June 10th, 2014 The Streak Continues: 192
It is 3:32am in Pullman, WA as we get ready to head out early to Steptoe Butte. We enjoyed a lovely sunrise yesterday morning and then spent a few hours exploring around Moscow, ID. In the afternoon we spent some quality time with a lovely century old farmhouse in an idyllic setting.
This post marks 192 consecutive days with a new educational blog post. With so many folks getting in the habit of using our B&H links and our Amazon logo-links why quit now? To show your appreciation for my efforts here, I do ask that you use our the B&H and Amazon affiliate links on the right side of the blog for all of your purchases. Please check the availability of all photographic accessories in the BIRDS AS ART Online Store, especially Gitzo tripods, Wimberley tripod heads, and the like. We sell only what I have used and tested, and know that you can depend on. We will not sell you junk. We know the tools that you need to make creating great images easy and fun. And we are always glad to answer your gear questions via e-mail.
You can find the following items in the store: Gitzo tripods, Mongoose M3.6 and Wimberley heads, plates, low feet, and accessories, flash brackets, , Delkin e-film Pro Compact Flash Cards, LensCoat products, and our unique line-up of educational materials including ABP I & II, Digital Basics, Site and Set-up e-Guides, Canon and Nikon Camera Users and AF e-Guides, and MP-4 Photoshop video tutorials among others.
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 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 visiting the BAA Online store as well.
This post took 2 1/2 hours to prepare. Enjoy!
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This 3-frame in-camera Art Vivid HDR image was created at 9:15am on a bright, sunny, clear blue sky day on Sunday June 8 with the Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II USM lens (hand held at 105mm) and the Canon EOS 5D Mark III. ISO 400. Evaluative metering +1 stops +/- two stops around the base exposure of 1/400 sec. at f/11 in Av mode.
AI Servo Rear Focus AF on the triangular top of the barn and recompose. Click here if you missed the Rear Focus Tutorial. Click on the image to see a larger version.
Pink Barn in Green Hills with parked John Deere tractor
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Barns, Barns, and More Barns
There are thousands of barns in the Palouse area. New barns, old barns, decrepit barns, collapsing barns. Photography-wise most are not worth a second look. We decided to spend a good deal of our time avoiding the already cliched barns and search out those off the beaten path. And sleep be damned, that is just what we have been doing. On Monday, June 9 we ventured into Idaho and came up with a few gems. More on those soon. All three of the images here were photographed on the mornings of June 5 and 6.
What do we look for? Barns with character. Barns in clean settings. If a barn meets those two qualifications–few do, the next thing to consider is light angle and light quality; when would be the best time to photograph this one? What is the best angle to the subject; how does that choice affect the background? The final piece of the puzzle is the quality of light. The soft, diffused light on cloudy bright days is always good. Early and late light will always be sweet. And when photographing barns sidelight can actually work well. And on rare occasions, as above, strong direct sunlight on a clear blue sky day can be perfect.
To separate the peak of the barn roof above from the line between the dark grass and the light green grass we needed to take turns standing on the vehicle with the car door opened. Join us next year and you will learn the fine points that raise the quality of your images to new levels.
Image Question
Would you have eliminated the contrail in the upper right corner of the image? Why or why not?
Working Tight
This barn was located quite close to the barn above. But the overall setting was nowhere near as strong so I went long lens: 200-400 with the internal 1.4X TC in place brought me to 420mm. Being able to zoom in and out allows me to frame each image meticulously as I did with the barn window detail image above.
Pure Magic
We could not believe our eyes when we spotted the image above. Actually, we found this one thanks to a tip from Denise’s friend Eloise. We were blessed with an exquisitely decrepit barn, soft light, and a cloudy sky rich with detail. Notice in today’s blog post how I used three different lenses and three vastly different focal lenghts: 105mm, 15mm, and 420mm. It is all in the eyes of the beholder….
Your Favorite?
Please take a moment to leave a comment and let us know which of the 3 images is your favorite, and do let us know why.
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I created all of the images in this composite on last year’s July Nickerson Beach IPT.
All copyright 2013: Arthur Morris/BIRDS AS ART
Click on the composite to enjoy a larger version
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Nickerson Baby Beach-nesting Birds IPT: 3-Full Days/July 15-17, 2014: $1199. Introductory meet and greet: 8pm, Monday, July 14, 2014. Co-leaders Arthur Morris and Denise Ippolito
Greg Gulbransen is very much looking to this IPT. Join us on Long Island, NY this summer to photograph Black Skimmers, Common Terns with chicks, American Oystercatcher families, and possibly some just-hatched Black Skimmer chicks. Things are looking great. The opportunities will include chances to photograph a variety of breeding behaviors including courtship feeding, display flight and combat, and copulations. Car-pooling is recommended; if we opt to return to the beach before 5pm there is a $30/vehicle parking fee that is not included so it is best to share that expense. Parking in the morning is free.
A $499 non-refundable deposit is required to hold your slot for this IPT. Your balance is due 4 months before the date of the IPT and is also non-refundable. If the trip fills, we will be glad to apply a credit applicable to a future IPT for the full amount less a $100 processing fee. 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. If your spot is filled, you will lose your deposit. If not, you can secure your spot by paying your balance.
Please print, complete, and sign the form that is linked to here and shoot it to us along with your deposit check (made out to “Arthur Morris.”) Though we prefer a check, you can also leave your deposit with a credit card by calling the office at 863-692-0906. 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
Support the BAA Blog. Support the BAA Bulletins: Shop B&H here!
We want and need to keep providing you with the latest free information, photography and Photoshop lessons, and all manner of related information. Show your appreciation by making your purchases immediately after clicking on any of our B&H or Amazon Affiliate links in this blog post. Remember, B&H ain’t just photography!
…..
Amazon Canada
Many kind folks from north of the border, ay, have e-mailed stating that they would love to help us out by using one of our affiliate links but that living in Canada and doing so presents numerous problems. Now, they can help us out by using our Amazon Canada affiliate link by starting their searches by clicking here. Many thanks to those who have written.
Typos
In all blog posts and Bulletins, feel free to e-mail or to leave a comment regarding any typos, wrong words, misspellings, omissions, or grammatical errors. Just be right. 🙂
June 9th, 2014 Action and Behavior Voting Continues Today
Voting Continues today in the beyond amazing Action and Behavior category of the BIRDS AS ART 2nd International Bird Photography Competition. Click here to vote. The polls will close early on Tuesday morning. It looks as if there will be a big mismatch in this category between the judge’s ballots and the public vote….
The Streak Continues: 191
It is 3:15am in Pullman, WA as we get ready to head out early again to the spectacular Steptoe Butte. Have you been noticing that we keep getting up earlier and earlier?
This post marks 191 consecutive days with a new educational blog post. With so many folks getting in the habit of using our B&H links and our Amazon logo-links why quit now? To show your appreciation for my efforts here, I do ask that you use our the B&H and Amazon affiliate links on the right side of the blog for all of your purchases. Please check the availability of all photographic accessories in the BIRDS AS ART Online Store, especially Gitzo tripods, Wimberley tripod heads, and the like. We sell only what I have used and tested, and know that you can depend on. We will not sell you junk. We know the tools that you need to make creating great images easy and fun. And we are always glad to answer your gear questions via e-mail.
You can find the following items in the store: Gitzo tripods, Mongoose M3.6 and Wimberley heads, plates, low feet, and accessories, flash brackets, , Delkin e-film Pro Compact Flash Cards, LensCoat products, and our unique line-up of educational materials including ABP I & II, Digital Basics, Site and Set-up e-Guides, Canon and Nikon Camera Users and AF e-Guides, and MP-4 Photoshop video tutorials among others.
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 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 visiting the BAA Online store as well.
This post took more than 4 hours to prepare. Enjoy!
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This 9-frame Multiple Exposure zoom-out image was created on the 2014 Holland Tulip IPT with the tripod-mounted Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II USM lens (zooming out a bit for each exposure) and the Canon EOS 5D Mark III. ISO 40. Evaluative metering -1/3 stop: 1/125 sec. at f/32 in Av mode. Focused on the center and zoomed out a bit for each subsequent frame.
Flower Bed Twirl Blur
Image courtesy of and copyright 2014: Mike Gotthelf
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Mike Gotthelf
Experienced photographer Mike Gotthelf and his wife Barbara joined Denise Ippolito and I in Holland last April. Mike is a physician from Massachusetts. We all had way, way too much fun. During our image sharing session Denise and I were stunned with the quality of Mike’s images and with his newly developed creative eye. We taught him the basics of pleasing blurs, in-camera multis and HDRs, subject isolation, and how to see the situation. He took his new tools and, as you can see here, flew with them.
On Learning to Be More Creative
A Guest Blog Post by Friend and Multiple IPT Veteran Mike Gotthelf
A few words about creativity….
When I saw Artie’s and Denise’s images from Keukenhof in Holland a year ago I knew something special was happening there. There was life to the images. All flowers, but all very different from each other, and all beautiful. I decided then and there “I want some of that.” What I was seeing was raw creativity.
Creative Sharing
Though I knew I would have a great time, and would learn from two wonderful photographers, I had no idea about what was I was about to experience. This trip was not only a flowers workshop, a general photography workshop, but it was also a chance for us to reach inside ourselves, and outside ourselves to individually and collectively mix our creative juices. “How did you do that”——“Oh Those are zoom blur images in HDR” “Oh that gives me an idea” and so it went all week. We fed off each other while nourishing our creative souls. There was something about the setting that allowed unlimited sharing and experimentation. For me this became a creativity school. I told Artie that what we learned here will surely carry over into all of our photography. We learned how to see outside ourselves and inside ourselves as well, and how (as Nancy Rotenberg used to say) to make those images that wouldn’t be made if you, the creative photographer, weren’t there.
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This 9-frame in camera Multiple Exposure image was created on the 2014 Holland Tulip IPT with the tripod-mounted Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II USM lens (at 200mm) and the Canon EOS 5D Mark III. ISO 50. Evaluative metering at zero: 1 sec. at f/32 in Av mode. Focused on the tulip in the center and rotated the lens a bit in the same direction for each exposure.
Flower Bed Twirl Blur/mixed tulips, daffodils, and hyacinths
Image courtesy of and copyright 2014: Mike Gotthelf
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Coloring Outside the Lines
We broke all the rules, and colored WAY outside the lines. That is what makes art!
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This original for this tulip painting was created on the 2014 Holland Tulip IPT with the tripod-mounted Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II USM lens (at 105mm) and the Canon EOS 5D Mark III. ISO 50. Evaluative metering +1/3 stop:1/60 sec. at f/4.5.
Tulip painting with Topaz Simplify 4/Underpainting III preset.
Image courtesy of and copyright 2014: Mike Gotthelf
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Recipe for Creative Flower Images
Ingredients:
1 part creative blurs (recipe to follow)
1 part HDR with art vivid mode
1 part multiple exposures
1 part macro composition
1 part long lens flower portrait with colorful floral backgrounds
4 parts finding the right flower
4 parts seeing the situation
5 parts working the composition
Season to taste.
Instructions
Mix the ingredients above and season liberally with equal parts imagination and the sharing of creative ideas. If the first batch gets doesn’t work out, make another! Work under the supervision of master photographic instructors who will advise you if an ingredient is missing or if the proportions or amounts need to be adjusted.
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This image was created with the tripod-mounted Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L II USM lens at 24mm, and the Canon EOS 5D Mark III . ISO 400. Evaluative metering +1 stop +/- two stops around the base exposure of 1/15 sec. at f/22 in Av mode.
Tulip bed painting with Topaz Simplify 4/Impressions Color Preset
Image courtesy of and copyright 2014: Mike Gotthelf
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Many Thanks!
Thanks a huge stack Mike for sharing your thoughts and images with us. We will see you on the San Diego IPT early next year.
Like Mike’s Work?
If you like Mike’s work, you can see more of it in the gallery here.
Wanna Be Like Mike?
Can’t make an IPT? Get yourself a copy of A Guide to Pleasing Blurs by Denise Ippolito and yours truly and a copy of Denise’s A Guide to Creative Filters and Effects
Your Favorite
Please take a moment to leave a comment and let us know which of Mike’s images is your favorite. And be sure to let us know why.
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Denise and artie hope that you can join them next spring in Holland and learn to improve both the technical and creative aspects of your flower (and street) photography.
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7 1/2-Day/8-Night: A Creative Adventure/BIRDS AS ART/Tulips & A Touch of Holland Instructional Photo-Tour (IPT)
Keukenhof—Delft—Amsterdam–Flower Fields—Kinderdijk
April 9 -April 16, 2015: $4995. Limit: 12 photographers
This trip needs 6 registrants to run so please do not purchase your plane tickets until you hear from us that the trip is a go.
Join Denise Ippolito, the author of “Bloomin’ Ideas,” and Arthur Morris, Canon Explorer of Light Emeritus, for a great trip to Holland in mid-April 2015. Day 1 of the IPT will be April 9, 2015. We will have a short afternoon get-together and then our first photographic session at the justly-famed Keukenhof. Our last day, Day 8, April 16 will be a full day of photography.
The primary subjects will be tulips and orchids at Keukenhof and the spectacularly amazing tulip, hyacinth, and daffodil bulb fields around Lisse and points north. We will spend one full day in Amsterdam. There will be optional visits to the Van Gogh Museum, the Anne Frank House and/or the Rijk’s Museum. Street photography and sightseeing will be other options. We will spend a half day at Kinderdijk where we will be photographing the windmills and doing some creative photography. We will spend an afternoon in the lovely Dutch town of Delft where we will do some street photography and shopping. There is an optional church tower tour/climb. We will also enjoy a superb fine dining experience in a traditional restaurant.
Other than the arrival date: April 9, Day 1, and the date of our last day of photography on April 16, Day 8, there is no set itinerary. We will check the weather and play everything by ear to maximize the photographic opportunities. We will try to do Amsterdam, Delft, and especially Kinderdijik, on cloudy days.
There are several huge pluses to this trip. First off, denise is an amazingly skilled and caring instructor. Both her creativity and her willingness to share and to help beginning and intermediate photographers are unmatched. And though artie has learned a ton about flower photography from denise, their styles and techniques do vary considerably. You will have a chance to be counseled by and to learn from both of them. While denise will hunt you down to help you, artie’s teaching style is more “the closer you stay to me, the more you will learn.” Both leaders consistently inspire the participants. And each other. The sky, of course, is the limit.
You will learn to create tight abstracts, how best to use depth-of-field (or the lack thereof) to improve your flower photography, how to get the right exposure and make sharp images every time, how to see the best shot, and how to choose the best perspective for a given situation. And you will of course learn to create a variety of pleasingly blurred flower images. If you bring a long lens, you will learn to use it effectively for flower photography. Denise’s two favorite flower lenses are the Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM lens and the Canon EF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM lens. Mine are the Canon 100mm f/2.8L IS macro , the Canon EF 180mm f/3.5L Macro USM lens ,and the Canon EF 300mm f/2.8L IS II USM lens, all almost always on a tripod. Often with extension tubes and/or either the 1.4X or the 2X (with the 300 II) teleconverters. Denise hand holds a great deal of the time. For flower field blurs denise uses the same lenses mentioned above along with her new 70-200mm f/2.8L IS III lens. Artie’s favorite is that same 70-200 often with a 1.4X TC but he uses both the new Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L II USM lens and the 300 II as well. Both of us use and love the Canon EOS 5D Mark IIIfor all of our flower photography. The in-camera HDR and Multiple Exposure features are a blast.
One of the great advantages of our trip is that we will be staying in a single, strategically located hotel that is quite excellent. Do note that all ground transfers to and from Schipol Airport will be via the free hotel shuttle bus.
What’s included: Eight hotel nights. All ground transportation except for airport transfers as noted above. In-the-field instruction and small group image review and Photoshop sessions. All meals from dinner on Day 1 through dinner on Day 8. There is good food at the hotel and we will be dining there on occasion; whenever you order off the menu be it at the hotel or at another restaurant only the cost of your main course is included. On these occasions the cost of soups, appetizers, salads, sodas and other beverages, alcoholic drinks and wine, bottled water, and desserts are not included. Snacks, personal items, phone calls, etc. are also not included. The cost of bus or train transportation to and from Amsterdam (about $20 US), museum entry, and tower and church entry fees (optional) are likewise not included.
Beware of seemingly longer, slightly less expensive tours that include travel days and days sitting in the hotel doing nothing as part of the tour. In addition, other similar trips have you changing hotels often and needlessly. One final note on other similar trips: the instructors on this trip actually instruct. On other similar trips the instructors, though usually imminently qualified, serve for the most part as van drivers and van door openers.
A non-refundable deposit of $1,000 per person is required to hold your spot. The second payment of $2,000 due by October 30, 2014. The balance is due on January 15, 2015. Payments in full are of course welcome at any time. All payments including the deposit must be by check made out to “Arthur Morris.” As life has a way of throwing an occasional curve ball our way, you are urged to purchase travel insurance within 15 days of our cashing your check. Artie uses and recommends Travel Insurance Services. All payments are non-refundable unless the trip fills to capacity. In that case, all payments but your deposit will be refunded. If the trip does not run every penny will of course be refunded. Again, please do not purchase your air tickets until you hear from us that the trip is a go. We are very confident that it will.
All checks should be made out to “Arthur Morris” and sent to: Arthur Morris, PO Box 7245, Indian Lake Estates, FL 33855. Call Jim or Jen in the BAA office with any additional registration questions: 863-692-0906.
For couples or friends signing up at the same time for the tulip trip, a $200/duo discount will be applied to the final payment.
When you send your deposit check, please print, sign, and include the paperwork here.
If you have any questions on the trip please contact artie by e-mail or denise by e-mail.
Selling Your Used Photo Gear Through BIRDS AS ART
Selling your used (or like-new) photo gear through the BAA Blog or via a BAA Online Bulletin is a great idea. We charge only a 5% commission. One of the more popular used gear for sale sites charges a minimum of 20% plus assorted fees! Yikes. The minimum item price here is $500 (or less for a $25 fee). If you are interested please e-mail with the words Items for Sale Info Request cut and pasted into the Subject line :). Stuff that is priced fairly–I offer free pricing advise, usually sells in no time flat as did Dennis Cassidy’s 500 II recently on the blog. Larry Master’s 400 DO and his 800 f/5.6 sold within a week. From Larry via e-mail: Thanks for helping me sell the lenses so quickly!
A Creative Adventure/BIRDS AS ART friend Kitto Kono sold her Nikon 500 to a Blog subscriber in less than a week. Janet Horton’s 7D sold this week after a $100 price reduction. Denise Ippolito’s 100-400 and her 100 macro sold in one day. Peter Kes sold his 70-200 f/2.8L IS II and his 400 DO through BAA in ten days. In the past two months we have sold a Canon 800, a Canon 500 II, 3 400 DO lenses, a Nikon 500mm, and lots more. If you are interested in using our services, please e-mail.
Used Photography Gear Page
Eagle-eyed readers may have noticed that there is a link to the Used Photography Gear page on the yellow tool bar at the top of each blog page. Folks looking to buy (or to sell) can click on that tab or here. I will on occasion continue to list new gear and great buys in blog posts and in Bulletins and may on rare occasion share all the listings with you on the blog. I will strive to keep the listings current. Great news for Kitty Kono and her Nikon 400mm f/2.8: it sold recently! That made her 2 for 2 on selling her older Nikon super-telephotos with BAA.
Support the BAA Blog. Support the BAA Bulletins: Shop B&H here!
We want and need to keep providing you with the latest free information, photography and Photoshop lessons, and all manner of related information. Show your appreciation by making your purchases immediately after clicking on any of our B&H or Amazon Affiliate links in this blog post. Remember, B&H ain’t just photography!
…..
Amazon Canada
Many kind folks from north of the border, ay, have e-mailed stating that they would love to help us out by using one of our affiliate links but that living in Canada and doing so presents numerous problems. Now, they can help us out by using our Amazon Canada affiliate link by starting their searches by clicking here. Many thanks to those who have written.
Typos
In all blog posts and Bulletins, feel free to e-mail or to leave a comment regarding any typos, wrong words, misspellings, omissions, or grammatical errors. Just be right. 🙂
June 8th, 2014 Action and Behavior Voting Continues Today
Voting Continues today in the beyond amazing Action and Behavior category of the BIRDS AS ART 2nd International Bird Photography Competition. Click here to vote.
The Streak Continues: 190
It is 3:30am in Pullman, WA as we get ready to head out early to Steptoe Butte. This getting up early is not for sissies!
This post marks 190 consecutive days with a new educational blog post. With so many folks getting in the habit of using our B&H links and our Amazon logo-links why quit now? To show your appreciation for my efforts here, I do ask that you use our the B&H and Amazon affiliate links on the right side of the blog for all of your purchases. Please check the availability of all photographic accessories in the BIRDS AS ART Online Store, especially Gitzo tripods, Wimberley tripod heads, and the like. We sell only what I have used and tested, and know that you can depend on. We will not sell you junk. We know the tools that you need to make creating great images easy and fun. And we are always glad to answer your gear questions via e-mail.
You can find the following items in the store: Gitzo tripods, Mongoose M3.6 and Wimberley heads, plates, low feet, and accessories, flash brackets, , Delkin e-film Pro Compact Flash Cards, LensCoat products, and our unique line-up of educational materials including ABP I & II, Digital Basics, Site and Set-up e-Guides, Canon and Nikon Camera Users and AF e-Guides, and MP-4 Photoshop video tutorials among others.
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 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 visiting the BAA Online store as well.
This post took 2 hours to prepare. Enjoy!
The Decision
After our great morning at Steptoe Butte the plan was to make the 1 hour, 45 minute drive to Palouse River Falls State Park, scout around, and then return to the splendor of Steptoe. We did, however, run into some different but wonderful splendor. We scoped out several view points that looked as if they would have great potential either on cloudy days or when the sun was down. Waterfalls are best avoided on sunny days. After some discussion we decided skip Steptoe and stay at the state park and wait for sundown. To kill a few hours we headed to Lyons Ferry Marina for some snacks. There we found some pleasant folks and a plug for my laptop. We wound up staying for dinner as it was too sunny for waterfall; the chili was great and plentiful. Cheryl and Lynn each enjoyed their salad.
Recipe For Success: Palouse Falls Three Ways
While Denise, Lynn, and Cheryl hung out at the primary vantage point, I explored and found a few nice mini-scenes, most in the shade. As the sun sank lower in the western sky the light on the canyon walls got richer and richer, the walls got prettier and prettier, and I made some nice in-camera HDRs. Just before the entire river canyon was in shade I headed up to meet the ladies.
Setting up the tripods with the short and ultra-short zoom lenses was quite precarious and somewhat dangerous as there is no fence. If you lost your balance toast you would be. It was downhill and gravelly to the edge so we were all very careful not to go swimming with the fishes, or more accurately, swimming with the rocks. Denise had the one lens that I did not: the 16-35 f/2.8. 16mm turned out to be the perfect focal length. I started with the 8-15 as a true fish eye at 15mm on a full frame camera. Getting as close to the edge as possible I still had someone’s tripod leg in my frame. That’s what the Patch Tool is for.
The next obvious choice was to go circle lens, the 8-15 at 8mm with a full frame camera. Now I needed to get even closer to the edge. So I did. Was it worth it?
The 24-70.
Well after sunset I went to the 24-70 while and was practically working in the dark. Finally coming to our senses we packed up and headed back to Pullman. Everyone was dead to the world. Cheryl and I, sitting in the back, both fell asleep for a while and woke up with stiff necks. Lynn nodded off and on. Amazingly, Denise Ippolito drove the whole way and got us safely back to town. With all of us so tired that we hurt, we simply could not find the Holiday Inn and Suites. That despite two GPS devices. Can you say ” stumbling, bumbling, very tired idiots”? I was near tears with exhaustion as were Lynn and Cheryl. Denise troopered on. After driving around in circles and passing the same places three times, the motel magically appeared in sight. We were not in our rooms until 11:15pm. With a 3:45am wake-up call it turned out to be a very short night…. The next morning at Steptoe was indeed magical.
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I created all of the images in this composite on last year’s July Nickerson Beach IPT.
