Cape May Point is easy to find. Take the Garden State Parkway south to Exit 0. Continue straight over the eastern canal bridge onto Lafayette Avenue. Make a right at the “T” intersection in front of Collier’s Liquors onto Perry Street, which soon becomes Sunset Boulevard. After a couple of miles, make a left onto Lighthouse Avenue, which will take you to Cape May Point State Park.

There were two other lighthouses at the southwestern tip of New Jersey. Both of these were lost; one to the unrelenting ocean and the other to poor workmanship. The first was built in 1823 while the second was built in 1847. The current one was finished in 1859.

The Park is justly famous in the natural history community as the sight of the annual Cape May Hawk Watch. However, it is the Cape May Point Lighthouse that dominates the Park. The Lighthouse is 157 feet 6 inches tall with 217 steps (199 indoors) to the observation deck. Not surprisingly, given the flatness of Cape May, the Lighthouse is a very prominent landmark visible from many areas around the Point. As a result, it is often a photographic subject for the weekly photo walks I lead for the Cape May Bird Observatory.

The lighthouse image at the upper left is a scan of a slide made with a Nikon N90s camera with a Nikon 35-105mm lens and Sensia 100 film. The image at the upper right was created with a Canon 7D camera, a Canon EF 300mm f/2.8 lens, an ISO of 500, an aperture of f/5.6, a shutter speed of 1/1000, and an exposure compensation of +1.0. The image to the left was created with a Canon EOS 1D Mark IV camera, a Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 lens, an ISO of 400, an aperture of f/14, a shutter speed of 1/500, and an exposure compensation of +0.33. The image to the right was created with a Canon EOS 1D Mark IV camera, a Canon EF 28-70mm f/2.8 lens, an ISO of 1600, an aperture of f/4.0, a shutter speed of 1/3200, and an exposure compensation of +1.33. The image at the lower left was created with a Canon 7D camera, a Canon EF 28-70mm f/2.8 lens, an ISO of 800, an aperture of f/5.0, and a shutter speed of 1/5000. The image to the right of that one was created with a Canon 7D camera, a Canon EF 300mm f/2.8 lens with a Canon 2.0x III teleconverter, an ISO of 500, an aperture of f/5.6, and a shutter speed of 1/2000. The next one to the right was created with a Canon 7D camera, a Canon EF 600mm f/4.0 lens with a Canon 1.4x III teleconverter, an ISO of 500, an aperture of f/5.6, and a shutter speed of 1/320. The image to the lower right was created with a Canon 7D camera, a Canon EF 28-70mm f/2.8 lens, an ISO of 800, an aperture of f/5.6, and a shutter speed of 1/8000.

As these images show, I have photographed the Lighthouse in the snow, from the beach in Winter, and from south of Bunker Pond in Summer. Likewise, as noted above, I have used lens of various focal lengths that allow very different perspectives. Regardless, the Cape May Point Lighthouse is always an interesting subject for those of us who photograph in the field. Why not join us for a Saturday Photo Walk. For details, see: http://www.birdcapemay.org/programs.php.

Mike Hannisian

During a regularly scheduled Cape May Bird Observatory Friday evening walk at the South Cape May Meadows last summer, led by CMBO Associate Naturalist Karl Lukens and assisted by a number of other CMBO volunteers including myself, the Patagonia Picnic Table Effect, as the above became known, reoccurred; twice.

The first time began when this year’s CMBO Morning Flight Counter Tom Johnson told our group of a Sora a few yards ahead of us. We quickly moved up and shortly were entertained by a Sora that apparently had not read the part of the Rail Instruction Manuel about being secretive. Not only that, but this individual, who was jumping around and otherwise acting strangely, was then joined by another.

Many of our field trip participants had not seen a Sora before, or at least had not seen one well or in a long time, so we spent a good amount of time making sure everyone was able to get protracted spotting scope views of at least one of these birds. While this was happening, I started scanning the area and eventually came upon a duck half hidden in the vegetation. The vast majority of the ducks in this area were Mallards, in various forms of molt, but the bird I had just spotted looked different. All I could see of the bird was its chestnut lower chest and black on its belly and under its tail. I did not need to see more to know that this was one of the three Black-bellied Whistling-Ducks that had been found on July 18 by Kathy Horn. (Later a 4th one joined the group.)

