The Tale of the Scale. On Cheese. More on Nikon and Canon at 1200mm. And a Duck Behavior Quiz … « Arthur Morris/BIRDS AS ART

The Tale of the Scale. On Cheese. More on Nikon and Canon at 1200mm. And a Duck Behavior Quiz ...

Stuff

I am feeling and sleeping well. The hernia repair is healing nicely and the shoulder is doing as well as can be expected: pretty darned good. All of your get well wishes are helping. So thanks. 🙂

The Tale of the Scale

For the past few years my weight has fluctuated between 183 and 189 1/2 pounds; when I get close to 190, I get serious about tightening up my diet. Having weighed 264 as a senior in high school and in the 230s as a young adult, I know that once I let myself go 225 would not be far behind. My diabetes is of course a wonderful deterrent that keeps me on the straight and narrow. About a month ago, working with physical therapist Amy Novotny I decided to change my diet to vegan plus fish (no dairy). I have not missed a steak or a burger and I have not missed a nice juicy chicken thigh prepared on the backyard grill. But I have missed two things, two of my major food groups: all kinds of cheeses and either Hellman’s or Duke’s mayonnaise … I am feeling great and I am positive that my digestive system is really liking my new diet, especially the absence of cheese and other dairy products. On Friday morning I was down to 180 1/2 without trying and without ever being hungry. I am looking forward to getting slowly down to or below 175. Can you say quinoa?

Nikon D850s Right NowI

D850s are at least 3 weeks back-ordered at B&H. I have helped several folks get a D850 in the past few days. Steve Elkins — see item next — has several on hand right now waiting for your phone call. From blog regular Gloria Matyszyk: My camera has shipped! Thanks for this great photography company connection!

Money Saving Reminder

If you need a hot photo item that is out of stock at B&H, would enjoy free overnight shipping, and would like a $50 discount on your first purchase, click here to order and enter the coupon code BIRDSASART at checkout. If you are looking to strike a deal on Canon or Nikon gear (including the big telephotos) or on a multiple item order, contact Steve Elkins via e-mail or on his cell at (479) 381-2592 (Eastern time) and be sure to mention your BIRDSASART coupon code and use it for your online order. Patrick Sparkman saved $350 on a recent purchase!



Booking.Com

Several folks on the DeSoto IPT used the Booking.Com link below, got great rates, and saved a handsome $25.00 in the process. If you too would like to give Booking.Com a shot, click here and to earn a $25 reward on your first booking. Thanks to the many who have already tried and used this great service.


Gear Questions and Advice

Too many folks attending BAA IPTs and dozens of photographers whom I see in the field and on BPN, are–out of ignorance–using the wrong gear especially when it comes to tripods and more especially, tripod heads… Please know that I am always glad to answer your gear questions via e-mail. Those questions might deal with systems, camera bodies, accessories, and/or lens choices and decisions.

Why It’s So Hard to Give Up Cheese

From the Forks Over Knives website here
By Neal Barnard, MD.

An excerpt from The Cheese Trap: How Breaking a Surprising Addiction Will Help You Lose Weight, Gain Energy, and Get Healthy.

Which foods do you find most addictive? That’s the question University of Michigan researchers asked. The idea was, which foods lead you to lose control over how much you eat? Which ones are hard to limit? Which ones do you eat despite negative consequences? The researchers surveyed 384 people and here is what they found:

Problem food #5 is ice cream. Problem food #4 is cookies.Chips and chocolate were tied for #3 and #2. But the most problematic food of all was — drum roll, please—pizza. Yes, gooey cheese melting over a hot crust and dribbling down your fingers—it beat everything else. And here is what matters: The question was not, which foods do you especially like, or which foods leave you feeling good and satisfied. Rather, the question was, which foods do you have a problem with? Which ones lead you into overeating, gaining weight, and feeling lousy? Which foods seduce you, then leave you with regrets? So, why did pizza top the list? Why are we so often tempted to dig in and overdo it?

Three reasons: salt, grease, and opiates.

As you have no doubt experienced, salty foods can be habit-forming. French fries, salted peanuts, pretzels, and other salty foods are hard to resist, and food manufacturers know that adding salt to a recipe adds cash to the register. A Lay’s potato chips commercial in the 1960s said, “Bet you can’t eat one”—meaning it’s impossible to eat just one. Once the first salty chip passes your lips, you want more and more.