All copyright 2013: Arthur Morris/BIRDS AS ART
Click on the composite to enjoy a larger version
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Nickerson Baby Beach-nesting Birds IPT: 3-Full Days/July 15-17, 2014: $1199. Introductory meet and greet: 8pm, Monday, July 14, 2014. Co-leaders Arthur Morris and Denise Ippolito
Greg Gulbransen is very much looking to this IPT. Join us on Long Island, NY this summer to photograph Black Skimmers, Common Terns with chicks, American Oystercatcher families, and possibly some just-hatched Black Skimmer chicks. Things are looking great. The opportunities will include chances to photograph a variety of breeding behaviors including courtship feeding, display flight and combat, and copulations. Car-pooling is recommended; if we opt to return to the beach before 5pm there is a $30/vehicle parking fee that is not included so it is best to share that expense. Parking in the morning is free.
A $499 non-refundable deposit is required to hold your slot for this IPT. Your balance is due 4 months before the date of the IPT and is also non-refundable. If the trip fills, we will be glad to apply a credit applicable to a future IPT for the full amount less a $100 processing fee. 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. If your spot is filled, you will lose your deposit. If not, you can secure your spot by paying your balance.
Please print, complete, and sign the form that is linked to here and shoot it to us along with your deposit check (made out to “Arthur Morris.”) Though we prefer a check, you can also leave your deposit with a credit card by calling the office at 863-692-0906. 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
Your Favorite?
Please take a moment to leave a comment and let us know which of the 3 images is your favorite, and do let us know why.
Support the BAA Blog. Support the BAA Bulletins: Shop B&H here!
We want and need to keep providing you with the latest free information, photography and Photoshop lessons, and all manner of related information. Show your appreciation by making your purchases immediately after clicking on any of our B&H or Amazon Affiliate links in this blog post. Remember, B&H ain’t just photography!
…..
Amazon Canada
Many kind folks from north of the border, ay, have e-mailed stating that they would love to help us out by using one of our affiliate links but that living in Canada and doing so presents numerous problems. Now, they can help us out by using our Amazon Canada affiliate link by starting their searches by clicking here. Many thanks to those who have written.
Typos
In all blog posts and Bulletins, feel free to e-mail or to leave a comment regarding any typos, wrong words, misspellings, omissions, or grammatical errors. Just be right. 🙂
June 7th, 2014 Action and Behavior Voting Continues Today
Voting Continues today in the beyond amazing Action and Behavior category of the BIRDS AS ART 2nd International Bird Photography Competition. Click here to vote.
The Streak Continues: 189
It is 4:07 am here in Pullman, WA as we get ready to head out for our day of Palouse photography. We spent yesterday afternoon at the spectacular Palouse Falls State Park. This morning we are heading back to Steptoe Butte. In a very few minutes….
This post marks 189 consecutive days with a new educational blog post. With so many folks getting in the habit of using our B&H links and our Amazon logo-links why quit now? To show your appreciation for my efforts here, I do ask that you use our the B&H and Amazon affiliate links on the right side of the blog for all of your purchases. Please check the availability of all photographic accessories in the BIRDS AS ART Online Store, especially Gitzo tripods, Wimberley tripod heads, and the like. We sell only what I have used and tested, and know that you can depend on. We will not sell you junk. We know the tools that you need to make creating great images easy and fun. And we are always glad to answer your gear questions via e-mail.
You can find the following items in the store: Gitzo tripods, Mongoose M3.6 and Wimberley heads, plates, low feet, and accessories, flash brackets, , Delkin e-film Pro Compact Flash Cards, LensCoat products, and our unique line-up of educational materials including ABP I & II, Digital Basics, Site and Set-up e-Guides, Canon and Nikon Camera Users and AF e-Guides, and MP-4 Photoshop video tutorials among others.
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 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 visiting the BAA Online store as well.
This post took 2 hours to prepare. Enjoy!
Steptoe Butte
Steptoe Butte is justly famed as the crown jewel location for scenic views of the Palouse farm fields. I am on an exploratory scouting trip in eastern Washington state with Denise Ippolito. Joining us are our mutual friend and BPN Out-of-the-Box Moderator Cheryl Slechta from Micanopy,FL, and Denise’s (and now my) friend Lynn Fulton (aka McFulton) of Kitchener, Ontario, Canada. All four of us fell in love with Steptoe on the way up even though the light was relatively harsh at 8:30am under mostly sunny skies. Sunrise and sunset are supposed to be the the best times to be there; we will let know if that is true.
I went Art Vivid to combat the blah light. It worked quite well.
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This three-frame in-camera Art Vivid HDR pan blur image was also created on our first morning of Palouse scouting, just moments after the image above with the Gitzo 3532 LS carbon fiber tripod, the Mongoose M3.6 head, Canon EF 200-400mm f/4L IS USM lens with Internal 1.4x Extender (with the internal extender in place at 366mm) and the Canon EOS 5D Mark III . ISO 400. Evaluative metering +1 2/3 stops +/- two stops around the base exposure of 1/3 sec. at f/45 in Av mode. White Balance = AWB.
Central Sensor/Surround/AI Servo-Rear Focus AF 1/3 of the way into the frame, re-composed, and panned slowly from right to left (and then possibly back again….) Click here to see the latest version of the Rear Focus Tutorial. Click on the image to see a larger version.
The Blurred Image
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The 200-400 at the Palouse
The 200-400 absolutely rocks on Steptoe Butte. It gives you plenty of reach when needed and allows you pretty much infinite framing options. More than 90% of the 1,000+ images I made this morning were created with the tripod-mounted 2-4. I even made a few with the internal TC in place and an external TC added. I used my 70-200 f/2.8L IS II a bit and the 24-70 for a very few frames. Those 3 lenses cover me from 24 to 784mm.
Why Not a Blur?
After making more than a few in-camera Art Vivid HDR images similar to the opening image here, I decided to try a few creative combos: in-camera Art Vivid HDR/horizontal pan blurs. Oftentimes you will have lots of blurs that look great on the back of the camera but when you get them on the laptop, you are hard-pressed to come up with a single keeper. I took a peek at just a few images at lunch today to find something for today’s blog pot. The opening image here was he best of a similars, and amazingly, the blur was one of only two.
I Challenge You to Tell Me Which Is The Better Image
Please, please, pretty please leave a comment and let me know which you think is the stronger image of the two. Which would you rather have on your wall? Which is the more pleasing image? While I like both of these images, my answer to all of those questions is the same. But only by a mile. Opinions from the blur-haters are especially welcome.
Support the BAA Blog. Support the BAA Bulletins: Shop B&H here!
We want and need to keep providing you with the latest free information, photography and Photoshop lessons, and all manner of related information. Show your appreciation by making your purchases immediately after clicking on any of our B&H or Amazon Affiliate links in this blog post. Remember, B&H ain’t just photography!
…..
Amazon Canada
Many kind folks from north of the border, ay, have e-mailed stating that they would love to help us out by using one of our affiliate links but that living in Canada and doing so presents numerous problems. Now, they can help us out by using our Amazon Canada affiliate link by starting their searches by clicking here. Many thanks to those who have written.
Typos
In all blog posts and Bulletins, feel free to e-mail or to leave a comment regarding any typos, wrong words, misspellings, omissions, or grammatical errors. Just be right. 🙂
June 6th, 2014 The Streak Continues 188
It is 3:58am here in Pullman, WA as we get ready to head out for our first day of Palouse photography. Lots more on that soon.
This post marks 188 consecutive days with a new educational blog post. With so many folks getting in the habit of using our B&H links and our Amazon logo-links why quit now? To show your appreciation for my efforts here, I do ask that you use our the B&H and Amazon affiliate links on the right side of the blog for all of your purchases. Please check the availability of all photographic accessories in the BIRDS AS ART Online Store, especially Gitzo tripods, Wimberley tripod heads, and the like. We sell only what I have used and tested, and know that you can depend on. We will not sell you junk. We know the tools that you need to make creating great images easy and fun. And we are always glad to answer your gear questions via e-mail.
You can find the following items in the store: Gitzo tripods, Mongoose M3.6 and Wimberley heads, plates, low feet, and accessories, flash brackets, , Delkin e-film Pro Compact Flash Cards, LensCoat products, and our unique line-up of educational materials including ABP I & II, Digital Basics, Site and Set-up e-Guides, Canon and Nikon Camera Users and AF e-Guides, and MP-4 Photoshop video tutorials among others.
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 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 visiting the BAA Online store as well.
This post took 3 hours to prepare. Enjoy!
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Displaying Goldeneye
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Displaying Goldeneye
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The BIRDS AS ART 2nd International Bird Photography Competition
The judging of the BIRDS AS ART 2nd International Bird Photography Competition has been complete for nearly five weeks now. Thanks a stack again to our skilled panel of judges: Sandesh Kadur, Scott Elowitz, Lou Coetzer, Mary Ann McDonald, Michael Frye, Peter Kes, Denise Ippolito, and yours truly. You can learn more about the guest judges here.
From 5 to 18 images in the 8 categories were selected to be sent to the judges’ panel. Each judge voted on each image on a 0-5 scale. The votes were tallied and the results are now final. This is the final category, the strongest by far.
Your Call
The 18 incredibly strong images that were presented to the panel of judges in the Action & Behavior category are presented to you today here. Please do understand that many other strong images were eliminated in the early rounds of judging because of poor image processing, technical issues including over- or under-exposure, over-Saturation, image sharpness, the failure of folks to take advantage of our lenient digital guidelines that allow for the removal of distracting elements from an image, and simply put, by the stiff competition.
After clicking on each image to view the larger size, we ask that you vote them 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 with 5 being the strongest, 4 being your second favorite, and so on down to 1. Additional comments are welcome <em>as long as they appear below your selections. The whole thing should look something like this:
Goshawk Meal II: 5
Glaucous Gull Predation: 4
Kung Fu Eagles: 3
Displaying Goldeneye: 2
Great Grey Landing: 1
There were so many great images in this category that I wanted to give 10 of them a 5!
The selections above are of course arbitrary and should not at all influence your votes. Please read the directions carefully as comments that do not follow the format above exactly will be deleted without notice. The three winning images in this category along with the 4 runner up images and the names of the photographers will be announced here soon along with a tally of the public vote.
The Grand Prize winning image, the image that secured the highest total of judge’s votes, will be revealed when the results of the final category are announced.
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Gulp
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Gulp
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Backlit Egret
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Backlit Egret
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Goshawk Meal I
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Goshawk Meal I
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Mallard Head
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Mallard Head
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Goshawk Meal II
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Goshawk Meal II
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Prairie Chicken Lek Battle
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Prairie Chicken Lek Battle
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Kung Fu Eagles
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Kung Fu Eagles
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Displaying Prairie Chicken
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Displaying Prairie Chicken
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Red-capped Plover
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Red-capped Plover
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Red-necked Grebes
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Red-necked Grebes
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Wrong Way Gentoo
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Wrong Way Gentoo
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Bateleur/Jackal Standoff
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Bateleur/Jackal Standoff
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Peregrine Breakfast
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Peregrine Breakfast
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Glaucous Gull Predation
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Glaucous Gull Predation
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Osprey
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Osprey
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Kingfisher Feeding
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Kingfisher Feeding
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Great Grey Landing
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Great Grey Landing
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Denise and artie hope that you can join us next spring in Holland and learn to improve both the technical and creative aspects of your flower (and street) photography.
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7 1/2-Day/8-Night: A Creative Adventure/BIRDS AS ART/Tulips & A Touch of Holland Instructional Photo-Tour (IPT)
Keukenhof—Delft—Amsterdam–Flower Fields—Kinderdijk
April 9 -April 16, 2015: $4995. Limit: 12 photographers
This trip needs 6 registrants to run so please do not purchase your plane tickets until you hear from us that the trip is a go.
Join Denise Ippolito, the author of “Bloomin’ Ideas,” and Arthur Morris, Canon Explorer of Light Emeritus, for a great trip to Holland in mid-April 2015. Day 1 of the IPT will be April 9, 2015. We will have a short afternoon get-together and then our first photographic session at the justly-famed Keukenhof. Our last day, Day 8, April 16 will be a full day of photography.
The primary subjects will be tulips and orchids at Keukenhof and the spectacularly amazing tulip, hyacinth, and daffodil bulb fields around Lisse and points north. We will spend one full day in Amsterdam. There will be optional visits to the Van Gogh Museum, the Anne Frank House and/or the Rijk’s Museum. Street photography and sightseeing will be other options. We will spend a half day at Kinderdijk where we will be photographing the windmills and doing some creative photography. We will spend an afternoon in the lovely Dutch town of Delft where we will do some street photography and shopping. There is an optional church tower tour/climb. We will also enjoy a superb fine dining experience in a traditional restaurant.
Other than the arrival date: April 9, Day 1, and the date of our last day of photography on April 16, Day 8, there is no set itinerary. We will check the weather and play everything by ear to maximize the photographic opportunities. We will try to do Amsterdam, Delft, and especially Kinderdijik, on cloudy days.
There are several huge pluses to this trip. First off, denise is an amazingly skilled and caring instructor. Both her creativity and her willingness to share and to help beginning and intermediate photographers are unmatched. And though artie has learned a ton about flower photography from denise, their styles and techniques do vary considerably. You will have a chance to be counseled by and to learn from both of them. While denise will hunt you down to help you, artie’s teaching style is more “the closer you stay to me, the more you will learn.” Both leaders consistently inspire the participants. And each other. The sky, of course, is the limit.
You will learn to create tight abstracts, how best to use depth-of-field (or the lack thereof) to improve your flower photography, how to get the right exposure and make sharp images every time, how to see the best shot, and how to choose the best perspective for a given situation. And you will of course learn to create a variety of pleasingly blurred flower images. If you bring a long lens, you will learn to use it effectively for flower photography. Denise’s two favorite flower lenses are the Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM lens and the Canon EF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM lens. Mine are the Canon 100mm f/2.8L IS macro , the Canon EF 180mm f/3.5L Macro USM lens ,and the Canon EF 300mm f/2.8L IS II USM lens, all almost always on a tripod. Often with extension tubes and/or either the 1.4X or the 2X (with the 300 II) teleconverters. Denise hand holds a great deal of the time. For flower field blurs denise uses the same lenses mentioned above along with her new 70-200mm f/2.8L IS III lens. Artie’s favorite is that same 70-200 often with a 1.4X TC but he uses both the new Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L II USM lens and the 300 II as well. Both of us use and love the Canon EOS 5D Mark IIIfor all of our flower photography. The in-camera HDR and Multiple Exposure features are a blast.
One of the great advantages of our trip is that we will be staying in a single, strategically located hotel that is quite excellent. Do note that all ground transfers to and from Schipol Airport will be via the free hotel shuttle bus.
What’s included: Eight hotel nights. All ground transportation except for airport transfers as noted above. In-the-field instruction and small group image review and Photoshop sessions. All meals from dinner on Day 1 through dinner on Day 8. There is good food at the hotel and we will be dining there on occasion; whenever you order off the menu be it at the hotel or at another restaurant only the cost of your main course is included. On these occasions the cost of soups, appetizers, salads, sodas and other beverages, alcoholic drinks and wine, bottled water, and desserts are not included. Snacks, personal items, phone calls, etc. are also not included. The cost of bus or train transportation to and from Amsterdam (about $20 US), museum entry, and tower and church entry fees (optional) are likewise not included.
Beware of seemingly longer, slightly less expensive tours that include travel days and days sitting in the hotel doing nothing as part of the tour. In addition, other similar trips have you changing hotels often and needlessly. One final note on other similar trips: the instructors on this trip actually instruct. On other similar trips the instructors, though usually imminently qualified, serve for the most part as van drivers and van door openers.
A non-refundable deposit of $1,000 per person is required to hold your spot. The second payment of $2,000 due by October 30, 2014. The balance is due on January 15, 2015. Payments in full are of course welcome at any time. All payments including the deposit must be by check made out to “Arthur Morris.” As life has a way of throwing an occasional curve ball our way, you are urged to purchase travel insurance within 15 days of our cashing your check. Artie uses and recommends Travel Insurance Services. All payments are non-refundable unless the trip fills to capacity. In that case, all payments but your deposit will be refunded. If the trip does not run every penny will of course be refunded. Again, please do not purchase your air tickets until you hear from us that the trip is a go. We are very confident that it will.
All checks should be made out to “Arthur Morris” and sent to: Arthur Morris, PO Box 7245, Indian Lake Estates, FL 33855. Call Jim or Jen in the BAA office with any additional registration questions: 863-692-0906.
For couples or friends signing up at the same time for the tulip trip, a $200/duo discount will be applied to the final payment.
When you send your deposit check, please print, sign, and include the paperwork here.
If you have any questions on the trip please contact artie by e-mail or denise by e-mail.
Selling Your Used Photo Gear Through BIRDS AS ART
Selling your used (or like-new) photo gear through the BAA Blog or via a BAA Online Bulletin is a great idea. We charge only a 5% commission. One of the more popular used gear for sale sites charges a minimum of 20% plus assorted fees! Yikes. The minimum item price here is $500 (or less for a $25 fee). If you are interested please e-mail with the words Items for Sale Info Request cut and pasted into the Subject line :). Stuff that is priced fairly–I offer free pricing advise, usually sells in no time flat as did Dennis Cassidy’s 500 II recently on the blog. Larry Master’s 400 DO and his 800 f/5.6 sold within a week. From Larry via e-mail: Thanks for helping me sell the lenses so quickly!
A Creative Adventure/BIRDS AS ART friend Kitto Kono sold her Nikon 500 to a Blog subscriber in less than a week. Janet Horton’s 7D sold this week after a $100 price reduction. Denise Ippolito’s 100-400 and her 100 macro sold in one day. Peter Kes sold his 70-200 f/2.8L IS II and his 400 DO through BAA in ten days. In the past two months we have sold a Canon 800, a Canon 500 II, 3 400 DO lenses, a Nikon 500mm, and lots more. If you are interested in using our services, please e-mail.
Used Photography Gear Page
Eagle-eyed readers may have noticed that there is a link to the Used Photography Gear page on the yellow tool bar at the top of each blog page. Folks looking to buy (or to sell) can click on that tab or here. I will on occasion continue to list new gear and great buys in blog posts and in Bulletins and may on rare occasion share all the listings with you on the blog. I will strive to keep the listings current. Great news for Kitty Kono and her Nikon 400mm f/2.8: it sold recently! That made her 2 for 2 on selling her older Nikon super-telephotos with BAA.
Support the BAA Blog. Support the BAA Bulletins: Shop B&H here!
We want and need to keep providing you with the latest free information, photography and Photoshop lessons, and all manner of related information. Show your appreciation by making your purchases immediately after clicking on any of our B&H or Amazon Affiliate links in this blog post. Remember, B&H ain’t just photography!
…..
Amazon Canada
Many kind folks from north of the border, ay, have e-mailed stating that they would love to help us out by using one of our affiliate links but that living in Canada and doing so presents numerous problems. Now, they can help us out by using our Amazon Canada affiliate link by starting their searches by clicking here. Many thanks to those who have written.
Typos
In all blog posts and Bulletins, feel free to e-mail or to leave a comment regarding any typos, wrong words, misspellings, omissions, or grammatical errors. Just be right. 🙂
June 5th, 2014 The Streak Continues: 187
This post marks 187 consecutive days with a new educational blog post. With so many folks getting in the habit of using our B&H links and our Amazon logo-links why quit now? To show your appreciation for my efforts here, I do ask that you use our the B&H and Amazon affiliate links on the right side of the blog for all of your purchases. Please check the availability of all photographic accessories in the BIRDS AS ART Online Store, especially Gitzo tripods, Wimberley tripod heads, and the like. We sell only what I have used and tested, and know that you can depend on. We will not sell you junk. We know the tools that you need to make creating great images easy and fun. And we are always glad to answer your gear questions via e-mail.
You can find the following items in the store: Gitzo tripods, Mongoose M3.6 and Wimberley heads, plates, low feet, and accessories, flash brackets, , Delkin e-film Pro Compact Flash Cards, LensCoat products, and our unique line-up of educational materials including ABP I & II, Digital Basics, Site and Set-up e-Guides, Canon and Nikon Camera Users and AF e-Guides, and MP-4 Photoshop video tutorials among others.
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 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 visiting the BAA Online store as well.
I fly to Pullman, Washington tomorrow morning for a scouting trip. This post took 2 hours to prepare. Enjoy!
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This 3-frame in-camera HDR Art Vivid JPEG was created on the 2014 Holland Tulip IPT at Keukenhof Gardens in Lisse, Holland with the Gitzo 3532 LS carbon fiber tripod, the Mongoose M3.6 head, Canon EF 300mm f/2.8L IS II USM lens, the Canon Extender EF 2X III, and the Canon EOS 5D Mark III. ISO 100. Evaluative metering +1 stop as framed: .4 sec. at f/64 in Av mode. AWB.
Central Sensor/AI Servo-Surround/Rear Focus AF on the line where the orange tulips meet the pink tulips and re-compose. Click here to see the latest version of the Rear Focus Tutorial. Click on the image to see a larger version.
This JPEG represents the original image. There are several major problems. See below for details.
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Image Problems?
Before you continue reading, see if you can determine the two major problems with the original image above…. Clicking on the image to enlarge it might or might not help 🙂
Messing Around is Fun
It took some time and some effort but after a few days we finally found the right time and the one spot in Keukenhof where you could access some really nice tulip fields. Mike Gotthelf and I spent a wonderful afternoon there having a ton of fun, being creative, heck, plain messing around.
The image above is a 3-frame in-camera HDR Art Vivid image created at a very slow shutter speed: 4/10 sec. I jiggled the camera somewhat forcefully during all three of the exposures. Thanks to Denise Ippolito for teaching me the jiggle blur technique. And thanks to participant Mike Gotthelf for inspiring me to combine two creative techniques, juggles blurs and in-camera HDR Art Vivid. Mike will be sharing a guest blog post with us here soon.
The Image Problems As I See Them
#1: the image is not level.
#2: with Art Vivid, the REDs are uncomfortably over the top, i.e., an enamel-like detail-less red.
See the optimized image below and learn how I dealt with the two problematic issues.
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This is the optimized image. Do you see the 2 major changes?
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The Image Optimization
There was no need to convert a RAW file as the in-camera HDR output is a 61 mb JPEG. Once I got the image into Photoshop I leveled it using the Crop Tool handles. I pulled the sides out as I did not want to lose any width. That left two skinny black triangles to be filled in. I used the great and time saving John Heado Content Aware Fill technique; it worked perfectly. Then I had to deal with those horrific, enamel-like, detail-less REDs. This is one that I actually figured out by myself. I opened a Selective Color Adjustment Layer–it opens with the RED channel selected, and added 60 points of CYAN to the REDs. Perfect. Except for the fact that the orange row of tulips along with the light pink row of tulips had lost their pop. Since the adjustment layer opens with a Regular Layer Mask in place, I simply painted away the effect with a black mask (B, D, X = B for brush, D for default, X for switch).
Adding CYAN to the REDs is much more effective than desaturating them. The color of the new reds in the optimized image in both the middle row and the first row of tulips is virtually a perfect match for what we saw.
Digital Basics
Everything discussed above plus tons more is detailed in our Digital Basics File–written in my easy-to-follow, easy-to-understand style. Are you tired of making your images look worse in Photoshop? Digital Basics File is an instructional PDF that is sent via e-mail. It includes my complete digital workflow, dozens of great Photoshop tips, the use of Contrast Masks, several different ways of expanding and filling in canvas (including the John Heado Technique), all of my time-saving Keyboard Shortcuts, Quick Masking, Layer Masking, and NIK Color Efex Pro basics, my killer image clean-up techniques, Digital Eye Doctor, creating time-saving actions, and lots more.
APTATS I & II
Learn the details of advanced Quick Masking techniques in APTATS I. Learn Advanced Layer Masking Techniques in APTATS I. Mention this blog post and apply a $5 discount to either with phone orders only. Buy both APTATS I and APTATS II and we will be glad to apply at $15 discount with phone orders only.
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Denise and artie hope that you can join us next spring in Holland and learn to improve both the technical and creative aspects of your flower (and street) photography.
