January 12th, 2018 Stuff
I just learned that there was a last minute cancellation for the first San Diego IPT so I now have a single slot open. If you are local or have some air miles to use please shoot me an a href=”mailto:samandmayasgrandpa@att.net”>e-mail to learn about the substantial late registration discount.
with love, artie
|
|
2017 in San Diego was a very good year ….
|
2018 San Diego 4 1/2-DAY BIRDS AS ART IPT: Monday, JAN 15 thru and including the morning session on Friday, JAN 19, 2018: 4 1/2 days: $2099. Limit: 8: Openings: 1
Meet and Greet at 6:30pm on the evening before the IPT begins; Sunday, Jan 14, 2018.
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 (usually nesting and displaying) and Double-crested Cormorants; breeding plumage Ring-necked Duck; other duck species possible including Lesser Scaup, Redhead, Wood Duck and Surf Scoter; a variety of gulls including Western, California, and the gorgeous Heerman’s, all in full breeding plumage; shorebirds including Marbled Godwit, Whimbrel, Willet, Sanderling and Black-bellied Plover; many others possible including Least, Western, and Spotted Sandpiper, Black and Ruddy Turnstone, Semipalmated Plover, and Surfbird; Harbor Seal (depending on the current regulations) and California Sea Lion; and Bird of Paradise flowers. And as you can see by studying the two IPT cards there are some nice bird-scape and landscape opportunities as well. Please note: formerly dependable, both Wood Duck and Marbled Godwit have been declining at their usual locations for the past two years …
|
|
|
San Diego offers a wealth of very attractive natural history subjects. With annual visits spanning more than three decades I have lot of experience there….
|
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. 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 can do most of your photography with an 80- or 100-400 lens …
Did I mention that there are wealth of great birds and natural history subjects in San Diego in winter?
|
|
|
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.
|
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. Dinners are on your own so that we can get some sleep.
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, 33855. 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 9/11//2016. 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.
January 12th, 2018 Stuff
I have been extremely lucky with the weather during my time in Phoenix with some nice sunrises and lots of cloudy mornings. I have stayed in most afternoons to nap and do my exercises. This morning took the cake … Read more below.
My physical therapist had a cancellation an hour after my 2:30pm appointment and invited me to stay for a double header. So I did. At this point I am not sure if I will have time to go out on Friday morning …
Thanks to all who left comments on yesterday’s boring in the fog hen image. I liked it too.
The Streak
Today makes one hundred sixty-five days in a row with a new educational blog post! This one took about an hour to prepare including the time spent optimizing the image. With all of my upcoming free time (or not …), the plan right now is to break the current record streak of 480 … Good health and good internet connections and my continuing insanity willing.
Booking.Com
Booking.Com came through for me twice again recently with both the DeSoto Fall IPT and next July’s UK Puffins, Gannets, and Bempton Pre-trip room reservations. And all the rates were great. If you’d like to give Booking.Com a shot, click here and you will earn a $25 reward. 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 folks 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.
A Perfect Dramatic Fire in the Mist Image. Made With Lots Of Skill, Vision, and Creativity. And Even More Luck! …
As I seriously screwed up the text that was here originally when cutting and pasting some text for another blog post, you will need to get by with the short version.
It was cold with lots of dew on the car as I left for Gilbert in the dark. I figured that there might be some ground fog on the pond I had been photographing at. I was right, and when the sun rose it was fire in the mist once again. The luck here was that I had rear button focused on the avocet and released. When something scared the coots I fired off two frames and in today’s featured image, the main subject flew itself into perfect focus!
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.
Facebook
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 :).
January 11th, 2018 Stuff
It poured all night but quit raining before I left for Gilbert at 6:05am. It was mostly cloudy dark with a bit of fog and about 30 seconds of light drizzle as I made my way to my favorite impoundments. I photographed several Desert Cottontails, a few songbirds, and a few ducks. I used the Godox flash a lot, mostly experimenting with it. I had my therapy appointment at 11. I continue to pound away on my exercises and balloon blowing. I am feeling a bit better each day, especially the problematic left knee. More of the same is in store for Thursday plus a bit of packing for my flight to San Diego on Friday afternoon.
The Streak
Today makes one hundred sixty-four days in a row with a new educational blog post! This one took about an hour to prepare including the time spent optimizing the image. With all of my upcoming free time (or not …), the plan right now is to break the current record streak of 480 … Good health and good internet connections and my continuing insanity willing.
Booking.Com
Booking.Com came through for me twice again recently with both the DeSoto Fall IPT and next July’s UK Puffins, Gannets, and Bempton Pre-trip room reservations. And all the rates were great. If you’d like to give Booking.Com a shot, click here and you will earn a $25 reward. 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 folks 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.
Selling Your Used Photo Gear Through BIRDS AS ART
Selling your used (or like-new) photo gear through the BAA Blog is a great idea. We charge only a 5% commission. One of the more popular used gear for sale sites charged a minimum of 20%. Plus assorted fees! Yikes. They went out of business. And e-Bay fees are now up to 13%. The minimum item price here is $500 (or less for a $25 fee). If you are interested please scroll down here or shoot us an e-mail with the words Items for Sale Info Request cut and pasted into the Subject line :). Stuff that is priced fairly — I offer pricing advice to those who agree to the terms — usually sells in no time flat. Over the past year, we have sold many dozens of items. Do know that prices on some items like the EOS-1D Mark IV, the old Canon 100-400, the old 500mm, the EOS-7D and 7D Mark II and the original 400mm DO lens have been dropping steadily. You can always see the current listings by clicking on the Used Photo Gear tab on the orange-yellow menu bar near the top of each blog post page.
List of recent Used Gear Page Sales
Sales of cameras and lenses have been through the roof recently with stuff selling at prices that thill the buyers and please the sellers.
Hisham A. sold a Canon EOS 5D Mark III in very good condition for the BAA record low price of $999 in mid January.
Hisham A. sold his Canon 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II USM lens very good condition (with perfect glass and in perfect working order) for the BAA record low price of $999 and a Canon EF 400mm f/5.6 L USM lens in very good condition (with perfect glass and in perfect working order) for the BAA record low by far price of $549in early January.
Hisham A. sold a Canon Extender EF 1.4X III (teleconverter) in like-new good condition for $329 and the original Canon 24-105mm f/4L IS USM lens in like-new condition for $449 in late December.
BAA friend Jim Roetzel sold his Xtrahand Vest, green — size XL — for $275 in December.
Mike Rust sold his Canon 600mm f/4L IS II ISM lens in near-mint condition for $9396.00 and his Canon EF 24-105mm f/4L IS II USM lens in like-new condition for $699.00. Both on the first day of listing.
Mike Rust also sold his Canon EOS-1DX Mark II like-new condition for a BAA record-low, shock-the-world price of $3997.00, his Canon 400mm f/4 IS II DO USM lens in like-new condition for the amazing low price of $5999.00, his Canon EF 11-24mm f/4L USM Lens in like-new condition for $1799.00, a 1.4X III and two 2X III TCs, all in like-new condition for $329 each, and a Wimberley V2 Tripod Head in excellent condition with extras for $399.
IPT veteran Carolyn Peterson sold her Canon EOS 5D Mark III camera body in excellent condition for $1399 in mid-December.
Pradip Thachile sold his Canon EF 400mm f/4 IS DO lens (the original version) in excellent condition for the BAA record low price of $2097.00 in late December.
Joel Williams sold his Fujifilm XF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 R LM OIS WR lens in like-new condition for $1199 right after it was listed in mid-December.
Mike Newman sold his Canon EF 100mm f2.8/L IS USM macro lens in like-new condition for only $599 in mid-December, right after it was listed.
Joel Williams sold a Fujifilm XF 1.4x TC WR teleconverter in like-new condition for $299 in mid-December, 2017.
Mike Newman sold a Canon EF 600 F4/L USM IS II USA lens in like-new condition for the record-low BAA price of 9,398.00 within two days of listing it in early December.
New Listings
Canon EOS 5D Mark III
Multiple IPT veteran Gil Moe is offering a Canon EOS 5D Mark III in like-new condition for $$1249. The sale includes the original box and all the packagings and software, the front cap, the manual, one Canon battery, the battery charger, the unused lens strap, the cables, and and insured ground shipping via UPS or FEDEX to U.S. Addresses only. Your item will not ship until your check clears unless other arrangements are made.
Please contact Gil via e-mail or by phone at 909-732-1456 (Pacific time).
I owned and used this superb, full frame, 22mp digital body for several years. It was always my first choice for scenic, Urbex (urban exploration), and flower photography until I fell in love for a while with the 5DS R (for a lot more money!). Then I switched to the 5D IV body. In addition, I loved my 5D III body for birds with my big lenses and both TCs. I used mine to create many hundreds of high quality images. In pristine condition, Gil’s 5D III is a great value.. artie
Canon BG-E20 Battery Grip for EOS 5D Mark IV
Multiple IPT veteran Gil Moe is also offering a brand new in the box Canon BG-E20 Battery Grip for EOS 5D Mark IV for $259.
The sale includes insured ground shipping via UPS or FEDEX to U.S. Addresses only. Your item will not ship until your check clears unless other arrangements are made.
Please contact Gil via e-mail or by phone at 909-732-1456 (Pacific time).
The BG-E20 Battery Grip gives your 5D IV a pro body feel and the convenient vertical controls. You’d be a fool to purchase yours from B&H for $50 more …. artie
Canon EOS-1D Mark IV
BAA Record-low Price!
Jim Burns is offering an EOS-1D Mark4 Canon body in excellent plus for a BAA record low $998. The sale includes the front cap, two Canon LP-E4 batteries, the charger, the instructional manual, the two computer cords (video & download), and insured ground shipping via major courier to US addresses only. Your item will not ship until your check clears unless other arrangements are made.
Please contact Jim via e-mail or by phone at 1-602-616-9431 Mountain time.
Two dependable, rugged 1D Mark IVs served as my workhorse professional bodies for several years; I really enjoyed their 1.3X crop factors, the fast frame rate, and the excellent image quality. artie
Canon EOS 7D Mark II
Karen Jordan is offering a Canon EOS 7D Mark II digital camera body in near mint condition for $949. The sale includes the front body cap, the strap, the instructional manual, everything that came with the camera, and insured ground shipping via major courier to US addresses only. Your item will not ship until your check clears unless other arrangements are made.
Please contact Karen via e-mail or by phone at 206-437-8337 (Pacific time).
Both Patrick Sparkman and I used and loved the 7D Mark II until about two years ago when we both committed to using full frame Canon bodies. We both made some truly great images with it. Two of my three 2016 Nature’s Best honored entries were created with the 7D II, one still, and one video. One thing is for sure: the 7D Mark II is the greatest value ever in a digital camera body. With a new one going for $1499 you can save a cool $550 by grabbing Karen’s body. artie
Canon EF 100-400 f/4.5-5.6L IS Zoom Lens (the original 1-4)
BAA Record-low Price!
Karen Jordan is offering a Canon EF 100-400 f/4.5-5.6L IS Zoom Lens (the original 1-4) in excellent plus condition but for a single paint scratch for the BAA record low price of $528. The sale includes the rear lens cap, the front lens cap, the tough fabric zippered lens case, the original box and all that came in it, and insured Ground shipping via major courier. Your item will not ship until your check clears unless other arrangements are made.
Please contact Karen via e-mail or by phone at 206-437-8337 (Pacific time).
The older 100-400 is a versatile intermediate telephoto zoom lens with 1,000+ uses. It makes a great starter lens especially for folks who do general nature and wildlife in addition to birds. Over the years I’ve sold 100s of images made with this lens. And Denise Ippolito loved hers for many years forsaking it only recently.
ISO 4000 & Flash in the Fog
Ring-necked Duck is common as all get-out in Phoenix and the hens are relatively plain and drab as compared to the handsome, showy drakes. I experimented quite a bit with the flash in the fog and it seemed pretty clear that at fill flash levels that the flash did not so a whole lot, likely because the fog diffused the light from the flash. I have also been experimenting a lot with some very high ISOs with the 1DX II and have been impressed. You do lose quite a bit of image quality but the point is about finding out what the capabilities are when you have a great bird in a beautiful situation with no light …
The Wake?
Do you like the inclusion of the partial wake in the upper left hand corner of the image? It was of course from another duck swimming nearby. It would have been easy to remove in a variety of ways.
The Image Optimization
The image optimization was relatively straightforward. After converting the image in DPP 4. I executed a decent crop from below and from our left, darkened the pupil using Tim Grey Dodge and Burn, applied a 15% layer of Image > Auto Tone and a 10% layer of Image > Auto Contrast. These last two added at least some pop to a terribly flat image.
The Godox Flash/Save $300!
The Godox VING V860IIC TTL Li-Ion Flash Kit for Canon Cameras is simply amazing. Priced at exactly $300 less than the Canon Speedlite 600EX II-RT, the Godox flash is a virtual replica of the top of the line Canon 600 EX II-RT. I will soon be publishing a simple guide to using the Godox flash for bird photography. In the meantime you can learn everything there is to know about using flash for bird photography in the Flash Simplified section of The Art of Bird Photography II (ABP II: 916 pages, 900+ images on CD only): ETTL flash as fill, flash as main light techniques, high speed synch flash (available on the Godox flash) and manual flash. Plus tons more!
