Photographing Wildlife - Waterfowl in Waterfalls - the Shoot

Join me as I photograph waterfowl in a fast moving river with small waterfalls using a very slow shutter speed to show motion in the water in Oregon.
View more details and full sized photos at
rayhennessy.com/lessons/waterf...
Shoot video:
• Photographing Wildlife...
Photo edits video:
• Waterfowl in Waterfall...
This shoot came about from my strong desire to photograph birds in a unique way. This was my first ever visit to Oregon and Klamath Falls. I was there to guide an outing and give a couple of presentations for the Winter Wings Festival. I arrived a couple of days early to scout locations that might be good. During this scouting I came across this location which had some Barrow’s Goldeneye and Common Mergansers swimming and feeding in the very fast moving section of the river. My immediate thought was how cool it would look with these ducks swimming in the water with a slow shutter speed to show the movement of the water. I knew it would be a challenge but I didn’t know it would be as challenging as it ended up being, for multiple reasons. Watch this one to see the struggles I had and how I figured them out, stayed flexible and changed things up, and eventually got a few of the images I had in mind.
Chapters:
0:00 - Intro
0:31 - Setup
11:37 - Shoot
13:01 - Photo 1
16:03 - Photo 2
17:41 - Photo 3
19:11 - Photo 4
20:12 - Photo 5
20:55 - Photo 6
24:10 - Photo 7
25:30 - Photo 8

[@AstairVentof]

Nice video. Shame you didn't have a drop in ND. I feel like I should pick up a ND and polarizers constantly in my bag so I don't feel sorry for myself in moments like these. Especially when shooting shore birds or by the water. I get how you feel about mallards, lol. I think as wildlife photographers we should not dismiss common species. They are really great tools for learning techniques also while everyone thinks that they are common and seen everywhere its funny that it actually turns out that very few photographers actually photograph them. It's rare to see a good picture of common species like sparrows, mallards or even common mergansers.

[@RayHennessy]

I'm 100% with you on not dismissing common species but when you have Goldeneye and Mergansers in the same river it's hard to point the lens at Mallards. As for the ND filter, I have never used one but I wonder how much they would slow down AF for birds moving around like this. I've always assumed it would slow down the AF too much. The few times I've used an ND filter with landscapes it's made things tough for AF. Although that was with dSLRs not mirrorless.