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7 1/2-Day/8-Night: A Creative Adventure/BIRDS AS ART/Tulips & A Touch of Holland Instructional Photo-Tour (IPT)
Keukenhof—Delft—Amsterdam–Flower Fields—Kinderdijk
April 9 -April 16, 2015: $4995. Limit: 12 photographers
This trip needs 6 registrants to run so please do not purchase your plane tickets until you hear from us that the trip is a go.
Join Denise Ippolito, the author of “Bloomin’ Ideas,” and Arthur Morris, Canon Explorer of Light Emeritus, for a great trip to Holland in mid-April 2015. Day 1 of the IPT will be April 9, 2015. We will have a short afternoon get-together and then our first photographic session at the justly-famed Keukenhof. Our last day, Day 8, April 16 will be a full day of photography.
The primary subjects will be tulips and orchids at Keukenhof and the spectacularly amazing tulip, hyacinth, and daffodil bulb fields around Lisse and points north. We will spend one full day in Amsterdam. There will be optional visits to the Van Gogh Museum, the Anne Frank House and/or the Rijk’s Museum. Street photography and sightseeing will be other options. We will spend a half day at Kinderdijk where we will be photographing the windmills and doing some creative photography. We will spend an afternoon in the lovely Dutch town of Delft where we will do some street photography and shopping. There is an optional church tower tour/climb. We will also enjoy a superb fine dining experience in a traditional restaurant.
Other than the arrival date: April 9, Day 1, and the date of our last day of photography on April 16, Day 8, there is no set itinerary. We will check the weather and play everything by ear to maximize the photographic opportunities. We will try to do Amsterdam, Delft, and especially Kinderdijik, on cloudy days.
There are several huge pluses to this trip. First off, denise is an amazingly skilled and caring instructor. Both her creativity and her willingness to share and to help beginning and intermediate photographers are unmatched. And though artie has learned a ton about flower photography from denise, their styles and techniques do vary considerably. You will have a chance to be counseled by and to learn from both of them. While denise will hunt you down to help you, artie’s teaching style is more “the closer you stay to me, the more you will learn.” Both leaders consistently inspire the participants. And each other. The sky, of course, is the limit.
You will learn to create tight abstracts, how best to use depth-of-field (or the lack thereof) to improve your flower photography, how to get the right exposure and make sharp images every time, how to see the best shot, and how to choose the best perspective for a given situation. And you will of course learn to create a variety of pleasingly blurred flower images. If you bring a long lens, you will learn to use it effectively for flower photography. Denise’s two favorite flower lenses are the Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM lens and the Canon EF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM lens. Mine are the Canon 100mm f/2.8L IS macro , the Canon EF 180mm f/3.5L Macro USM lens ,and the Canon EF 300mm f/2.8L IS II USM lens, all almost always on a tripod. Often with extension tubes and/or either the 1.4X or the 2X (with the 300 II) teleconverters. Denise hand holds a great deal of the time. For flower field blurs denise uses the same lenses mentioned above along with her new 70-200mm f/2.8L IS III lens. Artie’s favorite is that same 70-200 often with a 1.4X TC but he uses both the new Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L II USM lens and the 300 II as well. Both of us use and love the Canon EOS 5D Mark IIIfor all of our flower photography. The in-camera HDR and Multiple Exposure features are a blast.
One of the great advantages of our trip is that we will be staying in a single, strategically located hotel that is quite excellent. Do note that all ground transfers to and from Schipol Airport will be via the free hotel shuttle bus.
What’s included: Eight hotel nights. All ground transportation except for airport transfers as noted above. In-the-field instruction and small group image review and Photoshop sessions. All meals from dinner on Day 1 through dinner on Day 8. There is good food at the hotel and we will be dining there on occasion; whenever you order off the menu be it at the hotel or at another restaurant only the cost of your main course is included. On these occasions the cost of soups, appetizers, salads, sodas and other beverages, alcoholic drinks and wine, bottled water, and desserts are not included. Snacks, personal items, phone calls, etc. are also not included. The cost of bus or train transportation to and from Amsterdam (about $20 US), museum entry, and tower and church entry fees (optional) are likewise not included.
Beware of seemingly longer, slightly less expensive tours that include travel days and days sitting in the hotel doing nothing as part of the tour. In addition, other similar trips have you changing hotels often and needlessly. One final note on other similar trips: the instructors on this trip actually instruct. On other similar trips the instructors, though usually imminently qualified, serve for the most part as van drivers and van door openers.
A non-refundable deposit of $1,000 per person is required to hold your spot. The second payment of $2,000 due by October 30, 2014. The balance is due on January 15, 2015. Payments in full are of course welcome at any time. All payments including the deposit must be by check made out to “Arthur Morris.” As life has a way of throwing an occasional curve ball our way, you are urged to purchase travel insurance within 15 days of our cashing your check. Artie uses and recommends Travel Insurance Services. All payments are non-refundable unless the trip fills to capacity. In that case, all payments but your deposit will be refunded. If the trip does not run every penny will of course be refunded. Again, please do not purchase your air tickets until you hear from us that the trip is a go. We are very confident that it will.
All checks should be made out to “Arthur Morris” and sent to: Arthur Morris, PO Box 7245, Indian Lake Estates, FL 33855. Call Jim or Jen in the BAA office with any additional registration questions: 863-692-0906.
For couples or friends signing up at the same time for the tulip trip, a $200/duo discount will be applied to the final payment.
When you send your deposit check, please print, sign, and include the paperwork here.
If you have any questions on the trip please contact artie by e-mail or denise by e-mail.
Selling Your Used Photo Gear Through BIRDS AS ART
Selling your used (or like-new) photo gear through the BAA Blog or via a BAA Online Bulletin is a great idea. We charge only a 5% commission. One of the more popular used gear for sale sites charges a minimum of 20% plus assorted fees! Yikes. The minimum item price here is $500 (or less for a $25 fee). If you are interested please e-mail with the words Items for Sale Info Request cut and pasted into the Subject line :). Stuff that is priced fairly–I offer free pricing advise, usually sells in no time flat as did Dennis Cassidy’s 500 II recently on the blog. Larry Master’s 400 DO and his 800 f/5.6 sold within a week. From Larry via e-mail: Thanks for helping me sell the lenses so quickly!
A Creative Adventure/BIRDS AS ART friend Kitto Kono sold her Nikon 500 to a Blog subscriber in less than a week. Janet Horton’s 7D sold this week after a $100 price reduction. Denise Ippolito’s 100-400 and her 100 macro sold in one day. Peter Kes sold his 70-200 f/2.8L IS II and his 400 DO through BAA in ten days. In the past two months we have sold a Canon 800, a Canon 500 II, 3 400 DO lenses, a Nikon 500mm, and lots more. If you are interested in using our services, please e-mail.
Used Photography Gear Page
Eagle-eyed readers may have noticed that there is a link to the Used Photography Gear page on the yellow tool bar at the top of each blog page. Folks looking to buy (or to sell) can click on that tab or here. I will on occasion continue to list new gear and great buys in blog posts and in Bulletins and may on rare occasion share all the listings with you on the blog. I will strive to keep the listings current. Great news for Kitty Kono and her Nikon 400mm f/2.8: it sold recently! That made her 2 for 2 on selling her older Nikon super-telephotos with BAA.
Support the BAA Blog. Support the BAA Bulletins: Shop B&H here!
We want and need to keep providing you with the latest free information, photography and Photoshop lessons, and all manner of related information. Show your appreciation by making your purchases immediately after clicking on any of our B&H or Amazon Affiliate links in this blog post. Remember, B&H ain’t just photography!
…..
Amazon Canada
Many kind folks from north of the border, ay, have e-mailed stating that they would love to help us out by using one of our affiliate links but that living in Canada and doing so presents numerous problems. Now, they can help us out by using our Amazon Canada affiliate link by starting their searches by clicking here. Many thanks to those who have written.
Typos
In all blog posts and Bulletins, feel free to e-mail or to leave a comment regarding any typos, wrong words, misspellings, omissions, or grammatical errors. Just be right. 🙂
June 4th, 2014 Used Gear Caution
Though I am not in a position to post images of gear for sale here or elsewhere, prospective buyers are encouraged to request for photos of the gear that they are interested in purchasing via e-mail. Doing so will help to avoid any misunderstandings as to the condition of the gear.
The Streak Continues: 186
This post marks 186 consecutive days with a new educational blog post. With so many folks getting in the habit of using our B&H links and our Amazon logo-links why quit now? To show your appreciation for my efforts here, I do ask that you use our the B&H and Amazon affiliate links on the right side of the blog for all of your purchases. Please check the availability of all photographic accessories in the BIRDS AS ART Online Store, especially Gitzo tripods, Wimberley tripod heads, and the like. We sell only what I have used and tested, and know that you can depend on. We will not sell you junk. We know the tools that you need to make creating great images easy and fun. And we are always glad to answer your gear questions via e-mail.
You can find the following items in the store: Gitzo tripods, Mongoose M3.6 and Wimberley heads, plates, low feet, and accessories, flash brackets, , Delkin e-film Pro Compact Flash Cards, LensCoat products, and our unique line-up of educational materials including ABP I & II, Digital Basics, Site and Set-up e-Guides, Canon and Nikon Camera Users and AF e-Guides, and MP-4 Photoshop video tutorials among others.
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 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 visiting the BAA Online store as well.
This post took 2 hours to prepare. Enjoy!
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This image was created at 9:44am on Saturday past on a partly cloudy very bright morning at Lake Blue Cypress with the hand held Canon EF 300mm f/2.8L IS II USM lens, the Canon Extender EF 1.4X III, and the Canon EOS-1D X. ISO 640. Evaluative metering +1 stop of the light sky: 1/2000 sec. at f/6.3 in Manual mode. AWB.
Central sensor/AI Servo-Surround/Rear Focus AF squarely on the bird’s left eye as originally framed active at the moment of exposure. (This is a very small crop from the left and above.) Click here to see the latest version of the Rear Focus Tutorial. Click on the image to see a larger version.
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The 300 II Strikes Again: 1245 Images/One Favorite
In the “The 300 II Strikes Again: 1245 Images/One Favorite” blog post here, I asked, “If I were going to remove a single stick from the osprey nest, which one would it be? Why?
As you can see above, the answer was the very light toned vertical stick right below the bird. Why? As I have intoned here before, “strong vertical lines in the center of horizontal compositions are often image killers. Though the stick that I removed was neither a strong vertical nor an image killer, it was distracting and the fact that is was the lightest toned stick in nest made things worse.
In his comment, David Bose stated, “‘Ya know, I looked at that one too and immediately said to myself “that stick looks like it’s going to impale the incoming bird” but it didn’t look out of place to me. Duh! I guess that says it was distracting me too but I didn’t realize it”.
See how the folks on BPN helped me make this image better in my post here. In addition, they inspired me to find a solution to adjusting the brightness level on my new ASUS G750JX-DB71 17.3-Inch Laptop (Black)
The DPP RAW Conversion Guide
To learn why the RAW file for every image in this blog post was converted in Canon’s Digital Photo Professional (DPP), click here.
Digital Basics
To remove the stick without a trace I used the Protective Cloning on a Layer technique taught to me by Denise Ippolito. That, and pretty much everything that do while optimizing my images is detailed in my Digital Basics File–written in my easy-to-follow, easy-to-understand style. Are you tired of making your images look worse in Photoshop? Digital Basics File is an instructional PDF that is sent via e-mail. It includes my complete digital workflow, dozens of great Photoshop tips, the use of Contrast Masks, several different ways of expanding and filling in canvas, all of my time-saving Keyboard Shortcuts, Quick Masking, Layer Masking, and NIK Color Efex Pro basics, my killer image clean-up techniques, Digital Eye Doctor, creating time-saving actions, and lots more.
My New ASUS Laptop
Transitioning from a favorite laptop to a new machine is always challenging but that process is nearly complete. I am very happy that Jennifer scrubbed Windows 8 and installed Windows 7. The machine is fast and the monitor and resolution are superb. Now that I have straightened out the brightness issues I am good to go. I will be bringing the new laptop on a scouting trip to the Palouse in eastern Washington state. I fly all day on Thursday. Lots more on that soon.
Some may prefer the version with 24 gb of memory:
Everyone needs to remember that all of my favorite images are processed by me on a laptop. I have been doing that for close to a decade. And will continue doing just that till they nail the box shut. If Apple had not discontinued offering 17 inch laptops I would have switched to Mac…. As far as I can tell, that decision was a dumb one. I would have run BreezeBrowswer on the Mac on a Windows platform as described here.
Those wishing to support BAA can purchase the same laptop from B&H by starting their search with the B&H Photo Gear and More logo link on the right side of the blog. If you are ever in doubt, use that one :). Many thanks of course.
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This image was created at 7:38am with the hand held Canon EF 300mm f/2.8L IS II USM lens, the Canon Extender EF 2X III, and the Canon EOS-1D X. ISO 800. Evaluative metering +1 stop as framed: 1/1600 sec. at f/5.6 in Manual mode. AWB.
One sensor below the central Sensor/AI Servo-Surround/Rear Focus AF right on the bird’s eye as framed was active at the moment of exposure. Click here to see the latest version of the Rear Focus Tutorial. Click on the image to see a larger version. It’s great having all 61 AF sensors available with the 300 II/2X III TC combo.
Image #2: Short-billed Dowitcher beginning molt to breeding feeding on the edge of the surf
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The Amazing Canon 300mm F/2.8L IS USM Lens/Part II of a Series: The Revelation
In the “The Amazing Canon 300mm F/2.8L IS USM Lens/Part II of a Series: The Revelation” blog post here, it be hard for me to pick a favorite. If you twisted my arm, I’d have to go with the dowitcher image. Note the position of the breaking waves (or the lack there-of) in images #1, 2, 5, & 6. Folks need to be aware of the position of the breaking waves both in the field and when editing their image, i.e., choosing their keepers. No breaking waves at all, as in the Laughing Gull image, can lead to a very peaceful mood. Otherwise, strive to avoid having the line of a breaking wave through the bird’s head or body. Having the breaking wave or a cresting wave completely above the bird, as in the dowitcher image, can work very well.
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This image of an adult Least Tern was created at Fort DeSoto on May 11 at 7:45am on a cloudy bright morning while seated behind my lowered Gitzo 3532 LS carbon fiber tripod with the Mongoose M3.6 head and the Canon EF 600mm f/4L IS II USM lens, Canon Extender EF 1.4X III, and the Canon EOS-1D X. ISO 800 (should have been ISO 100 or so). Evaluative metering +1 1/3 stops as framed: 1/40 sec. at f/14 in Tv mode. AWB.
Central Sensor/AI Servo-Surround/Rear Focus AF as framed active at the moment of exposure. Click here to see the latest version of the Rear Focus Tutorial. Click on the image to see a larger version. .
Adult Least Tern near nest
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“Manipulated” & “Photoshopped” Two Nasty Words That Can Help You Create Beautiful Images
In the “Manipulated” & “Photoshopped” Two Nasty Words That Can Help You Create Beautiful Images” blog post here, I wrote, “Has today’s image (here, above,) been excessively manipulated? Was the tail clipped and repaired? Has the head been replaced? If you see any evidence of hanky panky, please let us know by leaving a comment, and please be specific. ps: I can guarantee that when you see the original you will be totally amazed….
One person, who shall remain unnamed here, wrote, “Very well done as usual but I reckon there’s a bit of head replacement here. I think I can see a line from the base of the bill going up and around the bird ending at the nape of the neck. Seems like a small part of the underside of the bill has evidence of tampering.” Another agreed stating, “Now that you mention it, there seems to be a little indentation on the lower side of the bill, just in front of where the bill joins the neck. Good eye.”
Just for the record books, note the narrow depth-of-field at f/14 by looking at the sand….
The Truth Revealed
The Least Tern image in question is pretty much identical to the RAW file. I did not change a single pixel. The indentation on the lower mandible was totally as it was in nature.
ps: I had hoped to catch a few more folks with my baited trap :).
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My favorite of the 3 by a country mile.
Image #3: Red/Rainbow Tulip Center
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Color Combination and Image Design Lessons Through Questions
From the Color Combination and Image Design Lessons Through Questions blog post with my answers:
Image Design Questions
Which image design do you like best? I liked the image design of all three images.
Why? Because I designed each of them!
Which image design do you think is the most traditional?
With it’s off-centered design, I’d say that Image #2: Purple and White Tulip Center features the most traditional image design.
Which image design is the most interesting?
For me it is Image #3: Red/Rainbow Tulip Center because, with that strip of blue along the bottom, it is different; most folks would have gotten in tighter. as I did in Image #1: Red-orange Tulip Center which featured a more traditional approach.
Color Combination Questions
Which image has a combination of colors that you find most pleasing, soothing, and relaxing?
For soothing and relaxing it would be Image #2: Purple and White Tulip Center with its whites and purples.
Which image has a combination of colors that you find most exciting?
Image #3: Red/Rainbow Tulip Center by a mile.
In which image do you feel that the colors work best together, that is, most harmoniously?
Image #3: Red/Rainbow Tulip Center, again by a mile.
Your Favorite
Image #3: Red/Rainbow Tulip Center, again by a mile, for the reasons stated by friend and multiple-IPT veteran Patrick Sparkman who wrote, “My favorite is the last one. I like the contrast of the first one and red is my favorite color. But the last one is more unusual with that wonderful blue color on the bottom. It really sets it off and makes the shot more compelling to me. Go Spurs!”
Well done but for the Spurs comment…. Go Heat!
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My favorite of the 4.
Common Terns Copulating #4
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A Beyond Memorable Afternoon: Was It Worth It?
In A Beyond Memorable Afternoon: Was It Worth It? my favorite was Common Terns Copulating #4, again by a mile.
Why? There are two main reasons that most folks missed:
1- The two terns that were in sight behind and to the left of the copulating terns in images 1-3 were mostly hidden behind the copulating pair when I moved a bit to my right. They are much less obtrusive in image #4.
2-The yellow, out-of-focus lifeguard towers in the BKGR framed the image nicely in image #4. In the first three images they were much more distracting….
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This image was created on the St. Augustine Alligator Farm IPT on a mostly sunny early morning with the Canon EF 200-400mm f/4L IS USM Lens with Internal 1.4x Extender (hand held with the internal TC in place at 560mm) and the Canon EOS-1D X. ISO 400. Evaluative metering +1/3 stop as framed: 1/160 sec. at f/10 in Av mode. AWB.
61-Point/AI Servo/Rear Focus AF active at the moment of exposure performed perfectly selecting a tight cluster of sensors on the bird’s upper bill. Learning which AF Area Selection mode to use in different situations helps you maximize the efficiency of the great AF systems of the 1D X and 5D III. Learn everything that I know about the various AF Area Selection Modes, when to use which one, several ways to move the AF sensor, and tons more in the 1D X AF Guide and the 5D Mark III User’s Guide. Click here to see the latest version of the Rear Focus Tutorial. Click on the image to see a larger version.
Roseate Spoonbill vertical front-end portrait
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The One That Nobody Came Close On
In the blog post here, “Image Problems and an Important Lesson to Come,” I asked in short, “What 3 things bug me about the image above?” Lots of folks let me know what bugged them about the image. Many were grasping at straws. And a few tiptoed around one of the my answers. In order of importance, here they are:
1-The number one problem that I have with the image is the dark above/light below theme. Most folks understand that a viewer’s eye is drawn to unusually light (or dark) areas in the frame. And even little kids know that the sky is up and that the ground is down. I believe that when we create images with dark above/light below layouts, that our brain perceives things as upside down. I have yet to come across a dark above/light below image that I really like.
2-If you check out the BrezeeBroswer Main View of this image in the original blog post, you will note a sickly green color cast. I worked long and hard on getting the color balanced on this image. But I could not get it right.
3-My angle of elevation to the subject here is quite steep. I was relatively close to the bird and the spoonbill was well above me. In general, I do not like having to having to pointing my lens up too steeply.
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Denise and artie hope that you can join us next spring in Holland and learn to improve both the technical and creative aspects of your flower (and street) photography.
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7 1/2-Day/8-Night: A Creative Adventure/BIRDS AS ART/Tulips & A Touch of Holland Instructional Photo-Tour (IPT)
Keukenhof—Delft—Amsterdam–Flower Fields—Kinderdijk
April 9 -April 16, 2015: $4995. Limit: 12 photographers
This trip needs 6 registrants to run so please do not purchase your plane tickets until you hear from us that the trip is a go.
Join Denise Ippolito, the author of “Bloomin’ Ideas,” and Arthur Morris, Canon Explorer of Light Emeritus, for a great trip to Holland in mid-April 2015. Day 1 of the IPT will be April 9, 2015. We will have a short afternoon get-together and then our first photographic session at the justly-famed Keukenhof. Our last day, Day 8, April 16 will be a full day of photography.
The primary subjects will be tulips and orchids at Keukenhof and the spectacularly amazing tulip, hyacinth, and daffodil bulb fields around Lisse and points north. We will spend one full day in Amsterdam. There will be optional visits to the Van Gogh Museum, the Anne Frank House and/or the Rijk’s Museum. Street photography and sightseeing will be other options. We will spend a half day at Kinderdijk where we will be photographing the windmills and doing some creative photography. We will spend an afternoon in the lovely Dutch town of Delft where we will do some street photography and shopping. There is an optional church tower tour/climb. We will also enjoy a superb fine dining experience in a traditional restaurant.
Other than the arrival date: April 9, Day 1, and the date of our last day of photography on April 16, Day 8, there is no set itinerary. We will check the weather and play everything by ear to maximize the photographic opportunities. We will try to do Amsterdam, Delft, and especially Kinderdijik, on cloudy days.
There are several huge pluses to this trip. First off, denise is an amazingly skilled and caring instructor. Both her creativity and her willingness to share and to help beginning and intermediate photographers are unmatched. And though artie has learned a ton about flower photography from denise, their styles and techniques do vary considerably. You will have a chance to be counseled by and to learn from both of them. While denise will hunt you down to help you, artie’s teaching style is more “the closer you stay to me, the more you will learn.” Both leaders consistently inspire the participants. And each other. The sky, of course, is the limit.
You will learn to create tight abstracts, how best to use depth-of-field (or the lack thereof) to improve your flower photography, how to get the right exposure and make sharp images every time, how to see the best shot, and how to choose the best perspective for a given situation. And you will of course learn to create a variety of pleasingly blurred flower images. If you bring a long lens, you will learn to use it effectively for flower photography. Denise’s two favorite flower lenses are the Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM lens and the Canon EF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM lens. Mine are the Canon 100mm f/2.8L IS macro , the Canon EF 180mm f/3.5L Macro USM lens ,and the Canon EF 300mm f/2.8L IS II USM lens, all almost always on a tripod. Often with extension tubes and/or either the 1.4X or the 2X (with the 300 II) teleconverters. Denise hand holds a great deal of the time. For flower field blurs denise uses the same lenses mentioned above along with her new 70-200mm f/2.8L IS III lens. Artie’s favorite is that same 70-200 often with a 1.4X TC but he uses both the new Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L II USM lens and the 300 II as well. Both of us use and love the Canon EOS 5D Mark IIIfor all of our flower photography. The in-camera HDR and Multiple Exposure features are a blast.
One of the great advantages of our trip is that we will be staying in a single, strategically located hotel that is quite excellent. Do note that all ground transfers to and from Schipol Airport will be via the free hotel shuttle bus.
What’s included: Eight hotel nights. All ground transportation except for airport transfers as noted above. In-the-field instruction and small group image review and Photoshop sessions. All meals from dinner on Day 1 through dinner on Day 8. There is good food at the hotel and we will be dining there on occasion; whenever you order off the menu be it at the hotel or at another restaurant only the cost of your main course is included. On these occasions the cost of soups, appetizers, salads, sodas and other beverages, alcoholic drinks and wine, bottled water, and desserts are not included. Snacks, personal items, phone calls, etc. are also not included. The cost of bus or train transportation to and from Amsterdam (about $20 US), museum entry, and tower and church entry fees (optional) are likewise not included.
Beware of seemingly longer, slightly less expensive tours that include travel days and days sitting in the hotel doing nothing as part of the tour. In addition, other similar trips have you changing hotels often and needlessly. One final note on other similar trips: the instructors on this trip actually instruct. On other similar trips the instructors, though usually imminently qualified, serve for the most part as van drivers and van door openers.