January 10th, 2018 Stuff
The thing about the Riparian Preserve at Gilbert Water Ranch is that yesterday’s hotspot is today’s too-flooded impoundment. The folks in charge move water around faster than I have ever seen. I am really excited with the results of my physical therapy …
I woke at 3:15am on Tuesday, finished editing all of my Phoenix photos, did my exercises, and then enjoyed a nice photo session. I left the Water Ranch just after 10:00am. I fly to San Diego on Friday afternoon.
Click on the logo-link above for great holiday savings!
$300 off on the Canon 100-400 II!
The Streak
Today makes one hundred sixty-three days in a row with a new educational blog post! This one took about an hour to prepare including the time spent optimizing the image. With all of my upcoming free time (or not …), the plan right now is to break the current record streak of 480 … Good health and good internet connections and my continuing insanity willing.
Canon EOS 5D Mark III
Free 1.4X II Add-on: JAN 9, 2018.
Hisham A. is offering a Canon EOS 5D Mark III in very good condition (in perfect working order) for the BAA record low price of $999. The sale includes a 1.4X II teleconverter, an extra Watson battery, the front lens cap, and all the stuff that came in the box as well as insured ground shipping to US addresses via major courier. Your item will not ship until your check clears unless other arrangements are made. Photos are available upon request.
Please contact Hisham via e-mail or by phone at 720 771 2693 (Eastern time).
I used my 5D Mark III to produce high quality image files for all of my landscape, flower, and Urbex photography. And I used it often for bird photography with my f/4 super-telephoto lenses with both the 1.4X and the 2X TCs. As long as you have firmware version 1.2.1 or higher you will have AF at f/8 with the center AF point (along with the four assist points). artie
Booking.Com
Booking.Com came through for me twice again recently with both the DeSoto Fall IPT and next July’s UK Puffins, Gannets, and Bempton Pre-trip room reservations. And all the rates were great. If you’d like to give Booking.Com a shot, click here and you will earn a $25 reward. 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 folks 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.
Th DPP 4 Screen Capture
So why did I pick an AF point that placed the bird on the wrong side of the frame looking out? The bird had been preening its back with its long bill; when it paused and posed so I pushed the shutter button knowing that moving the bird back in the frame using techniques from APTATS II would be a piece of cake.
|
|
|
This is the optimized version of today’s featured image. It was made at the Riparian Preserve at Gilbert Water Ranch with the Induro GIT304L Grand Series 3 Stealth Carbon Fiber Tripod/Mongoose M3.6-mounted Canon EF 600mm f/4L IS II USM lens, the Canon Extender EF 2X III, and the blazingly fast Canon EOS-1D X Mark II. ISO 800. Evaluative metering about +2/3 stop: 1/500 sec. at f/9 in Manual mode. AWB at 8:47am on a cloudy morning.
LensAlign/FocusTune micro-adjustment: -5.
Four rows up and two to the left of the center AF point/AI Servo/Expand shutter button AF was active at the moment of exposure. The selected AF point was on the side of the bird’s neck just below and slightly behind the bird’s eye.
Long-billed Dowitcher, first winter plumage posing
|
Another Boring, Perfect Image Lacking both Drama and Creativity …
There’s no drama here. There was no creativity involved; heck, I put the bird on the wrong side of the frame. What could be more boring than a bird just standing in the water?
Would You Be Proud of this Image?
Would you be proud to have created this image? Why or why not?
More on Coming Soon
February 2018 Spoonbill Boat IPT: FEB 23-25, 2018/2 1/2 days with three morning spoonbill sessions on the boat.
Two Fort DeSoto IPTs (April and May, 2018).
Three Gatorland IPTs (March, April, and May, 2018 — including early entry and late stay — tentative).
Three Sandhill Crane chicks and colts Master Classes at Indian Lake Estates (March).
The Master Classes will likely be announced soon. They will be small groups — strictly limited to four photographers — with the first folks who register staying at my home and the others staying at a chain motel in Lake Wales. Live, think, and breathe photography from Friday afternoon through lunch on Monday morning; all meals included. We will enjoy three morning photography sessions with the main subjects being tame Sandhill Cranes almost surely with chicks or colts. Also vultures and Cattle Egrets and more. Limpkins possible. There will be three afternoon photo sessions with hopefully glorious sunsets like the ones you have been seeing on the blog recently. I will micro-adjust one of your lenses during a group instructional session and all will be welcome to practice what they have learned during the breaks using my lighting gear. We will sit together around my dining room table and pick everyone’s keepers, enjoy guided Photoshop sessions, and, on Monday before lunch, folks can make a single large print of their favorite image.
Folks who would like advance notice on any of the above are welcome to shoot me an e-mail. Right now there are two folks signed up for the spoonbill IPT with just four openings left. If you would like to join us, please do not tarry.
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.
Facebook
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 :).
January 9th, 2018 Stuff
I headed out early to Gilbert Water Ranch on Monday.The sunrise was spectacular but the night-heron was not home and the geese were swimming only in the dark water rather than in the fluorescent orange/pink water … Then I did Canada Goose flight blurs and bathing Mallard blurs. I was headed back to my lodgings early when I ran a across a pond fill with Great Egrets fishing and flying so I stayed another hour and made all sharp images 🙂
Then off to the physical therapist and now some free time before dinner. Thanks to all the folks who have been commenting so much recently.
Click on the logo-link above for great holiday savings!
$300 off on the Canon 100-400 II!
The Streak
Today makes one hundred sixty-two days in a row with a new educational blog post! This one took about an hour to prepare including the time spent optimizing the image. With all of my upcoming free time (or not …), the plan right now is to break the current record streak of 480 … Good health and good internet connections and my continuing insanity willing.
Booking.Com
Booking.Com came through for me twice again recently with both the DeSoto Fall IPT and next July’s UK Puffins, Gannets, and Bempton Pre-trip room reservations. And all the rates were great. If you’d like to give Booking.Com a shot, click here and you will earn a $25 reward. 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 folks 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.
Weather Forecast: Cloudy with a chance of blurs …
On cloudy days, necessity if often the mother of invention. In order to make sharp images at 1200mm I would have needed to use a crazy high ISO. Bathing birds require a very specific depth of water; that is why you will often see one bird after another bathe in a specific area. Sometimes the required depth is fairly consistent and allows several birds to bathe in close proximity to each other. On Monday morning I passed on many opportunities when there were too many Mallards in the frame. Working in Tv mode when trying to create pleasing blurs allows you complete control over shutter speed. At 1/60 sec. you can get often wind up with a pleasing degree of blurring and a passably sharp head and eye.
Like it or Hate It?
All are invited to leave a comment and let the group what they like or dot’t like about today’s featured image.
More on Coming Soon
February 2018 Spoonbill Boat IPT: FEB 23-25, 2018/2 1/2 days with three morning spoonbill sessions on the boat.
Two Fort DeSoto IPTs (April and May, 2018).
Three Gatorland IPTs (March, April, and May, 2018 — including early entry and late stay — tentative).
Three Sandhill Crane chicks and colts Master Classes at Indian Lake Estates (March).
The Master Classes will likely be announced soon. They will be small groups — strictly limited to four photographers — with the first folks who register staying at my home and the others staying at a chain motel in Lake Wales. Live, think, and breathe photography from Friday afternoon through lunch on Monday morning; all meals included. We will enjoy three morning photography sessions with the main subjects being tame Sandhill Cranes almost surely with chicks or colts. Also vultures and Cattle Egrets and more. Limpkins possible. There will be three afternoon photo sessions with hopefully glorious sunsets like the ones you have been seeing on the blog recently. I will micro-adjust one of your lenses during a group instructional session and all will be welcome to practice what they have learned during the breaks using my lighting gear. We will sit together around my dining room table and pick everyone’s keepers, enjoy guided Photoshop sessions, and, on Monday before lunch, folks can make a single large print of their favorite image.
Folks who would like advance notice on any of the above are welcome to shoot me an e-mail. Right now there are two folks signed up for the spoonbill IPT with just four openings left. If you would like to join us, please do not tarry.
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.
Facebook
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 :).
January 8th, 2018 Stuff
Sunday was a wonderful day. I met multiple IPT veteran Muriel McClellan who introduced me to my new physical therapist, Amy Novotny, Amy, Bryan Holliday, and his lovely girlfriend Kim, all photographers. We did the Black-crowned Night-Herons at sunrise and then switched to my favorite mudflat where we had some great action with several species of ducks and some Long-billed Dowitchers. Muriel very generously treated the whole gang to lunch at a pita place. After lunch we went to Freestone Park; the three pairs of Canvasbacks were a lot more cooperative than they had been on Saturday.
My Postural Restoration physical therapy is going very well and my very well be life-altering. More on that over time. I did get to answer quite a few e-mails early this morning but I still have tons more today including another dozen or so that arrived today while I was out having fun.
Click on the logo-link above for great holiday savings!
$300 off on the Canon 100-400 II!
The Streak
Today makes one hundred sixty-one days in a row with a new educational blog post! This one took about an hour to prepare including the time spent optimizing the image. With all of my upcoming free time (or not …), the plan right now is to break the current record streak of 480 … Good health and good internet connections and my continuing insanity willing.
Booking.Com
Booking.Com came through for me twice again recently with both the DeSoto Fall IPT and next July’s UK Puffins, Gannets, and Bempton Pre-trip room reservations. And all the rates were great. If you’d like to give Booking.Com a shot, click here and you will earn a $25 reward. 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 folks 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.
ACR Screen Capture
Note the perfect histogram. Note that the RGB values for the brightest whites were from the ring around the base of the bill not from the ring around the bill. Note that the RGB values of 245, 245, 244 indicate almost perfectly neutral WHITEs. Note that I did not max out the WHITEs to 254, 254, 254 but opted to leave them about ten points short of that. Moving the Highlight slider to -53 darkened the water to a nice rich blue.
|
|
|
This image was created at the Riparian Preserve at Gilbert Water Ranch, in Phoenix, AZ on the morning of Sunday, January 7. I used the Induro GIT304L Grand Series 3 Stealth Carbon Fiber Tripod/Mongoose M3.6-mounted Canon EF 600mm f/4L IS II USM lens, the Canon Extender EF 2X III, and my the blazingly fast Canon EOS-1D X Mark II. ISO 800. Evaluative metering about +2/3 stop: 1/250 sec. at f/9 in Manual mode. AWB at 8:34am on a sunny morning with a light cloud in front of the sun.
LensAlign/FocusTune micro-adjustment: -5.
Two AF points above the center AF point/AI Servo/Expand shutter button AF was active at the moment of exposure. The selected AF point was placed squarely on the duck’s cheek directly below and right on the same plane as the duck’s eye. Click on the image to enjoy a larger version.
Ring-necked Duck drake partial body shot
|
Image Question
Do you like this image? Why or why not?
The Image Design
Please leave a comment and let us know what you think of the image design here.
More on Coming Soon
February 2018 Spoonbill Boat IPT: FEB 23-25, 2018/2 1/2 days with three morning spoonbill sessions on the boat (definite!)
Two Fort DeSoto IPTs (April and May, 2018)
Three Gatorland IPTs (March, April, and May, 2018 — including early entry and late stay — tentative)
Three Sandhill Crane chicks and colts Master Classes at Indian Lake Estates (March)
The Master Classes will be small groups — strictly limited to four photographers — with the first folks who register staying at my home and the others staying at a chain motel in Lake Wales. Live, think, and breathe photography from Friday afternoon through lunch on Monday morning; all meals included. We will enjoy three morning photography sessions with the main subjects being tame Sandhill Cranes almost surely with chicks or colts. Also vultures and Cattle Egrets and more. Limpkins possible. There will be three afternoon photo sessions with hopefully glorious sunsets like the ones you have been seeing on the blog recently. I will micro-adjust one of your lenses during a group instructional session and all will be welcome to practice what they have learned during the breaks using my lightingbgear. We will sit together around my dining room table and pick everyone’s keepers, enjoy guided Photoshop sessions, and, on Monday before lunch, folks can make a single large print of their favorite image.
Folks who would like advance notice on any of the above are welcome to shoot me an e-mail. Right now there are two folks signed up for the spoonbill IPT with just four openings left. If you would like to join us, please do not tarry.
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.
Facebook
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 :).
January 7th, 2018 Stuff
Bryan Holliday and I had a great day starting with a wicked sunrise and some great duck photography at the Riparian Preserve at Gilbert Water Ranch where the ducks were so cooperative on the still water with gorgeous reflections that we thought that a hunter had put out a raft of decoys. After lunch we continued to enjoy the bright overcast conditions at Freestone Park where I made today’s featured images of a handsome duck that has long eluded me. Thanks to the several folks who suggested Freestone for Canvasbacks!
I am still far behind on e-mails. Please bear with me; you should hear from me by late Monday at the worst.
Click on the logo-link above for great holiday savings!
$300 off on the Canon 100-400 II!
The Streak
Today makes one hundred sixty-one days in a row with a new educational blog post! This one took about an hour to prepare including the time spent optimizing the image. With all of my upcoming free time (or not …), the plan right now is to break the current record streak of 480 … Good health and good internet connections and my continuing insanity willing.
Booking.Com
Booking.Com came through for me twice again recently with both the DeSoto Fall IPT and next July’s UK Puffins, Gannets, and Bempton Pre-trip room reservations. And all the rates were great. If you’d like to give Booking.Com a shot, click here and you will earn a $25 reward. 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 folks 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.
