What’s Up?
Friday was ducks all day. On Saturday morning at La Jolla Bob Eastman and I created some predawn blurs. Then we spent some time at Children’s Pool working the Harbor Seals. Two had newborn pups. Last we worked the gulls by The Green Patch and some cooperative shorebirds at The Crevice: a handsome Whimbrel and a very busy Spotted Sandpiper. There was an occasional fly-by group of Brown Pelicans. Bob created a really neat image of an adult Black Oystercatcher harassing a pelican that was apparently diving for fish. We spent Saturday afternoon packing for our flight to Orlando that leaves at 10:48am tomorrow. Longtime friend Patrick Sparkman (AKA Sparky Patman) and wife Robin joined Bob and me for dinner at our AirBnB on Saturday evening. Patrick co-wrote the original Sony Guides with me and was responsible for developing the Zebra setting values that are still used with great success on the a-1 and a-1 ii bodies
Today is Sunday 2 February 2025. It’s been a great trip but I am ready to get home and get ready for Homer and the Bald Eagles. Our flight is scheduled to leave at 10:48am. Jim is picking us up at MCO at about 7:00pm as we lose three hours flying west to east.
If an item — a Delkin flash card, or a tripod head — for example, that is available from B&H and/or Bedfords, is also available in the BAA Online Store, it would be great, and greatly appreciated, if you would opt to purchase from us. We will match any price. Please remember also to use my B&H affiliate links or to earn 3% cash back at Bedfords by using the BIRDSASART discount code at checkout for your major gear purchases. Doing either often earns you free guides and/or discounts. And always earns my great appreciation.
Supporting My Efforts Here
If you enjoy and learn from the blog, are all set for gear, or live overseas, consider leaving a BAA Blog Thank You Gift here.
If you enjoy and learn from the blog, please consider using one of my affiliate links when purchasing new gear. It will never cost you a single penny. To support my effort here, please order from B&H by beginning your search here. Or, click here, to order from Bedfords and enter the discount code BIRDSASART at checkout to receive 3% cash back to your credit card and enjoy free Second-Day Air Fed-Ex shipping. It is always best to write for advice via e-mail.
In many cases, I can help you save some serious dollars. And/or prevent you from purchasing the wrong gear from the wrong shop.
In the Last Blog Post
In the Thrilled To Say That I Was 100% Wrong blog post here, my rankings were 4, 1, 3, 2. Colleen O’Connor, the Irish Lass, agreed. All but one of the many folks who commented went with #4 as the strongest. Many went with #2 as second best and David Pugsley, a very fine photographer picked that as his number one image. For me, #2 was boring in part because the bird is not brightly colored. I loved the dynamic flight pose of #1 and the bright breeding plumage of #3.
Thanks to all who left a comment.
Your Call?
As Mr. Bob’s spectacular Cinnamon Teal top shot, Image #7 below, is clearly the pick of today’s litter, the question for today is Which of the other six flying duck images is the strongest?
|
This image was created on 10 January at Santee Lakes Regional Preserve on the Expanded San Diego 2025 IPT. Standing at full height, I used the hand held Sony FE 200-600mm f/5.6-6.3 G OSS lens (at 326mm) and the and The Latest Greatest Flagship Body, the Sony a1 II Mirrorless Camera. The exposure was determined via Zebras with Exposure Compensation on the thumb dial. Multi-metering -0.3 stops. AUTO ISO set ISO 1000: 1/4000 sec. at f/6.3 (wide open) in Shutter Priority mode. RawDigger showed that the exposure was 2/3 stop short of being perfect. AWB at 3:27:04pm on a sunny afternoon. Zone AF-C with Bird Eye/Face Detection enabled performed perfectly. Image #1: Ring-necked Duck head in flight — wings fully down |
Sony a-1 ii Does Fast and Erratic Ducks in Flight
The ducks at Santee are challenging flight subjects: but for Mallard, they are small, fast and often erratic flyers; several species flash their white wing linings when braking to land; some, like the ring-necked and Wood Duck drakes, have small slashes of white or bright silvers while others are more uniformly toned, in other words, an exposure nightmare; at times, many fly right at us at all at once so picking out the more desirable species adds to the challenge.