Had we not spent so much time looking at the Sora, and had there not been so many of us searching the birds present, this rarity would almost certainly have been missed.

A little while later, we were on the beach checking out the America Oystercatcher, Least Tern, Ruddy Turnstone, Piping Plover, etc., when Chuck Slugg, also one of our leaders, called us back up the path. On the upper beach, amid all the Semipalmateds (Plovers and Sandpipers), were a pair of Yellow-headed Blackbirds. Again, had we not spent so much time checking out the other birds on the beach, and had there not been so many of us actively looking, we would almost certainly not have found these western wanderers.

The lesson to be learned from all this is that very often there are more good birds around, regardless of where you are, if you take the time to find them; and the more eyes looking the greater the likelihood of finding good birds.

NOTE: The images with this entry were not taken at the bird walk discussed above.

Yes, I know, in and of itself, this is not very helpful, but it is nonetheless true.

Keep in mind, that as the photographer, you are the creative artist making the images, and that necessarily means that it is you, and only you, who should have the final word on how the image looks. This is not to say that there are not photographic or image standards; rather, it means that as the artist in charge you are the one who chooses how to apply (or disregard) them.

Be that as it may, most photographers who are attempting to create images that approximate what they saw generally think of proper exposure as recording the amount of light required for the image to exhibit good detail in the darkest shadows and in the brightest non-specular areas. (Specular areas are pure white regions that contain no detail, such as highlights on a reflective metal surface.)

For a number of the photographers, especially those who did not shoot reversal (slide) film, exposure is not a conscious issue because they just set the camera to auto and shoot. This can work reasonably well when there is relatively little contrast within the frame and the scene/subject is mid-toned. The reason for this is that virtually all light meters provide settings based upon the assumption that your subject is a mid-tone. That means your meter assumes your subject is reflecting the same amount of light as an 18% gray card would reflect, even when using evaluative, sometimes called matrix, metering (which I do virtually all of the time).

Not surprisingly, this is often not the case. Consider, for example, that you are photographing a breeding plumaged Laughing Gull on a white sand beach or against a bright sky. Your meter will give you a reading that is likely to blow out the whites in the gull, sand, or sky; or darken the image to such an extent that the black hood and mantle of the gull will be featureless. (The differing results depend upon the lighting and the size of the subject in the frame, among other factors.) Further compounding the situation is the fact that the quality level of much of today’s photography has become decidedly mediocre as a result, in significant part, of inexpensive cameras, the ease with which camera processed images (JPEGs) can be uploaded and distributed, and the failure of many photographers to want to improve the quality of their work.

There is also the all-too-common attitude that most, if not all, photographic problems can be fixed in Photoshop. While it is true that Photoshop and other image editing software are wonderful for enhancing images, it is just as true that few problems can be fully corrected in them and those that can require much more time and effort than getting it right in the camera. For example, if I were to over expose an image to the point that little or no detail were recorded in highlight areas, there is nothing that any program can do to recover data that were not recorded. Likewise, if I were to underexpose an image but not so severely as to have no detail, correcting the exposure with software would almost certainly result in a significant increase in noise. (Noise comes in two types: color and luminance. Color noise is the presence of off-color pixels while luminance noise is the presence of overly bright or overly dark pixels.) Always keep in mind that a basic rule of digital photography is to rely on Photoshop, or any other image processing software, as little as possible!

Achieving a proper exposure is a matter of balancing the three exposure variables: ISO, shutter speed, and aperture. However, achieving the desired result requires knowing what you want and balancing these variables in order to achieve this end.

I suggest that you first decide on the ISO you want to use.

Most of my photography is of birds and, typically, I want to capture them doing something. This means I need to stop their action. This is one area in which digital is far superior to film. With film, I almost never used an ISO higher than 200. With digital, my normal ISO setting is 500, and I am not reluctant to shoot at an ISO of 6400. Although these higher settings can produce noise, it is relatively minor given the cameras I use (Canons 7D and 1D Mark IV). The reason I choose such a high ISO is so I can shoot at a small aperture to increase the depth of field. (Depth of field is the portion of the image, front to back, that is in focus.)