The DPP 4 Screen Capture for Today’s Featured Image
Note that the original was a bit under-exposed; I added 1/3 stop of light during the RAW conversion in DPP 4 by moving the Brightness slider to +0.33. And even though the flash brightened the canny’s brick red head nicely moving the Shadow slider to +4 really brought it to life without bringing up the noise. That is a huge plus to DPP 4 conversions. All that I did with the TIFF in Photoshop was some Digital Eye Doctor work on the pupil.
I will be sharing lots more info on the Godox flash for Canon in the near future; briefly it costs only a fraction of the Canon Speedlite 600EX-RT but is every bit as good with a great rechargeable battery. And, I will teach you how to set fill simply in ETTL mode.
1200mm + Fill Flash = Just Ducky Perfection!
Bryan Holliday took on on the chin for the team by driving my rental car back to Gilbert to grab a box of duck bait in the form of oat cereal; bread is not an allowed food but the oat cereal is. While he was one of the three drake Canvasbacks swam by me … I made hay with the one perfect frame out of a series of about twenty. As this was one of my target species for Phoenix I was a very happy man.
So What is Perfect?
There are several elements that make this photograph pretty close to perfect. What are they? On the other hand, does anything about this image bug you? Either way, please leave a comment.
More on Coming Soon
February 2018 Spoonbill Boat IPT: FEB 23-25, 2018/2 1/2 days with three morning spoonbill sessions on the boat (definite!)
Two Fort DeSoto IPTs (April and May, 2018)
Three Gatorland IPTs (March, April, and May, 2018 — including early entry and late stay — tentative)
Three Sandhill Crane chicks and colts Master Classes at Indian Lake Estates (March)
The Master Classes will be small groups — strictly limited to four photographers — with the first folks who register staying at my home and the others staying at a chain motel in Lake Wales. Live, think, and breathe photography from Friday afternoon through lunch on Monday morning; all meals included. We will enjoy three morning photography sessions with the main subjects being tame Sandhill Cranes almost surely with chicks or colts. Also vultures and Cattle Egrets and more. Limpkins possible. There will be three afternoon photo sessions with hopefully glorious sunsets like the ones you have been seeing on the blog recently. I will micro-adjust one of your lenses during a group instructional session and all will be welcome to practice what they have learned during the breaks using my lightingbgear. We will sit together around my dining room table and pick everyone’s keepers, enjoy guided Photoshop sessions, and, on Monday before lunch, folks can make a single large print of their favorite image.
Folks who would like advance notice on any of the above are welcome to shoot me an e-mail. Right now there are two folks signed up for the spoonbill IPT with just four openings left. If you would like to join us, please do not tarry.
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.
Facebook
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 :).
January 6th, 2018 Stuff
Apologies to those who are patiently waiting to hear from me via e-mail. I have been very busy with physical therapy sessions and tons of exercising when I am not photographing; almost all of that involves blowing up balloons. Yes, blowing up balloons … I did get back to Gilbert Water Ranch this morning to find that the lake that was attracting lots of shorebirds had been filled to overflowing in less than a day. Goodbye mud, goodbye birds! There are plenty of other spots in the various lakes for the dowitchers and stilts and avocets to feed, but none are any good for photography.
Click on the logo-link above for great holiday savings!
$300 off on the Canon 100-400 II!
The Streak
Today makes one hundred sixty days in a row with a new educational blog post! This one took about an hour to prepare including the time spent optimizing the image. With all of my upcoming free time (or not …), the plan right now is to break the current record streak of 480 … Good health and good internet connections and my continuing insanity willing.
Booking.Com
Booking.Com came through for me twice again recently with both the DeSoto Fall IPT and next July’s UK Puffins, Gannets, and Bempton Pre-trip room reservations. And all the rates were great. If you’d like to give Booking.Com a shot, click here and you will earn a $25 reward. 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 folks 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.
|
|
|
This image was created at the Riparian Preserve at Gilbert Water Ranch in Phoenix, AZ on my first morning out. With my tripod lowered, I was seated behind the Induro GIT304L Grand Series 3 Stealth Carbon Fiber Tripod/Mongoose M3.6-mounted Canon EF 600mm f/4L IS II USM lens, the Canon Extender EF 1.4X III, and my favorite shorebird photography camera body, the Canon EOS 5D Mark IV. ISO 800. Evaluative metering +2 2/3 stops: 1/200 sec. at f/5.6 in Manual mode. AWB: K7500 at 4:28pm on a cloudy afternoon.
LensAlign/FocusTune micro-adjustment: -1.
One AF point above the center AF point/AI Servo/Expand shutter button focus was active at the moment of exposure. It is obvious from looking at the DPP 4 screen capture above that the left assist point caught and held focus on the bill. Too bad that Canon does not show us not the selected point and the active assist point or points.
Click on the image to enjoy a larger version.
DPP 4 Screen Capture
|
The DPP 4 Screen Capture for Today’s Featured Image
Note the perfect histogram with the light tones all the way to the right. Note that even though the RGB values, 240, 244, 250 showed a bit of a BLUE cast that I had moved the Color fine-tune dot toward BLUE. If I had moved the Color fine-tune dot away from BLUE and toward RED then the reflection would have been way too warm. As presented, the bird is a nice neutral gray.
|
|
|
This image was created at the Riparian Preserve at Gilbert Water Ranch in Phoenix, AZ on my first morning out. With my tripod lowered, I was seated behind the Induro GIT304L Grand Series 3 Stealth Carbon Fiber Tripod/Mongoose M3.6-mounted Canon EF 600mm f/4L IS II USM lens, the Canon Extender EF 1.4X III, and my favorite shorebird photography camera body, the Canon EOS 5D Mark IV. ISO 800. Evaluative metering +2 1/3 stops: 1/200 sec. at f/5.6 in Manual mode. AWB: K7500 at 4:28pm on a cloudy afternoon.
LensAlign/FocusTune micro-adjustment: -1.
One AF point above the center AF point/AI Servo/Expand shutter button focus was active at the moment of exposure. It is obvious from looking at the DPP 4 screen capture above that the left assist point caught and held focus on the bill. Too bad that Canon does not show us not the selected point and the active assist point or points.
Click on the image to enjoy a larger version.
DPP 4 Screen Capture Long-billed Dowitcher, first winter foraging
|
Sandpiper Photography Tips Part II
Once a foraging bird is square to the back of the camera (or angled slightly toward you) and fills about half the frame, acquire focus and push and hold the shutter speed until the situation changes. When working at an intermediate shutter speed as I was with today’s image (1/200 sec.) some of the photos will be lost to motion blur and some will be sharp. Dowitchers and other species feed like sewing machines. Firing long bursts will usually yield a variety of sharp images, some with the head nearly underwater and the bill completely submerged, some with the bill completely out of the water, and many in between those two extremes. The only option in cloudy conditions is to go with two or three or more stops of ISO; the drawback there is an increase in noise and a decrease in image quality. I prefer to gamble a bit, blast away, and wind up with a few representative sharp images.
Image Questions
- 1-Why is there a reddish cast to the bird’s reflection? (Note: if you look closely there is a clue …
- 2-Why did I move the selected AF point up from the center?
More on Coming Soon
February 2018 Spoonbill Boat IPT (definite!)
Two Fort DeSoto IPTs (April and May, 2018)
Three Gatorland IPTs (March, April, and May, 2018 — including early entry and late stay — tentative)
Three Sandhill Crane chicks and colts Master Classes at Indian Lake Estates (March)
The Master Classes will be small groups — strictly limited to four photographers — with the first folks who register staying at my home and the others staying at a chain motel in Lake Wales. Live, think, and breathe photography from Friday afternoon through lunch on Monday morning; all meals included. We will enjoy three morning photography sessions with the main subjects being tame Sandhill Cranes almost surely with chicks or colts. Also vultures and Cattle Egrets and more. Limpkins possible. There will be three afternoon photo sessions with hopefully glorious sunsets like the ones you have been seeing on the blog recently. I will micro-adjust one of your lenses during a group instructional session and all will be welcome to practice what they have learned during the breaks using my lighting gear. We will sit together around my dining room table and pick everyone’s keepers, enjoy guided Photoshop sessions, and, on Monday before lunch, folks can make a single large print of their favorite image.
Folks who would like advance notice on any of the above are welcome to shoot me an e-mail. Right now there is lots of interest in all of the above offerings. Folks who have already e-mailed me will be receiving the first invites soon, starting with the Spoonbill IPT.
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.
Facebook
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 :).
January 5th, 2018 Stuff
Too busy tonight for much stuff other than to say that all is well. The sale of all of Mike Rust’s gear was recently finalized; all that remains is one of the two 2X III TCs:
Canon EF Extender 2X III (teleconverter)
Mike Rust is also offering a Canon Extender EF 2X III (teleconverter) in like-new condition for $349.00. The sale includes the front and rear caps, the suede pouch, and insured ground shipping via major courier to US addresses only. Your item will not ship until your check clears unless other arrangements are made.
Please contact Mike via e-mail or by phone at 1-360-420-1274 (Pacific time).
As regular readers know I use my teleconverters more than any other photographer: on big trips I travel with two 2X TCs. artie
Click on the logo-link above for great holiday savings!
$300 off on the Canon 100-400 II!
The Streak
Today makes one hundred fifty-nine days in a row with a new educational blog post! This one took well less than an hour to prepare including the time spent optimizing the image. With all of my upcoming free time (or not …), the plan right now is to break the current record streak of 480 … Good health and good internet connections and my continuing insanity willing.
Booking.Com
Booking.Com came through for me twice again recently with both the DeSoto Fall IPT and next July’s UK Puffins, Gannets, and Bempton Pre-trip room reservations. And all the rates were great. If you’d like to give Booking.Com a shot, click here and you will earn a $25 reward. 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 folks 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.
|
|
|
This image was created at the Riparian Preserve at Gilbert Water Ranch in Phoenix, AZ on my first morning out. I used the Induro GIT304L Grand Series 3 Stealth Carbon Fiber Tripod/Mongoose M3.6-mounted Canon EF 600mm f/4L IS II USM lens and my favorite silhouette photography camera body, the Canon EOS 5D Mark IV. ISO 800. Evaluative metering +1 stop: 1/125 sec. at f/5.6 in Tv mode. WB: K7500 at 7:23am just after a partly cloudy sunrise.
LensAlign/FocusTune micro-adjustment: -10.
Center AF point/AI Servo/Expand rear focus and re-compose. Click on the image to enjoy a larger version.
Black-crowned Night-Heron dawn silhouette
|
Painful Phoenix Start …
The pre-dawn color in the eastern sky was intense as we entered the preserve. We found some Canada Geese in the purple water but the arrangement of the birds was less than pleasing. We tried and failed. This night-heron was well off to our right and it seemed impossible to get the bird in front of the now fading color. Bryan Holliday was the first to beat his way through the acacia trees and pull the shot off. I followed Bryan and first got cut on my forehead by the sharp thorns and then stabbed in the left forearm; that one felt like a hypodermic needle. The trick here was not to cut off the end of the branch on the left side of the frame while leaving just enough room behind the subject. David Rosenberg ducked under a big branch and easily got into position without being wounded.
More on Coming Soon
February 2018 Spoonbill Boat IPT (definite!)
Two Fort DeSoto IPTs (April and May, 2018)
Three Gatorland IPTs (March, April, and May, 2018 — including early entry and late stay — tentative)
Three Sandhill Crane chicks and colts Master Classes at Indian Lake Estates (March)
The Master Classes will be small groups — strictly limited to four photographers — with the first folks who register staying at my home and the others staying at a chain motel in Lake Wales. Live, think, and breathe photography from Friday afternoon through lunch on Monday morning; all meals included. We will enjoy three morning photography sessions with the main subjects being tame Sandhill Cranes almost surely with chicks or colts. Also vultures and Cattle Egrets and more. Limpkins possible. There will be three afternoon photo sessions with hopefully glorious sunsets like the ones you have been seeing on the blog recently. I will micro-adjust one of your lenses during a group instructional session and all will be welcome to practice what they have learned during the breaks using my lighting gear. We will sit together around my dining room table and pick everyone’s keepers, enjoy guided Photoshop sessions, and, on Monday before lunch, folks can make a single large print of their favorite image.
Folks who would like advance notice on any of the above are welcome to shoot me an e-mail. Right now there is lots of interest in all of the above offerings. Folks who have already e-mailed me will be receiving the first invites soon, starting with the Spoonbill IPT.
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.
Facebook
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 :).
January 4th, 2018 Stuff
It is Thursday morning 4 JAN 2018 as I begin to type. Tuesday afternoon in central Florida was cold and rainy and windy. My nonstop flight to PHX was long for whatever reason, the plane seemed as cold as it had been in Orlando. I picked up my rental car and made it to David Rosenberg’s house just after 10pm Mountain time after waking at 3am Eastern time. It was a very long day. We woke early and photographed with friend and skilled photographer Bryan Holliday at the Riparian Preserve at Gilbert Water Ranch. It is a tough place to shoot but with patience we did well. After my first physical therapy session and lunch at Whole Foods, we headed back to the preserve and did well again with some elegant Black-necked Stilts. I will likely give it another shot this morning …
Click on the logo-link above for great holiday savings!
$300 off on the Canon 100-400 II!
The Streak
Today makes one hundred fifty-eight days in a row with a new educational blog post! This one took less than an hour to prepare including the time spent optimizing the image. With all of my upcoming free time (or not …), the plan right now is to break the current record streak of 480 … Good health and good internet connections and my continuing insanity willing.
Booking.Com
Booking.Com came through for me twice again recently with both the DeSoto Fall IPT and next July’s UK Puffins, Gannets, and Bempton Pre-trip room reservations. And all the rates were great. If you’d like to give Booking.Com a shot, click here and you will earn a $25 reward. 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 folks 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.