Throw in sometimes changing light and varying background tonalities, and you really have your work cut out for you. If you are blessed to own more than one telephoto lens, simply selecting the best one can test you. Fixed or zoom? Focal length? Tripod or hand hold? One thing that you can be sure of is that whatever way you go it will be wrong at least some of the time.
|
This image was created on 29 January at Santee Lakes Regional Preserve. Seated on a dirt bank, I used the hand held Sony FE 300mm f/2.8 GM OSS Lens (Sony E) with the Sony FE 1.4x Teleconverter and the The Latest Greatest Sony Flagship Body, the a1 II Mirrorless Camera. ISO 1000. The exposure was determined via Zebras with Exposure Compensation on the thumb dial. Multi-metering +1.7 stops. AUTO ISO set ISO 4000: 1/3200 sec. at f/4 (wide open) in Shutter Priority mode. RawDigger showed that the exposure was very close to dead solid perfect. AWB at 4:20:00pm on a then cloudy afternoon. . Zone/AF-C with Bird Eye/Face Detection enabled performed perfectly. Image #2: Mallard drake braking to land |
The Exposure Mode Challenge
For the many reasons noted above, deciding whether to work in Manual Mode or in Shutter Priority Mode with AUTO ISO is a tough choice. This year, I did the flying ducks almost exclusively working in Shutter Priority Mode with AUTO ISO and Exposure Compensation on the Thumb Dial. Bob stuck with Manual mode. Either way, one thing is for sure:
1- Your exposure will be less than perfect about half the time, often well less than perfect.
Why? You never know what’s coming at you so there is no time for most folks to make any changes in the exposure settings. In addition, the wing positions are changing constantly so you never know if the white wing linings will be revealed when the wing are full raised or hidden when the wings are fully down. For me, working in Shutter Priority mode when photographing ducks in flight gives me the greatest chance of getting it right.
When a cloud covered the sun, I immediately dialed in +1.7 stops of EC; the result was a dead solid perfect exposure.
|
This image was created on 29 January at Santee Lakes Regional Preserve. Seated on a dirt bank, I used the Robus RC-5570 Vantage Series 3 Carbon Fiber Tripod/Levered-Clamp FlexShooter Pro-mounted Sony FE 600mm f/4 GM OSS lens and The Latest Greatest Sony Flagship Body, the a1 II Mirrorless Camera. The exposure was determined via Zebras with Exposure Compensation on the thumb dial. Multi-metering at zero. AUTO ISO set ISO 640: 1/4000 sec. at f/4 (wide open) in Shutter Priority mode. RawDigger showed that the exposure was dead solid perfect. AWB at 3:37:45pm on mostly sunny afternoon. Tracking: Zone/AF-C with Bird-Eye/Face Detection performed perfectly. Click on the image to enjoy the high-res version. Image #3: Ring-necked Duck drake splash landing |
Dead Solid Perfect Exposure at Zero EC
The bright white markings on the bill and the very white breast combined with the splashing water at touchdown yielded a dead solid perfect exposure when this drake ring-necked hit the water. See the next image and remember that you never know what duck will be flying at you at high speed.
|
This image was created on 29 January at Santee Lakes Regional Preserve. Seated on a dirt bank, I used the Robus RC-5570 Vantage Series 3 Carbon Fiber Tripod/Levered-Clamp FlexShooter Pro-mounted Sony FE 600mm f/4 GM OSS lens and The Latest Greatest Sony Flagship Body, the a1 II Mirrorless Camera. The exposure was determined via Zebras with Exposure Compensation on the thumb dial. Multi-metering at zero. AUTO ISO set ISO 640: 1/4000 sec. at f/4 (wide open) in Shutter Priority mode. RawDigger showed that the exposure was more than a full stop under-exposed. AWB at 4:02:07pm on mostly sunny afternoon. Tracking: Zone/AF-C with Bird-Eye/Face Detection performed perfectly. Click on the image to enjoy the high-res version. Image #4: Cinnamon Teal hen on final approach |
More Than a Stop Too Dark at Zero EC
Mallards and Ring-necked Ducks are the two most common subjects at Santee Lakes. The trick is to pick out something different when as many as a dozen ducks are flying right at you. I knew that zero EC would avoid over-exposing any bright whites on a sunny afternoon unless I had a drake Wood Duck fly in against a dark green background. Anyhoo, when I got on this incoming Cinnamon Teal hen at the last second, there was simply no time to add one full stop of light for the relatively mid-toned subject. With today’s amazing mirrorless camera bodies, however, it is a lot easier to deal with significant under-exposures than it is to deal with significant over-exposures. As with film, you cannot give away the whites.
