Biography
Who?
First of all, welcome to my nature photography site. My name is Luuk Belgers (1986) and I'm from the Netherlands. In 2009 I graduated as a MSc in medical biotechnology from the University of Wageningen, after which I moved back to the rural south of my country. My photography domain is located in a radius of 5 km from my house. So I've become pretty specialized in this, relatively small but very diverse, area. Even though, I can still be surprised sometimes by a fox in my garden or an Osprey (pretty rare for the Netherlands) along a nearby river. So all the images you can find on this site have been taken in that small area, which indicates its extreme diversity.
How?
I use the following material for my nature photography:
Nikon D300: a specialized, well build, semi-professional DSLR. Thanks to the battery grip it handles much better and it lets me shoot at 8 frames per second.
Nikon AF-S 300mm f4: relatively light and sharp telelens. I often pair it up with a Kenko Pro 1.4x converter, thereby turning it into a 630mm (35mm eq.) lens.
Nikon AF-S 16-85mm f3.5-5.6 DX: nice, small, and sharp allround zoom for landscapes.
Sigma 150mm f2.8 macro: one of the best macro lenses currently available. This lens is very sharp and produces outstanding bokeh. An example can be seen below.
Nikon AF-S 70-300mm f4.5-5.6 VR: light telezoom lens. I don't use it that much anymore since I bought the 300mm f4 prime.
Gitzo 3541LS: outstanding carbon fiber tripod. Gitzo has been one of the very best tripod manufactures around. Almost all professional photographers use this brand.
GM 3551: monopod. Comes in handy on those longer walks.
Markins M10 ballhead: small and light, though very capable ballhead.
Nikon SB900: Nikon's flash gunship. I use this outstanding flash for high-speed photography.
Mac Pro / 27" ACD / Lightroom / Photoshop: this ultimate combination of power and simplicity lets me process, organize and publish my photo's in a reliable and quick way.
Where - Roerdalen en National Park de Meinweg
As mentioned before, all of my photo's have been taken in the direct vicinity of my hometown. My garden harbors armies of the usual garden birds, but also owls, kingfishers, a fox, and a sparrow hawk sometimes turns up. In and around the pond 
are many frogs, dragon flies and other insects. For the mammals I like to go to National Park de Meinweg. This park is part of the German-Dutch park Maas-Swalm-Netto which is around 10.000 hectares large. Here I can often find Roe deer, wild boar, foxes, badgers and many more. Next to the Meinweg is the 'Roer valley' in which the river the Roer flows. This is one of the most diverse rivers in the Netherlands containing more than 50 species of fish, including Salmon and Trout. Allthough their numbers are still small, we see a steady increase on a yearly basis. On (and yes, also "in") this river I have photographed the Beaver and Kingfishers.
All of my photo's have been made of wild animals. Zoo photography is not my cup of tea. If there's no effort going into a shot, its not worth taking! Go out, study your subjects, and let the animals be animals. This is where the challenge of a nature photographer lies. Trying to capture life without disturbing it. So if this involves laying between nettles and mosquitos for 2 hours, just to find yourself 3 meters from a hare, 10 meters from a deer, and 5 meters from a phaesant, so be it ;). And on that note, I'm going to end my biography...