The Disc of the Sun Exposure Answers
In the Dime a Dozen Part IV: It’s Just a Boat-tailed Grackle. And some really tough exposure questions … blog post here, I asked, with regards to the image above, Knowing that the ISO was 200 and that I was in Av mode, what do you think the exposure compensation was? What do you think the shutter speed was? And what do you think the aperture was?
The Exposure compensation was -4 stops — yes Virginia, many of the current camera bodies can show up to +/- five full stops of EC. The shutter speed was 1/8000 sec. And the aperture was f/16. All that with the sun somewhat muted by a very light cloud on the western horizon …
The Big Lesson …
The big lesson here is not the exposure data, but how I got there. And how I got there is exactly how I get to the right exposure 99% of the time. From experience, I knew that I would need to lower the ISO, use a very high shutter speed, and set a very small aperture. I don’t remember exactly where I started but I do know that the the brightest part of the sun, the yellow in the upper third of the disc, was toasted with totally blinking highlights. So I increased the shutter speed and went to a smaller aperture. Took another image, and then rechecked. And then repeated once or twice more until the blinkies were gone. Same as with every other image, just a bit harder because of the extreme brightness of the sun.
In the Exposure Simplified/Creating 11 a.m. Silhouettes section of The Art of Bird Photography II (ABP II: 916 pages, 900+ images on CD) there is a still-amazing image of a single Snow Goose in flight against the disc of the sun. Here is the caption:
Snow Goose against bright sun, Bosque Del Apache NWR, NM
Canon 500mm f/4L IS lens with stacked 1.4 and 2X II TCs and EOS-1D Mark II. ISO 50. Manual Mode: 1/8000 sec. at f/64. I remember jumping for joy when I first saw this image on the camera’s LCD. In retrospect, I wish that I had pressed the shutter a fraction of a second sooner so that the bird would have been positioned a bit farther back in the frame.
Notes:
- 1-I now refer to “11am Silhouettes” as “Blasting Highlights” situations.
- 2-As far as I know it is no longer possible to focus accurately with stacked teleconverters when using Series III TCs.
If my math is correct, the exposure for the Snow Goose image was five stops brighter than the exposure for the grackle image: f/16 — f/32 — f/64 is two stops darker, ISO 50 — ISO 100 — ISO 200 is three stops darker. That adds up to a total of five stops brighter. What’s my point? My point is that really serious students of bird photography would have stored that exposure information in their heads so that in similar situations they would have a clue as to where to begin when attempting to photograph the disc of the sun …
Here is some safety information adapted from the same section in ABP II:
Photographing the Bright Sun
This is perhaps the most challenging exposure and silhouette situation. Images in this category are created on clear days with the sun up and fully clear of the horizon. The sky around the sun in these situations is an extremely bright white. It appears black in the photographs because we are underexposing as much as possible in an effort to keep from overexposing the blazing blasting sun. When photographing the bright sun on a clear day, care must be taken not to damage one’s eyes. If you look away from the sun and the world looks at all purplish, it is best to cease and desist or risk serious and permanent eye damage. In addition, it is best to restrict such efforts to one half hour after sunrise and one half hour before sunset. If it is hazy or the sun is at all obscured by thin clouds or fog, you can figure your exposures normally.
The text that follows the section above details a technique that allows you to create such images without risking eye damage.
More on Coming Soon
February 2018 Spoonbill Boat IPT (definite!)
Two Fort DeSoto IPTs (April and May, 2018)
Three Gatorland IPTs (March, April, and May, 2018 — including early entry and late stay — tentative)
Three Sandhill Crane chicks and colts Master Classes at Indian Lake Estates (March)
The Master Classes will be small groups — strictly limited to four photographers — with the first folks who register staying at my home and the others staying at a chain motel in Lake Wales. Live, think, and breathe photography from Friday afternoon through lunch on Monday morning; all meals included. We will enjoy three morning photography sessions with the main subjects being tame Sandhill Cranes almost surely with chicks or colts. Also vultures and Cattle Egrets and more. Limpkins possible. There will be three afternoon photo sessions with hopefully glorious sunsets like the ones you have been seeing on the blog recently. I will micro-adjust one of your lenses during a group instructional session and all will be welcome to practice what they have learned during the breaks using my lighting gear. We will sit together around my dining room table and pick everyone’s keepers, enjoy guided Photoshop sessions, and, on Monday before lunch, folks can make a single large print of their favorite image.
Folks who would like advance notice on any of the above are welcome to shoot me an e-mail.
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.
Facebook
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 :).
January 3rd, 2018 Stuff
I woke at 3am and started packing — planned to leave at 2:00pm for my 5:50pm flight to Phoenix. Was ten minutes late in leaving. Jim dropped me off as usual and I am putting the finishing touches on this blog post at the gate. I did think about taking a swim but didn’t. I did think about taking a nap and did.
I made myself a nice tuna salad for the plane: Wild Planet Albacore Tuna chopped up fine, three medium Brussels sprouts cut up small, some blueberries and diced organic gala apple, a big tablespoon of no sugar relish, lots of mayo, and a healthy dose of red wine vinegar. Sprinkled cheddar cheese on top. I plan on holding off eating until two hours into the flight which should be about eight eastern time or six mountain time. Can’t wait.
Lots of folks wrote expressing interest in the spoonbill trip; I will be getting in touch with them shortly. Several are interested in the Gatorland and DeSoto IPTs as well.
Click on the logo-link above for great holiday savings!
$300 off on the Canon 100-400 II!
The Streak
Today makes one hundred fifty-seven days in a row with a new educational blog post! This one took less than an hour to prepare including the time spent optimizing the image. With all of my upcoming free time (or not …), the plan right now is to break the current record streak of 480 … Good health and good internet connections and my continuing insanity willing.
Booking.Com
Booking.Com came through for me twice again recently with both the DeSoto Fall IPT and next July’s UK Puffins, Gannets, and Bempton Pre-trip room reservations. And all the rates were great. If you’d like to give Booking.Com a shot, click here and you will earn a $25 reward. 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 folks 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.
The Derelict Navigation Tower Revealed
In the Creating Pleasing Juxtapositions and Dealing With Too-dark Tones … blog post here, I posted the image of the cormorant with the tower seen in the photo above out of focus in the background. I thought that it was a neat concept and a nice juxtaposition. The folks that were with me liked the image too can commented on how clever I was. Nobody who commented on the blog however, liked the image at all: “I do not not like the tower in the background;” “I find the out of focus tower unpleasant. At first I thought it was an out of focus drone;” “Not sure how much I like the oof tower, seems to distract the eye from the bird.” So much for clever. I still like it. Heck, maybe you had to be there. 🙂
Since some folks were unsure of just what was in the background, I decided to post a sharp image of the derelict navigation tower, covered as is usual with pelicans and cormorants and whitewash.
So What’s the Lesson in Today’s Featured Image?
After making an exposure test image or two, I waited for something to happen to make the image just a little bit special. What did I wait for?
A Nice Image Optimization Trick
When you have a flat, somewhat boring image color- and light-wise, try this: put the whole thing on its own layer and then hit Image > Auto Tone (or Auto Contrast) and then reduce the opacity of the layer to taste. With today’s image at 40% opacity Auto Tone made a large improvement and gave the image a bit of pop. Thanks to Denise Ippolito who first shared this tip with me.
More on Coming Soon
February 2018 Spoonbill Boat IPT (definite!)
Two Fort DeSoto IPTs (April and May, 2018)
Three Gatorland IPTs (March, April, and May, 2018 — including early entry and late stay — tentative)
Three Sandhill Crane chicks and colts Master Classes at Indian Lake Estates (March)
The Master Classes will be small groups — strictly limited to four photographers — with the first folks who register staying at my home and the others staying at a chain motel in Lake Wales. Live, think, and breathe photography from Friday afternoon through lunch on Monday morning; all meals included. We will enjoy three morning photography sessions with the main subjects being tame Sandhill Cranes almost surely with chicks or colts. Also vultures and Cattle Egrets and more. Limpkins possible. There will be three afternoon photo sessions with hopefully glorious sunsets like the ones you have been seeing on the blog recently. I will micro-adjust one of your lenses during a group instructional session and all will be welcome to practice what they have learned during the breaks. We will sit together around my dining room table and pick everyone’s keepers, enjoy guided Photoshop sessions, and, on Monday before lunch, folks can make a single large print of their favorite image.
Folks who would like advance notice on any of the above are welcome to shoot me an e-mail.
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.
Facebook
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 :).
January 2nd, 2018 Stuff
I was hoping for clouds so that I could finish my micro-adjusting; with long effective focal lengths I work outdoors with the lights. It was very cloudy to start but in the middle of the two and one-half hour session the sun was peeking in and out so I set up a tripod with an Umbrella Clamp Rig and used my large Canon golf umbrella to shade the front of the 600 II. It worked perfectly. By 11am it was cold and raining hard. I packed up a big box of lenses that Jim will ship to San Diego for the two IPTs.
Mazel tov to UCF (University of Central Florida) for their great victory over heavily favored Auburn in the Peach Bowl. By 4pm it was cold and windy and raining so I got into the 75.6 degree water and swam 3/4 mile. It felt great. And the pool lights turned on and off perfectly.
I fly to Phoenix late today, Tuesday January 2, 2018.
Click on the logo-link above for great holiday savings!
$300 off on the Canon 100-400 II!
The Streak
Today makes one hundred fifty-six days in a row with a new educational blog post! This one took less than an hour to prepare including the time spent optimizing the image. With all of my upcoming free time (or not …), the plan right now is to break the current record streak of 480 … Good health and good internet connections and my continuing insanity willing.
Booking.Com
Booking.Com came through for me twice again recently with both the DeSoto Fall IPT and next July’s UK Puffins, Gannets, and Bempton Pre-trip room reservations. And all the rates were great. If you’d like to give Booking.Com a shot, click here and you will earn a $25 reward. 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 folks 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.
|
|
|
This image was created down by the lake near my home at Indian Lake Estates, FL on the evening of Sunday, December 31, 2017. I used the Induro GIT304L Grand Series 3 Stealth Carbon Fiber Tripod/Mongoose M3.6-mounted Canon EF 600mm f/4L IS II USM lens, the Canon Extender EF 2X III, and my favorite silhouette photography camera body, the Canon EOS 5D Mark IV. ISO 800. Evaluative metering +1/3 stop in Av mode: 1/2500 sec. at f/9 was a bit of an under-exposure. WB: K7500 at 5:40pm on a dead clear sunset.
LensAlign/FocusTune micro-adjustment: -10.
Center Large Zone/AI Servo/Shutter button AF was active at the moment of exposure. The system performed perfectly as seen in the DPP 4 screen capture below. Click on the image for a larger version.
Anhinga: sunset take-off, headed for 2018
|
Anhinga, headed for 2018
This bird has been becoming more and more dependable for the past week; it sits on The Perch almost every night. For the most part it does nothing but just before it is gonna fly it does a really neat head down wing stretch. I got a few images of that last night but in the best ones the bill merged with the perch … I immediately rotated the lens in the barrel and went to horizontal format for the take-off. I had been concentrating so hard on not missing the action that I was getting a headache. And every five minutes I had to move the tripod to my left in the deep muck to stay on the brightest part of the sky as the sun moved down and west, to my right. If the bird had flown when I was re-locating in the mud I would have come up empty, again. I was quite happy when I saw this one on the rear LCD and even happier when I saw it on my Macbook Pro.
|
|
DPP 4 screen capture for today’s featured image
|
DPP 4 Screen Capture for Today’s Featured Image
I have been preaching the benefits of using Large Zone AF here on the blog and in the 5D Mark IV User’s Guide as well. Last night it performed perfectly when the Anhinga jumped off its perch. (The bird always flies to the northwest regardless of the direction of the wind.) Note the three AF points illuminated in red, one on the neck and two on the base of the far wing. As I said, perfection.
I probably made more adjustments to this image in DPP 4 than I have made to any image that I have ever converted. You can see that I juiced up the color by moving the Color fine-tune dot all the way to the RED corner. For the first time ever I experimented with the Color tone slider and wound up liking it set all the way to the left. What you cannot see is that I did a lot of work on the Adjust image colors tab; for both the RED and ORANGE I moved the Saturation slider to +10 and the Luminance slider to -10.
A Great New DDP 4 Noise Reduction Technique!
I have been noticing on these sunset silhouettes that luminance noise with the dark RED and the dark ORANGE background tones can be problematic so I tried a brand new approach: after using the Noise Reduction recipe for ISO 1600 (instead of the recipe for ISO 800 because of the underexposure), I enlarged the image to 400% to check the background noise. Then, working on the Adjust image detail tab, I moved the slider for Luminance noise all the way up to 12 at which point the luminance noise disappeared completely. Live and learn.
Once I brought the TIFF file in Photoshop I tweaked the color a bit more and deepened the BLACKs with a Levels Adjustment. I even added CYAN to the BLACKs in Selective Color to take the RED out.
The Big Question Is!
The big question: “In your humble opinion is the background color too garish?
From Merriam-Webster: excessively or disturbingly vivid; offensively or distressingly bright : glaring.
From Dictionary.com: crudely or tastelessly colorful, showy, or elaborate, as clothes or decoration.
Coming Soon
February 2018 Spoonbill Boat IPT (definite!)