|
This image was created on 31 January at La Jolla, CA. Seated on the dirt bank, I used the hand held Sony FE 300mm f/2.8 GM OSS Lens (Sony E) with the Sony FE 2x Teleconverter and the Latest Greatest Sony Flagship Body, the a1 II Mirrorless Camera. The exposure was determined via Zebras with Exposure Compensation on the thumb dial. Multi-metering +0.3 stops AUTO ISO set ISO 1600: 1/4000 sec. at f/5.6 (wide open) in Shutter Priority mode. RawDigger showed that the exposure was dead solid perfect: AWB at 3:49:11pm on a sunny afternoon. Tracking: Zone/AF-C with Bird Eye/Face Detection enabled performed perfectly. Image #5: Lesser Scaup hen touching down |
Separating the Hens
Female Ring-necked Ducks and female Lesser Scaups are fairly similar. The former always show a distinct white ring around the bill while the latter always have dark, rich chocolate brown heads. At Santee, the ring-necks outnumber the scaups by at least 30 to one.
|
This image was created on 31 January at La Jolla, CA. Seated on the dirt bank, I used the hand held Sony FE 300mm f/2.8 GM OSS Lens (Sony E) and The Latest Greatest Sony Flagship Body, the a1 II Mirrorless Camera. ISO 1000. The exposure was determined via Zebras with Exposure Compensation on the thumb dial. Multi-metering =0.3 stops. AUTO ISO set ISO 400: 1/4000 sec. at f/2.8 (wide open) in Shutter Priority mode. RawDigger showed that the exposure was dead solid perfect: AWB at 4:22:33pm on a sunny afternoon. Zone/AF-C with Bird Eye/Face Detection enabled performed perfectly. Image #6: Gadwall hen on final approach |
Fortuitous
Feeding the waterfowl at Santee is encouraged. The always pleasant volunteers who man the pay booth are happy to sell us bags of scratch, healthy duck food, for $2.00 a pop. “You want ten bags of scratch???”
AI Overview: scratch is a supplemental treat for ducks made from a mix of grains and seeds. It’s meant to encourage natural foraging behaviors and provide an energy boost.
Tossing handfuls of scratch in the right location will often result in dozens of ducks flying right at you, all in a hurry to get in on the free food. Late in the day on Friday we got very lucky. With more than a hundred ducks right in front of us, someone on the east shore of the lake began feeding directly opposite of us. They all flew away. I had been working at 1200mm with the big lens on the tripod when the ducks that had left us began flying back to us in anticipation. I quickly grabbed the a-1 ii and mounted it onto my 300mm f/2.8 that had been placed carefully on the bank. When this hen Gadwall flew in high, I was thrilled in part because like Lesser Scaup, Gadwall is uncommon at the preserve, and in part because the high flyers yield the softest, sweetest backgrounds. Especially at f/2.8.
|
This image was created on 31 January 2025 at La Jolla, CA by my good friend Bob Eastman. Standing at full height, he used the hand held Sony FE 200-600mm f/5.6-6.3 G OSS lens (at 600mm) and The One, the Sony Alpha 1 Mirrorless digital camera. ) The exposure was determined using Zebra technology with ISO on the Thumb Dial. ISO 1600. 1/3200 second at f/6.3 (wide-open) in Manual Mode. AWB at 3:54:22pm on a sunny afternoon. RawDigger showed the exposure to be within 1/2 stop of dead solid perfect. Tracking: Spot (XS) AF-C with Bird Face/Eye Detection performed perfectly. Be sure to click on the image to enjoy a high-res version. Image #7: Cinnamon Teal drake — dorsal view, flying away
|
Bob’s Eastman’s Trusty Sony 200-600 G Lens with the Sony a-1
It has become a standing joke. As I am deciding on which lens to use for a photo session, Bob will always chime in with, “I think I’ll take my two to six.” It is his only long telephoto lens and as you have seen here, he consistently created some fabulous images. Things were no different at Santee. More than ten years my junior, Mr. Bob is stronger, has faster reflexes, and better hand-eye coordination than I. Thus, he is better able to get on the smallest, fastest flying ducks like Cinnamon Teal. I would trade all six of my images above for Bob’s spectacular top shot of the drake cinnamon showing the sky blue greater coverts and the green feathers of the speculum.
|
The Photo Mechanic screen capture shows the full frame original. Image #6: Cinnamon Teal drake — dorsal view, flying away
|
The Photo Mechanic Screen Capture
The Photo Mechanic Screen capture above shows the crop I used when optimizing Bob’s fabulous image. The problem was that the light blue reflections in the lower right corner drew the viewer’s eye from the subject. I use several tools and techniques to eliminate the somewhat distracting bright reflections.
