A flock of Snow GeeseSnow Geese in Skagit valley
 

The state of WA  has several locations in the north west where birds migrate in winter.  When it becomes too cold in Canada, Alaska and Siberia, birds fly down to WA to hang around for three of four months starting end of November. Snow geese is the most populous one in this region. They come in flocks of tens of thousands and stay in Skagit valley from November till February or even March if it is still not warm enough. If you want to see a flock of Snow Geese, take exit 221  from I-5, and drive west on Fir island road, if you are driving up from Seattle. Then, go west (left from Fir Island road) on Rawlins road. You will hit dead end and you can see water from that point. Snow geese sleep on back waters near Fir Island in the night. If you reach there an hour before the sunrise, you can hear the noise of birds from the water. They take off from water during sunrise and fly out of water, and land in some farm land  nearby looking for feeding.  The taking off and landing of  flocks of Snow geese is an interesting scene to watch.  The flock in this picture was shot on Fir Island road, just 2 miles west of I-5. There several other kind of birds migrate to this area too.
 

I mostly used a 70-200 mm lens to photograph Snow geese. You may not be able to get close to a flock that is feeding on a farm, so this focal length is good enough. If you watch the taking off of Geese during the sunrise, a wide angle lens will help to get wide landscape shots with birds and sunrise in the frame. A shutter speed of 1/1250 second was used so that I could get sharp picture of birds that are in flight. An aperture of F8 helped getting enough depth of field, so more of the frame is sharp. I struggled to get the correct white balance in this image. I generally use one of the white balance presets in the camera menu, like cloudy, direct sun, shade, tungsten etc. This image was shot in auto white balance mode and the color temperature  was 6350 Kelvin  in the image, and that looked more warm for me. So I reduced the color temperature during post processing until I got the correct colors in the image, at 4440 Kelvin. I remember, the grass was green, and birds have red skin on their legs, and the feather was white. So, I reduced the color temperature slowly until I felt I got the colors that I saw in the scene.  This is one of the best advantages  of shooting in RAW format, you can adjust the white balance, the RAW file contains maximum amount of dynamic range. I use a simple rule when adjusting the white balance by adjusting the color temperature - white should be white and Red, Green & Blue should look Red, Green and Blue. This is a rule that can be used as a baseline, but if you are editing an image of scenes like Sunset or Sunrise, it is a different story. I want to have warmer colors in the sunset scene, so I adjust the white balance accordingly, I will talk more about it when I post a Sunset shot, another time. 
 

Exposure : 70 mm, ISO 800, 1/1250 second, F8
 

Link to the photo  gallery : http://www.muraleephotos.com/p875727094

Telephoto lens for Snow geese, white balance , high shutter speed for birds in flight.
 

Palouse in winterPalouse in winter

The Bing.com home page showcased a photo from Palouse once, and that encouraged me to click at the hot spots on the page to learn more about the beautiful landscape in Eastern Washington. It is a large area of around four hundred square miles of rolling hills with mostly wheat fields and also other crops like mustard and other vegetables. I have been visiting this place for the past five years at least once in every summer.  This place is around five hour drive from Seattle. Steptoe Butte state park is one of the most interesting places in this region, you can drive up to the Butte to see sunrise or sunset, and also 360 degree view of the region to see the rolling hills of Palouse. The Palouse waterfall is the State Waterfall of WA and it is also another interesting place to visit on the way to Eastern Washington. You can find a hotel in Colfax or Pullman to stay overnight to spend the whole weekend there. It is a beautiful location to enjoy  weekend scenic ride, but it is not at all crowded by tourists. You will find photographers in the prime locations on almost every day. It is fun to visit this place in early summer when the crops are growing, and the rolling hills will be in lush green color, this is probably the time when more people visit this region.  I also love to visit this place during the end of summer when the wheat is ready for harvest, and they will be in gold color. It is a scene to see. I visited this place in winter this year for the first time, a couple of weeks ago and I realized I missed amazing views in the past years. The rolling hills have more gorgeous look in winter, after some snow falls on the ground. You can find map of 'Palouse scenic byway' online, and also do not forget to visit the  Wagon wheel fence at the Dahmen Barn in Uniontown. 

Let me talk a little bit about the way I captured this picture. I drive around in this region and stop when I see some nice landscape, then I grab my camera and take a picture. I use tripod and do more careful arrangements in summer, but it is too cold here in winter, so it is easier to shoot the image in a couple of minutes and get back into the car. In this condition, I generally set ISO to 400, and aperture to F8 to get enough depth of field and sharpness in the image, then shot hand holding the camera, adjusting the shutter speed to get the correct exposure. The image above is mostly white, so if I set the camera to an auto mode like aperture priority mode, then  the resulting image is going to be dark mostly, underexposed. When there is more white elements in the frame, camera's light meter is going to almost fail to calculate the exposure correctly, measuring for the white and gray. So we need to add 1-3 EV of exposure to get the correct exposure.  I used to think I could shoot in manual exposure, so I get a better image. But wait, it is the same sensor that is doing the light metering, so weather in Auto mode, or Manual mode, the exposure calculated by the camera is going to be the same. So, take a picture, look at the preview in the LCD and adjust the exposure by adding +1-3 stops more of light. You can add exposure compensation in auto mode, or adjust shutter speed in manual mode. I had to add 2 stops of exposure in the image above. I used matrix metering in this case, there are some situations where spot metering helps to find the correct exposure in similar situations, we will discuss that some other time.  Steptoe Butte state park is one of my favorite location to spend time during the sunset and sunrise, so I can photograph the rolling hills under the golden light. A telephoto lens will help to zoom into small areas and get more features of the landscape in the images. I prefer to use 200 mm or  higher focal length for the rolling hills, and a wide angle like 24-70 for wide shots. 

Exposure : ISO 400, 1/160 second, F8

Exposing for snow, telephoto lens for rolling hills..

Snoqualmie falls Snoqualmie falls, when the Snoqualmie river is flooded.