Your body does need some salt—about a gram and a half per day, according to U.S. health guidelines. In prehistoric times, however, salt was not so easy to come by. After all, potato chips and pretzels had not yet been invented. So people who managed to get their hands on salt were more likely to survive. Your neurological circuitry is set up to detect it, crave it, and jump in when you’ve found it.

As you will remember from fifth-grade biology, your tongue is very sensitive to the taste of salt. And brain scanning studies show that your brain is extra attuned to it, too. Deep inside the brain, in what is commonly called the “reward center,” brain cells make the feel-good neurotransmitter dopamine, and in certain situations it floods out of the cells, stimulating neighboring cells. If you find a particularly abundant source of food, your brain rewards you by releasing some dopamine. If you were to have—shall we say—a romantic, intimate encounter, your brain has a similar reaction. It gives you more dopamine. Dopamine rewards you for doing things that help you or your progeny to live on. And scientists believe that dopamine plays a role in our desire for salt.

So is there really a lot of salt in pizza? A fourteen-inch Domino’s cheese pizza has—catch this—3,391 milligrams of sodium. Just one slice delivers 400 milligrams. It’s in the crust and in the toppings, and there is a lot in the cheese. So salt is one of the reasons that pizza attracts us.

Pizza is also greasy, and that greasy-salty combination seems to get us hooked, too, just as it does for chips, fries, and onion rings. But pizza has one more thing. It has cheese, and cheese not only contributes its own load of salt and grease. It also contains traces of a very special kind of opiate.

Casomorphins

In an earlier chapter of The Cheese Trap, I briefly mentioned casein, the protein that is concentrated in cheese. And casein has some secrets to tell.

If you were to look at a protein molecule with a powerful microscope, it would look like a long string of beads. Each “bead” is a protein building block called an amino acid, and, during digestion, the individual amino acids come apart and are absorbed into your bloodstream so that your body can use them to build proteins of its own. So the calf digests the proteins in milk, breaking apart the chain of beads and using these amino acids to build skin cells, muscle cells, organs, and the other parts of the body. However, casein is an unusual protein. While it does break apart to release individual beads, it also releases longer fragments—chains that might be four, five, or seven amino acid beads in length. These casein fragments are called casomorphins — that is, casein-derived morphine-like compounds. And they can attach to the same brain receptors that heroin and other narcotics attach to.

In other words, dairy protein has opiate molecules built right into it. Opiates in dairy products? What the heck are they doing there, you might ask. Well, imagine if a calf did not want to nurse. Or if a human baby was not interested in nursing. They would not do very well. So, along with protein, fat, sugar, and a sprinkling of hormones, milk contains opiates that reward the baby for nursing. Have you ever looked at a nursing baby’s face? The infant has a look of great intensity and then collapses into sleep. Of course, we imagine that to be the beauty of the mother-infant bond. But the fact is, mother’s milk delivers a mild drug to the child, albeit in a benign and loving way. If that sounds coldly biological, it pays to remember that nature never leaves anything as important as a baby’s survival to chance.

Opiates have a calming effect, and they also cause the brain to release dopamine, leading to a sense of reward and pleasure. A cup of milk contains about 7.7 grams of protein, 80 percent of which is casein, more or less. Turning it into Cheddar cheese multiplies the protein content seven-fold, to 56 grams. It is the most concentrated form of casein in any food in the grocery store. Call it dairy crack. Just as cocaine manufacturers have found ways to turn an addictive drug (cocaine) into an extremely addictive one (crack), dairy producers have found their own ways to keep you coming back. In the Middle Ages, cheese makers had no idea that cheese might concentrate milk’s addictive qualities. But today’s cheese industry knows all about cheese craving and is eager to exploit it. It is doing its level best to trigger cheese craving in vulnerable people.

That pretty much explains it.

Nikon AF-S Teleconverter TC-20Es Suck! Or do they?

For many decades Nikon-users (and many of the internet experts who have never used them) have maligned the various iterations of the Nikon TC-20Es, the 2X teleconverters. With the introduction of the latest version — the Nikon AF-S Teleconverter TC-20E III — I heard from a few folks that it Nikon Series III 2X TC was “okay.” But when I first began using the new 2X I did so with an open mind. And I expected the results to be excellent. I can firmly state that in competent hands, the Nikon AF-S Teleconverter TC-20E III when Focus Fine-tuned and used with the Nikon AF-S NIKKOR 600mm f/4E FL ED VR lens is more than sharp enough for me.