A non-refundable deposit of $1,000 per person is required to hold your spot. The second payment of $2,000 due by October 30, 2014. The balance is due on January 15, 2015. Payments in full are of course welcome at any time. All payments including the deposit must be by check made out to “Arthur Morris.” As life has a way of throwing an occasional curve ball our way, you are urged to purchase travel insurance within 15 days of our cashing your check. Artie uses and recommends Travel Insurance Services. All payments are non-refundable unless the trip fills to capacity. In that case, all payments but your deposit will be refunded. If the trip does not run every penny will of course be refunded. Again, please do not purchase your air tickets until you hear from us that the trip is a go. We are very confident that it will.
All checks should be made out to “Arthur Morris” and sent to: Arthur Morris, PO Box 7245, Indian Lake Estates, FL 33855. Call Jim or Jen in the BAA office with any additional registration questions: 863-692-0906.
For couples or friends signing up at the same time for the tulip trip, a $200/duo discount will be applied to the final payment.
When you send your deposit check, please print, sign, and include the paperwork here.
If you have any questions on the trip please contact artie by e-mail or denise by e-mail.
Selling Your Used Photo Gear Through BIRDS AS ART
Selling your used (or like-new) photo gear through the BAA Blog or via a BAA Online Bulletin is a great idea. We charge only a 5% commission. One of the more popular used gear for sale sites charges a minimum of 20% plus assorted fees! Yikes. The minimum item price here is $500 (or less for a $25 fee). If you are interested please e-mail with the words Items for Sale Info Request cut and pasted into the Subject line :). Stuff that is priced fairly–I offer free pricing advise, usually sells in no time flat as did Dennis Cassidy’s 500 II recently on the blog. Larry Master’s 400 DO and his 800 f/5.6 sold within a week. From Larry via e-mail: Thanks for helping me sell the lenses so quickly!
A Creative Adventure/BIRDS AS ART friend Kitto Kono sold her Nikon 500 to a Blog subscriber in less than a week. Janet Horton’s 7D sold this week after a $100 price reduction. Denise Ippolito’s 100-400 and her 100 macro sold in one day. Peter Kes sold his 70-200 f/2.8L IS II and his 400 DO through BAA in ten days. In the past two months we have sold a Canon 800, a Canon 500 II, 3 400 DO lenses, a Nikon 500mm, and lots more. If you are interested in using our services, please e-mail.
Used Photography Gear Page
Eagle-eyed readers may have noticed that there is a link to the Used Photography Gear page on the yellow tool bar at the top of each blog page. Folks looking to buy (or to sell) can click on that tab or here. I will on occasion continue to list new gear and great buys in blog posts and in Bulletins and may on rare occasion share all the listings with you on the blog. I will strive to keep the listings current. Great news for Kitty Kono and her Nikon 400mm f/2.8: it sold recently! That made her 2 for 2 on selling her older Nikon super-telephotos with BAA.
Support the BAA Blog. Support the BAA Bulletins: Shop B&H here!
We want and need to keep providing you with the latest free information, photography and Photoshop lessons, and all manner of related information. Show your appreciation by making your purchases immediately after clicking on any of our B&H or Amazon Affiliate links in this blog post. Remember, B&H ain’t just photography!
…..
Amazon Canada
Many kind folks from north of the border, ay, have e-mailed stating that they would love to help us out by using one of our affiliate links but that living in Canada and doing so presents numerous problems. Now, they can help us out by using our Amazon Canada affiliate link by starting their searches by clicking here. Many thanks to those who have written.
Typos
In all blog posts and Bulletins, feel free to e-mail or to leave a comment regarding any typos, wrong words, misspellings, omissions, or grammatical errors. Just be right. 🙂
June 3rd, 2014
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First Place: Short-eared Owl Hand of Man/25 points
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Short-eared Owl Hand of Man
Congratulations to Doug Schurman.
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Second Place: Eurasian Tree Sparrow Hand of Man/24 points
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Eurasian Tree Sparrow Hand of Man
Congratulations to Vincent de Jong.
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Third Place: Great Horned Owl Captive/23 points
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Great Horned Owl Captive
Congratulations to Cheri Hollis.
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First Runner-up: Peacock Captive Albino/22 points
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Peacock Captive Albino
Congratulations to Phillipa Alexander.
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Second Runner-up: American Bittern Hand of Man/15 poiints
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American Bittern Hand of Man
Congratulations to Jack Nevitt.
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Stuff
Getting even a single image to the final round of judging in any category is a huge accomplishment. All of the photographs in the Captive & Hand of Man category finals were quite good. Congrats again to all the winning and honored photographers. To the public voters: for what it’s worth: I loved the bittern image.
Thanks to all the readers who voted. And thanks again to our wonderful sponsors and to the panel of judges. Special thanks to Denise Ippolito and Peter Kes who helped me with the early rounds of judging. Please feel free to comment on the any of the images or to analyze and compare the judging; please remember that judging any contest or voting on the images is purely subjective.
The Public Vote
1-Great Horned Owl Captive: 68 points.
2-Eurasian Tree Sparrow Hand of Man: 57 points.
3-Short-eared Owl Hand of Man: 56: points.
4-Peacock Captive Albino: 49 points.
5-American Bittern Hand of Man: 39 points.
The Streak Continues: 185
This post marks 185 consecutive days with a new educational blog post. With so many folks getting in the habit of using our B&H links and our Amazon logo-links why quit now? To show your appreciation for my efforts here, I do ask that you use our the B&H and Amazon affiliate links on the right side of the blog for all of your purchases. Please check the availability of all photographic accessories in the BIRDS AS ART Online Store, especially Gitzo tripods, Wimberley tripod heads, and the like. We sell only what I have used and tested, and know that you can depend on. We will not sell you junk. We know the tools that you need to make creating great images easy and fun. And we are always glad to answer your gear questions via e-mail.
You can find the following items in the store: Gitzo tripods, Mongoose M3.6 and Wimberley heads, plates, low feet, and accessories, flash brackets, , Delkin e-film Pro Compact Flash Cards, LensCoat products, and our unique line-up of educational materials including ABP I & II, Digital Basics, Site and Set-up e-Guides, Canon and Nikon Camera Users and AF e-Guides, and MP-4 Photoshop video tutorials among others.
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 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 visiting the BAA Online store as well.
This post took 2 hours to prepare. Enjoy!
Support the BAA Blog. Support the BAA Bulletins: Shop B&H here!
We want and need to keep providing you with the latest free information, photography and Photoshop lessons, and all manner of related information. Show your appreciation by making your purchases immediately after clicking on any of our B&H or Amazon Affiliate links in this blog post. Remember, B&H ain’t just photography!
…..
Typos
In all blog posts and Bulletins, feel free to e-mail or to leave a comment regarding any typos, wrong words, misspellings, omissions, or grammatical errors. Just be right. 🙂
June 2nd, 2014
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Prototypes of the two new Xpandable LensCoat Long Lens bags in the back of my Toyota Sequoia. The 600 II is in the 4X bag on our left, the 200-400 in the 3X bag on our right. I originally encouraged Scott Elowitz to consider making a long lens bag just so I could store my long lenses safely while driving. Nearly 2 years in development, the 2 new bags do a ton more. And with my shoulder problems getting the 600 on my back will help my shoulders to continue to improve and prevent you from winding up in the same shoulder-boat that I am in.
Also seen, the Gitzo 3532 LS tripod with the Mongoose M3.6 on top. The GT 1542 Travel tripod with the Giotto’s tiny ballhead attached. A long Canon umbrella. The Umbrella Clamp Rig. The larger or my two Think Tank Airport Rolling bags–click on the Think Tank link in the right hand column for more info on those. And, to dry my feet after getting wet at Fort DeSoto, Johnson’s Baby Powder
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Two Great New Expandable Long Lens Bags from LensCoat
Now Available for Pre-Order
Product will be shipped mid- to late-June
Please scroll down for details and the whole story from soup to nuts.
The Streak Continues: 184
This post marks 184 consecutive days with a new educational blog post. With so many folks getting in the habit of using our B&H links and our Amazon logo-links why quit now? To show your appreciation for my efforts here, I do ask that you use our the B&H and Amazon affiliate links on the right side of the blog for all of your purchases. Please check the availability of all photographic accessories in the BIRDS AS ART Online Store, especially Gitzo tripods, Wimberley tripod heads, and the like. We sell only what I have used and tested, and know that you can depend on. We will not sell you junk. We know the tools that you need to make creating great images easy and fun. And we are always glad to answer your gear questions via e-mail.
You can find the following items in the store: Gitzo tripods, Mongoose M3.6 and Wimberley heads, plates, low feet, and accessories, flash brackets, , Delkin e-film Pro Compact Flash Cards, LensCoat products, and our unique line-up of educational materials including ABP I & II, Digital Basics, Site and Set-up e-Guides, Canon and Nikon Camera Users and AF e-Guides, and MP-4 Photoshop video tutorials among others.
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 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 visiting the BAA Online store as well.
This post took 2 hours to prepare. Enjoy!
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This image was created at 9:44am on Saturday past on a partly cloudy very bright morning at Lake Blue Cypress with the hand held Canon EF 300mm f/2.8L IS II USM lens, the Canon Extender EF 1.4X III, and the Canon EOS-1D X. ISO 640. Evaluative metering +1 stop of the light sky: 1/2000 sec. at f/6.3 in Manual mode. AWB.
Central sensor/AI Servo-Surround/Rear Focus AF squarely on the bird’s left eye as originally framed active at the moment of exposure. (This is a very small crop from the left and above.) Click here to see the latest version of the Rear Focus Tutorial. Click on the image to see a larger version.
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An Offer I Couldn’t Refuse
Last week, friend and mega multiple IPT veteran Clemens Van der Werf asked me if I would like to join him for a pontoon boat morning on lake just 45 minutes from my home in Indian Lake Estates. Twist my arm :). After a slow start, things really heated up. While the 200-400 is great for flight as you can zoom out when needed, I opted for the 300 II with either teleconverter because of its lighter weight: 5.19 pounds versus 7.98. 2.79 pounds when hand holding is huge…. I had the Canon EF 600mm f/4L IS II USM lens with the Canon Extender EF 2X III and a 1D X on a bench seat ready to go on the tripod at a moments notice for perched birds and a few tight head portraits. I will be sharing some of those with you here in the future.
A very light wind from the north swung around to the east by 9:00am and the high thin clouds provided relatively soft light well into the morning. This combination was perfect for flight photography. Note the large chick in the nest on our left below the landing bird. At first we thought that it was dead but as it turned out it was just resting. We were both happy about that.
Thanks a stack Clemens for a great day.
Image Question
If you were going to remove a single stick from the nest, which one would it be? Why?
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Testing a prototype of the 4Xpandable Long Lens bag on safari in Tanzania. The trick is to wrap the strap around the head rest and then re-attach it to the bag. Doing so protects the lens during normal travel. At high speeds or over really rough roads it is best to hold the lens on your lap in hopes of preventing damage in case you hit a pothole or a large animal burrow. Do ask the driver to let you know in advance if you will be encountering any really rough going. I did not fully expand the bag so that I could easily grab the camera and pull the rig from the bag almost instantly when needed. The driver-guide in the front seat is the always-smiling Salvatore.
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Expandable Long Lens Bags from LensCoat
Now Available for Pre-Order
Will be shipped mid- to late-June
The Idea
It was probably two years ago when I suggested to Scott Elowitz of LensCoat that he develop a good long lens bag. My motivation? The Domke Lens Bags that I had been using for years were becoming tattered wrecks. One had already bitten the dust and the other was getting ready to do the same. I have been testing both sizes of the new Xpanadable Long Lens bags for more than a year. They have proved their worth over and over again in the back of my Sequoia, in the field at locations like Nickerson Beach and Gatorland, and while on safari in Tanzania last August. Scott took my idea and flew with it producing two expandable bags with tons of great options. When a lens is stowed for travel (by car, plane, or boat) in one of the Xpandable Long Lens bags I strongly recommend that the camera body be removed as vibrations can wreck the lens mounts over time. After all travel it is a good plan to check the tiny screws on all lens mounts for tightness.
You can pre-order yours today with a phone call to Jim or Jennifer at 863-692-0906 weekdays from 8:30am til 5:00pm.
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The 3Xpandable Long Lens Bag is available in four patterns.
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3Xpandable: Price: $279.99 + $12.00 shipping to US addresses
This is one great bag. Whether you’re in the field, on a boat, ship, or pontoon boat, in your own or a safari vehicle, you will find this bag useful. It will protect your gear while leaving it almost instantly accessible. The 3Xpandable bag can be ingeniously folded to three different sizes – or folded flat for air travel!
Position 1: Full size, 27.75″ height; perfect for a long lens in shooting position with teleconverter and camera body.
Position 2: Folded down to 23.5”; makes the bag more compact and lowers its center of gravity.
Position 3: Folded down to 19.75”; now the bag is small enough to be used as an airline carry-on aboard most commercial aircraft.
• Removable lid with pocket zips on easily and securely at all three positions
• Male and female ends on removable shoulder strap allow for strap to be used to secure bag
• Removable reinforced insert panels allow you to configure the weight and support
• Soft sided construction allow the bag to be folded nearly flat for storage or packing
• Built to last with heavy-duty water-resistant Codura and lightweight, water-resistant nylon lining
• M.O.L.L.E webbing system to easily add pouches and accessories
• Removable harness (sold separately)
• Multiple connection points to secure the bag
• YKK zippers
• Expandable exterior mesh pocket
• Tripod/Monopod support options
• Made in the USA
The 3Xpandable Long Lens Bag accommodates a camera body with lenses such as the following: Canon 200-400mm, Canon 300mm f/2.8, Canon 400mm DO, Canon 500mm, Nikon 200-400mm, Nikon 300 f/2.8, Nikon 500mm, Sigma 500mm, Sigma 300-800mm, and Sony 500mm.
The 3Xpandable Long Lens Bag is available in four patterns: Realtree Max 4, Black, Forest Green Camo, and Digital Camo.
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The 4Xpandable Long Lens Bag is available in four patterns.
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4Xpandable: Price: $289.99 + $12.00 shipping to US addresses
The larger version is also one smart bag. Whether you’re in the field or a safari vehicle it’s perfect when you want to be ready to take the shot at a moment’s notice. The 4Xpandable bag can be ingeniously folded to three different sizes – or folded flat!
Position 1: full size, 28.75″ height; perfect for a long lens in shooting position with teleconverter and camera body.
Position 2: Folded down to 24.5”; makes the bag more compact and lowers the center of gravity.
Position 3: Folded down to 21.5”; now the bag is small enough to be used as an airline carry-on aboard most commercial aircraft.
• Removable lid with pocket zips on easily and securely at all three positions
• Male and female ends on removable shoulder strap allow for strap to be used to secure bag
• Removable reinforced insert panels allow you to configure the weight and support
• Soft sided construction allow the bag to be folded nearly flat for storage or packing
• Built to last with heavy-duty water-resistant Codura and lightweight, water-resistant nylon lining
• M.O.L.L.E webbing system to easily add pouches and accessories
• Removable harness (sold separately)
• Multiple connection points to secure the bag
• YKK zippers
• Expandable exterior mesh pocket
• Tripod/Monopod support options
• Made in the USA
The 4Xpandable Long Lens Bag accommodates a camera body and lenses such as Canon & Nikon 400mm f/2.8, 500mm, 600mm, 800mm.I know for a fact that when fully expanded it takes the Canon 600 II with a 1D X, a 2X TC, and the hood in place. Wow!
The 4Xpandable Long Lens Bag is also available in four patterns: Realtree Max 4, Black, Forest Green Camo, and Digital Camo.
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The LensCoat Harness is available in 2 sizes. See below for details.
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The Padded Harness for the LensCoat 3Xpandable and 4Xpandable Long Lens Bags: $44.99.
This padded backpack-style harness is constructed of thick (16mm–5/8″) closed-cell foam. The outside is covered on the top with nonabrasive water-repellent 400D nylon pack cloth. The inside surface that faces faces your body is made from 3D mesh fabric, a soft Polyester moisture-wicking substrate. There is a 2-way adjustable sternum strap.
If you are 5′ 10″ or shorter we typically recommend the Small/Medium Harness. Taller folks will need the Large/Extra Large Harness.
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Right now, the LensCoat Waist Belt is free for those who pre-order an Xpanadable Long Lens Bag and a Harness.
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The LensCoat Waist Belt
Free right now for those who pre-order an Xpanadable Long Lens Bag and a Harness.
The LensCoat Waist Belt is designed to work with the Xpandable series Long Lens Bag. It provides increased stability when used in conjunction with the harness. The lightweight, unpadded belt attaches easily and quickly to the d-rings on the Xpandable bag. The 2″ wide nylon webbing easily adjusts to fit a waist up to 60 inches. The waist belt has been designed with MOLLE-compliant attachment points on the sides (5 on each side) to accommodate pouches and accessories.
Xpandable Long Lens Bag Folding Instructions Only Video
Support the BAA Blog. Support the BAA Bulletins: Shop B&H here!
We want and need to keep providing you with the latest free information, photography and Photoshop lessons, and all manner of related information. Show your appreciation by making your purchases immediately after clicking on any of our B&H or Amazon Affiliate links in this blog post. Remember, B&H ain’t just photography!
….. …..
Typos
In all blog posts and Bulletins, feel free to e-mail or to leave a comment regarding any typos, wrong words, misspellings, omissions, or grammatical errors. Just be right. 🙂
June 1st, 2014
The Streak Continues: 183
This post marks 183 consecutive days with a new educational blog post. With so many folks getting in the habit of using our B&H links and our Amazon logo-links why quit now? To show your appreciation for my efforts here, I do ask that you use our the B&H and Amazon affiliate links on the right side of the blog for all of your purchases. Please check the availability of all photographic accessories in the BIRDS AS ART Online Store, especially Gitzo tripods, Wimberley tripod heads, and the like. We sell only what I have used and tested, and know that you can depend on. We will not sell you junk. We know the tools that you need to make creating great images easy and fun. And we are always glad to answer your gear questions via e-mail.
You can find the following items in the store: Gitzo tripods, Mongoose M3.6 and Wimberley heads, plates, low feet, and accessories, flash brackets, , Delkin e-film Pro Compact Flash Cards, LensCoat products, and our unique line-up of educational materials including ABP I & II, Digital Basics, Site and Set-up e-Guides, Canon and Nikon Camera Users and AF e-Guides, and MP-4 Photoshop video tutorials among others.
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 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 visiting the BAA Online store as well.
With six new images to optimize, this post took more than 5 hours to prepare. Enjoy!
Hand of Man/Captive Category Voting Continues
If you have not voted on our next to last category you can do so here. Voting will be open in this category until 6am on Tuesday.
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This image was created at 7:21am on Friday past at Fort DeSoto with the hand held Canon EF 300mm f/2.8L IS II USM lens, the Canon Extender EF 2X III, and the Canon EOS-1D X. ISO 800. Evaluative metering +1 stop as framed: 1/1250 sec. at f/5.6 in Av mode. AWB.
Five sensors to the left of the central Sensor/AI Servo-Surround/Rear Focus AF as framed active at the moment of exposure. Click here to see the latest version of the Rear Focus Tutorial. Click on the image to see a larger version. It’s great having all 61 AF sensors available with the 300 II/2X III TC combo.
Image #1: Breeding Plumage Laughing Gull looking back
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The Amazing Canon 300mm F/2.8L IS USM Lens/Part II of a Series
On Friday afternoon past Jim drove me to Bradenton to explore the possibility of getting some prolozone injections in both shoulders and my left knee. So far so good. We hoped to photograph at Fort DeSoto that afternoon but that did not work out. We got up very early on Friday and were out on the beach before sunrise. As has been typical at DeSoto this year there were very few birds around but the birds that we found were gorgeous, tame, and pretty darned cooperative.
Once again I decided to go light with the 300 II and both TCs and to leave the tripod in the car hoping against hope that I would not miss my 600 II too much. Fat chance of that I thought. Our first gem was the beautiful adult Laughing Gull standing on a berm of clean sand with a beautiful blue Gulf of Mexico background lit by soft, early morning light. Lying down flat on the sand was the obvious choice and that is just what I did. Nature photography is all about seeing the good situations and then choosing the best perspective.
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This image was created at 7:38m with the hand held Canon EF 300mm f/2.8L IS II USM lens, the Canon Extender EF 2X III, and the Canon EOS-1D X. ISO 800. Evaluative metering +1 stop as framed: 1/1600 sec. at f/5.6 in Manual mode. AWB.
One sensor below the central Sensor/AI Servo-Surround/Rear Focus AF right on the bird’s eye as framed was active at the moment of exposure. Click here to see the latest version of the Rear Focus Tutorial. Click on the image to see a larger version. It’s great having all 61 AF sensors available with the 300 II/2X III TC combo.
Image #2: Short-billed Dowitcher beginning molt to breeding feeding on the edge of the surf
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The 300 II/2X III TC Combo for Small Shorebirds???
Yes. Without being restricted by a big lens and a heavy tripod it is fairly easy to keep low and get into position just ahead of the shorebirds feeding along the edge of the Gulf. Set yourself down 15-20 feet from the edge of the surf just ahead of sun angle and let the birds work towards you. At many locations the 600 II/2X III combo would have the great advantage of reach that is needed in locations where the birds are not so used to people. But with Florida’s tame birds the 300 II/2X III TC has the big advantage of mobility. And framing and following the shorebirds as the move quickly along the water’s edge stopping only infrequently to stop and feed for a moment is a lot easier to do with a fairly lightweight hand holdable lens.
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This image was created at 8:12am on with the hand held Canon EF 300mm f/2.8L IS II USM lens and the Canon EOS-1D X. ISO 400. Evaluative metering +1/3 stop as framed: 1/8000 sec. at f/2.8 in Manual mode. AWB.
61-Point AF activated a tight array of 4 sensors just behind the bird’s head/AI Servo-Surround/Rear Focus AF as framed active at the moment of exposure. Click here to see the latest version of the Rear Focus Tutorial. Click on the image to see a larger version.
Image #3: Reddish Egret dancing
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Working With the 300 II Alone?
On our way back to the usual sand spit hotspot, we came across a beautiful breeding plumage Reddish Egret fishing in a small pool. Standing was the best plan here as I wanted to avoid having the either the far shoreline (trust me, it was not very far as the pool was a very small one) or the rather extensive reeds as obtrusive background elements.
Image #2 Questions
How did f/2.8 help this image?
Why did I opt to work without either teleconverter?
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This one was made at 8:21am on Friday past at Fort DeSoto with the hand held Canon EF 300mm f/2.8L IS II USM lens, the Canon Extender EF 2X III, and the Canon EOS-1D X. ISO 400. Evaluative metering at zero: 1/2000 sec. at f/7.1 in Manual mode. AWB.
61-Point AF activated a single sensor at the back of the bird’s neck/AI Servo-Surround/Rear Focus AF active at the moment of exposure. Click here to see the latest version of the Rear Focus Tutorial. Click on the image to see a larger version.
Image #4: Reddish Egret front-end portrait
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Head-hunting With the 300 II/2X III TC Combo
When this gorgeous bird walked out of the pool I added the 2X III TC and approached slowly. It began walking to my right and was only able to create a few verticals. I had hoped to get close enough to create some horizontal head portraits but alas, the bird flew off. In retrospect, I would have been much better off working with Surround and selecting an upper sensor…. That’s another way of saying that I should have pointed the lens down to include more of the bird’s cobalt blue legs.
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This image was created at 8:26am while seated with the hand held Canon EF 300mm f/2.8L IS II USM lens, the Canon Extender EF 1.4X III, and the Canon EOS-1D X. ISO 400. Evaluative metering +1/3 stop as framed: 1/8000 sec. at f/2.8 in Manual mode. AWB.
One sensor to the left of the central sensor/AI Servo-Surround/Rear Focus AF as framed active at the moment of exposure. Click here to see the latest version of the Rear Focus Tutorial. Click on the image to see a larger version.
Image #5: White Ibis feeding along the edge of the surf
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Sitting With the 300 II/1.4X III Combo
It is much easier to move quickly and get down on the ground right on sun angle with the 300 II/2X III than with the 600 II on a tripod either alone or with a TC. My left forearm rests on my left knee making it easy to hand hold while following the foraging or running birds. Knee-pod images are coming soon.