I often want my subjects to be large in the frame. One of the realities of this is that the larger the subject in the frame, the more shallow the depth of field. This is especially true when you use long lenses with teleconverters, as I frequently do. Thus, I use a relatively high ISO in order to allow me to use a smaller aperture with its associated greater depth of field.

However, if I were shooting a stream and wanted to create an image in which only the water was out of focus, I would use a low ISO. This way, even with a small aperture, which would cause the non-moving parts of the image to be in focus, the moving water would be blurred with a slow shutter speed. (This, of course, would require that the camera be mounted on a tripod.)

As you can see, there is no formula for choosing an ISO. You, as the photographer, must know what you want to create and then select the ISO most likely to help you achieve it.

Once I have decided on my ISO, I then have to decide the camera mode I want to use. Usually, for the work I do, this is AV, which stands for aperture value. What this means is that I determine the aperture I want to use, and the camera then decides which shutter speed to use. Just keep in mind that, as the photographer, I have the option of altering the camera’s choice.

For example, if I am shooting a mid-toned scene/subject in full sunlight, I am likely to use the settings the camera offers. On the other hand, on a cloudy/overcast day, the camera is likely to select settings that will underexpose lighter than mid-toned scenes/subjects so I add light via the camera’s exposure compensation function. Conversely, on a cloudy/overcast day, the camera is likely to select settings that will overexpose darker than mid-toned scenes/subjects so I subtract light via the camera’s exposure compensation function. How much light I add or subtract depends upon the conditions and the size of the subject in the frame. When I shot film, I would make my best guess and then take a series of photos making some a little brighter than I thought would work and some a little darker. I then had to wait until I received the developed film back to see if I made the right choice, and with no realistic option to correct any mistake.

Digital photography makes this a much easier process because of the histogram function included in most of today’s digital cameras. Thus, after I made my best guess/judgment, I check the histogram to see if I was correct. If so, fine; if not, I make another adjustment and check it again. (I will explain how to read and use histograms in a future posting.)

Again, my goal in shooting birds usually is to capture them doing something (not just sitting there), and often against a non-distracting background. A good way to do this is to shoot against a smooth, pleasing, mid-toned background. However, if this background is close to the subject and I use a small aperture, I run the risk of having enough detail in the background for it to become a distraction. Thus, I like to have a significant separation (20 feet or more) between my background and my subject. As a result, I prefer to shoot with an aperture of f11 to f16, depending on the lens, subject, and other factors. Paramount among these other factors is shutter speed, because I still want to freeze the subject’s action. If, for some reason, I cannot separate the subject from the background, I will use a larger aperture (smaller f number) to reduce the detail in the background.

Again, you as the artist/photographer have to decide what it is you want to achieve and then choose the aperture most likely to produce these results.

Not surprisingly, choosing a shutter speed is no different.

If you are trying to freeze a bird in flight without panning (moving the camera to keep the subject in the same position within the frame), you typically need a shutter speed of 1/2500 of a second or faster! In other words, you may have to raise your ISO and/or open your aperture depending on the light. However, by panning you can slow the shutter to freeze the action so long as you are able to keep the subject in focus. While this has been made significantly easier with state of the art autofocus technology, it still requires practice and choosing a shutter speed that will facilitate the desired result.

For panning flight shots, I like to have a shutter speed of at least 1/2500 of a second.

I also do a fair amount of bird photography from blinds. In such situations, I prefer to create a limited number of perches in front of pleasing backgrounds and near feeding or water features. In situations such as these, I will often use a shutter as slow as 1/125 of a second.

Again, one of the big advantages of digital photography is the ability to take an image and almost immediately review it. True, to see it well it must first be downloaded to a computer, but the LCDs on the back of mid to high-end DSLRs give a reasonable in-the-field view so that you should be able to get a decent sense of whether or not you are using a faster enough shutter speed.

In conclusion, you and only you are the artist/photographer and, as such, it is your responsibility to balance the exposure variables of ISO, aperture, and shutter speed to achieve the exposure you desire.



In summary, f-stops (or simply stops) are factors of 2. If the brightness or sensitivity to light doubles, that is an increase of one stop (times 2); if the brightness or sensitivity to light is halved, that is a decrease of one stop (divided by two).