As mentioned here before, initial AF acquisition at 1200mm with my Nikon stuff is slower and more difficult than it is with my Canon gear. That is especially true as you work with AF points away from the center AF point; by the times you get to the edges with Nikon AF at 1200mm you are often helpless and hopeless unless you are trying to focus on something with high contrast. The AF performance in these situations sometimes improves when you pre-focus manually.

Learn more about Nikon and Canon at 1200mm in the blog posts here and here.

This image was created at the Gilbert Water Ranch Riparian Preserve in Gilbert Arizona on the morning of March 1, 2018. I used the Induro GIT 304L/Mongoose M3.6-mounted Nikon AF-S NIKKOR 600mm f/4E FL ED VR lens, the Nikon AF-S Teleconverter TC-20E III, and the 9fps mega mega-pixel Nikon D850. ISO 400. Matrix metering -1 1/3 stops: 1/1600 sec. at f/11. AUOT2 WB at 11:09am on a pretty much sunny morning.

Two AF points up from the center AF point/d-9 Shutter Button AF. The selected AF point was on the duck’s neck right and on the same plane as its eye.

AF Focus Peaking Fine-tune -5.

Drake Hooded Merganser

Click on the image to enjoy a larger version.

Behavior Quiz

Hooded Merganser has been somewhat of a nemesis bird for me but only for about 3 1/2 decades. I was glad to find this one at Pond 5 at Gilbert and even happier when it swam within range. If you have a clue as to what this bird is doing please leave a comment.

Exposure Question

Why did I need to go down to 1 1/3 stops of EC?

The Nikon AF Fine-tune e-Guide

Please click here to purchase.

The Nikon AF Fine-tune e-Guide: $30.00 (or free — see below for details on that).

by Arthur Morris/BIRDS AS ART and Patrick Sparkman

There is lots of misinformation out there on the Nikon Automatic AF Fine-tune feature. Much of that involves vast over-simplifications. Patrick Sparkman and I developed a way of using the Automatic Fine-tune feature effectively with the D5, D500, the D7500, and the D850. Patrick, however, was on a roll and perfected a method for using the Focus Peaking feature available only on the D850 to quickly and accurately micro-adjust all lenses and TC-Es with your D-850. If you own a D850 you should be using D850 Focus Peaking AF Fine-tune rather than Nikon Automatic AF Fine-tune. It is faster and easier and more accurate. While there is some halfway decent info online with regards to Nikon Automatic Fine-tune feature, I have never seen a word about using the amazing D850 Focus Peaking capabilities to determine an accurate AF Fine-tune value. You can thank Patrick Sparkman for rectifying that situation.

With both Nikon Automatic AF Fine-tune and D850 Focus Peaking AF Fine-tune, the use of a LensAlign Mark II unit is recommended as best by far for accurate results and thus, this guide is written reflecting that. Taping a sheet of newsprint on a wall or using the FoCal kit does not assure you of the True Parallel Alignment (TPA) that is guaranteed when you set up your LensAlign properly. Without TPA your results will be off anywhere from a little to a lot. You can purchase the LensAlign Mark II alone here. Or you can purchase the LensAlign/FocusTune combo here. If you do not own either of those we suggest that you decide which to purchase after reading this guide through once. That said, we recommend the LensAlign/FocusTune combo for reasons that will become obvious as you make your way though the guide.

Do understand that much of the set-up information included in the Nikon AF Fine-tune e-Guide is by necessity a duplication of information included in The LensAlign/FocusTune Micro-Adjusting Tutorial e-Guide.

Please click here to purchase.

If you have spent $2,000+ on Nikon gear (correctly) using my affiliate links, shoot me a copy of your receipt via e-mail so that I can send you your free PDF.

San Diego offers a wealth of very attractive natural history subjects, including and especially the Pacific race of California Brown Pelican. With annual visits spanning more than four decades, I have lots of photographic experience there … Click on the composite to enjoy a larger version.

2019 San Diego 4 1/2-DAY BIRDS AS ART Instructional Photo-Tour (IPT) SUN JAN 20, 2019 thru and including the morning session on THURS JAN 24: 4 1/2 days: $2099.

(Limit: 10)

Introductory Meet and Greet at 7:00pm on the evening before the IPT begins; SAT JAN 19, 2019.

