Photographs and commentary by Dick Snoke
We went to Murrells Inlet, on the South Carolina coast south of Myrtle Beach, with three other couples from the North Georgia Photography Club to photograph the birds at Huntington Beach State Park and the statuary at Brookgreen Gardens. The pictures follow, and then I’ve written a more extensive description of the trip. The first set is at the state park, the second at the Huntington’s house, and the third at Brookgreen Gardens. Between picture-taking episodes, we enjoyed good food and drink at local restaurants.
My main objective was to have a good long tryout for a150-600 mm lens. I rented one for this trip. That objective was achieved, and I know I won’t buy such a lens since it is too heavy and would not be used often. However, I will rent one if I go to a place where there is a good chance I’ll use it. Places like Yellowstone or Bosque del Apache for example.
The first morning I arrived at the park when it opened, and hour or so before sunrise. That gave me time to park, get to where I wanted to shoot, and get set up. I set up in/on one of the cupola’s along the causeway between the marshes. Turns out I was there before any birds. The birds only arrived after the sun got up over the trees. But when the birds came, they came in some numbers and variety. Cormorants, a couple varieties of egrets, herons and a couple kinds of sandpipers. More than enough to keep busy.
I started out with the big lens using a tripod, and that turned out to be the wrong thing to do. I was better off handholding and being able to move around much more quickly as the birds moved. So lesson learned. But that big lens is quite heavy, and I could have used a monopod, which is what most of the other folks with camera were doing.
But the lens was wonderful. Very crisp all the way out, reasonably quick to focus and easily zoomed. I did not have many exposure problems. I was using auto-ISO, with +0.7 exposure compensation, an aperture of f/8 and a shutter speed of 1/1000 or faster most of the time. That is my standard setup for birds in flight. We had an overcast sky so the shadows were no problem.
Mid-morning we all left to eat and do other things. I returned to the park late morning to see the house and explore the other parts of the park. After a short trip through the house (not a lot there really), I walked out the path between two pieces of the freshwater marsh. There I found alligators, turtles, gallinules (marsh hens) and ibises. A bunch of egrets were in the trees on the far side of the marsh, and I attempted pictures of them. However, that was too far for even a 600 mm lens. And I left my cap somewhere so I got my first sunburn of the season. 🙂 In addition, I did not have a polarizing filter for the big lens and the sun did make for some tough reflections, particularly off the wet turtle shells.
And then mid-afternoon the rains came. I did gear up and take a few shots of the sandpipers before returning to the hotel to wait out the weather.
The next day we visited Brookgreen Gardens, arriving soon after it opened, and it was a great time. There is so much to see and enjoy. I tried to avoid just pictures of all the sculptures, trying instead to include the rest of the environment. But the sculptures demand attention. You just have to include them.
I knew I wanted pictures of the Live Oak Allees, but the light was a problem initially. The sky was overcast so there was no light beneath the trees. Later in the afternoon the sun did come out and I got much better shots with light coming through the trees.
One issue with a place like this is that many of the sculptures have vegetation around them, and that makes very pretty settings. However, in many cases you end up with a dark sculpture in front of dark green leaves, and that makes it hard to get any contrast between the sculpture and the background. You must move around some to find good angles.