Two Fort DeSoto IPTs (April and May, 2018)
Three Gatorland IPTs (March, April, and May, 2018 — including early entry and late stay — tentative)
Three Sandhill Crane chicks and colts Master Classes at Indian Lake Estates (March)
The Master Classes will be small groups — strictly limited to four photographers — with the first folks who register staying at my home and the others staying at a chain motel in Lake Wales. Live, think, and breathe photography from Friday afternoon through lunch on Monday morning; all meals included. We will enjoy three morning photography sessions with the main subjects being tame Sandhill Cranes almost surely with chicks or colts. Also vultures and Cattle Egrets and more. Limpkins possible. There will be three afternoon photo sessions with hopefully glorious sunsets like the ones you have been seeing on the blog recently. I will micro-adjust one of your lenses during a group instructional session and all will be welcome to practice what they have learned during the breaks. We will sit together around my dining room table and pick everyone’s keepers, enjoy guided Photoshop sessions, and, on Monday before lunch, folks can make a single large print of their favorite image.
Folks who would like advance notice on any of the above are welcome to shoot me an e-mail.
Folks who would like advance notice on any of the above are welcome to shoot me an e-mail.
|
|
|
The BIRDS AS ART Current Workflow e-Guide (Digital Basics II) will teach you an efficient Mac or PC/Photo Mechanic/Photoshop workflow that will make it easy for you to make your images better in Photoshop (rather than worse). That true whether you convert your images in DPP 4 or ACR. See the blog post here to learn lots more and to read a free excerpt.
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.
|
The BIRDS AS ART Current Workflow e-Guide (Digital Basics II)
Your guessed it, everything mentioned above (and tons more) is covered in detail in the BIRDS AS ART Current Workflow e-Guide (Digital Basics II), an instructional PDF that is sent via e-mail. Learn more and check out the free excerpt in the blog post here. While the new e-Guide reflects my Macbook Pro/Photo Mechanic/DPP 4/Photoshop workflow, folks using a PC and/or BreezeBrowser will also benefit greatly by studying the material on DB II. Do note that you will find the RGB Curves Adjustment Color Balancing tutorial only in the new e-guide. 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.
The two most recent and many of the older MP4 Photoshop Tutorial videos releases go hand and hand with the information in DB II):
- The Wingtip Repairs MP4 Video here.
- The MP4 Crow Cleanup Video 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.
You can learn how and why I and other discerning Canon shooters convert nearly all of their Canon digital RAW files in DPP 4 using Canon Digital Photo Professional in the DPP 4 RAW conversion Guide here. And you can learn advanced Quick Masking and advanced Layer Masking techniques in APTATS I & II. You can save $15 by purchasing the pair. Folks can learn sophisticated sharpening and (NeatImage) Noise Reduction techniques in the The Professional Post Processing Guide by Arash Hazeghi and yours truly.
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.
Facebook
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 :).
January 1st, 2018 Happy 2018
Jim Litzenberg, Jennifer Morris, and I hope that each and every one of you and your friends and family you has a great 2018 filled with peace, love, accomplishment, success, travel, wonderful images, and good health. We thank you from the bottom of our hearts for a great 2017; without the support we receive from each of you, BIRDS AS ART would not exist; I would be working as a greeter in Walmart.
Stuff
When I woke Sunday morning I was concerned about the fact that my 600II/2XII/5DIV would not focus the previous evening. Was it the lens, the TC, or the camera body? I had lots of ideas as to how to find a solution. Turns out the the AF switch was on M. Duh! Can you say “operator error”? All of course is fine.
Sunday morning — cold and still — was, with a northwest breeze developing, fair to lousy for photography with only a few vulture flight shot keepers. The evening was much better. I am really getting into rhythm with the Anhinga that sits on The Perch most late afternoons: showing rare patience I managed one spectacular take-off image. Coming soon.
I spent a good part of the morning micro-adjusting my new (still oil spattering) Canon EOS-1DX II with my 100-400 II and my 1.4X III ii at both the long and short ends. The system extrapolates the correct micro-adjustment for focal lengths between 100 and 400mms and between 140 and 560mms with the TC. I also micro-adjusted the 1DX II with the 600 alone. On Monday morning, in about 90 minutes, I will finish up by MA-ing the 1DX II with the 600 II, the 1,4X III i, and the 2X III i. The last chore with be the 1DX II with the 400 DO II and the 2X III ii.
The pool temps continued to drop so I used my new snorkeling vest and kept myself fairly warm for another easy mile. It was the first time that I had done a mile four days in a row. Soon I will be one month without swimming.
Click on the logo-link above for great holiday savings!
$300 off on the Canon 100-400 II!
The Streak
Today makes one hundred fifty-five days in a row with a new educational blog post! This one took less than an hour to prepare including the time spent optimizing the image. With all of my upcoming free time (or not …), the plan right now is to break the current record streak of 480 … Good health and good internet connections and my continuing insanity willing.
Brand New Listings
Canon EF 600mm f/4L IS II USM Lens
BAA Record-Low, Shock-the-world priced
Walt Anderson is offering a barely used EF 600mm f/4L IS II USM lens in mint to like-new condition with extras for the BAA record low price of $9395.00. The sale includes the LensCoat that has protected his 600 since day one, a RRS stuff foot (installed), the original foot, the lens trunk, the original box and everything that came in it: front cover, rear cap, manuals, & the rest, and insured ground shipping via major courier to US addresses only. Your item will not ship until your personal of certified check clears unless other arrangements are made.
Please contact Walt via e-mail or by phone at 1-847-721-8319 (Central time).
WMD: Weapon of Mass Destruction!
Walt, a long time BAA friend and an IPT veteran as well, is the inventor of the Better Beamer Flash Extender, the very first BAA mail order item. When it comes to taking care of his gear, Walt is fastidious.
The 600 II is the state of the art super-telephoto for birds, nature, wildlife, and sports. If I can get it to a location, it is my go-to weapon. It is fast and sharp and deadly alone or with either TC. With a new one going for $11,499, you can save a cool $2,104.00 by grabbing Walt’s might-as-well-be-new lens right now. artie
Canon EF 11-24mm f/4L USM Lens
The Landscape Photographer’s Dream Lens
Walt Anderson is also offering a Canon EF 11-24mm f/4L USM lens in like-new condition for $1799.00 — tied for the record-low BAA price. The sale includes the lens hood, the suede lens pouch, the front and rear lens caps, the original box, and insured ground shipping via major courier to US addresses only. Your item will not ship until your personal of certified check clears unless other arrangements are made.
Please contact Walt via e-mail or by phone at 1-847-721-8319 (Central time).
I own and use this truly versatile, astoundingly sharp super wide angle zoom; it is perfect for scenic, landscape, and architectural photography. The 11-24 currently sells new for $2,699.00; save a cool $900.00 by grabbing Walt’s lens. artie
Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II USM Lens
Fast & Versatile: BAA Record-Low, Shock-the-world priced
Walt Anderson is offering a Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II USM lens in like-new condition with for the BAA record low price of $1299.00. It was recently cleaned and checked by Canon. The sale includes the tripod ring (collar), the original box and everything that came in it including the tough fabric case, the front and rear lens caps, all the rest, and insured ground shipping via major courier to US addresses only. Your item will not ship until your personal of certified check clears unless other arrangements are made.
Please contact Walt via e-mail or by phone at 1-847-721-8319 (Central time).
The 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II lens is amazingly versatile and at f/2.8, fast. I still own one and have made zillions of great images with it. It works well with both the 1.4X III and the 2X III TCs, even with the 7D II! It is easily hand holdable. It is great for tame birds, landscapes, urbex, indoor stuff likes concerts and recitals, and just about anything you want to photograph. A new 70-200 II currently sells for $1,899 so you can save an even $600 by grabbing Walt’s like-new copy asap. artie
Nikon SB-5000 AF Speedlight
The Latest/Greatest Nikon Flash: Brand News in the Box!
Walt Anderson is offering a Nikon SB-5000 AF Speedlight in new condition with for the BAA record low price of $499.00. Walt purchased it to Bought to check the fit for Better Beamers; it has never had batteries in it.
The sale includes insured ground shipping via major courier to US addresses only. Your item will not ship until your personal of certified check clears unless other arrangements are made.
Please contact Walt via e-mail or by phone at 1-847-721-8319 (Central time).
This flash sell new for $596.95 so you can save nearly 100 bucks and wind up with a brand new one anyway! artie
Click here for Amazing 5D Mark IV Bundles and Deals
Here is the best news: those who have used a BAA B&H affiliate link to purchase a 5D Mark IV (or other items totaling $3200 or more) are invited to send us a copy of their B&H receipt via e-mail and receive a free copy of the guide. If you would like to review the document before it is published, please send your receipt now. This offer is also valid for future purchases.
Booking.Com
Booking.Com came through for me twice again recently with both the DeSoto Fall IPT and next July’s UK Puffins, Gannets, and Bempton Pre-trip room reservations. And all the rates were great. If you’d like to give Booking.Com a shot, click here and you will earn a $25 reward. 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 folks 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.
|
|
|
This image was created by BPN member Isaac Grant at Great Kills Park on Staten Island, NY with the Induro GIT304L Grand Series 3 Stealth Carbon Fiber Tripod/Mongoose M3.6-mounted Canon EF 500mm f/4L IS II USM lens, the Canon Extender EF 1.4X III, and the blazingly fast Canon EOS-1D X Mark II. ISO 4000. Evaluative metering plus about 1 2/3 stops as framed: 1/2000 sec. at f/5.6 in in Manual mode in cloudy conditions.
One AF point down from the center AF point/AI Servo/Surround shutter button AF was active at the moment of exposure. The selected AF point was on the rat. It is likely that one of the upper assist point fell on the bird’s upper breast and helped maintain sharp AF tracking.
Snowy Owl with rat
Image courtesy of and copyright 2017: Isaac Grant
Be sure to click on the image to enjoy the larger version.
|
What Makes This One So Special?
A very great majority of the Snowy Owl images in flight either incoming or with prey are created in situations where the birds are attracted to the photographer with live pet store mice or even furry little fishing lures that are cast at the bird and then retrieved. What makes this one so special is that the owl caught the big rat all by itself with no help from anyone. Not to mention that it is a spectacular image. I personally have nothing against the use of live bait though I understand that many folks find this practice repulsive or immoral or both. It is not, however, against the law and it does not hurt the birds. It might even help them. I am not a big fan of such images being honored in prestigious international contests in which live baiting is prohibited … In any case, mazel tov to Isaac on this amazing image, one to be very proud of.
Isaac is a skilled and dedicated bird photographer who is very active in BPN’s Avian Forum, home to many great bird photographs where honest critiques are done gently.
Adapted from the BPN post here:
My plan for the day was to photograph this Snowy Owl in the snow. Previously I posted a shot of this bird on the ground with the rat. In the field we did not know that the rat was in its talons but thought it was odd that it was sitting with its wings down a bit. Turns out it was defending its dinner. When it was flushed by two people running up the beach in the snow (!!!) we saw that it was holding a rat. This image is the 3rd frame of the series and was created just as it became airborne. So my plan worked out perfectly. Snowy Owl in the snow with naturally caught (not baited) prey. Happy New Year everyone. Isaac.
Adapted from Isaac’s Response to My Comment in the Same Thread
Thanks Artie. The camera was tripod-mounted. A group of 5 of us were watching the snowy for about 45 minutes while it just sat there. I watched it earlier in the morning get flushed by a jogger and fly into the woods. It did not return for a long time and I had given up looking. I was not happy about not being able to photograph it in the snow. A friend called me and said that he just saw it fly back to the exact spot where it had been so I quickly got back to where it was and then watched it for a long time. We were wondering if it was hurt because it had its wings down a bit as if it were in pain or struggling. I know now that it was more of a territorial gesture while it protected its yummy rat. I was set up completely differently to shoot the owl as it just sat still on the beach in the snow. It was sitting on the low side of a little hill near where the beach bends north, just on the other side of a jetty. At almost the last second I saw the 2 people approaching. As fast as I could I upped the ISO and shutter speed to capture the action as I knew it would take off to my left; the people were coming from my right. At the same time I moved the camera left a little to give the bird room to fly into and to get the bird as it took off. This is full frame. Have a few shots where I clipped the wings as it took off. I probably had less than 2 seconds to make the changes and get the shot before the bird was gone. This was one case where I was more than happy to have set up the camera the way I did to make changes on the fly. Also where the 14 frames per second of the 1dx ii really pay off. Isaac
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.
Facebook
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 :).
December 31st, 2017 Stuff
Saturday started out looking like another gray day but before I knew it the sun was out. I headed to the lake at 8:30am. About a dozen times I had a vulture doing a perfect full double wing stretch taking in the morning sun. And a dozen times I screwed up by taking too long. I came away with nothing. There’s always next time. In the evening the sunset was very clear so I came up with a new strategy: I quit trying to get the Anhinga against the ball of the sun and photographed it against the bright sky. Why? When it does its elaborate stretching it does not completely fit inside the disc of the sun. I missed the dependable head-down stretch while moving the tripod but got a few good ones of the takeoff. There’s always next time.
I was having a problem autofocusing with the 600 II and the 2X III TC last night — AF simply did not work. I will try to figure things out this morning; is the problem is with the lens, the camera, or the TC. Depending on what I learn, I might be doing lots of micro-adjusting today …
Again I spent much of the day doing second and third edits on various folders to make more room on my laptop. The pool temps continue to drop so I tried out my new snorkeling vest and kept myself fairly warm for another mile. It was the first time that I had done a mile three days in a row. Soon I will be one month without swimming.