Please see the Dancing Grebe Morning Add-On Info below

Join me in San Diego to photograph the spectacular breeding plumage Brown Pelicans with their fire-engine red and olive green bill pouches; Brandt’s (nesting with eggs and possibly chicks) and Double-crested Cormorants; breeding plumage Wood and Ring-necked Duck; other duck species possible including Lesser Scaup, Redhead, and Surf Scoter; a variety of gulls including Western, California, and the gorgeous Heermann’s, all in full breeding plumage; shorebirds including Marbled Godwit, Willet, Sanderling and Black-bellied Plover; many others are possible including Least, Western, and Spotted Sandpiper, Whimbrel, Black and Ruddy Turnstone, Semipalmated Plover, and Surfbird; Harbor Seals (depending on the current regulations) and California Sea Lions; and Bird of Paradise flowers. And as you can see by studying the IPT cards, there are some nice bird-scape and landscape opportunities as well. Not to mention a ton of excellent flight photography opportunities and instruction.

Please note: where permitted and on occasion, ducks and gulls will be attracted (or re-located) with offerings of grains and healthy breads.

Learning Exposure, Whether You Like It Or Not

Whether you like it or not, we will be beating the subject of exposure like a dead horse. In every new situation you will hear my thoughts on the exposure situation along with my thoughts on both Nikon and Canon histograms and the subject of blinkies. Whether you like it or not, you will learn to work in manual mode and to get the right exposure every time as long as a bird gives you ten seconds with the light constant.And you will learn what to do when the light is changing constantly. What you learn about exposure will be one of the great take-aways on every IPT.

Though the pelicans will be the stars of the show on this IPT, there will be many other handsome and captivating subjects in wonderful settings. Click on the composite to enjoy a larger version.

It Ain’t Just Pelicans

With gorgeous subjects just sitting there waiting to have their pictures taken, photographing the pelicans on the cliffs is about as easy as nature photography gets. With the winds from the east almost every morning there is usually some excellent flight photography as well. And the pelicans are almost always doing something interesting: preening, scratching, bill pouch cleaning, or squabbling. And then there are those crazy head throws that are thought to be a form of intra-flock communication. You will be guided as to how to make the best of all of those opportunities. And depending on the weather and local conditions and tides, there are a variety of fabulous photo chances available in and around San Diego.


san-diego-card-neesie

Did I mention that there are wealth of great birds and natural history subjects in San Diego in winter? Click on the composite to enjoy a larger version.

The San Diego Details

This IPT will include five 3 1/2 hour morning photo sessions, four 2 1/2 hour afternoon photo sessions, four lunches, and after-lunch image review and Photoshop sessions. To ensure early starts, breakfasts will be your responsibility. An so that we can get some sleep, dinners will be on your own.

A $599 non-refundable deposit is required to hold your slot for this IPT. You can send a check (made out to “Arthur Morris) to us at BIRDS AS ART, PO Box 7245, Indian Lake Estates, FL, 3385, or call Jim or Jennifer at the office with a credit card at 863-692-0906. Your balance, payable only by check, will be due on 10/11//2018. If we do not receive your check for the balance on or before the due date we will try to fill your spot from the waiting list. Please print, complete, and sign the form that is linked to here and shoot it to us along with your deposit check. If you register by phone, please print, complete and sign the form as noted above and either mail it to us or e-mail the scan. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me via e-mail.


san-diego-card-b

Variety is surely the spice of life in San Diego. Click on the composite to enjoy a larger version.

Getting Up Early and Staying Out Late

On all BIRDS AS ART IPTS including and especially the San Diego IPT, we get into the field early to take advantage of unique and often spectacular lighting conditions and we stay out late to maximize the chances of killer light and glorious sunset silhouette situations. We often arrive at the cliffs a full hour before anyone else shows up to check out the land/sea scape opportunities.


clarkes-x-western-grebe-hybrid-courtship-rush-_r7a3968-lake-hodges-san-deigo-ca

This image was created in San Diego, CA with the Induro GIT 304L/Mongoose M3.6-mounted Canon EF 500mm f/4L IS II USM lens, the Canon Extender EF 1.4X III, and the simply amazing, astounding, mega mega-pixel Canon EOS 5DS R. ISO 500. Evaluative metering -2/3 stop: 1/2500 sec. at f/6.3 in Av mode. AWB.

