DeSoto Red Tide Blessings! And Me Be the (Red Kite) Judge.

Never Too Late

On Saturday, September 22, 2018, multiple IPT veteran Indranil Sircar, newbie Ed Dow, Amy Novotny, and I enjoyed one of the greatest-ever mornings at Fort DeSoto. As we made our way to the Gulf we were met with a huge feeding spree with many thousands of pelicans gulls, terns, herons, and shorebirds gorging themselves on red-tide-debilitated fish. We started with lots of great pleasing blur opportunities, went to single birds in flight–most of those Royal Terns with fish — and then concentrated on various herons and egrets chowing down on some of the larger fish. I used both my 80-400 and my 200-500 with my back-up D-850. I never even had to get my feet wet, use the 600, or set up my tripod. The living was easy!

Indranil said, “That was as good or better than Estero Lagoon in the old days.” Ed said, “That was spectacular. I never expected anything like that …”

There is a small degree of red tide at DeSoto. I had a mild coughing spell but Ed and Indranil were 100% fine. There were some small dead fish along the shore. I saw only a single fairly large fish on the beach. All in all it was nothing like the havoc wreaked by the red tide further to the south for the past two months or so; tons of dead fish were removed and folks left the beaches choking and gasping for air.

I will be reviewing my images with the group at lunch and will surely post something tomorrow.

If you would like to join us on Sunday or for the 3 1/2 day IPT, or better yeet, for both, please see the details immediately below and then shoot me an e-mail or try my cell at 863-221-2372. Things are spectacular right now …

Biggest-ever Fort DeSoto Fall IPT Late-Registration Discounts

It’s not too late. Just hop on a Southwest flight to Tampa (TPA) and learn more about bird photography than you could have ever imagined. If you would like to explore the possibility of doing just that, consider joining me at Fort DeSoto this week for either the Sunday outing, the 3 1/2 day IPT, or both, please shoot me an e-mail to learn of the largest-ever late-registration discounts. If are an IPT veteran, please mention that for an additional discount. There have not been any red tide problems at DeSoto. I hope that you can join me.

Red-Kite-ready-to-dive-_MAI8580-Harewood,-UK

This image was created at Harewood, UK with the hand held Nikon AF-S NIKKOR 80-400mm f/4.5-5.6G ED VR lens (at 195mm) and my main Nikon D850. ISO 1000. Matrix metering +1 stop as framed: 1/4000 sec. at f/6.3 was perfect. NATURAL AUTO WB at 5:13pm on a clear afternoon.

Center Group (grp)/Continuous (AI Servo in Canon)/Shutter button AF as originally framed was active at the moment of exposure; this image was created from a cropped and rotated horizontal original.

Focus peaking AF Fine-tune: zero. See the Nikon AF Fine-tune e-Guide here.

Image #1: Red Kite top shot of dive

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Me Be the Red Kite Judge

I’d give Image #1 above, a 4. I’d give Image #2, below, a 5.

This image was created at Harewood, UK with the hand held Nikon AF-S NIKKOR 80-400mm f/4.5-5.6G ED VR lens (at 195mm) and my main Nikon D850. ISO 1000. Matrix metering +1 stop as framed: 1/3200 sec. at f/6.3 was a bit hot. NATURAL AUTO WB at 4:52pm on a clear afternoon.

Center Group (grp)/Continuous (AI Servo in Canon)/Shutter button AF as originally framed was active at the moment of exposure; this is just a small crop from below and from the left. The bird’s face was centered between the upper and right-most points of the array. Click on the image to see a larger version.

Focus peaking AF Fine-tune: zero. See the Nikon AF Fine-tune e-Guide here.

Image #2: Red Kite in upside down dive

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Interesting

It was very interesting reading folks’ comments on the You Be the Judge blog post here the other day. To be honest, some of them mystified me. But, as I always say, sometimes you just need to ask yourself, “What the heck does he know?”

Yes, Ten Seconds …

Yes, when you are judging hundreds of images you have roughly ten seconds to make a decision …

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