How I Got Lucky
While multiple IPT veteran Jake Levin of Montreal, Canada, left a near-perfect answer to the “In what ways did I get lucky with the Black Vulture flight image in yesterday’s blog post here, not a single person attempted to answer the quality of light question. Revisits are welcome. Well done Jake. I will see Jake again on the San Diego #1 IPT; there are still 3 spots open on San Diego #2.
Jake Levin
December 30, 2017 at 1:03 pm · Reply · Edit
How I think you got lucky:
1) The bird started flying away, but looked back towards you, creating a good head angle.
2) The selected focus point caught a piece of the wing on the same plane as the bird’s head and eye.
3) The vulture was captured entirely within the blue area created by the background water, meaning you didn’t get any lines cutting through it.
4) The wing position at the time of exposure didn’t create any shadows on the body.
To that I would add that had the wings been down I would not have even seen the bird’s face …
Click on the logo-link above for great holiday savings!
$300 off on the Canon 100-400 II!
The Streak
Today makes one hundred fifty-four days in a row with a new educational blog post! This blog post took about an hour to prepare including the time spent optimizing the image. With all of my upcoming free time (or not …), the plan right now is to break the current record streak of 480 … Good health and good internet connections and my continuing insanity willing.
New Listing
Canon EOS 5D Mark III digital camera body
Gerald Barrack is offering a Canon EOS 5D Mark III digital camera body (with extras) in excellent to near-mint condition for $1,349.00. The sale includes the front cap, the Canon camera strap, one Canon battery, the battery charger, the Really Right Stuff camera body plate (B 5D3 A, a $55.00 value), a Delkin 700X- 64GB compact flash card, and insured ground shipping via major courier to US address only. Your item will not ship until your check clears unless other arrangements are made.
Interested folks can contact Gerald via e-mail or try him on his cell at 201 638 3510 (Eastern time).
I owned and used this superb, full frame, 22mp digital body for several years. It was always my first choice for scenic, Urbex (urban exploration), and flower photography until I fell in love for a while with the 5DS R (for a lot more money!). Then I switched to the 5D IV body. In addition, I loved my 5D III body for birds with my big lenses and both TCs. I used mine to create many dozens of high quality images. artie
Click here for Amazing 5D Mark IV Bundles and Deals
Here is the best news: those who have used a BAA B&H affiliate link to purchase a 5D Mark IV (or other items totaling $3200 or more) are invited to send us a copy of their B&H receipt via e-mail and receive a free copy of the guide. If you would like to review the document before it is published, please send your receipt now. This offer is also valid for future purchases.
Booking.Com
Booking.Com came through for me twice again recently with both the DeSoto Fall IPT and next July’s UK Puffins, Gannets, and Bempton Pre-trip room reservations. And all the rates were great. If you’d like to give Booking.Com a shot, click here and you will earn a $25 reward. 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 folks 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.
|
|
The DPP 4 Screen Capture
Click on the image to see a larger version if you’d like to read the fine print.
|
The DPP 4 Screen Capture
First, note the location of the selected AF point. Next, note the white parking lot line cutting through the bird along with the rest of the mess in the background. Working at f/14 rather than f/5.6 or f/6.3 surely brought up the unwanted background detail. (See how I cleaned up the background in the optimized image below.)
Aperture/Depth of Field Question
What was I trying to do by choosing a very small aperture? Doing so sure created lots of extra work in post processing …
Image Design Question
Answer this question correctly first might actually help you to get the right answer for the aperture/depth of field question above: why did I select an AF point that placed the bird so far forward in the frame?
Learn everything that there is to know about the great AF system of the 5D Mark IV in the new 5D Mark IV User’s Guide.
|
|
|
This image was created on the morning of November 24 at Robert Moses State Park, Long Island, NY with the BLUBB-supported Canon EF 600mm f/4L IS II USM lens, the Canon Extender EF 1.4X III, and my favorite gull photography camera body, the Canon EOS 5D Mark IV. ISO 400. Evaluative metering + 2/3 stop as framed: 1/500 sec. at f/14 in Manual mode. At 8:08am in partly sunny conditions.
LensAlign/FocusTune micro-adjustment: -2.
Two rows up and three AF points to the left of the center AF point/AI Servo/Expand/Shutter Button AF was active at the moment of exposure. The selected AF point was on the rear upper gape of the bill just in front of and below (and on the same plane as) the eye (as seen in the DPP 4 screen capture below).
Great Black-backed Gull, first winter yawning
Be sure to click on the image to enjoy the larger version.
|
The Optimized Image
I knew when I pressed the shutter button with the aperture set to f/14 that I would have lots of extra work to do in post cleaning up the mess in the background. First I selected the background, feathered the selection .7 pixels, and put it on its own layer. By working on the new layer the bird was protected. I used my normal cadre of clean-up tools: the Patch Tool, Content Aware Fill, the Spot Healing Brush, the Clone Stamp Tool, and a series of small Quick Masks that were refined with the addition of Regular Layer Masks. Finally I smoothed out the background with the addition of a 60-pixel Gaussian Blur. I was quite happy with the result, the result that I had envisioned when I pressed the shutter button at f/14.
To see a really nice example of skillful work on a background check out all the learning going on at Joe Przybyla’s fine Florida Burrowing Owl image in the Avian forum of BirdPhotographers.net – It Ain’t Just Birds by clicking here.
|
|
|
The BIRDS AS ART Current Workflow e-Guide (Digital Basics II) will teach you an efficient Mac or PC/Photo Mechanic/Photoshop workflow that will make it easy for you to make your images better in Photoshop (rather than worse). That true whether you convert your images in DPP 4 or ACR. See the blog post here to learn lots more and to read a free excerpt.
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.
|
The BIRDS AS ART Current Workflow e-Guide (Digital Basics II)
Your guessed it, everything mentioned above (and tons more) is covered in detail in the BIRDS AS ART Current Workflow e-Guide (Digital Basics II), an instructional PDF that is sent via e-mail. Learn more and check out the free excerpt in the blog post here. While the new e-Guide reflects my Macbook Pro/Photo Mechanic/DPP 4/Photoshop workflow, folks using a PC and/or BreezeBrowser will also benefit greatly by studying the material on DB II. Do note that you will find the RGB Curves Adjustment Color Balancing tutorial only in the new e-guide. 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.
The two most recent and many of the older MP4 Photoshop Tutorial videos releases go hand and hand with the information in DB II):
- The Wingtip Repairs MP4 Video here.
- The MP4 Crow Cleanup Video 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.
You can learn how and why I and other discerning Canon shooters convert nearly all of their Canon digital RAW files in DPP 4 using Canon Digital Photo Professional in the DPP 4 RAW conversion Guide here. And you can learn advanced Quick Masking and advanced Layer Masking techniques in APTATS I & II. You can save $15 by purchasing the pair. Folks can learn sophisticated sharpening and (NeatImage) Noise Reduction techniques in the The Professional Post Processing Guide by Arash Hazeghi and yours truly.
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. 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.
Facebook
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 :).
December 30th, 2017 Stuff
From dawn to dusk, Friday was about the grayest day I can every remember in Florida. It was cloudy dark from 7:30am to 5:30pm. I never got down to the lake. I spent most of the day doing final edits on several recent To Transfer folders to make some space on my hard drive for my upcoming San Diego trip. I met Jen and husband Erik and Sam and Maya at Crazy Fish in Lake Wales for dinner. We had a great time to go along with the great food.
Though is was quite chilly (for Florida …), I swam another slow mile at 3pm.
Click on the logo-link above for great holiday savings!
$300 off on the Canon 100-400 II!
The Streak
Today makes one hundred fifty-three days in a row with a new educational blog post! This blog post took about 90 minutes to prepare including the time spent optimizing the image. With all of my upcoming free time (or not …), the plan right now is to break the current record streak of 480 … Good health and good internet connections and my continuing insanity willing.
New Listing
Canon EOS 5D Mark III digital camera body
Gerald Barrack is offering a Canon EOS 5D Mark III digital camera body (with extras) in excellent to near-mint condition for $1,349.00. The sale includes the front cap, the Canon camera strap, one Canon battery, the battery charger, the Really Right Stuff camera body plate (B 5D3 A, a $55.00 value), a Delkin 700X- 64GB compact flash card, and insured ground shipping via major courier to US address only. Your item will not ship until your check clears unless other arrangements are made.
Interested folks can contact Gerald via e-mail or try him on his cell at 201 638 3510 (Eastern time).
I owned and used this superb, full frame, 22mp digital body for several years. It was always my first choice for scenic, Urbex (urban exploration), and flower photography until I fell in love for a while with the 5DS R (for a lot more money!). Then I switched to the 5D IV body. In addition, I loved my 5D III body for birds with my big lenses and both TCs. I used mine to create many dozens of high quality images. artie
Click here for Amazing 5D Mark IV Bundles and Deals
Here is the best news: those who have used a BAA B&H affiliate link to purchase a 5D Mark IV (or other items totaling $3200 or more) are invited to send us a copy of their B&H receipt via e-mail and receive a free copy of the guide. If you would like to review the document before it is published, please send your receipt now. This offer is also valid for future purchases.
Booking.Com
Booking.Com came through for me twice again recently with both the DeSoto Fall IPT and next July’s UK Puffins, Gannets, and Bempton Pre-trip room reservations. And all the rates were great. If you’d like to give Booking.Com a shot, click here and you will earn a $25 reward. 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 folks 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.
|
|
|
This image was created down by the lake near my home at Indian Lake, Estates, FL on the morning of December 13, 2017 with the hand held Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM lens (at 300m) and my favorite vulture photography camera body, the Canon EOS 5D Mark IV. ISO 800. Evaluative metering at zero: 1/2000 sec. at f/6.3 in Manual mode. AWB at 8:320m on a clear morning.
LensAlign/FocusTune micro-adjustment: extrapolated to -3.
Five AF points to the right of the center AF point/AI Servo/Expand/Shutter Button AF was active at the moment of exposure as originally framed. The selected AF point was on the neck of the closest vulture.
vultures on pier railing
Click on the image to see a larger version.
|
The Morning Lineup
It is not uncommon to see ten to thirty vultures on the railing of the long freshwater pier at Lake Walk In Water. Some day they might all be Turkey Vultures, some say all Black Vultures. Oftentimes both species are present as in the photo above. And some days there are no vultures on the pier. At this time of year, the sun is over my left shoulder as I approach the birds and the wind is primarily from the north. On the morning that this image was made the birds are all facing north by slightly northwest. Flight photography is very difficult in those conditions; when the birds jump off the fence they will almost always turn left — to the west — away from me. Learn more about wind direction and flight photography below.
|
|
|
This image was created down by the lake near my home at Indian Lake, Estates, FL on the morning of December 28, 2017 with the hand held Canon EF 400mm f/4 DO IS II USM lens and the Canon EOS-1D X Mark II . ISO 800. Evaluative metering +3 stops off the light blue sky: 1/2500 sec. at f/4.5 in Manual mode. AWB at 8:11am on a clear morning.
LensAlign/FocusTune micro-adjustment: -3.
Center AF point/AI Servo/Surround/Shutter Button AF was active at the moment of exposure as framed. As seen by the illuminated red AF point in the DPP 4 screen capture below, the selected AF point was on the base of the bird’s near underwing, just behind and above the head. See more on Surround AF below.
Black Vulture in flight looking back
Click on the image to enjoy a larger version.
|
Smart and Lucky — a great combination
Smart …
When I head out onto the pier with my shirt off to collect some Vitamin D each morning recently, I have the 400 DO II with the 1.4X III in place and the 1DX II. As I got closer to the birds on Thursday past I realized that with the wind from the northeast that I might have some good flight chances with the birds that flew to the northeast, that is, angling from my left to my right. But I realized that at 560mm, the birds would be too large in the frame when they flew across sun angle so I stopped and put the TC in my pocket! As the image above shows, that was the perfect move.
Lucky
Though it is often said that luck is the residue of design (John Milton or Branch Rickey), I was in fact very lucky in the situation above.
List as many ways as you can that show I was extremely lucky to create today’s featured image in the situation described. I can think of three major ones.
|
|
The DPP 4 Screen Capture
Click on the image to see a larger version if you’d like to read the fine print.
|
The DPP 4 Screen Capture
On the Quality of Light…
These RGB values above — R = 243, G = 232, B = 210 — were made before I moved the Color Fine-Tune dot a bit toward BLUE. What do the values show about the quality of light when the image was made?
Surround AF
For a variety of reasons, I have just begun trying AF Surround for flight. Note two important things about Surround AF:
- 1-When you view the AF points in DPP 4, only the selected point is shown when you are using Surround. As I have done in all of our Camera User’s Guides, most recently the 5D Mark IV User’s Guide, I added the red dots to show the AF points that are active when you are in AF Surround. It is very possible that the two AF points below and to the right of the illuminated AF point caught the vulture’s neck and head …
- 2-But there is no way to know for sure. When you are in Large Zone or 61-point only, the AF points that were active at the moment of exposure are shown in DPP 4, but that is not the case when you are in AF Surround (or AF Expand). I have been suggesting to Canon for many years that this should be the case and that it could easily be done with a Firmware update. Please don’t hold your breath …
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. 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.
Facebook
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 :).