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This image was created at 8:42am with the hand held Canon EF 300mm f/2.8L IS II USM lens, the Canon Extender EF 1.4X III, and the Canon EOS-1D X. ISO 200. Evaluative metering at zero as framed: 1/2500 sec. at f/5.6 in Manual mode was a slight under-exposure. AWB.
Central sensor/AI Servo-Surround/Rear Focus AF just caught the bottom of the bird’s black hood as framed was active at the moment of exposure. Click here to see the latest version of the Rear Focus Tutorial. Click on the image to see a larger version.
Image #6: American Oystercatcher feeding along the edge of the surf
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My 300 II Revelation
By 9:45am we were done. I had created a jumbo jet’s worth of RAW files during our short morning session: 747 images. 123 keepers after the 1st edit. As we were walking back to the car I had my revelation: If I had brought the 600 II and my Gitzo 3532 LS tripod to the beach that morning I would not have done nearly as well as I did with the lighter 300 II. When working with tame birds the 300 gave me great versatility as a quick peek at the images here shows; I used the 300 II alone, I used it with the 1.4X II TC. And with the 2X III TC. But more importantly the biggest advantage that the 300 II has for me is that it allows me to be much more mobile. The freedom that comes with hand holding allowed me to stay on sun angle and get to the right spot quickly with less physical effort.
Who’d of thunk it??? I say often that the longest lens is not always the best tool for a given job. I am glad that I finally learned that lesson for myself.
Please remember that Fort DeSoto is not Nickerson Beach :).
Your Favorite?
Please leave a comment and let us know which of the six DeSoto images here is your favorite and why.
Selling Your Used Photo Gear Through BIRDS AS ART
Selling your used (or like-new) photo gear through the BAA Blog or via a BAA Online Bulletin is a great idea. We charge only a 5% commission. One of the more popular used gear for sale sites charges a minimum of 20% plus assorted fees! Yikes. The minimum item price here is $500 (or less for a $25 fee). If you are interested please e-mail with the words Items for Sale Info Request cut and pasted into the Subject line :). Stuff that is priced fairly–I offer free pricing advise, usually sells in no time flat as did Dennis Cassidy’s 500 II recently on the blog. Larry Master’s 400 DO and his 800 f/5.6 sold within a week. From Larry via e-mail: Thanks for helping me sell the lenses so quickly!
A Creative Adventure/BIRDS AS ART friend Kitto Kono sold her Nikon 500 to a Blog subscriber in less than a week. Janet Horton’s 7D sold this week after a $100 price reduction. Denise Ippolito’s 100-400 and her 100 macro sold in one day. Peter Kes sold his 70-200 f/2.8L IS II and his 400 DO through BAA in ten days. In the past two months we have sold a Canon 800, a Canon 500 II, 3 400 DO lenses, a Nikon 500mm, and lots more. If you are interested in using our services, please e-mail.
Used Photography Gear Page
Eagle-eyed readers may have noticed that there is a link to the Used Photography Gear page on the yellow tool bar at the top of each blog page. Folks looking to buy (or to sell) can click on that tab or here. I will on occasion continue to list new gear and great buys in blog posts and in Bulletins and may on rare occasion share all the listings with you on the blog. I will strive to keep the listings current. Great news for Kitty Kono and her Nikon 400mm f/2.8: it sold recently! That made her 2 for 2 on selling her older Nikon super-telephotos with BAA.
Brand New Listings (6/1/14)
Canon EF 300mm f/2.8L IS USM Lens with Lots of Extras
Muir Robertson is offering a used Canon EF 300mm f/2.8L IS USM lens in like-new condition–used only twice. The sale includes the Lens Trunk with a nice dent in on one corner (the empty case was damaged during a move), the Canon drop-in polarizer, the Really Right Stuff leow foot, a Canon 1.4X IITC, a Canon 2XII TC, II teleconverters, and insured ground shipping to lower 48 US addresses.
The price for this package is an incredibly low $3199.
Interested folks please contact Muir first by e-mail and then by phone at 513-314-2471.
The older version of the 300 f/2.8 is just as versatile as the version II. And with the tripod collar removed, they weigh just about the same. Many folks swear that the older version is every bit as sharp as the new lens. And the version II TCs perform just fine with the older lenses. The 1.4XII TC is the equal of the 1.4X III TC when used with the older lenses. The 2X II TC is not quite as sharp as the 2X III TC. All in all this package represents an incredible value.
Canon EOS-1D Mark IV
Muir Robertson is also offering a used Canon EOS-1D Mark IV in very good + condition for a very low $2900 with several extras. The sale includes all the original accessories and cables, the battery charger, the original packaging, a Really Right Stuff L bracket, a large Hoodman rubber replacement eyecup (this helps folks who use glasses and on bright days), and insured ground shipping to lower 48 US addresses. Your new camera will be shipped after your cashiers or personal check clears.
Interested folks please contact Muir first by e-mail and then by phone at 513-314-2471.
Buy Both and Save $200!
Buy both of the above packages and you will enjoy a $200 discount; the total for the lens and the MIV and all the extras is $5899. Remember that a pro body like the 1D IV will drive AF faster than a 7D or any other pro-sumer body including the EOS-5D Mark III.
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I created all of the images in this composite on last year’s July Nickerson Beach IPT.
All copyright 2013: Arthur Morris/BIRDS AS ART
Click on the composite to enjoy a larger version
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Nickerson Baby Beach-nesting Birds IPT: 3-Full Days/July 15-17, 2014: $1199. Introductory meet and greet: 8pm, Monday, July 14, 2014. Co-leaders Arthur Morris and Denise Ippolito
Greg Gulbransen is very much looking to this IPT. Join us on Long Island, NY next summer to photograph Black Skimmers, Common Terns with chicks, American Oystercatcher families, and possibly some just-hatched Black Skimmer chicks. Things are looking great. The opportunities will include chances to photograph a variety of breeding behaviors including courtship feeding, display flight and combat, and copulations. Car-pooling is recommended; if we opt to return to the beach before 5pm there is a $30/vehicle parking fee that is not included so it is best to share that expense. Parking in the morning is free.
A $499 non-refundable deposit is required to hold your slot for this IPT. Your balance is due 4 months before the date of the IPT and is also non-refundable. If the trip fills, we will be glad to apply a credit applicable to a future IPT for the full amount less a $100 processing fee. 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. If your spot is filled, you will lose your deposit. If not, you can secure your spot by paying your balance.
Please print, complete, and sign the form that is linked to here and shoot it to us along with your deposit check (made out to “Arthur Morris.”) Though we prefer a check, you can also leave your deposit with a credit card by calling the office at 863-692-0906. 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
Support the BAA Blog. Support the BAA Bulletins: Shop B&H here!
We want and need to keep providing you with the latest free information, photography and Photoshop lessons, and all manner of related information. Show your appreciation by making your purchases immediately after clicking on any of our B&H or Amazon Affiliate links in this blog post. Remember, B&H ain’t just photography!
….. …..
Typos
In all blog posts and Bulletins, feel free to e-mail or to leave a comment regarding any typos, wrong words, misspellings, omissions, or grammatical errors. Just be right. 🙂
May 31st, 2014 The Streak Continues: 182
This post marks 182 consecutive days with a new educational blog post. With so many folks getting in the habit of using our B&H links and our Amazon logo-links why quit now? To show your appreciation for my efforts here, I do ask that you use our the B&H and Amazon affiliate links on the right side of the blog for all of your purchases. Please check the availability of all photographic accessories in the BIRDS AS ART Online Store, especially Gitzo tripods, Wimberley tripod heads, and the like. We sell only what I have used and tested, and know that you can depend on. We will not sell you junk. We know the tools that you need to make creating great images easy and fun. And we are always glad to answer your gear questions via e-mail.
You can find the following items in the store: Gitzo tripods, Mongoose M3.6 and Wimberley heads, plates, low feet, and accessories, flash brackets, , Delkin e-film Pro Compact Flash Cards, LensCoat products, and our unique line-up of educational materials including ABP I & II, Digital Basics, Site and Set-up e-Guides, Canon and Nikon Camera Users and AF e-Guides, and MP-4 Photoshop video tutorials among others.
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 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 visiting the BAA Online store as well.
This post took 1 1/2 hours to prepare. Enjoy!
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This image of an adult Least Tern was created at Fort DeSoto on May 11 at 7:45am on a cloudy bright morning while seated behind my lowered Gitzo 3532 LS carbon fiber tripod with the Mongoose M3.6 head and the Canon EF 600mm f/4L IS II USM lens, Canon Extender EF 1.4X III, and the Canon EOS-1D X. ISO 800 (should have been ISO 100 or so). Evaluative metering +1 1/3 stops as framed: 1/40 sec. at f/14 in Tv mode. AWB.
Central Sensor/AI Servo-Surround/Rear Focus AF as framed active at the moment of exposure. Click here to see the latest version of the Rear Focus Tutorial. Click on the image to see a larger version. .
Adult Least Tern near nest
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“Manipulated” “Photoshopped” Two Nasty Words That Can Help You Create Beautiful Images
Did you manipulate that photograph? Is that beautiful image manipulated? For me the answer to that question is always yes. Make no bones about it. Many folks do not understand that the RAW files that come out of the best digital camera bodies are inherently unsharp as compared to images created with film. Furthermore, properly exposed image especially images that are light-toned overall should appear washed out on both the back of your camera and on your computer.
So, depending on your definition of the terms “manipulated” and “photoshopped” all BAA images are manipulated and photoshopped.
And as regular readers know I freely admit to removing distracting background elements, repairing clipped wingtips, cleaning up beaches, and replacing eyes and even heads that are not up to par. That said, I always let editors and readers know what has been done. And I always strive to maintain the natural history of the moment–the bird is always shown doing what it was doing when the shutter button was pushed. On the rare occasion that the natural history of an image has been distorted-adding a second bird that was not originally in the frame, or removing one or more large birds from an image, those facts are always stated explicitly.
I use my Photoshop skills and the latest technologies to produce beautiful images. And I am fine with that. And I am fine with the folks who take issue with what I do.
The Question of the Day
Please click on the image to enlarge it and examine it very closely. Has today’s image been excessively manipulated? Was the tail clipped and repaired? Has the head been replaced? If you see any evidence of hanky panky, please let us know by leaving a comment, and please be specific.
ps: I can guarantee that when you see the original you will be totally amazed….
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Denise and artie hope that you can join us next spring in Holland and learn to improve both the technical and creative aspects of your flower (and street) photography.
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7 1/2-Day/8-Night: A Creative Adventure/BIRDS AS ART/Tulips & A Touch of Holland Instructional Photo-Tour (IPT)
Keukenhof—Delft—Amsterdam–Flower Fields—Kinderdijk
April 9 -April 16, 2015: $4995. Limit: 12 photographers
This trip needs 6 registrants to run so please do not purchase your plane tickets until you hear from us that the trip is a go.
Join Denise Ippolito, the author of “Bloomin’ Ideas,” and Arthur Morris, Canon Explorer of Light Emeritus, for a great trip to Holland in mid-April 2015. Day 1 of the IPT will be April 9, 2015. We will have a short afternoon get-together and then our first photographic session at the justly-famed Keukenhof. Our last day, Day 8, April 16 will be a full day of photography.
The primary subjects will be tulips and orchids at Keukenhof and the spectacularly amazing tulip, hyacinth, and daffodil bulb fields around Lisse and points north. We will spend one full day in Amsterdam. There will be optional visits to the Van Gogh Museum, the Anne Frank House and/or the Rijk’s Museum. Street photography and sightseeing will be other options. We will spend a half day at Kinderdijk where we will be photographing the windmills and doing some creative photography. We will spend an afternoon in the lovely Dutch town of Delft where we will do some street photography and shopping. There is an optional church tower tour/climb. We will also enjoy a superb fine dining experience in a traditional restaurant.
Other than the arrival date: April 9, Day 1, and the date of our last day of photography on April 16, Day 8, there is no set itinerary. We will check the weather and play everything by ear to maximize the photographic opportunities. We will try to do Amsterdam, Delft, and especially Kinderdijik, on cloudy days.
There are several huge pluses to this trip. First off, denise is an amazingly skilled and caring instructor. Both her creativity and her willingness to share and to help beginning and intermediate photographers are unmatched. And though artie has learned a ton about flower photography from denise, their styles and techniques do vary considerably. You will have a chance to be counseled by and to learn from both of them. While denise will hunt you down to help you, artie’s teaching style is more “the closer you stay to me, the more you will learn.” Both leaders consistently inspire the participants. And each other. The sky, of course, is the limit.
You will learn to create tight abstracts, how best to use depth-of-field (or the lack thereof) to improve your flower photography, how to get the right exposure and make sharp images every time, how to see the best shot, and how to choose the best perspective for a given situation. And you will of course learn to create a variety of pleasingly blurred flower images. If you bring a long lens, you will learn to use it effectively for flower photography. Denise’s two favorite flower lenses are the Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM lens and the Canon EF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM lens. Mine are the Canon 100mm f/2.8L IS macro , the Canon EF 180mm f/3.5L Macro USM lens ,and the Canon EF 300mm f/2.8L IS II USM lens, all almost always on a tripod. Often with extension tubes and/or either the 1.4X or the 2X (with the 300 II) teleconverters. Denise hand holds a great deal of the time. For flower field blurs denise uses the same lenses mentioned above along with her new 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II lens. Artie’s favorite is that same 70-200 often with a 1.4X TC but he uses both the new Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L II USM lens and the 300 II as well. Both of us use and love the Canon EOS 5D Mark IIIfor all of our flower photography. The in-camera HDR and Multiple Exposure features are a blast.
One of the great advantages of our trip is that we will be staying in a single, strategically located hotel that is quite excellent. Do note that all ground transfers to and from Schipol Airport will be via the free hotel shuttle bus.
What’s included: Eight hotel nights. All ground transportation except for airport transfers as noted above. In-the-field instruction and small group image review and Photoshop sessions. All meals from dinner on Day 1 through dinner on Day 8. There is good food at the hotel and we will be dining there on occasion; whenever you order off the menu be it at the hotel or at another restaurant only the cost of your main course is included. On these occasions the cost of soups, appetizers, salads, sodas and other beverages, alcoholic drinks and wine, bottled water, and desserts are not included. Snacks, personal items, phone calls, etc. are also not included. The cost of bus or train transportation to and from Amsterdam (about $20 US), museum entry, and tower and church entry fees (optional) are likewise not included.
Beware of seemingly longer, slightly less expensive tours that include travel days and days sitting in the hotel doing nothing as part of the tour. In addition, other similar trips have you changing hotels often and needlessly. One final note on other similar trips: the instructors on this trip actually instruct. On other similar trips the instructors, though usually imminently qualified, serve for the most part as van drivers and van door openers.
A non-refundable deposit of $1,000 per person is required to hold your spot. The second payment of $2,000 due by October 30, 2014. The balance is due on January 15, 2015. Payments in full are of course welcome at any time. All payments including the deposit must be by check made out to “Arthur Morris.” As life has a way of throwing an occasional curve ball our way, you are urged to purchase travel insurance within 15 days of our cashing your check. Artie uses and recommends Travel Insurance Services. All payments are non-refundable unless the trip fills to capacity. In that case, all payments but your deposit will be refunded. If the trip does not run every penny will of course be refunded. Again, please do not purchase your air tickets until you hear from us that the trip is a go. We are very confident that it will.
All checks should be made out to “Arthur Morris” and sent to: Arthur Morris, PO Box 7245, Indian Lake Estates, FL 33855. Call Jim or Jen in the BAA office with any additional registration questions: 863-692-0906.
For couples or friends signing up at the same time for the tulip trip, a $200/duo discount will be applied to the final payment.
When you send your deposit check, please print, sign, and include the paperwork here.
If you have any questions on the trip please contact artie by e-mail or denise by e-mail.
Selling Your Used Photo Gear Through BIRDS AS ART
Selling your used (or like-new) photo gear through the BAA Blog or via a BAA Online Bulletin is a great idea. We charge only a 5% commission. One of the more popular used gear for sale sites charges a minimum of 20% plus assorted fees! Yikes. The minimum item price here is $500 (or less for a $25 fee). If you are interested please e-mail with the words Items for Sale Info Request cut and pasted into the Subject line :). Stuff that is priced fairly–I offer free pricing advise, usually sells in no time flat as did Dennis Cassidy’s 500 II recently on the blog. Larry Master’s 400 DO and his 800 f/5.6 sold within a week. From Larry via e-mail: Thanks for helping me sell the lenses so quickly!
A Creative Adventure/BIRDS AS ART friend Kitto Kono sold her Nikon 500 to a Blog subscriber in less than a week. Janet Horton’s 7D sold this week after a $100 price reduction. Denise Ippolito’s 100-400 and her 100 macro sold in one day. Peter Kes sold his 70-200 f/2.8L IS II and his 400 DO through BAA in ten days. In the past two months we have sold a Canon 800, a Canon 500 II, 3 400 DO lenses, a Nikon 500mm, and lots more. If you are interested in using our services, please e-mail.
Used Photography Gear Page
Eagle-eyed readers may have noticed that there is a link to the Used Photography Gear page on the yellow tool bar at the top of each blog page. Folks looking to buy (or to sell) can click on that tab or here. I will on occasion continue to list new gear and great buys in blog posts and in Bulletins and may on rare occasion share all the listings with you on the blog. I will strive to keep the listings current. Great news for Kitty Kono and her Nikon 400mm f/2.8: it sold recently! That made her 2 for 2 on selling her older Nikon super-telephotos with BAA.
Support the BAA Blog. Support the BAA Bulletins: Shop B&H here!
We want and need to keep providing you with the latest free information, photography and Photoshop lessons, and all manner of related information. Show your appreciation by making your purchases immediately after clicking on any of our B&H or Amazon Affiliate links in this blog post. Remember, B&H ain’t just photography!
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Typos
In all blog posts and Bulletins, feel free to e-mail or to leave a comment regarding any typos, wrong words, misspellings, omissions, or grammatical errors. Just be right. 🙂
May 30th, 2014 The Streak Continues: 181
This post marks 181 consecutive days with a new educational blog post. With so many folks getting in the habit of using our B&H links and our Amazon logo-links why quit now? To show your appreciation for my efforts here, I do ask that you use our the B&H and Amazon affiliate links on the right side of the blog for all of your purchases. Please check the availability of all photographic accessories in the BIRDS AS ART Online Store, especially Gitzo tripods, Wimberley tripod heads, and the like. We sell only what I have used and tested, and know that you can depend on. We will not sell you junk. We know the tools that you need to make creating great images easy and fun. And we are always glad to answer your gear questions via e-mail.
You can find the following items in the store: Gitzo tripods, Mongoose M3.6 and Wimberley heads, plates, low feet, and accessories, flash brackets, , Delkin e-film Pro Compact Flash Cards, LensCoat products, and our unique line-up of educational materials including ABP I & II, Digital Basics, Site and Set-up e-Guides, Canon and Nikon Camera Users and AF e-Guides, and MP-4 Photoshop video tutorials among others.
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 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 visiting the BAA Online store as well.
This post took 1 1/2 hours to prepare. Enjoy!
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Great Horned Owl Captive
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Great Horned Owl Captive
The BIRDS AS ART 2nd International Bird Photography Competition
The judging of the BIRDS AS ART 2nd International Bird Photography Competition has been complete for nearly a month now. Thanks a stack again to our skilled panel of judges: Sandesh Kadur, Scott Elowitz, Lou Coetzer, Mary Ann McDonald, Michael Frye, Peter Kes, Denise Ippolito, and yours truly. You can learn more about the guest judges here.
From 5 to 18 images in the 8 categories were selected to be sent to the judges’ panel. Each judge voted on each image on a 0-5 scale. The votes were tallied and the results are now final. This will make 7 categories down, 1 plus the Grand Prize winner to go.
Your Call
The 5 strong images that were presented to the panel of judges in the Hand of Man & Captive category are presented to you today here. Please do understand that other strong images were eliminated in the early rounds of judging because of poor image processing, technical issues including over- or under-exposure, over-Saturation, image sharpness, and the failure of folks to take advantage of our lenient digital guidelines that allow for the removal of distracting elements from an image.
After clicking on each image to view the larger size, we ask that vote them 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 with 5 being the strongest, 4 being your second favorite, and so on down to 1. Additional comments are welcome <em>as long as they appear below your selections. The whole thing should look something like this:
American Bittern Hand of Man: 5
Peacock Captive Albino : 4
Short-eared Owl Hand of Man: 3
Great Horned Owl Captive: 2
Eurasian Tree Sparrow Hand of Man: 1
I love image design in the bittern image along with the great detail.
The selections above are of course arbitrary and should not at all influence your votes. Please read the directions carefully as comments that do not follow the format above exactly will be deleted without notice. The three winning images in this category along with the 4 runner up images and the names of the photographers will be announced here soon along with a tally of the public vote.
The Grand Prize winning image, the image that secured the highest total of judge’s votes, will be revealed when the results of the final category are announced.
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Short-eared Owl Hand of Man
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Short-eared Owl Hand of Man
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American Bittern Hand of Man
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American Bittern Hand of Man
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Eurasian Tree Sparrow Hand of Man
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Eurasian Tree Sparrow Hand of Man
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Peacock Captive Albino
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Peacock Captive Albino
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I created all of the images in this composite on last year’s July Nickerson Beach IPT.
All copyright 2013: Arthur Morris/BIRDS AS ART
Click on the composite to enjoy a larger version
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Nickerson Baby Beach-nesting Birds IPT: 3-Full Days/July 15-17, 2014: $1199. Introductory meet and greet: 8pm, Monday, July 14, 2014. Co-leaders Arthur Morris and Denise Ippolito
Greg Gulbransen is very much looking forward to this IPT. Join us on Long Island, NY this summer to photograph Black Skimmers, Common Terns with chicks, American Oystercatcher families, and possibly some just-hatched Black Skimmer chicks. Things are looking great. The opportunities will include chances to photograph a variety of breeding behaviors including courtship feeding, display flight and combat, and copulations. Car-pooling is recommended; if we opt to return to the beach before 5pm there is a $30/vehicle parking fee that is not included so it is best to share that expense. Parking in the morning is free.
A $499 non-refundable deposit is required to hold your slot for this IPT. Your balance is due 4 months before the date of the IPT and is also non-refundable. If the trip fills, we will be glad to apply a credit applicable to a future IPT for the full amount less a $100 processing fee. 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. If your spot is filled, you will lose your deposit. If not, you can secure your spot by paying your balance.
Please print, complete, and sign the form that is linked to here and shoot it to us along with your deposit check (made out to “Arthur Morris.”) Though we prefer a check, you can also leave your deposit with a credit card by calling the office at 863-692-0906. 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
Selling Your Used Photo Gear Through BIRDS AS ART
Selling your used (or like-new) photo gear through the BAA Blog or via a BAA Online Bulletin is a great idea. We charge only a 5% commission. One of the more popular used gear for sale sites charges a minimum of 20% plus assorted fees! Yikes. The minimum item price here is $500 (or less for a $25 fee). If you are interested please e-mail with the words Items for Sale Info Request cut and pasted into the Subject line :). Stuff that is priced fairly–I offer free pricing advise, usually sells in no time flat as did Dennis Cassidy’s 500 II recently on the blog. Larry Master’s 400 DO and his 800 f/5.6 sold within a week. From Larry via e-mail: Thanks for helping me sell the lenses so quickly!
A Creative Adventure/BIRDS AS ART friend Kitto Kono sold her Nikon 500 to a Blog subscriber in less than a week. Janet Horton’s 7D sold this week after a $100 price reduction. Denise Ippolito’s 100-400 and her 100 macro sold in one day. Peter Kes sold his 70-200 f/2.8L IS II and his 400 DO through BAA in ten days. In the past two months we have sold a Canon 800, a Canon 500 II, 3 400 DO lenses, a Nikon 500mm, and lots more. If you are interested in using our services, please e-mail.
Used Photography Gear Page
Eagle-eyed readers may have noticed that there is a link to the Used Photography Gear page on the yellow tool bar at the top of each blog page. Folks looking to buy (or to sell) can click on that tab or here. I will on occasion continue to list new gear and great buys in blog posts and in Bulletins and may on rare occasion share all the listings with you on the blog. I will strive to keep the listings current. Great news for Kitty Kono and her Nikon 400mm f/2.8: it sold recently! That made her 2 for 2 on selling her older Nikon super-telephotos with BAA.