61-Point (Automatic selection)/AI Servo/Shutter Button AF as originally framed was active at the moment of exposure (as is always best when photographing moving subjects). Though the optimized image above was a healthy crop from the original the result was a high quality 148+ MB 16-bit file. Click on the image to see a larger version. The AF system selected two AF points, one above the other, between the two birds;the eye of the bird on our right is razor sharp.

Clarke’s X Western Grebe courtship rush

The Dancing Grebe Add-On. FRI JAN 25, 2019: $399.

Those registering for the 2019 San Diego IPT might wish to join me for the Dancing Grebe Add-On Morning as above. Please read the details carefully. You will need to wade at least mid-thigh deep with your tripod over an uneven bottom. Lightweight chest waders are advised. Long lenses are needed; a 100-400 will not cut it at this spot, even with a TC. Chances at this location (easily accessible from the IPT hotel), vary from day to day so there will be no guarantees. But when those grebes dance, it can be an amazing rush. We may also enjoy chances to photograph both species, Western and Clarke’s Grebes, at fairly close range.

Help Support the Blog

Please help support my (stupendous) efforts here on the blog by remembering to click on the logo link above each time that you shop Amazon. That would be greatly appreciated. There is no problem using your Prime account; just click on the link and log into your Prime account. With love, artie

If In Doubt …

If in doubt about using the BAA B&H affiliate link correctly, you can always start your search by clicking here. Please note that the tracking is invisible. Web orders only. Please, however, remember to shoot me your receipt via e-mail.





Please Remember to use my Affiliate Links and to Visit the New BAA Online Store 🙂

To show your appreciation for my continuing efforts here, we ask, as always, that you get in the habit of using my B&H affiliate links on the right side of the blog for all of your photo and electronics purchases. Please check the availability of all photographic accessories in the New BIRDS AS ART Online Store, especially the Mongoose M3.6 tripod head, Wimberley lens plates, Delkin flash cards and accessories, and LensCoat stuff.

As always, we sell only what I have used, have tested, and can depend on. We will not sell you junk. We know what you need to make creating great images easy and fun. And please remember that I am always glad to answer your gear questions via e-mail.

I would of course appreciate your using our B&H affiliate links for all of your major gear, video, and electronic purchases. For the photographic stuff mentioned in the paragraph above, and for everything else in the new store, we, meaning BAA, would of course greatly appreciate your business. Here is a huge thank you to the many who have been using our links on a regular basis and those who will be visiting the New BIRDS AS ART Online Store as well.

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Be sure to like and follow BAA on Facebook by clicking on the logo link upper right. Tanks a stack.

Typos

In all blog posts and Bulletins, feel free to e-mail or to leave a comment regarding any typos or errors. Just be right :).

19 comments to The Tale of the Scale. On Cheese. More on Nikon and Canon at 1200mm. And a Duck Behavior Quiz …

  • avatar David Policansky

    Hi, Artie, and thanks. Happily, cheese isn’t one of my many food sins, but potato chips are! I especially like the ridged ones, which give you more salt and grease per unit volume. Of the hooded-merganser answers, the drinking one makes most sense to me. Unless it is warily eying a bald eagle.

  • avatar Max Warner

    Most birds except members of the pigeon family and a few others cannot suck water upward and swallow when they want a drink. They get a bill full of water and then tip their heads up to swallow the fluid. I suspect that is what this drake is doing.

    • I was considering guessing that the duck was swallowing a small fish but I like your water idea better.

    • avatar Arthur Morris/BIRDS AS ART

      Hey Max,

      I was sure that you (and David above) were 100% correct until I read Jim Burns’ comment below. (It had been in moderation). Live and learn.

      with love, artie

  • Here’s a wild guess on duck behavior. Hooded Merganser are diving ducks as opposed to dabblers. I wonder if you captured the duck leaning backward just before a dive…?

    • avatar Arthur Morris/BIRDS AS ART

      Good try but nope 🙂 I knew that this one would be tricky …

      with love, artie

      ps: keep trying!

  • avatar Mark Harrington

    Good for you Artie. Welcome to the club. Eating on the IPTs will be more challenging but well worth it. P.S. Try Veganaise. It’s not too bad.

  • Hey Arthur, I think i want to eat more cheese now. I believe this guy is displaying for the ladies. On the exposure question you were trying to save those whites in the bright sunlight.