December 29th, 2017 Stuff
It was a beautiful, still, clear morning on Thursday but there were no birds on the perches. And few elsewhere. Using my hand held 400 DO II/1.4X III/1DX II I had some good flight chances with both Black and Turkey Vultures while working out of the car, and then again when I took my now daily walk on the long pier. I learned yesterday that this pier is the longest fresh water pier in the state of Florida. I did swim a slow mile midday, 88 lengths.
I have lots more work to do on my AZ trip and on upcoming Florida IPTs and the new Master Class offerings. Thanks to the many who wrote with Phoenix help and suggestions.
Click on the logo-link above for great holiday savings!
$300 off on the Canon 100-400 II!
The Streak
Today makes one hundred fifty-three days in a row with a new educational blog post! This blog post took about 90 minutes to prepare including the time spent optimizing the image. With all of my upcoming free time (or not …), the plan right now is to break the current record streak of 480 … Good health and good internet connections and my continuing insanity willing.
Click here for Amazing 5D Mark IV Bundles and Deals
Here is the best news: those who have used a BAA B&H affiliate link to purchase a 5D Mark IV (or other items totaling $3200 or more) are invited to send us a copy of their B&H receipt via e-mail and receive a free copy of the guide. If you would like to review the document before it is published, please send your receipt now. This offer is also valid for future purchases.
Booking.Com
Booking.Com came through for me twice again recently with both the DeSoto Fall IPT and next July’s UK Puffins, Gannets, and Bempton Pre-trip room reservations. And all the rates were great. If you’d like to give Booking.Com a shot, click here and you will earn a $25 reward. 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 folks 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.
Canon EF 100mm f2.8 USM macro Lens
Price Drop!
Galapagos IPT veteran Paul Reinstein is offering a Canon EF 100mm f2.8 USM macro lens in near-mint condition for the bargain price of $225. Why such a ridiculously low price? The lens has a speck of dirt near the center of the lens. Paul tested the lens at f/22 with both near and far focus and the speck was never visible in the image of a clean light background. The sale includes the lens hood, the front and rear lens caps, the original product box, and insured shipping via the US Postal Service to US addresses only. Your item will not ship until your check clears unless other arrangements are made. Photos are available upon request.
Please contact Paul via e-mail or by phone at 1-310-946-903 (Pacific time).
Both Denise Ippolito and I loved this lens for flowers and more. She used it hand held almost all the time; I on a tripod about 75% of the time. Different strokes. It is a lightweight, super-sharp lens. At the minimum focusing distance of 12 inches it offers true macro at 1:1 magnification. Note: the tripod ring is not included with this lens even when you buy a new one; you can go with the Canon Tripod Mount Ring D for IS 100mm f/2.8L Macro lens or the far less expensive Vello Tripod Collar D (Black) for Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L IS USM Macro lens. artie
|
|
|
This image was created at Fort DeSoto on the morning of October 28, 2017 with the hand held Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM lens, the Canon Extender EF 1.4X III (at 520m), and my favorite flight photography camera body, the Canon EOS 5D Mark IV. ISO 800. Evaluative metering +3 stops off the light gray sky: 1/500 sec. at f/9 in Manual mode. AWB at 9:34am on a cloudy day.
LensAlign/FocusTune micro-adjustment: extrapolated to -1.
One row up and four AF points to the left of the center AF point/AI Servo/Expand/Shutter Button AF was active at the moment of exposure as framed. As seen by the illuminated red AF point above, the selected AF point was on the bird’s shoulder.
The DPP 4 Screen Capture
Click on the image to see a larger version if you’d like to read the fine print.
|
BLACKs Too Dark …
Note that with nearly all the data in the right-most (highlight) box of the histogram that the very dark tones on the cormorant are way too dark. I did not want to overdo the Shadow slider so I moved it only to +1 for the RAW conversion in DPP 4 and dealt with the too dark tones in Photoshop as detailed below.
|
|
Double-crested Cormorant and Derelict Navigation Tower
Click on the image to enjoy a larger version.
|
The Juxtapositional Concept
The Navigation Tower in the background of today’s featured image was wrecked in Hurricane Irma. Hundreds of pelicans, cormorants, and gull can usually be seen roosting on what is left of it. I have photographed it often in different types of light but have never published any of them here. I had zero interest in photographing this cormorant but as I walked by it the derelict tower crept into the frame of my vision so I went to work. Choosing your side-to-side (and to a lesser degree, in this case, the up and down) perspective in situations where you are trying to create a pleasing juxtaposition of two objects is of course paramount to the success of the image. I just love that the tower is completely out of focus. Realize that with the 1.4X III TC in place that wide open is f/8; I was not going for more depth of field at f/9 in an effort to get the tower sharp. In fact, had it even been possible to render the two sharp I would not have liked the image at all.
Dealing with the BLACKs
I began working with the too dark dark tones on the whole bird. I selected the bird using the Quick Selection Tool (W), feathered the selection .7 pixels, put it on its own layer (Command + J), and applied my NIK 40/40 Detail Extractor/Tonal Contrast recipe. That was perfect but the bird was squinting and its face was still too dark. First I did some Eye Doctor work: I opened the eye a bit with a small, transformed Quick Mask and the Warp command; then I used Tim Grey dodge and burn to darken the pupil and lighten the iris; next I touched things up with the Clone Stamp Tool; and finally I selected the iris with the Quick Selection Tool (W) and increased the Saturation on that layer only (Command + U). The eye was looking much better.
Next I selected the bird’s face, bill, and neck, again with the Quick Selection Tool (W). I put that on its own layer and pulled up the Curve (Command + M). The problem was that there was a visible line where the lightening met the darker body. To eliminate that I added a Regular Layer Mask and painted the line away (B + D + X) with a fairly large 50% brush. Last was a bit of a pano crop.
Your Thoughts?
Do you like the image? Why or why not? How might you have improved it either in the field or at the computer. What if anything did you learn from this blog post?
|
|
|
The BIRDS AS ART Current Workflow e-Guide (Digital Basics II) will teach you an efficient Mac or PC/Photo Mechanic/Photoshop workflow that will make it easy for you to make your images better in Photoshop (rather than worse). That true whether you convert your images in DPP 4 or ACR. See the blog post here to learn lots more and to read a free excerpt.
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.
|
The BIRDS AS ART Current Workflow e-Guide (Digital Basics II)
Your guessed it, everything mentioned above (and tons more) is covered in detail in the BIRDS AS ART Current Workflow e-Guide (Digital Basics II), an instructional PDF that is sent via e-mail. Learn more and check out the free excerpt in the blog post here. The new e-Guide reflects my Macbook Pro/Photo Mechanic/DPP 4/Photoshop workflow. Do note that you will find the RGB Curves Adjustment Color Balancing tutorial only in the new e-guide. 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.
The two most recent and many of the older MP4 Photoshop Tutorial videos releases go hand and hand with the information in DB II):
- The Wingtip Repairs MP4 Video here.
- The MP4 Crow Cleanup Video 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.
You can learn how and why I and other discerning Canon shooters convert nearly all of their Canon digital RAW files in DPP 4 using Canon Digital Photo Professional in the DPP 4 RAW conversion Guide here. And you can learn advanced Quick Masking and advanced Layer Masking techniques in APTATS I & II. You can save $15 by purchasing the pair. Folks can learn sophisticated sharpening and (NeatImage) Noise Reduction techniques in the The Professional Post Processing Guide by Arash Hazeghi and yours truly.
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. 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.
Facebook
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 :).
December 28th, 2017 Phoenix Anyone?
I am flying to Phoenix, AZ next Tuesday and am looking for a place to stay for nine nights (arrive 2 JAN, depart 12 JAN) in exchange for bird photography and Photoshop lessons. If you know any of the good spots, I would love to hear from you as well. I am especially looking for drake Green-winged Teal and Canvasbacks. If you live there but do not have a place for me to stay, let me know if you would like to get out photographing with me at your favorite productive spot. If you have anything to share, shoot me an e-mail.
with love, artie
December 28th, 2017
Click on the logo-link above to check out 58 amazing deals on a great variety of photographic accessories. Good only till 11:59PM EST tonight.
Stuff
There was not much going on at the lake on Wednesday morning but I did make some nice images of both a Great Egret and a Great Blue Heron hunting in the marsh along the lakeshore. Then I took a walk on a long pier with my 400 DO II/1.4X III/1DX II and made one really good flight image of a fly-by GBH. I got a lot of work done on upcoming travel and lots of upcoming Florida IPTs. I got my last SynVisc shot in the afternoon. Next Tuesday I will be flying to Phoenix, AZ for eight physical therapy sessions with DPT (Doctor of Physical Therapy) Amy Novotny. Amy, who does some really out of the box alternative stuff, was highly recommended by client-friend Muriel McClellan who — with Amy’s help — avoided knee replacement surgery. And a year later, Muriel is still feeling and doing great.
When I got back from the doctor’s I needed a nap so I took one. Then I went down to the lake for sunset and created 114 images of an Anhinga on the perch in six minutes while working on my bird against the disk of the sun images. I did get a very few good ones. At one point the bird did a prolonged acrobatic stretch and I was 100% sure that I was gonna be famous, but alas, in almost every image the silhouette of the head was cut by the black sky so they were pretty much a no-go.
I got back home at dusk and clicked on the pool lights so that I could swim. But the lights would not turn on so I had dinner, swimless for a day. At 4am the next day, Thursday December 28 I clicked on the pool lights out of curiosity; they came on but would not turn off 🙂 I will take a long swim today.
Big time thanks to the many who commented on yesterday’s Lucky Look-Back and Lots of Questions for You blog post here. I just finished replying all the comments; if we were giving prizes David Peake would have won again! IAC, those interested in learning more might wish to check out what I have to say. Especially Jay! In the same vein, folks might want to revisit their own comments after a day or two to see if I responded with a question. I often do but few folks ever respond. 🙂 I will be doing a follow-up blog post where I will be answering all of my own questions. 🙂
Today makes one hundred fifty-two days in a row with a new educational blog post! This blog post took about 2 hours to prepare. With all of my upcoming free time (or not …), the plan right now is to break the current record streak of 480 … Good health and good internet connections and my continuing insanity willing.
Click here for Amazing 5D Mark IV Bundles and Deals
Here is the best news: those who have used a BAA B&H affiliate link to purchase a 5D Mark IV (or other items totaling $3200 or more) are invited to send us a copy of their B&H receipt via e-mail and receive a free copy of the guide. If you would like to review the document before it is published, please send your receipt now. This offer is also valid for future purchases.
Booking.Com
Booking.Com came through for me twice again recently with both the DeSoto Fall IPT and next July’s UK Puffins, Gannets, and Bempton Pre-trip room reservations. And all the rates were great. If you’d like to give Booking.Com a shot, click here and you will earn a $25 reward. 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 folks 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.
Order by 2pm today, Thursday December, 28, 2017
|
|
|
This image was created at Fort DeSoto on the late morning of Monday, December 4, 2017 while seated with the hand held Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM lens (at 300mm) and my favorite flight photography camera body, the Canon EOS 5D Mark IV. ISO 800. Evaluative metering +1 2/3 stops off the grey sky: 1/2000 sec. at f6/3 in Manual mode. AWB. 11:35am on a cloudy day.
LensAlign/FocusTune micro-adjustment: extrapolated to -4.
Center point/AI Servo/Expand/Shutter Button AF was active at the moment of exposure as framed. The selected AF point was on the sky in front of the bird’s face and a bit above its eye.
The full frame original/Sandwich Tern braking to land
|
The Make the Best Image Challenge
In the Make the Best Image Challenge blog post here, I ran the image above and the text that follows: If you would like to take part in the challenge please read the directions that follow carefully and then shoot me an e-mail by clicking on the following link only: e-mail.
When you receive the e-mail, open the image in Photoshop and optimize it so as to create what you think is the best possible image. If you would delete this image, please leave a comment and state why. When you open the image it should be 1200 pixels wide. If you think that the image needs to be cropped, be sure to hit Clear once you have activated the Crop Tool to avoid unintentionally changing the pixel dimensions. Once you have made your perfect crop, feel free to clean things up as needed using the Clone Stamp Tool, the Patch Tool, the Spot Healing Brush, and/or Content Aware Fill. You may also adjust the tonality and the contrast. Sharpen (but do not over-sharpen) the JPG. Save your Best Image as is without resizing it as follows: YourName.JPG (using your real name). Then shoot me an e-mail with the image attached. Have fun. The single best version will be published here soon along with my optimized version.
About a dozen folks gave this a shot. Several worked at removing all the bird on the beach. All but one of those were not good; some butchered the bird’s feet and toes and most made a splotchy, ugly mess of the beach below the subject, rife with telltale Clone Stamp marks. I have opted not to post any of those here to protect the folks who sent them. At times, you can save such messes by running a 70 pixel Gaussian blur on the whole image, adding a Hide-All (Inverse or Black) Mask, and painting in the smooth stuff over the mess with a soft brush. But you need to work large and be very careful near the bird in flight, especially around the feet, so that the Gaussian blur does no spill-over onto the subject. (Scroll down to see the image submitted by Noel Heustis below.)
|
|
Image #1: Sandwich Tern braking to land — my first version
|
My Thoughts and Version I
I am not a big fan of nearly all incoming tern shots where the birds in the flock below are visible. When the subject merges with any of the birds on the beach, I like that a lot less. I decided right off the bat that eliminating all the birds below the subject would require a great deal of time, effort, and skill and knew instantly that I would pass on that. But the light on the wings and the patterns of the feathers were just too, too beautiful so I decided to try something. As I advised the readers to do, I asked myself, “What is the neatest part of the image?” That answer was easy, “the wings.”