Brand New Listing (5/28/14): Canon 400 DO IS USM Lens
Bill Fraser is offering a used Canon 400 DO IS USM lens in very good + condition with a few expected small scratches on the lens body and hood for $4199. The sale includes the lens trunk and the leather lens hood, a LensCoat, a CP-42 4th Generation Design Lens Plate with the accompanying Allen wrench, and insured domestic UPS ground shipping. The item will be will be shipped only after the check clears.
Please contact Bill via e-mail or by phone at 336-288-9025.
If you are looking for a fast, lightweight, hand holdable telephoto lens, this is the lens for you. Learn a ton more about the 400 DO here and see lots of 400 DO images by visiting the “The Canon 400mm f/4 IS DO Lens: Fourteen Images that Prove that the Internet Experts are (As Usual) Idiots” blog post here.
Support the BAA Blog. Support the BAA Bulletins: Shop B&H here!
We want and need to keep providing you with the latest free information, photography and Photoshop lessons, and all manner of related information. Show your appreciation by making your purchases immediately after clicking on any of our B&H or Amazon Affiliate links in this blog post. Remember, B&H ain’t just photography!
….. …..
Typos
In all blog posts and Bulletins, feel free to e-mail or to leave a comment regarding any typos, wrong words, misspellings, omissions, or grammatical errors. Just be right. 🙂
May 29th, 2014 The Streak Continues: 180
After a great ART (Active Release Technique) session yesterday at True Sports Care, Nesconset, Long Island, NY with Dr. Daniel Holland the right shoulder is feeling much better. And even the knee is feeling better. I flew home from Islip early this morning and enjoyed a nice swim before lunch.
We are glad to report that the BAA On-line Store has been back online since Tuesday/ Thanks a stack to all who phoned in their orders. We apologize again for any inconvenience.
This post marks 180 consecutive days with a new educational blog post. With so many folks getting in the habit of using our B&H links and our Amazon logo-links why quit now? To show your appreciation for my efforts here, I do ask that you use our the B&H and Amazon affiliate links on the right side of the blog for all of your purchases. Please check the availability of all photographic accessories in the BIRDS AS ART Online Store, especially Gitzo tripods, Wimberley tripod heads, and the like. We sell only what I used, tested, and can depend on. We will not sell you junk. We know the tools that you need to make creating great images easy and fun. And we are always glad to answer your gear questions via e-mail.
You can find the following items in the store: Gitzo tripods, Mongoose M3.6 and Wimberley heads, plates, low feet, and accessories, flash brackets, , Delkin e-film Pro Compact Flash Cards, LensCoat products, and our unique line-up of educational materials including ABP I & II, Digital Basics, Site and Set-up e-Guides, Canon and Nikon Camera Users and AF e-Guides, and MP-4 Photoshop video tutorials among others.
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 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 visiting the BAA Online store as well.
This post took 1 1/2 hours to prepare. Enjoy!
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Lens Clens
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Lens Clens Testimonial
I have been using Lens Clens to clean my gear for about 15 years. Their #1 version is designed for coated optics. That is all that I use and is the only Lens Clens product that we carry. I keep a bottle on my desk to clean my laptop screen, a bottle in my X-tra Hand vest for use in the field, a bottle in the Think Tank Rolling Bag that holds an amazing amount of my gear most of the time (including the time that I spend on planes), and,when I am not flying, a bottle in my laptop bag and my luggage for emergency use, i.e., when I can’t find one of the other bottles (which is often).
In the field I put a few drops of Lens Clens on the absorbent cotton that I keep in my vest or on an old, clean, t-shirt, clean the front element of the lens that needs cleaning, and then use a second dry piece of cotton or a dry section of the t-shirt to polish the surface. If I am cleaning the lenses inside at home, I always use an old cotton undershirt. If I am in a motel I use a dirty cotton undershirt. I moisten one part of the shirt, clean the front element, and then use a dry portion of the shirt to polish it.
Now here’s the best part: on rare occasion, I actually do clean the outer surfaces of my camera bodies and lenses, especially if I have abused them with dirt or mud (as I do often…) Same deal except that I put more of the Lens Clens fluid on the the undershirt than I do when cleaning the front elements of the lenses. I also keep a few Q-tips in my vest. I moisten one end of a Q-tip to clean the viewfinder. Then I polish it with the dry end. Lastly I break the cotton off one end, wrap some cotton or a corner of the undershirt around the shaft, and finish polishing the viewfinder at the same time as I get into the corners. For the laptop screen it’s moisten-the-t-shirt time again.
Not only is the stuff designed to be 100% safe with all the glass and all the surfaces of your gear, it will get your stuff cleaner than you have ever seen it since it came out of the box. And it dries in seconds. (Do not of course be tempted to use it on the sensor of your camera; that’s what Lens Pens and Sensor Scopes are for.)
I began to investigate the possibility of adding Lens Clens to our mail order line-up as it met the two major criteria: I use it all the time and it works. The final straw was a comment by IPT veteran Myer Bornstein at Nickerson Beach after I loaned him a few drops (generous fellow that I am ; actually, a few drops is all it takes). He said something to the effect that the Lens Clens worked about a hundred times better than the stuff he had been using.
You can get your own small bottle of Lens Clens by clicking here
By e-mail this morning from Chris Houston:
Artie, I just wanted to send a quick email thanking you for highlighting Lens Clens in a recent blog post. After seeing your enthusiastic recommendation I went ahead and ordered a bottle from the BIRDSS AS ART Online Store and found it every bit as great as you said it is. For the last couple of years I have had a small 1/4 inch scratch on the front of my lens. I figured I must inadvertently have run into a branch or something. None of my cloths, wipes or solutions worked so I assumed it was permanent, but the Lens Clens wiped my “scratch” right off! I don’t know what kind of magic juice they put in that bottle, but I’m now a customer for life, and I’m never going to use anything else to clean any of my lenses or filters. Thanks again, Chris
A Rare Over-the-Transom Image Sale
As noted here and elsewhere, image sales at BAA over the past decade have been down more than 90% by dollar value. It was nice recently to receive an e-mail from the folks at Rhino Entertainment Company recently expressing an interest in purchasing rights to use an artist’s rendering of the image above as a small part of the cover art for an upcoming Grateful Dead album. After a short negotiation a usage fee of $1,000 was agreed upon and a one-time use contract was signed by both parties. Such sales–where someone contacts you out of the blue–are rare but most welcome.
I will share the cover art with you once the album is released. I just did a search and judging by the style it looks as if the cover is by the same artist who created the cover painting below for this boxed set:
On (Not) Selling Images…
In the comment section of the “More Telephoto Flash Lessons” blog post of March 28, 2014 here, Richard Kolar wrote,
Hi Artie, In a recent blog post entitled “It’s a Strange, Strange Business Indeed” you stated “Today, it is difficult to sell an image.” I am very intrigued by this statement and I’m wondering what the basis for it is. To what do you attribute the decline in your ability to sell images? Regards, Richard
As few folks follow the comments after they visit the blog on a given day, I wanted to share the rest of what turned out to be a three-way conversation with you here.
Here is my response to Richard (adapted for re-publication):
Hi Richard, My abilities are fine :). It is the market that has changed. There are several reasons for that. Things started to go downhill for no apparent reason right after 9-11. The number of new book projects fell off to near zero, possibly due to more stuff being done online…. Big bird book projects often resulted in large sales; selling 50 to several hundred images even for a low price, $35 to $75, made for a substantial check. Things got worse with the economic downturn.
And then there was digital photography. Digital opened up bird and nature photography to the masses for a variety of reasons:
1-Entry-level camera bodies with 1.5 and 1.6 crop factors give folks with intermediate telephoto lenses a lot more focal length bang for their bucks.
2-The relatively low cost; for well less than $3,000 you can purchase a lightweight hand-holdable rig with an equivalent focal length of 640mm.
3-With digital the learning curve is greatly reduced. Before long pretty much anyone who was serious about improving was capable of creating high quality, sale-able images.
The big problem in part has been that there are many, many folks who simply want to see their images published above their credit line who willingly gave their quality images away either for nothing or for pennies.
Here is a perfect example. VIREO, Visual Resources for Ornithology at The Academy of Natural Sciences (Philadelphia), was creative as a repository for good and rare bird photographs. It quickly became a fairly good stock agency. In the latter half of the 1990s we would receive two checks a year from VIREO, often totaling $10-$15,000 annually. One of their big clients was Thayer Birding Software. They sold CDs with bird songs and photos. And they paid fairly for photo rights. And they paid fairly for reprint rights after a given press run sold out.
And then along came i-Bird. I got that first e-mail; I am paraphrasing here: Give us your best bird images for free. We will use them in our bird song apps and include a credit line. What’s in it for you? Buyers will see your photo and your credit line and flock to buy your images.” I saw through that in one second flat, but dozens if not hundreds of of photographers, most highly skilled, signed up. All gave away their images for not one cent. The ‘credit lines” were in a microscopic font. As far as I know not a single photographer has ever made a sale or even been contacted by a photo buyer as a result of their donations to iBird.
While this may be an over-estimate, iBird has exploded with sales at least in the many millions of dollars. Without having to pay for images, the original iBird APP was priced at $15. The expansion of iBird apps and other products has been huge. With iBird not having to pay photographers, the Thayer CDs cost roughly 5 times the price of the iBird stuff. As I understand it Thayer Birding Software is still in business, but I have not seen any payments from them in ages. In any case, this new scenario of talented folks giving their images away out of ignorance has pretty much killed one aspect of the market.
I will see if I can get Doug Wechsler, the director of VIREO, to chime in here as there may well be other factors involved.
I received this e-mail from Doug on May 19:
Artie, I think you covered the main points pretty well. Things got rocky right after 9-11. VIREO’s sales started to fluctuate. The rise of the huge digital agencies (Corbis, Getty, etc.) reduced our textbook sales with their bulk deals and one-stop shopping.
Then came royalty-free – agencies selling more or less all rights for a pittance. Many buyers lowered their standards and purchased these cheap images.
Digital photography made it much easier to get a publishable shot and to send out multiple copies of the same photo, so that your great images were not tied up. On top of that many photographers were willing to give their photographs away or sell them for a song.
Due to the increase ease of acquiring images, photo buyers are often paying less and demanding more rights than they were 20 years ago.
Thayer found another source of images, which is why you are not seeing those royalties.
You even deserve a little credit, Artie, though I have no problem with this. You have trained so many excellent photographers, also causing at least some increase in competition.
Doug Wechsler, Director VIREO (Visual Resources for Ornithology) The Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University
Questions Welcome
I’d be glad to answer any additional questions on the state of the nature photography business.
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Denise and artie hope that you can join us next spring in Holland and learn to improve both the technical and creative aspects of your flower (and street) photography.
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7 1/2-Day/8-Night: A Creative Adventure/BIRDS AS ART/Tulips & A Touch of Holland Instructional Photo-Tour (IPT)
Keukenhof—Delft—Amsterdam–Flower Fields—Kinderdijk
April 9 -April 16, 2015: $4995. Limit: 12 photographers
This trip needs 6 registrants to run so please do not purchase your plane tickets until you hear from us that the trip is a go.
Join Denise Ippolito, the author of “Bloomin’ Ideas,” and Arthur Morris, Canon Explorer of Light Emeritus, for a great trip to Holland in mid-April 2015. Day 1 of the IPT will be April 9, 2015. We will have a short afternoon get-together and then our first photographic session at the justly-famed Keukenhof. Our last day, Day 8, April 16 will be a full day of photography.
The primary subjects will be tulips and orchids at Keukenhof and the spectacularly amazing tulip, hyacinth, and daffodil bulb fields around Lisse and points north. We will spend one full day in Amsterdam. There will be optional visits to the Van Gogh Museum, the Anne Frank House and/or the Rijk’s Museum. Street photography and sightseeing will be other options. We will spend a half day at Kinderdijk where we will be photographing the windmills and doing some creative photography. We will spend an afternoon in the lovely Dutch town of Delft where we will do some street photography and shopping. There is an optional church tower tour/climb. We will also enjoy a superb fine dining experience in a traditional restaurant.
Other than the arrival date: April 9, Day 1, and the date of our last day of photography on April 16, Day 8, there is no set itinerary. We will check the weather and play everything by ear to maximize the photographic opportunities. We will try to do Amsterdam, Delft, and especially Kinderdijik, on cloudy days.
There are several huge pluses to this trip. First off, denise is an amazingly skilled and caring instructor. Both her creativity and her willingness to share and to help beginning and intermediate photographers are unmatched. And though artie has learned a ton about flower photography from denise, their styles and techniques do vary considerably. You will have a chance to be counseled by and to learn from both of them. While denise will hunt you down to help you, artie’s teaching style is more “the closer you stay to me, the more you will learn.” Both leaders consistently inspire the participants. And each other. The sky, of course, is the limit.
You will learn to create tight abstracts, how best to use depth-of-field (or the lack thereof) to improve your flower photography, how to get the right exposure and make sharp images every time, how to see the best shot, and how to choose the best perspective for a given situation. And you will of course learn to create a variety of pleasingly blurred flower images. If you bring a long lens, you will learn to use it effectively for flower photography. Denise’s two favorite flower lenses are the Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM lens and the Canon EF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM lens. Mine are the Canon 100mm f/2.8L IS macro , the Canon EF 180mm f/3.5L Macro USM lens ,and the Canon EF 300mm f/2.8L IS II USM lens, all almost always on a tripod. Often with extension tubes and/or either the 1.4X or the 2X (with the 300 II) teleconverters. Denise hand holds a great deal of the time. For flower field blurs denise uses the same lenses mentioned above along with her new 70-200mm f/2.8L IS III lens. Artie’s favorite is that same 70-200 often with a 1.4X TC but he uses both the new Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L II USM lens and the 300 II as well. Both of us use and love the Canon EOS 5D Mark IIIfor all of our flower photography. The in-camera HDR and Multiple Exposure features are a blast.
One of the great advantages of our trip is that we will be staying in a single, strategically located hotel that is quite excellent. Do note that all ground transfers to and from Schipol Airport will be via the free hotel shuttle bus.
What’s included: Eight hotel nights. All ground transportation except for airport transfers as noted above. In-the-field instruction and small group image review and Photoshop sessions. All meals from dinner on Day 1 through dinner on Day 8. There is good food at the hotel and we will be dining there on occasion; whenever you order off the menu be it at the hotel or at another restaurant only the cost of your main course is included. On these occasions the cost of soups, appetizers, salads, sodas and other beverages, alcoholic drinks and wine, bottled water, and desserts are not included. Snacks, personal items, phone calls, etc. are also not included. The cost of bus or train transportation to and from Amsterdam (about $20 US), museum entry, and tower and church entry fees (optional) are likewise not included.
Beware of seemingly longer, slightly less expensive tours that include travel days and days sitting in the hotel doing nothing as part of the tour. In addition, other similar trips have you changing hotels often and needlessly. One final note on other similar trips: the instructors on this trip actually instruct. On other similar trips the instructors, though usually imminently qualified, serve for the most part as van drivers and van door openers.
A non-refundable deposit of $1,000 per person is required to hold your spot. The second payment of $2,000 due by October 30, 2014. The balance is due on January 15, 2015. Payments in full are of course welcome at any time. All payments including the deposit must be by check made out to “Arthur Morris.” As life has a way of throwing an occasional curve ball our way, you are urged to purchase travel insurance within 15 days of our cashing your check. Artie uses and recommends Travel Insurance Services. All payments are non-refundable unless the trip fills to capacity. In that case, all payments but your deposit will be refunded. If the trip does not run every penny will of course be refunded. Again, please do not purchase your air tickets until you hear from us that the trip is a go. We are very confident that it will.
All checks should be made out to “Arthur Morris” and sent to: Arthur Morris, PO Box 7245, Indian Lake Estates, FL 33855. Call Jim or Jen in the BAA office with any additional registration questions: 863-692-0906.
For couples or friends signing up at the same time for the tulip trip, a $200/duo discount will be applied to the final payment.
When you send your deposit check, please print, sign, and include the paperwork here.
If you have any questions on the trip please contact artie by e-mail or denise by e-mail.
Selling Your Used Photo Gear Through BIRDS AS ART
Selling your used (or like-new) photo gear through the BAA Blog or via a BAA Online Bulletin is a great idea. We charge only a 5% commission. One of the more popular used gear for sale sites charges a minimum of 20% plus assorted fees! Yikes. The minimum item price here is $500 (or less for a $25 fee). If you are interested please e-mail with the words Items for Sale Info Request cut and pasted into the Subject line :). Stuff that is priced fairly–I offer free pricing advise, usually sells in no time flat as did Dennis Cassidy’s 500 II recently on the blog. Larry Master’s 400 DO and his 800 f/5.6 sold within a week. From Larry via e-mail: Thanks for helping me sell the lenses so quickly!
A Creative Adventure/BIRDS AS ART friend Kitto Kono sold her Nikon 500 to a Blog subscriber in less than a week. Janet Horton’s 7D sold this week after a $100 price reduction. Denise Ippolito’s 100-400 and her 100 macro sold in one day. Peter Kes sold his 70-200 f/2.8L IS II and his 400 DO through BAA in ten days. In the past two months we have sold a Canon 800, a Canon 500 II, 3 400 DO lenses, a Nikon 500mm, and lots more. If you are interested in using our services, please e-mail.
Used Photography Gear Page
Eagle-eyed readers may have noticed that there is a link to the Used Photography Gear page on the yellow tool bar at the top of each blog page. Folks looking to buy (or to sell) can click on that tab or here. I will on occasion continue to list new gear and great buys in blog posts and in Bulletins and may on rare occasion share all the listings with you on the blog. I will strive to keep the listings current. Great news for Kitty Kono and her Nikon 400mm f/2.8: it sold recently! That made her 2 for 2 on selling her older Nikon super-telephotos with BAA.
Support the BAA Blog. Support the BAA Bulletins: Shop B&H here!
We want and need to keep providing you with the latest free information, photography and Photoshop lessons, and all manner of related information. Show your appreciation by making your purchases immediately after clicking on any of our B&H or Amazon Affiliate links in this blog post. Remember, B&H ain’t just photography!
….. …..
Typos
In all blog posts and Bulletins, feel free to e-mail or to leave a comment regarding any typos, wrong words, misspellings, omissions, or grammatical errors. Just be right. 🙂
May 28th, 2014
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First Place: Great Grey Leaving Perch/34 points
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Great Grey Leaving Perch
Congratulations to Pierre Giard.
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Second Place: Snowy Owl on Snow/30 points
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Snowy Owl on Snow
Congratulations to Jory_Griesman.
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Third Place: Parakeet Flight/29 points
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Parakeet Flight
Congratulations to Vladimir Michael Kogan.
Flight Category Prizes
Thanks a stack to our great sponsors. Please note that prizes will not be sent until all of the category winners and the Grand Prize winner have been announced. That should be in less than 2 weeks.
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First Runner-up: Incoming Fish-laden Puffin/27 points
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Incoming Fish-laden Puffin
Congratulations to Andy Trowbridge.
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Second Runner-up: Starling Creature/26 points
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Starling Creature
Congratulations to Bill Coster.
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Third Runner-up (tie): Flat Flight Great Grey/24 points
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Flat Flight Great Grey
Congratulations to Steve Mattheis.
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Third Runner-up (tie): Mountain Ridge Eagle/24 points
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Mountain Ridge Eagle
Congratulations to Clemens Van der Werf.
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Fifth Runner-up (tie): Blue Sky Snowy Owl/23 points
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Blue Sky Snowy Owl
Congratulations to Gail Bisson.
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Fifth Runner-up (tie): Dunlin After Bath/23 points
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Dunlin After Bath
Congratulations to Mike Landwehr.
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10th place: Midair Dispute/22 points
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Midair Dispute
Congratulations to Bence Mate.
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11th place (tie): Wood Stork T-shot/20 points
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Wood Stork T-shot
Congratulations to Dave Klein.
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11th place (tie):White Sky Peregrine/20 points
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White Sky Peregrine
Congratulations to Karen Maloy.
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13th place: Flared Falcon/19 points
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Flared Falcon
Congratulations to Andy Trowbridge.
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Stuff
Getting even a single image to the final round of judging in any category is a huge accomplishment. All of the photographs in the Flight category finals were killer good. I’d be proud to have created each of them. Congrats again to all the winning and honored photographers. To the public voters: for what it’s worth: I loved the Razorbill creation 🙂
Thanks to all the readers who voted. And thanks again to our sponsors and to the panel of judges. Special thanks to Denise Ippolito and Peter Kes who helped me with the early rounds of judging. Please feel free to comment on the any of the images or to analyze and compare the judging; please remember that judging any contest or voting on the images is purely subjective.
The Public Vote
1-Parakeet Flight: 113 points.
2-Great Grey Leaving Perch: 90 points.
3-Incoming Fish-laden Puffin: 82 points.
4-Dunlin After Bath: 71 points.
5-Flared Falcon: 57 points.
6-Starling Creature: 45 points.
7-Snowy Owl on Snow: 27 points.
8-(tie)-Blue Sky Snowy Owl: 24 points.
9-tie)-Midair Dispute: 24 points.
10:Wood Stork T-shot: 18 points.
11-Mountain Ridge Eagle: 17 points.
12-Flat Flight Great Grey: 13
13-White Sky Peregrine: 4
Just for the record books, I love, love, love White Sky Peregrine….
Nickerson Baby Beach-nesting Birds IPT: 3-Full Days/July 15-17, 2014: $1199. Introductory meet and greet: 8pm, Monday, July 14, 2014. Co-leaders Arthur Morris and Denise Ippolito
Greg Gulbransen is very much looking to this IPT. Join us on Long Island, NY next summer to photograph Black Skimmers, Common Terns with chicks, American Oystercatcher families, and possibly some just-hatched Black Skimmer chicks. Things are looking great. The opportunities will include chances to photograph a variety of breeding behaviors including courtship feeding, display flight and combat, and copulations. Car-pooling is recommended; if we opt to return to the beach before 5pm there is a $30/vehicle parking fee that is not included so it is best to share that expense. Parking in the morning is free.
A $499 non-refundable deposit is required to hold your slot for this IPT. Your balance is due 4 months before the date of the IPT and is also non-refundable. If the trip fills, we will be glad to apply a credit applicable to a future IPT for the full amount less a $100 processing fee. 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. If your spot is filled, you will lose your deposit. If not, you can secure your spot by paying your balance.
Please print, complete, and sign the form that is linked to here and shoot it to us along with your deposit check (made out to “Arthur Morris.”) Though we prefer a check, you can also leave your deposit with a credit card by calling the office at 863-692-0906. 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
Selling Your Used Photo Gear Through BIRDS AS ART
Selling your used (or like-new) photo gear through the BAA Blog or via a BAA Online Bulletin is a great idea. We charge only a 5% commission. One of the more popular used gear for sale sites charges a minimum of 20% plus assorted fees! Yikes. The minimum item price here is $500 (or less for a $25 fee). If you are interested please e-mail with the words Items for Sale Info Request cut and pasted into the Subject line :). Stuff that is priced fairly–I offer free pricing advise, usually sells in no time flat as did Dennis Cassidy’s 500 II recently on the blog. Larry Master’s 400 DO and his 800 f/5.6 sold within a week. From Larry via e-mail: Thanks for helping me sell the lenses so quickly!
A Creative Adventure/BIRDS AS ART friend Kitto Kono sold her Nikon 500 to a Blog subscriber in less than a week. Janet Horton’s 7D sold this week after a $100 price reduction. Denise Ippolito’s 100-400 and her 100 macro sold in one day. Peter Kes sold his 70-200 f/2.8L IS II and his 400 DO through BAA in ten days. In the past two months we have sold a Canon 800, a Canon 500 II, 3 400 DO lenses, a Nikon 500mm, and lots more. If you are interested in using our services, please e-mail.
