Photographs by Floris van Breugel
I have been fascinated by birds since I was able to lift my head up to look at them. In fact, my main motivation in learning how to read was so that I could read the field guides. Seeing all those marvelous images in various books made me want to try it too.
But my dad's 30 year old olympus OM-2 with a 150mm manual focus lens wasn't going to cut it. So I relegated taking nice bird photos to the pros. That is, until affordable digital cameras with decent zooms came out. I bought a Panasonic FZ10, which I soon upgraded to the FZ30. I couldn't stop there, however, and a year later (March 2006) I bought a Canon 20D and 100-400L f/4.5-5.6 IS lens. This setup finally allowed my to start capturing the images I wanted. My main interest, however, (at least, here in Ithaca, NY) are warblers. They are fast, small, and hard to get close to. In order to make these small birds bigger, I bought a canon 500L f/4 IS in January 2007, instead of a car. I think it was worth it. It's significantly heavier than the 100-400 lens, so I generally use it on a monopod. I prefer to capture my subjects in natural environments, poses, and lighting. So I do not use a flash or calling tapes.
On nice mornings and evenings, when I'm not working on my homework for my senior engineering classes at Cornell, you can find me biking to and from the Lab of Ornithology at Cornell to go birding. Or, when I'm lucky, find rides to other locations with my fellow bird photographers. In what time remains I do research in mechanical engineering, which, surprise surprise, combines my interest in birds and engineering by working on a mechanical bird of sorts - a flapping hovering machine. It's actually thanks to this research, and the scholarships that have resulted from it, that have helped me pursue my interest in bird photography.
In addition to photographing birds, I also do a lot of landscape work, all of which can be seen at my web site.