For my first version (Image #2, immediately above), I executed a square crop that eliminate much of the clutter in the lower right corner and along the bottom of the frame. The four tern heads that remained framed the landing bird nicely and the out of focus tern bodies were rather pleasing. The only tern head that bugged me is the one of the Sandwich Tern just in front of and below the subject’s feet. One day I will make a third version that eliminates the Sandwich Tern head …
|
|
Image #2: Sandwich Tern braking to land — my second version
|
My Thoughts and Version II
When I was working on these photo about a month ago, the thought of removing the single problematic head never entered my mind so I decided to execute a tighter square crop to reduce the photo to it’s essence. The result is Image #2, above.
|
|
Image #3: Sandwich Tern braking to land — Juan Pablo’s version
|
Juan Pablo’s Version
Juan Pablo Fernandez de Castro wrote in an e-mail: I wanted to highlight the wings and keep it high key with a clean background. I cropped and rotated to have some more space in front of the bird. I added some canvas to the left upper corner and filled it using Content-Aware fill. I eliminated an o-o-f bird in the right lower corner also using Content-Aware fill. Finally, I lightly sharpened with NIK.
Juan Pablo is the only one, who like I did, thought to reduce the image to its essence with a tight crop. His version is Image #3 above.
|
|
Image #4: Sandwich Tern braking to land — Noel Heustis’s version
|
Noel Heustis’s Version
New BAA friend Noel Heustis sent the best of the get rid of the flock images but there was lots of lumpiness below the tern. I applied a Gaussian blur as noted above and cleaned things up a bit. Noel’s version cleaned up a bit by my de-lumping is Image #4 above. If you tilt your screen back a bit you can see that I left a bit of a mess in the lower right corner, and elsewhere …
Comments
Any and all comments are of course welcome. As for me, I like my version II best, with the image reduced to its greatest strength. The superb image quality of a sharp Mark IV image files allows for aggressive cropping if needed. Folks who would like to learn some tricks used to photograph gulls and terns at the beach can check out Tern/Gull Pile Photography Tips/Part I: Flight here and Tern/Gull Pile Photography Tips/Part II: Tight and Static (and Fluffy) here.
|
|
The 5D Mark IV User’s Guide
|
The 5D Mark IV User’s Guide
$48.00. Order yours here now.
Please note: since the 5DS R and the 5DS are very similar to the 5D Mark IV owners of those two camera bodies might wish to purchase a 5D IV User’s Guide.
What They are Saying
From Mitch Haimov, the principal reviewer
Thank you for your new 5D IV guide. You’ve put a lot of useful information in there. I appreciate the time and effort you devoted to this project!
Dane Johnson, who caught some nasty typos!
I think that the guide is very well done and packed with lots of useful information, as is usual. The images speak for themselves.
From Lee Sommie, 5D IV B&H Purchaser
This 5D Mark IV User’s Guide is fantastic! Your conversational writing is fun and easy to read. Your explanations of 5D Mark IV functions will appeal to novice and expert alike. This guide is the jump start for all 5D Mark IV wildlife photographers. I can’t put it down. The wait was worth it!
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. 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.
Facebook
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 :).
December 27th, 2017 Stuff
As most of you know, I finally put the icing on the 5D Mark IV User’s Guide on Tuesday. Even that took longer than I had expected. You can order a copy here or learn more below. It sure was a lot of work. 🙂 Remember: if your purchase a 5D IV now using this link, you can send me your B&H receipt via e-mail and receive a free copy of the guide.
I had an Osprey on the tall, skinny perch early on Tuesday morning. I worked it from the car with 600 II/2X III/5D IV combo on the BLUBB. As I was tired of clipping the wings on the raised-wing take-off images, I held my rig vertically. So what does the bird do when a grackle flies by too closely? It raises both wings to the side and poses perfectly — right down sun angle of course — with both underwings evenly lit for five seconds. But working vertically I wold have clipped both wingtips. By the time I rotated to horizontal, the handsome bird was just re-folding its wings. There is always tomorrow … Again I took a walk on a long pier with my 400 DO II/1.4X III/1DX II but there was very little going one. I swam my regular, slow 3/4 mile (66 lengths of the pool) at 3:30pm and then headed down to the lake where I had a few almosts with some perched grackles at sunset.
Today, Wednesday, December 27th, 2017 (but not for long), I will be working on some travel plans and on lots of IPT stuff (both old and new).
There are lots of questions below for you to consider; don’t be lazy. Thanks to Eugen J. Dolan, Doug West, David Policansky, Larry Brown, Warren H, and Elinor Osborne for leaving comments at yesterday’s Black and White and Blue and Pewter Abstracts blog post here.
Click on the logo-link above for great holiday savings!
$300 off on the Canon 100-400 II!
The Streak
Today makes one hundred fifty-one days in a row with a new educational blog post! This blog post took about 90 minutes to prepare. With all of my upcoming free time (or not …), the plan right now is to break the current record streak of 480 … Good health and good internet connections and my continuing insanity willing.
Click here for Amazing 5D Mark IV Bundles and Deals
Here is the best news: those who have used a BAA B&H affiliate link to purchase a 5D Mark IV (or other items totaling $3200 or more) are invited to send us a copy of their B&H receipt via e-mail and receive a free copy of the guide. If you would like to review the document before it is published, please send your receipt now. This offer is also valid for future purchases.
Booking.Com
Booking.Com came through for me twice again recently with both the DeSoto Fall IPT and next July’s UK Puffins, Gannets, and Bempton Pre-trip room reservations. And all the rates were great. If you’d like to give Booking.Com a shot, click here and you will earn a $25 reward. 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 folks 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.
|
|
|
This image was created on the afternoon of Sunday, December 17 from my Sequoia with the BLUBB-supported Canon EF 600mm f/4L IS II USM lens, the Canon Extender EF 1.4X III, and the new Canon EOS 5D Mark IV. ISO 400. Evaluative metering -1/3 stop: 1/80 sec. at f/9 in Manual mode was a tactical error. AWB at 5:13pm in rich, late afternoon light.
Three AF points to the right of the center AF point/AI Servo/Manual selection/Shutter Button AF as framed was active at the moment of exposure. The selected AF point fell on the back of the bird’s lower neck, pretty much on the same plane as the crane’s eye.
LensAlign/FocusTune micro-adjustment: -1.
Image #1: Great Blue Heron on edge of canal
|
Lucky Look-Back
This handsome GBH was sitting on the edge of one of the many canals at ILE in a spot that I almost never check or even see. I am not sure why I looked to my right and well back as I headed down to check The Perch at sunset. But there was this nice bird so I figgered that I would photograph it. There will be lots of questions today so do consider leaving a comment if you know any or all of the answers. 🙂
The Tactical Error?
When I wrote this, em>ISO 400. Evaluative metering at zero: 1/80 sec. at f/9 in Manual mode, what was my tactical error?
Image #1
What are the strengths of Image #1? The weaknesses?
|
|
|
This image was also created on the afternoon of Sunday, December 17 from my Sequoia with the BLUBB-supported Canon EF 600mm f/4L IS II USM lens, the Canon Extender EF 1.4X III, and the new Canon EOS 5D Mark IV. ISO 400. Evaluative metering at zero: 1/80 sec. at f/5.6 in Manual mode. AWB at 5:18pm after a cloud covered the sun.
One AF point to the left and three rows up from the center AF point/AI Servo/Expand/Shutter Button AF as framed was active at the moment of exposure. The selected AF point fell on the spot where the bird’s white chin touched the folded neck, pretty much on the same plane as the crane’s eye.
LensAlign/FocusTune micro-adjustment: -1.
Image #2: Great Blue Heron on edge of canal
|
Exposure Questions
Exactly how many stops different were the two exposure?
Why did I need -1/3 stop EC for Image #1?
Image #1
What are the strengths of Image #2? The weaknesses?
Your Opinion Please
Which image has the nicer background? Which image has a more pleasing composition? Overall, which image is stronger? Why?
|
|
|
This is an unsharpened 500 pixel wide crop from the image viewed at 100%. No Eye Doctor work, no Contrast Mask on the face or anywhere.
|
For Jay
Does this look sharp to you?
|
|
The 5D Mark IV User’s Guide
|
The 5D Mark IV User’s Guide
$48.00. Order yours here now.
Regular readers of the BAA blog know that I have been loving my 5D Mark IV ever since I got my hands on one about two years ago. Right now I own and use three of them. I love the light weight, the high quality image files, and the great autofocus system that is the same as with the vaunted 1DX II. I use my 5D IV bodies for everything I shoot: birds, flowers, wildlife, scenics, and Urbex and architecture.
The 5D Mark IV User’s Guide has been in production for more than a year as I continued to learn the camera’s intricacies.
As with all BAA Camera User’s Guides you will learn a ton. If you have trouble deciphering the 676 page 5D IV camera body Instructional Menu you will be delighted with this new guide. I explain everything that you need to know about your 5D IV in my clear, concise, informal, easy-to-follow style. You will learn about the top LCD and all camera controls and buttons, about the 5D Mark IV drive modes, how to manually select an AF point, how and why to choose an AF Area Selection Mode (with explanations and sample images), and how to access the various Menus and Menu items.
The guide covers almost all the Menu items and Custom Functions including the following: Image Quality, Auto Lighting Optimizer, Highlight Tone Priority, the AF Configuration Tool (including new information on the Custom Case settings that I have developed and used), Tracking sensitivity, Acceleration/deceleration tracking, AF point auto switching, Lens drive when AF impossible, Orientation linked AF point (I love this feature on the 5D IV!), Highlight alert, Histogram display, Auto rotate, Custom Shooting Mode set-up, Safety shift, using the Q button, setting up rear focus, and lots more.
The guide includes an image gallery with illustrative, educational captions and, for the first time ever, a Cheat Sheet, a concise summary of all menu items with the appropriate settings.
Please note: Some Menu items are not mentioned in the guide either because they deal only with video (which is not covered in this guide) or because they are irrelevant to nature photography. Each of those should be left at the default setting. You will receive your PDF file via e-mail.
You can order a copy of the 5D IV guide by clicking here.
What They are Saying
From Mitch Haimov, the principal reviewer
Thank you for your new 5D IV guide. You’ve put a lot of useful information in there. I appreciate the time and effort you devoted to this project!
Dane Johnson, who caught some nasty typos!
I think that the guide is very well done and packed with lots of useful information, as is usual. The images speak for themselves.
From Lee Sommie, 5D IV B&H Purchaser
This 5D Mark IV User’s Guide is fantastic! Your conversational writing is fun and easy to read. Your explanations of 5D Mark IV functions will appeal to novice and expert alike. This guide is the jump start for all 5D Mark IV wildlife photographers. I can’t put it down. The wait was worth it!
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. 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.
Facebook
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 :).
December 26th, 2017 Stuff
I am finally done. It feels good. It is a bummer that I am such a perfectionist! Right now I am headed into the pool.
|
|
The 5D Mark IV User’s Guide
|
The 5D Mark IV User’s Guide
$48.00. Order yours here now.
Regular readers of the BAA blog know that I have been loving my 5D Mark IV ever since I got my hands on one about two years ago. Right now I own and use three of them. I love the light weight, the high quality image files, and the great autofocus system that is the same as with the vaunted 1DX II. I use my 5D IV bodies for everything I shoot: birds, flowers, wildlife, scenics, and Urbex and architecture.
The 5D Mark IV User’s Guide has been in production for more than a year as I continued to learn the camera’s intricacies.
As with all BAA Camera User’s Guides you will learn a ton. If you have trouble deciphering the 676 page 5D IV camera body Instructional Menu you will be delighted with this new guide. I explain everything that you need to know about your 5D IV in my clear, concise, informal, easy-to-follow style. You will learn about the top LCD and all camera controls and buttons, about the 5D Mark IV drive modes, how to manually select an AF point, how and why to choose an AF Area Selection Mode (with explanations and sample images), and how to access the various Menus and Menu items.
The guide covers almost all the Menu items and Custom Functions including the following: Image Quality, Auto Lighting Optimizer, Highlight Tone Priority, the AF Configuration Tool (including new information on the Custom Case settings that I have developed and used), Tracking sensitivity, Acceleration/deceleration tracking, AF point auto switching, Lens drive when AF impossible, Orientation linked AF point (I love this feature on the 5D IV!), Highlight alert, Histogram display, Auto rotate, Custom Shooting Mode set-up, Safety shift, using the Q button, setting up rear focus, and lots more.
The guide includes an image gallery with illustrative, educational captions and, for the first time ever, a Cheat Sheet, a concise summary of all menu items with the appropriate settings.
Please note: Some Menu items are not mentioned in the guide either because they deal only with video (which is not covered in this guide) or because they are irrelevant to nature photography. Each of those should be left at the default setting. You will receive your PDF file via e-mail.
You can order a copy of the 5D IV guide by clicking here.
What They are Saying
From Mitch Haimov, the principal reviewer
Thank you for your new 5D IV guide. You’ve put a lot of useful information in there. I appreciate the time and effort you devoted to this project!
Dane Johnson, who caught some nasty typos!
I think that the guide is very well done and packed with lots of useful information, as is usual. The images speak for themselves.
From Lee Sommie, 5D IV B&H Purchaser
This 5D Mark IV User’s Guide is fantastic! Your conversational writing is fun and easy to read. Your explanations of 5D Mark IV functions will appeal to novice and expert alike. This guide is the jump start for all 5D Mark IV wildlife photographers. I can’t put it down. The wait was worth it!
|
|