    • avatar Arthur Morris/BIRDS AS ART

      Me too on eating more cheese but not eating any 🙂 Thanks for playing but this drake is not displaying …

      with love, artie

  • avatar Sarah Mayhew

    Hi Artie, Looks like courtship behavior. Many ducks seem to throw their heads back in such a manner. Interesting about the cheese. I think carbohydrates are more of a problem for people than cheese. Though addiction is addiction. My significant other has diabetes and I did a lot of research and put him on a strict low carb diet along with quite few supplements known for helping diabetics. His numbers dropped immediately and he was able to get off insulin for several months. His numbers did start creeping back up though and he now takes a very tiny amount of insulin and his numbers are great. He also lost weight, almost too much and now really has to eat a lot of food to maintain his weight, not most peoples problems! He says he feels so much healthier. Hope you are healing well now from your surgeries and feel better each day!

    • avatar Arthur Morris/BIRDS AS ART

      All good. Whatever you do , get a copy of The Diabetes Solution by Richard K Bernstein and start studying 🙂

      with love, artie

      ps: he is NOT displaying …

  • avatar Guido Bee

    Interesting observations on cheese and the dairy “addiction”.
    I spent several years in water management and desalination; I was recommended a book called “Salt” by Mark Kurlansky. More info and history of one compound than I thought I’d ever need to know. Not a lot of photography related stuff in it (other than the silver salts connection), but you might enjoy it. Basically, cheese being milk plus salt, it’s not surprising to me it can drive over indulgences: even mine, and I’m lucky with my metabolism.
    Best of luck on the healing and the new dietary choices.
    And now I’ll have to check out my 2x with 600 and try the fine tune. Both are older models (AF-S, pre-VR), but I should not let that keep me from trying to optimize the results. I have tried my adjustments / alignments on my back deck (concrete, and with some patience it can be pretty stable) at about 65 feet, and they seem to be favorable so far. Alignment seems to be pretty close; 1.4 and 1.7x do well enough, but I’d like to improve what I can… It has been my observation that lack of proper technique is pretty far down most peoples’ list of reasons why they don’t get the results they would like.
    Sorry for the wordy post.
    Thanks for all your efforts at improving our craft. It is appreciated. Be well.

    • avatar Arthur Morris/BIRDS AS ART

      You skinny guys are lucky!

      And thanks for your kind words. Type as long as you like 🙂 I gotta go make some vegetarian curry! It is really good!

      with love, artie

  • Duck behavior quiz–Art, I’ll bet there was a female Hoody around, or at least your male Hooded Merganser was feeling frisky. I think this is a courtship display called “drinking,” where the male takes in some water, then compresses the crest and points the bill straight up, something not associated with simply getting a drink of water outside of mating season.

    • avatar Arthur Morris/BIRDS AS ART

      Thanks Jim, I was about to write this: I will take that bet. 🙂 But then I re-read your comment more carefully and consulted The Birds of North America Hooded Merganser species account (No. 98) and found this in the section on Courtship Displays: Drinking is a ritualized behavior that can be distinguished form normal drinking motions by the strongly depressed crest and almost vertical orientation of the bill. You are correct sir.

      I did find this error in the account: Courtship occurs in small groups consisting of at least one female and several males. There was only a single male at Gilbert and this one was swimming around with two females.

      IAC, well done and thanks for setting me straight.

      with love, artie

  • Nice work on the Merganser, “Hoodies” as a friend of mine calls them, are my favorite duck to observe and photograph. Also, great work with the TC-20E III. I usually do good with mine at or near minimum focus distance but you are obviously not at minimum focus distance. You have inspired me to put mine back on when there is plenty of light and try to make a nice sharp photo like yours. As for the why are you at -1 1/3 stops of EC question. I’d say it because everything in your image is pretty dark. The water is dark and most of the duck is dark. If you were at 0 the small but important white parts of the Hoodie would be way overexposed. My question is, did you automatically know to use that amount of EC and if so, how did you know, or did you get there the way I would have, trail and error. I mean, I would have known to go negative, but I certainly would not have known how much without some chimping, and observation of the histogram and blinkies.

    • avatar Arthur Morris/BIRDS AS ART

      Good on the EC stuff. Are you Nikon or Canon?

      with love, artie

      ps: One look at the scene and those little areas of bright white and I knew that I would need at least -1 stop or more 🙂