Used Photography Gear Page
Eagle-eyed readers may have noticed that there is a link to the Used Photography Gear page on the yellow tool bar at the top of each blog page. Folks looking to buy (or to sell) can click on that tab or here. I will on occasion continue to list new gear and great buys in blog posts and in Bulletins and may on rare occasion share all the listings with you on the blog. I will strive to keep the listings current. Great news for Kitty Kono and her Nikon 400mm f/2.8: it sold recently! That made her 2 for 2 on selling her older Nikon super-telephotos with BAA.
Brand New Listing (5/28/14): Canon 400 DO IS USM Lens
Bill Fraser is offering a used Canon 400 DO IS USM lens in very good + condition with a few expected small scratches on the lens body and hood for $4199. The sale includes the lens trunk and the leather lens hood, a LensCoat, a CP-42 4th Generation Design Lens Plate with the accompanying Allen wrench, and insured domestic UPS ground shipping. The item will be will be shipped only after the check clears.
Please contact Bill via e-mail or by phone at 336-288-9025.
If you are looking for a fast, lightweight, hand holdable telephoto lens, this is the lens for you. Learn a ton more about the 400 DO here and see lots of 400 DO images by visiting the “The Canon 400mm f/4 IS DO Lens: Fourteen Images that Prove that the Internet Experts are (As Usual) Idiots” blog post here.
Support the BAA Blog. Support the BAA Bulletins: Shop B&H here!
We want and need to keep providing you with the latest free information, photography and Photoshop lessons, and all manner of related information. Show your appreciation by making your purchases immediately after clicking on any of our B&H or Amazon Affiliate links in this blog post. Remember, B&H ain’t just photography!
….. …..
Typos
In all blog posts and Bulletins, feel free to e-mail or to leave a comment regarding any typos, wrong words, misspellings, omissions, or grammatical errors. Just be right. 🙂
May 27th, 2014 Announcing the 2015 Tulips & A Touch of Holland Instructional Photo-Tour (IPT)
Please scroll down for details.
The Streak Continues: 178
After a day of pretty much complete rest–but for typing–my right shoulder was hurting pretty good on Monday evening. Go Heat! It feels a bit better this morning. Heat went! Voting on the amazing Flight Category images has been extended until Tuesday evening due to the holiday. Please click here to vote. The BAA On-line Store has been down for nearly two days due to circumstaances beyond our control. Jim should be in the office to take your orders no later than 8:30am on Tuesday. We are sorry for any inconvenience.
This post marks 178 consecutive days with a new educational blog post. With so many folks getting in the habit of using our B&H links and our Amazon logo-links why quit now? April was a record month but May has not been so good. So far…. To show your appreciation for my efforts here, I do ask that you use our the B&H and Amazon affiliate links on the right side of the blog for all of your purchases. Please check the availability of all photographic accessories in the BIRDS AS ART Online Store, especially Gitzo tripods, Wimberley tripod heads, and the like. We sell only what I used, tested, and can depend on. We will not sell you junk. We know the tools that you need to make creating great images easy and fun. And we are always glad to answer your gear questions via e-mail.
You can find the following items in the store: Gitzo tripods, Mongoose M3.6 and Wimberley heads, plates, low feet, and accessories, flash brackets, , Delkin e-film Pro Compact Flash Cards, LensCoat products, and our unique line-up of educational materials including ABP I & II, Digital Basics, Site and Set-up e-Guides, Canon and Nikon Camera Users and AF e-Guides, and MP-4 Photoshop video tutorials among others.
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 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 visiting the BAA Online store as well.
This post took 2+ hours to prepare. Enjoy!
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This tulip center image was created at the Willem Alexander Pavilion at Keukenhof Gardens on last April’s Holland Tulip IPT with the hand held Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L IS macro lens and the Canon EOS 5D Mark III Digital camera body. ISO 800. Evaluative metering +2/3 stop: 1/200 sec. at f/2.8 in Av mode.
Two sensors down from the Central Sensor/AI Servo-Surround/Rear Focus AF just caught the lower part of the stigma as originally framed–this is a very small crop from our left and from below–and was active at the moment of exposure. Click here to see the latest version of the Rear Focus Tutorial. Click on the image to see a larger version.
Image #1: Red-orange Tulip Center
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Hand Holding the 100 Macro: Two Ways to Go
In the “Hand Holding the 100 Macro: Two Ways to Go” blog post of May 17 here, we took a look at using active AF vs effectively using manual focus while hand holding the 100 macro. In Holland this year I pretty much went with active AF 100% of the time. On the other hand, Denise Ippolito uses manual focus nearly 100% of the time when hand holding her favorite flower lens, the Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM lens. Which is the best technique? Whichever one works best for you.
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This tulip center image was also created at the Willem Alexander Pavilion at Keukenhof Gardens on last April’s Holland Tulip IPT with the hand held Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L IS macro lens and the Canon EOS 5D Mark III Digital camera body. ISO 400. Evaluative metering +1 2/3 stops: 1/400 sec. at f/2.8 in Av mode.
Two sensors to the right of the Central Sensor/AI Servo-Surround/Rear Focus AF on the center of the stigma as framed was active at the moment of exposure. Click here to see the latest version of the Rear Focus Tutorial. Click on the image to see a larger version.
Image #2: Purple and White Tulip Center
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Image Design Questions
Which image design do you like best? Why?
Which image design or designs do you think is/are the most traditional?
Which image design is the most interesting?
Feel free to answer in whole or in part.
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And as you might have guessed, this tulip center image too was created at the Willem Alexander Pavilion at Keukenhof Gardens on last April’s Holland Tulip IPT with the hand held Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L IS macro lens and the Canon EOS 5D Mark III Digital camera body. ISO 800. Evaluative metering +1/3 stop: 1/400 sec. at f/2.8 in Av mode.
Two sensors up from the Central Sensor/AI Servo-Surround/Rear Focus AF just caught the lower part of the stigma as originally framed and was active at the moment of exposure. Click here to see the latest version of the Rear Focus Tutorial. Click on the image to see a larger version.
Image #3: Red/Rainbow Tulip Center
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Color Combination Questions
Which image has a combination of colors that you find most pleasing, soothing, and relaxing?
Which image has a combination of colors that you find most exciting?
In which image do you feel that the colors work best together, that is, most harmoniously?
Feel free to answer in whole or in part.
Your Favorite
After considering the questions above, please leave a comment and let us know Which of the three images here is your favorite. And please let us know why you made your choice.
My Call
I feel that one of the three images here is superior to the other two, nice as they all are. I will share my favorite and my reasons with you here in a few days at most.
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Denise and artie hope that you can join us next spring in Holland and learn to improve both the technical and creative aspects of your flower (and street) photography.
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7 1/2-Day/8-Night: A Creative Adventure/BIRDS AS ART/Tulips & A Touch of Holland Instructional Photo-Tour (IPT)
Keukenhof—Delft—Amsterdam–Flower Fields—Kinderdijk
April 9 -April 16, 2015: $4995. Limit: 12 photographers
This trip needs 6 registrants to run so please do not purchase your plane tickets until you hear from us that the trip is a go.
Join Denise Ippolito, the author of “Bloomin’ Ideas,” and Arthur Morris, Canon Explorer of Light Emeritus, for a great trip to Holland in mid-April 2015. Day 1 of the IPT will be April 9, 2015. We will have a short afternoon get-together and then our first photographic session at the justly-famed Keukenhof. Our last day, Day 8, April 16 will be a full day of photography.
The primary subjects will be tulips and orchids at Keukenhof and the spectacularly amazing tulip, hyacinth, and daffodil bulb fields around Lisse and points north. We will spend one full day in Amsterdam. There will be optional visits to the Van Gogh Museum, the Anne Frank House and/or the Rijk’s Museum. Street photography and sightseeing will be other options. We will spend a half day at Kinderdijk where we will be photographing the windmills and doing some creative photography. We will spend an afternoon in the lovely Dutch town of Delft where we will do some street photography and shopping. There is an optional church tower tour/climb. We will also enjoy a superb fine dining experience in a traditional restaurant.
Other than the arrival date: April 9, Day 1, and the date of our last day of photography on April 16, Day 8, there is no set itinerary. We will check the weather and play everything by ear to maximize the photographic opportunities. We will try to do Amsterdam, Delft, and especially Kinderdijik, on cloudy days.
There are several huge pluses to this trip. First off, denise is an amazingly skilled and caring instructor. Both her creativity and her willingness to share and to help beginning and intermediate photographers are unmatched. And though artie has learned a ton about flower photography from denise, their styles and techniques do vary considerably. You will have a chance to be counseled by and to learn from both of them. While denise will hunt you down to help you, artie’s teaching style is more “the closer you stay to me, the more you will learn.” Both leaders consistently inspire the participants. And each other. The sky, of course, is the limit.
You will learn to create tight abstracts, how best to use depth-of-field (or the lack thereof) to improve your flower photography, how to get the right exposure and make sharp images every time, how to see the best shot, and how to choose the best perspective for a given situation. And you will of course learn to create a variety of pleasingly blurred flower images. If you bring a long lens, you will learn to use it effectively for flower photography. Denise’s two favorite flower lenses are the Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM lens and the Canon EF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM lens. Mine are the Canon 100mm f/2.8L IS macro , the Canon EF 180mm f/3.5L Macro USM lens ,and the Canon EF 300mm f/2.8L IS II USM lens, all almost always on a tripod. Often with extension tubes and/or either the 1.4X or the 2X (with the 300 II) teleconverters. Denise hand holds a great deal of the time. For flower field blurs denise uses the same lenses mentioned above along with her new 70-200mm f/2.8L IS III lens. Artie’s favorite is that same 70-200 often with a 1.4X TC but he uses both the new Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L II USM lens and the 300 II as well. Both of us use and love the Canon EOS 5D Mark IIIfor all of our flower photography. The in-camera HDR and Multiple Exposure features are a blast.
One of the great advantages of our trip is that we will be staying in a single, strategically located hotel that is quite excellent. Do note that all ground transfers to and from Schipol Airport will be via the free hotel shuttle bus.
What’s included: Eight hotel nights. All ground transportation except for airport transfers as noted above. In-the-field instruction and small group image review and Photoshop sessions. All meals from dinner on Day 1 through dinner on Day 8. There is good food at the hotel and we will be dining there on occasion; whenever you order off the menu be it at the hotel or at another restaurant only the cost of your main course is included. On these occasions the cost of soups, appetizers, salads, sodas and other beverages, alcoholic drinks and wine, bottled water, and desserts are not included. Snacks, personal items, phone calls, etc. are also not included. The cost of bus or train transportation to and from Amsterdam (about $20 US), museum entry, and tower and church entry fees (optional) are likewise not included.
Beware of seemingly longer, slightly less expensive tours that include travel days and days sitting in the hotel doing nothing as part of the tour. In addition, other similar trips have you changing hotels often and needlessly. One final note on other similar trips: the instructors on this trip actually instruct. On other similar trips the instructors, though usually imminently qualified, serve for the most part as van drivers and van door openers.
A non-refundable deposit of $1,000 per person is required to hold your spot. The second payment of $2,000 due by October 30, 2014. The balance is due on January 15, 2015. Payments in full are of course welcome at any time. All payments including the deposit must be by check made out to “Arthur Morris.” As life has a way of throwing an occasional curve ball our way, you are urged to purchase travel insurance within 15 days of our cashing your check. Artie uses and recommends Travel Insurance Services. All payments are non-refundable unless the trip fills to capacity. In that case, all payments but your deposit will be refunded. If the trip does not run every penny will of course be refunded. Again, please do not purchase your air tickets until you hear from us that the trip is a go. We are very confident that it will.
All checks should be made out to “Arthur Morris” and sent to: Arthur Morris, PO Box 7245, Indian Lake Estates, FL 33855. Call Jim or Jen in the BAA office with any additional registration questions: 863-692-0906.
For couples or friends signing up at the same time for the tulip trip, a $200/duo discount will be applied to the final payment.
When you send your deposit check, please print, sign, and include the paperwork here.
If you have any questions on the trip please contact artie by e-mail or denise by e-mail.
Selling Your Used Photo Gear Through BIRDS AS ART
Selling your used (or like-new) photo gear through the BAA Blog or via a BAA Online Bulletin is a great idea. We charge only a 5% commission. One of the more popular used gear for sale sites charges a minimum of 20% plus assorted fees! Yikes. The minimum item price here is $500 (or less for a $25 fee). If you are interested please e-mail with the words Items for Sale Info Request cut and pasted into the Subject line :). Stuff that is priced fairly–I offer free pricing advise, usually sells in no time flat as did Dennis Cassidy’s 500 II recently on the blog. Larry Master’s 400 DO and his 800 f/5.6 sold within a week. From Larry via e-mail: Thanks for helping me sell the lenses so quickly!
A Creative Adventure/BIRDS AS ART friend Kitto Kono sold her Nikon 500 to a Blog subscriber in less than a week. Janet Horton’s 7D sold this week after a $100 price reduction. Denise Ippolito’s 100-400 and her 100 macro sold in one day. Peter Kes sold his 70-200 f/2.8L IS II and his 400 DO through BAA in ten days. In the past two months we have sold a Canon 800, a Canon 500 II, 3 400 DO lenses, a Nikon 500mm, and lots more. If you are interested in using our services, please e-mail.
Used Photography Gear Page
Eagle-eyed readers may have noticed that there is a link to the Used Photography Gear page on the yellow tool bar at the top of each blog page. Folks looking to buy (or to sell) can click on that tab or here. I will on occasion continue to list new gear and great buys in blog posts and in Bulletins and may on rare occasion share all the listings with you on the blog. I will strive to keep the listings current. Great news for Kitty Kono and her Nikon 400mm f/2.8: it sold recently! That made her 2 for 2 on selling her older Nikon super-telephotos with BAA.
Used Mongoose Package for Sale
Upgraded Mongoose M3.5 Package: $630
John Stuhlmuller is offering a used Mongoose M3.5 tripod head that has been upgraded to an M3.6 (approximate value $550). The only differences between a refurbished M3.5 and a new M3.6 is the internal finish of several parts. Otherwise, it functions as an M3.6, the head I have used and depended on for nearly a decade. The sale includes an installed Horizontal) Low Mount Arm (sells new for $90), the Integrated Flash Arm (sells new for $110), a CR-X5 plate, the low foot for the four Series II Canon Super-Telephoto lenses and teh 200-400 (sells for $122 new), a CP16 lens plate for B-tripod ring lenses like the Canon 70-200mm f/2.8L IS (sells for $75 new).
There are some minor scratches on the top of the mounting clamp. Otherwise, there are no other signs of wear and the head works perfectly. John prefers his Wimberley V2 head.
The package is valued at approximately $947. The cost of insured ground shipping to US addresses is included. Sale price: $630. Save $300+.
Contact John via e-mail. Photos available upon request.
Used Canon Gear for Sale
Used Canon 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS USM Lens for Sale/Price Reduced $300!
Multiple IPT veteran Bill Wingfield is offering a Canon 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS USM lens in excellent condition for $1125! The glass is clean and the lens is in perfect working condition. The sale includes the lens hood, the fabric case, and insured shipping by UPS Ground to US addresses only. Personal checks only; your new lens will be shipped after your check clears.
For more than a decade I used the 100-400 to create hundreds of sharp, sale-able image. It is a very versatile lens.
You can reach Bill via e-mail or by phone at 843-729-6670.
Used Canon 800mm f/5.6L IS Lens for Sale
Multiple IPT veteran, the too-kind Jim Bicket, is offering a Canon EF 800mm f/5.6L IS USM lens in excellent condition for $8750. The lens is like new except for some wear on the bottom of the lens hood near the forward edge when the hood is reversed. The sales includes the LensCoat that has protected the lens since day 1, the leather hood, the original hard case and key, and insured shipping via UPS Ground to US addresses only. Personal checks only; your new lens will be shipped only after your check clears.
This great lens, my favorite for 3 years, sells new at B&H for $13,999.00. A month ago B&H was offering one in mint condition for a ridiculous $10,249.90; it sold overnight. Go figure. Jim’s lens will save you a ton of dough and you will have a great lens with lots of reach.
Interested folks can contact Jim via e-mail or try him at 501-915-9336.
Used EOS-5D Mark II for Sale/Price Reduced $100!
Doug Bolt’s 400 DO sold early last week. Doug is offering a used EOS-5D Mark II in very good to excellent condition for $1099! There is a shallow scratch on the body and a faint smudge on the top LCD. The sale includes a RRS L-plate, an off-brand vertical grip, and the original box and all the stuff that came in it. The seller will pay shipping to US addresses only. This one is a great body for flowers and landscapes. Mine saved me on a Southern Oceans cruise when I trashed two EOS-1D Mark IV bodies in a rainstorm; it was a great back-up camera body. The item will ship only when the check clears.
Please contact Doug for a link to photos of the camera and for additional info via e-mail or try him by phone at home: at 301-937-3112 or on his cell at 301-537-8073.
EOS-1D Mark IV
BAA friend Nancy Bell is offering a used Canon EOS-1D Mark IV camera body for sale for $3200. The body is in excellent condition. It enjoyed annual routine cleaning and service at a Canon Factory Service Center; the last one was done on 5/30/13. The sale includes the original box, battery charger, 3 Canon batteries, the instruction manual, all connection cables, a Canon neck strap, and insured Fed-Ex Ground shipping to US addresses only.
Payment by personal or teller’s check; the item will ship item only after the check clears. Please contact Nancy via e-mail or by phone at 970-484-8791–Colorado, MDT.
Support the BAA Blog. Support the BAA Bulletins: Shop B&H here!
We want and need to keep providing you with the latest free information, photography and Photoshop lessons, and all manner of related information. Show your appreciation by making your purchases immediately after clicking on any of our B&H or Amazon Affiliate links in this blog post. Remember, B&H ain’t just photography!
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Typos
In all blog posts and Bulletins, feel free to e-mail or to leave a comment regarding any typos, wrong words, misspellings, omissions, or grammatical errors. Just be right. 🙂
May 26th, 2014 The Streak Continues: 176
This post marks 176 consecutive days with a new educational blog post. Voting on the amazing Flight Category images will be open until early Tuesday morning. Please click here to vote.
The left knee and the left shoulder are doing great. After a day of rest and a 40 minute kicking session in the very cold (68 degrees F) pool at my Mom’s development yesterday the right shoulder is still hurting plenty. Range-of-motion has increased a bit today (albeit somewhat painfully). My Mom is doing just fine as is younger sister Arna.
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This image was created at 6:05pm on Saturday afternoon past at Nickerson Beach with the hand held Canon EF 300mm f/2.8L IS II USM lens, the Canon Extender EF 2X III, and the Canon EOS-1D X. ISO 800. Evaluative metering +2 stops off a big grey cloud: 1/500 sec. at f/5.6 in Manual Av mode was still a bit under-exposed. AWB.
One row down and fours sensors to the right of the Central Sensor/AI Servo-Surround/Rear Focus AF as framed active at the moment of exposure. Click here to see the latest version of the Rear Focus Tutorial. Click on the image to see a larger version.
Greg Gulbransen relaxing at Nickerson Beach. Image copyright 2014: Arthur Morris/BIRDS AS ART
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How Can a Man Who Runs Over and Kills His 2-Year Old Son While Backing Up His Car Turn Tragedy Around and Become a Hero?
Ordinary People/Extraordinary Lives…
In 2008, Congress mandated that the Department of Transportation (DOT) and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHSTA) pass a federal standard that would help prevent drivers from running over small children and the elderly while backing up their vehicles. At the end March 2014, after 3 years of repeated delays and stalling, NHSTA announced that in May 2018, all new cars and light trucks must be equipped with rearview cameras.
The agency acted one day before a federal appeals court was to hear arguments concerning the delays from a consortium of safety groups and two individual plaintiffs. According to the DOT more than 200 people are killed and 17,000 injured every year in backover crashes, when drivers back up over unseen objects behind them. Children under the age of 5 account for 44% of the fatalities. In a high percentage of those cases, the motorist is a parent or family member.
For children of all ages, an average of two die every week and 48 are injured when someone accidentally backs over them, says Janette Fennell, president and founder of KidsAndCars.org, a nonprofit group that pushed the government to begin tracking such tragedies.
NHSTA, now playing the role of savior after years of needless delays, estimates that 58 to 69 lives will be saved each year once all vehicles on the road are equipped. What the hell were they waiting for?
One of the two individual plaintiffs was Dr. Greg Gulbransen. I had the pleasure of meeting Greg and photographing with him at Nickerson Beach yesterday afternoon. In 2002, thinking that his son Cameron was safely in the house with his wife Leslie, Greg backed over his son in the family’s driveway. Leslie, hearing impaired since childhood from meningitis, had not heard Cameron go outside. When Greg realized that something was amiss, he stopped, got out, and saw the horror.
There, in the dark, Cameron died in his Dad’s arms.
Cameron’s death and the family’s suffering will not go in vain. Though it took far too long, Greg’s involvement in getting the original law passed—Democratic Senator Hillary Clinton and local Republican Congressman Peter King–sponsored the original bill, and Greg’s dogged persistence were rewarded with the passage of the new regulation two months ago.
In addition to requiring the rear-view camera systems in new vehicles, the final rule establishes basic criteria for these systems. It is now mandated that the area behind a vehicle that must be visible to the driver when the vehicle is shifted into reverse be expanded from the current guidelines. That field of view will have to include a 10-foot by 20-foot zone directly behind the vehicle. And the system must meet other requirements as well, including the size of the image displayed for the driver. Greg testified at a Senate hearing and was instrumental in developing the language in the original bill.
Greg wrote in part in an e-mail last week:
I fought the fight and won the battle last month after 10 years of pushing, dealing with a president that disagreed with my mission, and an automobile industry lobbying hard against me tooth and nail. I was ridiculed on a national scale with my family watching the whole way….
Greg practices pediatrics in Oyster Bay, Long Island, New York. He lives happily in Syosset with wife Leslie, their 17 year NBA-fanatic son Scott, and their unexpected gift, 10-year old daughter Julia Grace. Greg very much wants to become a skilled nature photographer. I am betting on him.
Thanks!
Thanks a stack to Greg for sharing the image above, for his friendship, and for his help with the article above. And most importantly, for being so open about sharing the details of his personal tragedy to help make the world a better place.
If you missed the tale of our great Saturday at Nickerson, click here to read “A Beyond Memorable Afternoon: Was It Worth It?”
Support the BAA Blog. Support the BAA Bulletins: Shop B&H here!
We want and need to keep providing you with the latest free information, photography and Photoshop lessons, and all manner of related information. Show your appreciation by making your purchases immediately after clicking on any of our B&H or Amazon Affiliate links in this blog post. Remember, B&H ain’t just photography!
….. …..
Typos
In all blog posts and Bulletins, feel free to e-mail or to leave a comment regarding any typos, wrong words, misspellings, omissions, or grammatical errors. Just be right. 🙂
May 25th, 2014 The Streak Continues: 176
Not to worry. The streak is alive as of 11:02am eastern time. I got in late last night after the long photo session at Nickerson and did not begin working on this post until 5:15am this morning. It took nearly 6 hours to create. Please use our links when buying new photo gear.
Voting on the amazing Flight Category images will be open until early Tuesday morning. Please click here to vote.
This post marks 176 consecutive days with a new educational blog post. With so many folks getting in the habit of using our B&H links and our Amazon logo-links why quit now? April was a record month but May has not been so good. So far…. To show your appreciation for my efforts here, I do ask that you use our the B&H and Amazon affiliate links on the right side of the blog for all of your purchases. Please check the availability of all photographic accessories in the BIRDS AS ART Online Store, especially Gitzo tripods, Wimberley tripod heads, and the like. We sell only what I used, tested, and can depend on. We will not sell you junk. We know the tools that you need to make creating great images easy and fun. And we are always glad to answer your gear questions via e-mail.
You can find the following items in the store: Gitzo tripods, Mongoose M3.6 and Wimberley heads, plates, low feet, and accessories, flash brackets, , Delkin e-film Pro Compact Flash Cards, LensCoat products, and our unique line-up of educational materials including ABP I & II, Digital Basics, Site and Set-up e-Guides, Canon and Nikon Camera Users and AF e-Guides, and MP-4 Photoshop video tutorials among others.
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 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 visiting the BAA Online store as well.
Enjoy!
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This image was created yesterday afternoon at Nickerson Beach at 7:34:33pm with the hand held Canon EF 300mm f/2.8L IS II USM lens, the Canon Extender EF 2X III, and the Canon EOS-1D X. ISO 800. Evaluative metering +1 1/3 stops as framed: 1/640 sec. at f/5.6 in Manual Av mode. AWB.
