What’s Up?
The summer doldrums continue but I manage to rustle up a good chance or two every morning. Wednesday yielded a few decent keepers: Snowy Egret, Black Vulture, and Anhinga. There was a big mayfly hatch on Thursday morning at the north end of the North Field. Eight young Great Egrets, an adult Little Blue Heron, two dozen White Ibises, and two dozen very shy Fish Crows feasted on the small but juicy tidbits.
I’ve been using the 400-800 more and more every day. It pairs perfectly with either the 600mm f/4 GM and the 2X or with the 300mm f/2.8 GM bare or with either TC. The more I use it, the more I love it. If you decide to purchase one, be sure to use one of my two affiliate links to earn a free copy of the BAA Sony 400-800mm Lens Guide. Confused? e-mail me for details.
I began packing for my trip to Long Island. I take the Auto Train north to Lorton, VA on Monday afternoon.
Today is Friday 1 August 2025 and I will of course be heading down to the lake early in search a miracle or two. Whatever you opt to do, I hope that you too choose to have a wonderful and productive day and that you have fun too. Do remember that happiness is a choice — Byron Katie, The Work.Com.
If you’ve been thinking of joining me for one of the two Nickerson Beach IPTs, please e-mail for late registration discount info. See here and scroll down for details.
If an item — a Delkin flash card or reader, a Levered-clamp FlexShooter Pro, or a Wimberley lens plate or low foot — 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 or beat any price. Please remember also to use my B&H affiliate links or to earn 3% cash back at Bedford 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.
Gear Questions and Advice
Too many folks attending BAA IPTs and dozens of photographers whom I see in the field and on BirdPhotographer’s.Net, are — out of ignorance — using the wrong gear, especially when it comes to tripods and more especially, tripod heads. And the same is true in spades when ordering new camera bodies or lenses. My advice will often save you some serious money and may help you avoid making a seriously bad choice. Please know that I am always glad to answer your gear questions via e-mail. If you are desperate, you can try me on my cell at 863-221-2372. Please leave a message and shoot me a text if I do not pick up.
Don’t Just Shoot: Learn
If you are interested in changing your life and becoming a better photographer by joining me on the Extended IPT at Sebastian Inlet for Ospreys and more (SEPT 25 to NOV 24, 2025), in San Diego for Pacific-race Brown Pelicans and more (JAN 6 to FEB 2, 2026), or for Roseate Spoonbills at Stick Marsh (March 2026), please e-mail for dates, rates, terms, and additional information. Or shoot me a text to 863-221-2372. Some offerings include options for shared AirBnB lodging and meals. Ground transportation during your stay is a possibility at times.
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To ensure that I get credit for your B&H purchases, you can always click here. The tracking is invisible but using my affiliate links is greatly appreciated. And, with B&H, you can use your PayBoo card. You must use the website to order. You cannot get your free guides if you make a phone order. Once you have an item in your cart, you must complete the order within two hours. Huge thanks!
B&H
Many folks have written recently stating that they purchased a Sony a1 from B&H and would like their free membership in the Sony 1 Info and Updates Group, a $150.00 value. But when I check my affiliate account, their orders have not been there. When I let them know that they get credit for B&H purchases only if they use one of the many B&H affiliate links on the blog or begin their searches with this link, they are always disappointed. If in doubt, please contact me via e-mail and request a BH link. I am always glad to help and to guide you to the right gear.
Bedfords Simplified
Click here to start your search. Choose standard shipping, and when you get to the payment page, enter BIRDSASART in the discount code box and hit apply. You will be upgraded to free second day air Fed-Ex and receive 3% cash back on your credit card once your stuff ships. Using either my affiliate links is greatly appreciated and will often earn you free guides or discounts.
Bedfords Amazing BAA Discount Policy
Folks who have fallen in love with Bedfords can always use the BIRDSASART coupon code at checkout to enjoy a post-purchase, 3% off-statement credit (excluding taxes and shipping charges) on orders paid with a credit card. The 3% credit will be refunded to the card you used for your purchase when your product ships. Be sure, also, to check the box for free shipping to enjoy free Second Day Air Fed-Ex. This offer does not apply to purchases of Classes, Gift Cards, or prior purchases.
You can visit the Bedfords website here, shoot Steve Elkins an e-mail, or text him on his cell phone at (479) 381-2592.
