and then walked all around to get the light (or rather whatever remained of it) behind me and was probably 7 or so metres from it, it still did not fly away.

I could have sat there, totally out in the open (to the bird's gaze) watching it and it would still have stayed put.

In fact, I did just that, sat there and wondered...and still it did not fly away...as if it now recognized me and accepted my presence

That this "acceptance" took a lot more than a month is not what matters.

That it did come about, does.

Thank you Shikra X, I will remember this chase, and all that you taught me.

Nikon D750 review

From the very day I have read about the Nikon D750 (and checked out its specs with an eagle eye) I have had no doubts about the fact that this is a camera that will kick some serious butt -- when it comes to nailing "lifers" in bird and wildlife photography.

At 750 grams, its lighter (by 100 grams) than the D600 / 610 -- something that I could instantly feel, as I assembled it onto my 600 mm f/4 lens and hefted it out of the car, for a bird walk on the Gandipet lake bed on what was already a pretty advanced hour on a bright and sunny day in February (2015).

Also, size does matter! The D750 is also more compact than the D600 / D610 (which is in itself pretty compact for a full-frame camera that outputs 24 mp image files)...even if its just 4 mm less thick. 

I had a little more maneouvreability, when I was down on the lake bed's slush, and crawling towards the waders -- in my by-now-patented-to-perfection imitation of an infantryman's advance through the trenches.

(What does an infantryman's rifle weigh, by the way?)

When even with 850 mm reach (I habitually use a TC 1.4 on my 600 mm lens) you still use field-craft and bird sense to get really close to your subject, many a time you can get into impossible situations -- with no elbow room, a narrow field of view and a frame that consists of a little bird and a pebble and a tuft of grass...and for some pernickety reason best known to itself, the camera's AF decides to focus on either the pebble or the tuft of grass.

                                             

Or on the sun's bright (and blinding) dazzle from fool's gold (Mica or whatever else) at the water's edge.

So, while you are cursing your situation and trying to refocus on the bird, it just walks out of the frame...and all you can do is think up unprintable variants of "I am large, I have multitudes..."



Little wonder then, I was pleasantly surprised (to put it very mildly) to see that the D750 was on the spot -- again and again -- when it came to acquiring focus, and keeping it nailed! To be honest, I had even expected this (remember that remark I made earlier, about reading up specs and an eagle eye) but still performance in the field is just that, performance in the field.

Once I was done with getting some lifers of the Little Pratincoles, next up, or rather once I had clambered up (no, I don't use the 600 mm f/4 as a staff / support) from the embrace of Mother Earth -- I made a beeline to the lake's edge...and had a go at photographing some River Terns.

Again, the results were extra-ordinary. The 51 focus points were at work and (even though the light was very harsh and more or less impossible to shoot in) I could get exceptional flight shots, without really trying hard!

And yes, these are full-frame images!

Here are two more images, slightly cropped, one of a Glossy Ibis and another of a Blue-tailed Bee-eater (which incidentally is a passage migrant through Hyderabad).

So, even though I could get to test the Nikon D750 for a little less than two hours, and would certainly not call it a proper review (which I hope to do, soon!), my verdict is out.

If you are looking for a full-frame camera with top-notch AF speed capable of delivering exceptional, professional grade performance -- for bird and wildlife photography, go for the Nikon D750.

Yes, the Birdman recommends it.

Face to face with an other-worldly bird

There is something surreal and hypnotic about the whole experience of scouting for and photographing an owl. Something that borders an encounter with the paranormal or the other-worldly, even...

Its not just the mien of this bird -- owls are probably the only birds with front facing eyes -- though it doesn't take much imagination to see something human in the expressive countenance looking at you. Its not just the knowledge, weighing on you painfully -- that this is a nocturnal bird and you aren't only trespassing on its territory, but even impinging on its rest and slumber. 

 

Its not just the lack of knowledge either -- science is still "discovering" a lot of facts about this silent predator of the night -- that makes you wonder if you are in the presence of something "unknown", something beyond the ken of your so called civilization.

It is all this and more.

Natural then, that every-time I photograph an owl out in the wilds, I am thrilled to bits, left tingling all over, and can't stop grinning from ear to ear for quite some time after.

 

Here's a full-frame (and hand-held)  image of a Jungle Owlet that I had made in Kullu, (Uttarkhand) in May 2014.

 

A bit more than a year after, there are still some lovely memories of this encounter...and of the other-worldly experience of seeing this amazing bird in the eye, through the larger than life magnification of 850 mm focal length. 

 

Looking back now, it felt as if the Owlet was gazing unimpeded, deep into my soul and being.

 

The green blur in the image adds to the overall surreal quotient, does it not?