|
The BIRDS AS ART Current Workflow e-Guide (Digital Basics II).You can order your copy from the BAA Online Store here, by sending a PayPal for $40 here, or by calling Jim or Jennifer weekdays at 863-692-0906 with your credit card in hand. Be sure to specify Digital Basics II. |
The BIRDS AS ART Current Workflow e-Guide (Digital Basics II)
The techniques I used to optimize all of today’s featured images and tons more great Photoshop tips and techniques — along with my complete digital workflow, Digital Eye Doctor Techniques, and all my personalized Keyboard Shortcuts — are covered in detail in the BIRDS AS ART Current Workflow e-Guide (Digital Basics II), an instructional PDF that is sent via e-mail. Note: folks working on a PC and/or those who do not want to miss anything Photoshop may wish to purchase the original Digital Basics along with DB II while saving $15 by clicking here to buy the DB Bundle.
Please note: the Divide and Conquer technique was inadvertently omitted from DB II. It is detailed in a free excerpt in the blog post here.
Folks who learn well by following along rather than by reading can check out the complete collection of MP 4 Photoshop Tutorial Videos by clicking here. Note: most of the videos are now priced at an amazingly low $5.00 each.
You can learn how and why I converted all of my Canon digital RAW files in DPP 4 in the DPP 4 RAW Conversion Guide here. More recently, I became proficient at converting my Nikon RAW (NEF) files in Adobe Camera Raw. About three years ago I began converting my Nikon and Sony RAW files in Capture One and did that for two years. You can learn more about Capture One in the Capture One Pro 12 Simplified MP4 Video here. The next step would be to get a copy of Arash Hazeghi’s “The Nikon Photographers’ Guide to Phase One Capture One Pro e-Guide” in the blog post here. Today, I convert my Sony raw files in Photoshop with Adobe Camera Raw.
You can learn advanced Quick Masking and advanced Layer Masking techniques in APTATS I & II. You can save $15 by purchasing the pair.
|
The Digital Basics III Video Series |
The Digital Basics III Video Series
I realized more than a year ago that my digital workflow had changed significantly and was toying with the idea of writing a Digital Basics III. More recently, I learned and began working with two great new Photoshop Tools, the Remove Tool and the Luminance Targeted Adjustment Tool. The former is like a smarter Spot Healing Brush Tool on steroids and the latter is a step up from the fabulous Color Mixer Tool. During that same time frame, I came up with a new and improved 2-step noise reduction technique. I still use Divide and Conquer, Quick Masks, Layer Masks, an expanded array of personalized keyboard shortcuts, and tons of other stuff from both versions of Digital Basics.
As soon as I realized that I did not want to take on another large writing project, I realized that by creating a series of videos I could much more easily share all the details of my current digital workflow and much more easily incorporate additional new tips, techniques, and tools as I went. And so, The Digital Basics III Video Series was born.
Save $26 by ordering the first five videos in Volume I by clicking here. The videos will be most valuable for folks using the latest version of Photoshop (2024) or Lightroom along with Topaz DeNoise AI and Topaz Sharpen AI.
Typos
With all blog posts, feel free to e-mail or to leave a comment regarding any typos or errors.
Bob’s Cinnamon Teal is terrific. My next favorite is #5 Lesser Scaup.
#7 is a tremendous picture. The colors are outstanding. I know it’s flying slightly away but is sharp and the eye is clear. Clear winner in my books. Safe travels back to Florida and onward to Alaska.
I like Image 5….. it looks like the bird is water-skiing!
Love Image #2. Like the High-key look
Bob’s shot of the Cinnamon Teal is fabulous, the colors are amazing and the position of the subject in the frame is excellent. Really like the colors and position of the Gadwall hen in image #6.
I’ll cast my vote for the gadwall hen in #6. I like the wing position, head angle for the incoming subject and lastly, backgrounds are equally important to the subject and I like this background the best. Second place would be image #1.
Love the feather color in #7. And also feather color matching the color in the water in #4. The wide angled wingspread in 4 is great too.
For me the Cinnamon teal shot was the incredible.
Loved Bob’s Cinnamon Teal which revealed the gorgeous sky blue and green on the back of the bird. My choice, among Artie’s images is #2, the mallard with orange feet extended and the blue head popping against the white wing.