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This image was created as I walked west on the pier at the lake near my home at Indian Lake Estates, FL: 29 July 2025 during the ILE summer doldrums. I used the handheld Sony FE 400-800mm f/6.3-8 G OSS lens (Sony E) (at 553mm) and SONY A-1, (now replaced by The Latest Greatest Sony Flagship Body, the a1 II Mirrorless Camera). The exposure was determined by Zebras with ISO on the rear wheel: ISO 2000: 1/2500 second at f/8 (wide open) in Manual mode. RawDigger showed that the exposure was perfect. AWB at 7:32:06am on a sunny, hazy morning. Wide/AF-C with Bird-Eye/Face Detection performed perfectly. Click on the image to enjoy the larger, inexplicably sharper high-res version. Today’s Featured Image: Great Blue Heron flying away |
Great Blue Heron Pier Party
Early on Tuesday past, there was a young Great Blue Heron in the bay south of the pier. I made a few images with both the 400-800 and the 600mm f/4 with the 2X TC. When it flew up to the pier railing, I drove around the lakefront for a very few minutes but came up empty. So I headed back to the base of the pier. Not only was the handsome young heron still on the railing, there were four adult great blues farther out on the pier, all standing on the railing. I had never seen more than two before that. There was also a Great Egret, a Limpkin, several Anhingas, a young Green Heron, and a half dozen vultures. I took off my shirt to get some Vitamin D, put on my sun hat, and grabbed the 400-800. I created a variety of head and neck portraits of the young great blue and kept nearly two dozen of those (out of about 400). The best of those will be featured in a future blog post showing some of the options available when working a tame subject.
With the sun behind me and coming over my right shoulder, a brisk wind from the west was right in my face. On occasion, one or more of the GBHs (including the young bird), would take flight and re-alight on the railing farther out on the pier. With the lessons from Quintessential firmly in my head, I realized that there was a tiny chance of making a very good image as the bird flew away from me and braked to land. So I did exactly what I wrote and came up with one very special flight shot.
Note that zooming out to 553mm with my now favorite and most-used lens, the Sony FE 400-800mm f/6.3-8 G OSS lens (Sony E), saved the day as the image as presented in nearly full frame. The a-1 did a fine job by getting the focus point on the heron’s neck; the distance took care of the depth-of-field so that the bird’s eye was sharp at the wide open aperture.
Continue reading to check out the advice that I followed.
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Sample Page #1. Image copyright 2024: Arthur Morris/BIRDS AS ART, the senior author. Page 254 of The Complete and Quintessential Guide to Photographing Birds in Flight |
Sample Page #1
Birds in flight that are flying away from you may at times provide spectacular views of the dorsal wing surfaces.
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Image copyright 2024: Arthur Morris/BIRDS AS ART, the senior author. Sample pages #2 & 3. Pages 106 & 107 of The Complete and Quintessential Guide to Photographing Birds in Flight |
Sample pages #2 & 3
It is — for many reasons, imperative that you shoot aggressively when doing flight photography. If you wait for it to be perfect, you will usually wind up with nothing. That said, most of my flight sequences rarely consist or more than seven or eight frames; I do not blast away at specks and once the bird is past the light and flying away from me I quit shooting.
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Image copyright 2024: Arthur Morris/BIRDS AS ART, the senior author. Sample page #4 Page 108 of The Complete and Quintessential Guide to Photographing Birds in Flight |
Sample page #4
Sometimes you need to press the shutter button just in case the bird or birds turn back to look at you. The Great Egret above was flying directly away from me but turned abruptly when the gull grabbed the fish. With today’s featured image, the bird was landing and looking away. It raised its crest and turned it head because there was an adult great blue chasing it from below right. About and inch of the tip of the adult bird’s bill was in the original uncrossed frame.
Shooting flight aggressively can enable you to make images that on the surface, would seem impossible.
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The title says it all. Purchase your copy here. The Complete and Quintessential Guide to Photographing Birds in Flight
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The Complete and Quintessential Guide to Photographing Birds in Flight: $99.00
I had long dreamed of becoming a great flight photographer. When using dSLR gear, making sharp images was a huge problem. Most of the time, the camera bodies simply were not up to snuff. Things have changed dramatically with mirrorless technology. The high-end mirrorless camera bodies now feature science fiction-like autofocus systems and frame rates of 30, 40, and even 125 fps. Nowadays, getting the eye sharp is no longer a problem. The problem more often involves selecting the strongest image from a long series of sharp images.
The truth, however, is that there is a lot more than owning a Canon EOS R1, a Nikon Z9, or a Sony a-1 ii to consistently creating great photographs of birds in flight. Some of the biggest factors to success include gear choice, shooting strategies, and understanding the importance of sky conditions and wind speed and direction. Once you have the techniques and technical aspects down pat and can routinely create sharp images, learning the importance of flight poses, wing positions, backgrounds, and subject placement and image design enable you to create and then select superb flight images. And you guessed it, each of those topics and tons more are covered in detail in The Complete and Quintessential Guide to Photographing Birds in Flight.
The guide consists of 267 pages and 21,013 words. There are 82 illustrative photos scattered throughout the text, two screen captures, and a 112-image gallery that includes examples created by Canon, Nikon, and mostly Sony gear. As seen above, each of the 194 inspirational photos is labeled with an educational caption.
You can purchase your copy here for $99.00.
Arash Hazeghi
Arash Hazeghi, Ph.D. is a principal electron device engineer. He received his Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering in 2011, from Stanford University, Stanford, California. His pioneering research on Carbon Nanotubes has been cited many times. In the past decade, Arash Hazeghi has been a major contributor to the research and the development of some of the most cutting-edge technologies introduced by Silicon Valley’s most reputable names including SanDisk, Intel and Apple.
More relevant here is that he is widely recognized as one of the world’s best birds in flight photographers. He specializes in raptors and the technical aspects of bird photography.
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Flight photography is a skill that can be studied, practiced, and learned. Learn to get better in The Complete and Quintessential Guide to Photographing Birds in Flight |
The Complete and Quintessential Guide to Photographing Birds in Flight
By Arash Hazeghi Ph.D., and Arthur Morris/BIRDS AS ART
What you will learn (about):
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1- Weight and handholding super-telephoto lenses.
2- Weight and handholding intermediate telephoto and telephotos zoom lenses.
3- Choosing the right flight photography lens or lenses for you.
4- The importance of focal length for flight photography.
5- The importance of lens speed (the maximum aperture for flight photography.
6- Choosing between fixed focal lengths and zoom lenses for flight photography.
7- The importance of AF speed and performance for flight photography.
8- Handholding tips and techniques.
9- Shooting flight off a tripod with the Levered-clamp FlexShooter Pro.
10- Flight poses and wing positions.
11- Why artie changed his mind about the 400mm f/2.8 lenses for flight and more.
12- The advantages and disadvantages of using teleconverters for flight photography.
13- Why to stay away from off-brand lenses.
14- Understanding the importance of wind direction and speed for flight photography.
15- The relationship between sky conditions and wind direction and how it affects flight photography.
16- Creating flight silhouettes in wind-against-sun conditions.
17- The importance of being on sun angle for flight photography (and avoiding harsh shadows).
18- Tips on doing flight photography in cloudy, foggy, or overcast conditions.
19- About the direction of light in cloudy, foggy, or overcast conditions and how it affects flight photography.
20- How your understanding of bird behavior can dramatically improve your flight photography.
21- Tips on attracting birds for flight photography.
22- What to do when your camera’s AF system is temporarily blind.
23- The vital importance of pre-focusing.
24- How Direct Manual Focus can help you with flight photography.
25- The importance of shooting aggressively when doing flight photography.
26- Everything that you need to know with regards to rest positions for flight photography.
27- The importance of getting low when doing flight in many situations.
28- Getting the right exposure when doing flight photography.
29_ Why to use Manual mode 95% of the time for flight.
30- Tips on finding the bird in the frame, acquiring focus, and tracking the bird in flight.
31- How to set and best utilize your lens’s image stabilization feature (and why).
32- Setting the focus range limiter switch on your flight lens or lenses.
33- To choose the best shutter speed for photographing birds in flight.
34- The vital importance of pre-focusing. And yes, this is so important that it is on the list twice.
You can purchase your copy here.
Typos
With all blog posts, feel free to e-mail or to leave a comment regarding any typos or errors.
Art: What a lovely shot of the green heron in flight, with it’s dorsal wing surfaces in full view. These guys are hard enough to get on the ground, let alone in the air.