One row down and fours sensors to the right of the Central Sensor/AI Servo-Surround/Rear Focus AF as framed active at the moment of exposure. Click here to see the latest version of the Rear Focus Tutorial. Click on the image to see a larger version.
On-camera fill flash with Better Beamer at -1 1/3 stops in ETTL. Canon Speedlite 600EX-RT with the Canon CP-E4 Compact Battery Pack for faster re-charging times.
Original Capture: Common Terns Copulating #1
Note in the optimized version of this image immediately below how the crop from the left and below tightened up the image composition so nicely.
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The Morning After
I awoke at 5:09am this morning from the pain in my right shoulder. The weather forecast for Lido Beach was perfect: clear skies with a gentle northeast wind. But after re-trashing my chronically problematic right shoulder yesterday afternoon, I did not even think about going back to Nickerson Beach this morning….
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The optimized image here was created from the original image that opened this blog post. There are 3 more before and after image pairs below.
Common Terns Copulating #1
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The Beyond Memorable Afternoon
Dr. Greg Galbransen had been wanting to do a private session with me at Nickerson Beach for quite some time. With the not-too-great weather forecast for yesterday afternoon and my shoulder already bothering me, I was this close to cancelling. But at lunchtime, sensing his eagerness to improve his photography, we arranged to meet in Point Lookout at 3:45pm and head out to the beach. Greg turned out to be a super-nice guy and I learned many of the details of his totally amazing life. My plan is to write that story today, check the details with Greg later today, and share it with you tomorrow. Trust me, this one will hit you hard and open your eyes. Have you heard the phrase “ordinary people, extraordinary lives”? Greg fits that billing perfectly. Dr. Greg Galbransen is an heroic figure.
Our friendship was pretty much cemented instantly. We started with some resting oystercatchers in full sun but in short order the clouds came and Greg learned the basics of exposure in short order: when the sun is out, the camera’s meter is pretty smart. When the sun is not out, the camera’s meter is pretty dumb. The lighter toned the overall scene the dumber the camera’s meter. From experience I knew that when I was adding 2/3 stop of light to the meter reading off the sand in full sun for the oystercatchers that Greg with his Nikon gear would likely need +1/3 stop. And for photographing the Common Terns in flight when I was reading +2 stops off a grey cloud I advised Greg to add 1 2/3 stops to his reading off that same cloud and set the values manually. Greg was amazed that when he followed my directions to the letter as he did on occasion, his exposures for the terns in flight and for those on the ground were perfect. And yes, he learned a lot about histograms and exposing to the right. At one point the clouds were so thick that I was at ISO 1600 and working at +3 stops off the sky.
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This image was created yesterday afternoon at Nickerson Beach at 7:34:52pm, 19 seconds after the image above, also with the hand held Canon EF 300mm f/2.8L IS II USM lens, the Canon Extender EF 2X III, and the Canon EOS-1D X. ISO 800. Evaluative metering +1 1/3 stops as framed: 1/640 sec. at f/5.6 in Manual Av mode. AWB.
One row down and two sensors to the left of the Central Sensor/AI Servo-Surround/Rear Focus AF as framed active at the moment of exposure. Click here to see the latest version of the Rear Focus Tutorial. Click on the image to see a larger version.
On-camera fill flash with Better Beamer at -1 1/3 stops in ETTL. Canon Speedlite 600EX-RT with the Canon CP-E4 Compact Battery Pack for faster re-charging times.
Original Capture: Common Terns Copulating #2
Note in the optimized version of this image immediately below how the crop and some clean-up work improved the image by eliminating the skimmer butt on the right side of the frame.
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The Cloudy Period
While the clouds were thick and the light low, we sat by the colony ropes–this year the ropes are quite far from sparse beach grasses where the tern nests begin. I had left my 600 and my tripod in the car opting to work with my 300 II, almost always with the 2X III TC. That in an effort to keep from damaging my long-injured shoulder. Well, that plan did not work well. I had gotten down flat for the oystercatchers. Getting down was bad. Getting up was worse and I felt the strain on my shoulder. On occasion Greg had to hold my rig so that I was able to get up. My good friend and health guru Dr. Cliff Oliver of San Diego asked me a few weeks ago how many body parts and joints touched the floor when I got up off the ground. I answered, “eight.” He said, “Let me check my chart on that.” A moment later he said jokingly, “Death is imminent.”
Anyhoo, the extended flight photography session also took its toll on my right shoulder. At times I needed to lay back and rest on the sand. I kept saying, We gotta go soon.”
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The optimized image here was created from the original image immediately above.
Common Terns Copulating #2
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But Then…
But then the sun came out. And the south wind had shifted to the west. Perfecto. I took a walk towards the ocean and sat down not-too–close to a flock of skimmers. When a beach vehicle ran by, the flock flushed, flew a short distance, and landed right in front of me in sweet light. With some difficulty, I got back down on the ground. In a few minutes Greg working with his Nikon 600 VR and the 1.4X TCE was right behind me.
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This image was created yesterday afternoon at Nickerson Beach at 7:34:54, 2 seconds after the image above, also with the hand held Canon EF 300mm f/2.8L IS II USM lens, the Canon Extender EF 2X III, and the Canon EOS-1D X. ISO 800. Evaluative metering +1 1/3 stops as framed: 1/640 sec. at f/5.6 in Manual Av mode. AWB.
One row down and fours sensors to the right of the Central Sensor/AI Servo-Surround/Rear Focus AF as framed active at the moment of exposure. Click here to see the latest version of the Rear Focus Tutorial. Click on the image to see a larger version.
Original Capture: Common Terns Copulating #3
Note in the optimized version of this image immediately below how I softened the look of the tern on the left frame-edge to make it less obtrusive.
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The Copulating Terns
I had already marine-crawled–oh, that was not fun–well to my left to get on sun angle for the terns that were landing just behind and to the left of the skimmer flock. The next thing that I knew, a pair began to copulate. In image 1 above, there was a skimmer in the left part of the frame but I made a few images before crawling back to my right. The sun was soft enough so that being well off light angle was not a problem at all. In a short time frame I created images 2 and 3, each with the butt-end of another skimmer included in the original capture.
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The optimized image here was created from the original image immediately above.
Common Terns Copulating #3
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The Image Optimizaations
After converting the four images in DPP they were brought into Photoshop to be optimized. I used Edit/Copy recipe to clipboard and then Edit/Paste recipe to conveniently speed up RAW conversion process.
Beach clean-up was done with the usual line-up of tools: the Clone Stamp Tool, the Spot Healing Brush, and my beloved Patch Tool. When a bird that I wanted to eliminate–like the forward-facing tern behind the skimmer’s bill in image #1–merged with another bird I used Denise Ippolito’s invaluable Protective Cloning on a Layer techniques to get the job done. I used many small and medium-sized Quick Masks to cover unwanted parts of birds and to move the o-o-f yellow lifeguard tower in image #2. The Quick Masks are of course fine-tuned with Layer Masks. There were a few too bright but not over-exposed WHITEs on the sides of the breasts of some of the terns so I applied a Linear Burn to the whole image (on a new layer via Control J), hid that with an Inverse (Hide-all or Black) Layer Mask, and painted in the effect with a swipe or two of a 10% Opacity Brush. I selected the dark caps of each bird using the Quick Selection Tool, sharpened that layer selectively by applying a Contrast Mask, and then lightened the selection with Curves on a Layer (Control M).
The DPP RAW Conversion Guide
To learn why I use Canon’s Digital Photo Professional (DPP) to convert every image that I work on, click here.
Digital Basics
Everything that I did to optimize today’s images are detailed in my Digital Basics File–written in my easy-to-follow, easy-to-understand style. Are you tired of making your images look worse in Photoshop? Digital Basics File is an instructional PDF that is sent via e-mail. It includes my complete digital workflow, dozens of great Photoshop tips, the use of Contrast Masks, several different ways of expanding and filling in canvas, all of my time-saving Keyboard Shortcuts, Quick Masking, Layer Masking, and NIK Color Efex Pro basics, my killer image clean-up techniques, Digital Eye Doctor, creating time-saving actions, and lots more.
APTATS I & II
Learn the details of advanced Quick Masking techniques in APTATS I. Learn Advanced Layer Masking Techniques in APTATS I. Mention this blog post and apply a $5 discount to either with phone orders only. Buy both APTATS I and APTATS II and we will be glad to apply at $15 discount with phone orders only. Please call Jim or Jennifer at 863-221-2372 on Tuesday to order.
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This image was created yesterday afternoon at Nickerson Beach at 7:35:08pm, 14 seconds after the image above, also with the hand held Canon EF 300mm f/2.8L IS II USM lens, the Canon Extender EF 2X III, and the Canon EOS-1D X. ISO 800. Evaluative metering +1 1/3 stops as framed: 1/640 sec. at f/5.6 in Manual Av mode. AWB.
One row down and one sensor to the left of the Central Sensor/AI Servo-Surround/Rear Focus AF as framed active at the moment of exposure. Click here to see the latest version of the Rear Focus Tutorial. Click on the image to see a larger version.
Original Capture: Common Terns Copulating #4
Note in the optimized version of this image immediately below that the crop from below and from the left tidied things up. I used the Clone Stamp Tool to get rid of the o-o-f tern in flight and the intruding tern on the right frame-edge.
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The Final Move
To create this image I moved painfully once again to my right to get the offending skimmer butt out of the frame. Moments after this image two skimmers landed right in front of the pair. Surprisingly, they kept on copulating for another minute or so. I thank them for their cooperation. With many species or individual pairs copulations may last only a few seconds or less.
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The optimized image here was created from the original image immediately above.
Common Terns Copulating #4
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Was It Worth It?
In a word, “Yes.” Not so much for the images but for the experience. Working with a bright student who is seriously interested in learning is always rewarding. Hearing Greg’s story in person–I had read a bit about it on line–was both wonderful and horrible. And I love when a not-so-great photo session turns spectacular at the very end of the day. Well, not actually the end of the day but that will be another blog post.
I created 775 images yesterday afternoon but have not yet finished editing them. Perhaps there will be a few that make an already memorable afternoon even more memorable. Or not.
As for the right shoulder. The pain is the pain. It is what it is. I love that it reminds me of how good I usually feel and about how lucky I have been to travel and photograph as much as I have for the past 3 decades. The shoulder is about as bad as it has been but I have always been able to re-hab it and am confident that it will be fine in a while. PMA = positive mental attitude. When I get back to Florida it is likely that I will undergo Prolozone therapy as soon as possible.
Your Favorite?
Please take a moment to select your favorite image here. And be sure to let us know why you made your choice.
Nickerson Baby Beach-nesting Birds IPT: 3-Full Days/July 15-17, 2014: $1199. Introductory meet and greet: 8pm, Monday, July 14, 2014. Co-leaders Arthur Morris and Denise Ippolito
Greg Gulbransen is very much looking to this IPT. Join us on Long Island, NY next summer to photograph Black Skimmers, Common Terns with chicks, American Oystercatcher families, and possibly some just-hatched Black Skimmer chicks. Things are looking great. The opportunities will include chances to photograph a variety of breeding behaviors including courtship feeding, display flight and combat, and copulations. Car-pooling is recommended; if we opt to return to the beach before 5pm there is a $30/vehicle parking fee that is not included so it is best to share that expense. Parking in the morning is free.
A $499 non-refundable deposit is required to hold your slot for this IPT. Your balance is due 4 months before the date of the IPT and is also non-refundable. If the trip fills, we will be glad to apply a credit applicable to a future IPT for the full amount less a $100 processing fee. 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. If your spot is filled, you will lose your deposit. If not, you can secure your spot by paying your balance.
Please print, complete, and sign the form that is linked to here and shoot it to us along with your deposit check (made out to “Arthur Morris.”) Though we prefer a check, you can also leave your deposit with a credit card by calling the office at 863-692-0906. 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
Selling Your Used Photo Gear Through BIRDS AS ART
Selling your used (or like-new) photo gear through the BAA Blog or via a BAA Online Bulletin is a great idea. We charge only a 5% commission. One of the more popular used gear for sale sites charges a minimum of 20% plus assorted fees! Yikes. The minimum item price here is $500 (or less for a $25 fee). If you are interested please e-mail with the words Items for Sale Info Request cut and pasted into the Subject line :). Stuff that is priced fairly–I offer free pricing advise, usually sells in no time flat as did Dennis Cassidy’s 500 II recently on the blog. Larry Master’s 400 DO and his 800 f/5.6 sold within a week. From Larry via e-mail: Thanks for helping me sell the lenses so quickly!
A Creative Adventure/BIRDS AS ART friend Kitto Kono sold her Nikon 500 to a Blog subscriber in less than a week. Janet Horton’s 7D sold this week after a $100 price reduction. Denise Ippolito’s 100-400 and her 100 macro sold in one day. Peter Kes sold his 70-200 f/2.8L IS II and his 400 DO through BAA in ten days. In the past two months we have sold a Canon 800, a Canon 500 II, 3 400 DO lenses, a Nikon 500mm, and lots more. If you are interested in using our services, please e-mail.
Used Photography Gear Page
Eagle-eyed readers may have noticed that there is a link to the Used Photography Gear page on the yellow tool bar at the top of each blog page. Folks looking to buy (or to sell) can click on that tab or here. I will on occasion continue to list new gear and great buys in blog posts and in Bulletins and may on rare occasion share all the listings with you on the blog. I will strive to keep the listings current. Great news for Kitty Kono and her Nikon 400mm f/2.8: it sold recently! That made her 2 for 2 on selling her older Nikon super-telephotos with BAA.
Support the BAA Blog. Support the BAA Bulletins: Shop B&H here!
We want and need to keep providing you with the latest free information, photography and Photoshop lessons, and all manner of related information. Show your appreciation by making your purchases immediately after clicking on any of our B&H or Amazon Affiliate links in this blog post. Remember, B&H ain’t just photography!
….. …..
Typos
In all blog posts and Bulletins, feel free to e-mail or to leave a comment regarding any typos, wrong words, misspellings, omissions, or grammatical errors. Just be right. 🙂
May 24th, 2014
The Streak Continues: 175
This post marks 175 consecutive days with a new educational blog post. With so many folks getting in the habit of using our B&H links and our Amazon logo-links why quit now? April was a record month but May has not been so good. So far…. To show your appreciation for my efforts here, I do ask that you use our the B&H and Amazon affiliate links on the right side of the blog for all of your purchases. Please check the availability of all photographic accessories in the BIRDS AS ART Online Store, especially Gitzo tripods, Wimberley tripod heads, and the like. We sell only what I used, tested, and can depend on. We will not sell you junk. We know the tools that you need to make creating great images easy and fun. And we are always glad to answer your gear questions via e-mail.
You can find the following items in the store: Gitzo tripods, Mongoose M3.6 and Wimberley heads, plates, low feet, and accessories, flash brackets, , Delkin e-film Pro Compact Flash Cards, LensCoat products, and our unique line-up of educational materials including ABP I & II, Digital Basics, Site and Set-up e-Guides, Canon and Nikon Camera Users and AF e-Guides, and MP-4 Photoshop video tutorials among others.
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 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 visiting the BAA Online store as well.
This post took more than 4 hours to assemble. Enjoy it! And be sure to vote!
Upgraded Used Mongoose M3.5 Package: $630
Scroll down for details; this great package represents a value of $947.
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White Sky Peregrine
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White Sky Peregrine
The BIRDS AS ART 2nd International Bird Photography Competition
The judging of the BIRDS AS ART 2nd International Bird Photography Competition has been complete for a bit more than three weeks. Thanks a stack again to our skilled panel of judges: Sandesh Kadur, Scott Elowitz, Lou Coetzer, Mary Ann McDonald, Michael Frye, Peter Kes, Denise Ippolito, and yours truly. You can learn more about the guest judges here.
From 5 to 18 images in the 8 categories were selected to be sent to the judges’ panel. Each judge voted on each image on a 0-5 scale. The votes were tallied and the results are now final. This will make 6 categories down, 2 to go.
Your Call
The 13 extremely strong images that were presented to the panel of judges in the Flight category are presented to you today here. Please do understand that many additional strong images were eliminated in the early rounds of judging because of poor image processing, technical issues including over- or under-exposure, over-Saturation, image sharpness, and the failure of folks to take advantage of our lenient digital guidelines that allow for the removal of distracting elements from an image.
After clicking on each image to view the larger size, we ask that each of you pick your five favorite images and vote them 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 with 5 being the strongest, 4 being your second favorite, and so on down to 1. Additional comments are welcome <em>as long as they appear below your selections. The whole thing should look something like this:
Parakeet Flight: 5
Midair Dispute: 4
Mountain Ridge Eagle: 3
Flared Falcon: 2
Dunlin After Bath: 1
I love the colors, sharpness, and peek-a-boo poseof Parakeet Flight.
The selections above are of course arbitrary and should not at all influence your votes. Please read the directions carefully as comments that do not follow the format above exactly will be deleted without notice. The three winning images in this category along with the 4 runner up images and the names of the photographers will be announced here soon along with a tally of the public vote.
The Grand Prize winning image, the image that secured the highest total of judge’s votes, will be revealed when the results of the final category are announced.
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Blue Sky Snowy Owl
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Blue Sky Snowy Owl
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Great Grey Leaving Perch
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Great Grey Leaving Perch
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Midair Dispute
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Midair Dispute
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Parakeet Flight
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Parakeet Flight
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Wood Stork T-shot
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Wood Stork T-shot
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Snowy Owl on Snow
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Snowy Owl on Snow
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Starling Creature
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Starling Creature
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Mountain Ridge Eagle
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Mountain Ridge Eagle
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Incoming Fish-laden Puffin
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Incoming Fish-laden Puffin
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Flared Falcon
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Flared Falcon
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Flat Flight Great Grey
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Flat Flight Great Grey
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Dunlin After Bath
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Dunlin After Bath
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Selling Your Used Photo Gear Through BIRDS AS ART
Selling your used (or like-new) photo gear through the BAA Blog or via a BAA Online Bulletin is a great idea. We charge only a 5% commission. One of the more popular used gear for sale sites charges a minimum of 20% plus assorted fees! Yikes. The minimum item price here is $500 (or less for a $25 fee). If you are interested please e-mail with the words “Items for Sale Info Request” cut and pasted into the Subject line :). Stuff that is priced fairly–I offer free pricing advise, usually sells in no time flat as did Dennis Cassidy’s 500 II recently on the blog. Larry Master’s 400 DO and his 800 f/5.6 sold within a week. From Larry via e-mail: Thanks for helping me sell the lenses so quickly!
A Creative Adventure/BIRDS AS ART friend Kitto Kono sold her Nikon 500 f/4 and her 400 f/2.8 VR lenses in less than 3 weeks. Janet Horton’s 7D sold this week after a $100 price reduction. Denise Ippolito’s 100-400 and her 100 macro sold in one day. Peter Kes sold his 70-200 f/2.8L IS II and his 400 DO through BAA in ten days. In the past two months we have sold a Canon 800, a Canon 500 II, and four 400 DO lenses and lots more. If you are interested in using our services, please e-mail.
Used Photography Gear Page
Eagle-eyed readers may have noticed that there is a link to the Used Photography Gear page on the yellow tool bar at the top of each blog page. Folks looking to buy (or to sell) can click on that tab or here. I will on occasion continue to list new gear and great buys in blog posts and in Bulletins and may on rare occasion share all the listings with you on the blog. I will strive to keep the listings current. Great news for Kitty Kono and her Nikon 400mm f/2.8; it sold yesterday! That made her 2 for 2 on selling her older Nikon super-telephotos with BAA.
Used Mongoose Package for Sale
Upgraded Mongoose M3.5 Package: $630
John Stuhlmuller is offering a used Mongoose M3.5 tripod head that has been upgraded to an M3.6 (approximate value $550). The only differences between a refurbished M3.5 and a new M3.6 is the internal finish of several parts. Otherwise, it functions as an M3.6, the head I have used and depended on for nearly a decade. The sale includes an installed Horizontal) Low Mount Arm (sells new for $90), the Integrated Flash Arm (sells new for $110), a CR-X5 plate, the low foot for the four Series II Canon Super-Telephoto lenses and teh 200-400 (sells for $122 new), a CP16 lens plate for B-tripod ring lenses like the Canon 70-200mm f/2.8L IS (sells for $75 new).
There are some minor scratches on the top of the mounting clamp. Otherwise, there are no other signs of wear and the head works perfectly. John prefers his Wimberley V2 head.
The package is valued at approximately $947. The cost of insured ground shipping to US addresses is included. Sale price: $630. Save $300+.
Contact John via e-mail. Photos available upon request.
Support the BAA Blog. Support the BAA Bulletins: Shop B&H here!
We want and need to keep providing you with the latest free information, photography and Photoshop lessons, and all manner of related information. Show your appreciation by making your purchases immediately after clicking on any of our B&H or Amazon Affiliate links in this blog post. Remember, B&H ain’t just photography!
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Typos
In all blog posts and Bulletins, feel free to e-mail or to leave a comment regarding any typos, wrong words, misspellings, omissions, or grammatical errors. Just be right. 🙂
May 23rd, 2014 The Streak Continues: 174
This post marks 174 consecutive days with a new educational blog post. With so many folks getting in the habit of using our B&H links and our Amazon logo-links why quit now? April was a record month but May has not been so good. So far…. To show your appreciation for my efforts here, I do ask that you use our the B&H and Amazon affiliate links on the right side of the blog for all of your purchases. Please check the availability of all photographic accessories in the BIRDS AS ART Online Store, especially Gitzo tripods, Wimberley tripod heads, and the like. We sell only what I used, tested, and can depend on. We will not sell you junk. We know the tools that you need to make creating great images easy and fun. And we are always glad to answer your gear questions via e-mail.
You can find the following items in the store: Gitzo tripods, Mongoose M3.6 and Wimberley heads, plates, low feet, and accessories, flash brackets, , Delkin e-film Pro Compact Flash Cards, LensCoat products, and our unique line-up of educational materials including ABP I & II, Digital Basics, Site and Set-up e-Guides, Canon and Nikon Camera Users and AF e-Guides, and MP-4 Photoshop video tutorials among others.
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 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 visiting the BAA Online store as well.
This post took more than five hours to assemble. Enjoy it!
Canon EF 400mm f/4 DO IS II USM Lens
The new and improved version of the original 400 DO lens, the Canon EF 400mm f/4 DO IS II USM lens has been “available” for some time but they are extremely hard to come by. Use my B&H affiliate link and I will do my very best to have your order expedited. It won’t cost you one extra penny and is a great way to thank us for the work that we do here on the blog and for the countless hours spent answering gear e-mails :). The new version is much sharper than the old one and features 4-stop IS (as opposed to 2-stop IS system on the original lens).
The Canon 400mm f/4 IS DO Lens: Fourteen Images that Prove that the Internet Experts are (As Usual) Idiots
We have sold several used 400mm DO lenses in recent weeks2 in the last 2 days. We have at least one more in the pipeline. Why are there so many 400 DO lenses for sale? Many serious photographers with money to spend are opting to purchase the Canon EF 300mm f/2.8L IS II USM lens after either selling or trading in their 400 DO lenses. BTW, trading in your lenses with the major camera stores is the equivalent of putting your money in the toilet and flushing. Yes it is a bit faster and more convenient to trade your valuable lens for 100’s or even a 1,000s of dollars less than what it is worth, but economically, selling (in effect) your used lens to B&H or Adorama is foolhardy.
Over this same time period mentioned above I have received several e-mails asking if the 400 DO was a legitimate, high quality telephoto lens. Without fail, each e-mail included something like this: I have, however, read mixed reviews about the sharpness of that lens and how well it works with teleconverters. Presumably this has something to do with the DO optics.
What can I say? It would be nice if the so-called and oft-quoted internet experts actually went out into the field once in a while to work with the gear that they so eagerly trash. Each of the images in this post was made with my 400 DO. It looks to me as if the optics are just fine. Yes, I eventually sold it to upgrade to the 300 II. Which of these two lenses is right for you? Basically the 400 DO is lighter and will cost you a lot less. The 300 II is heavier, more expensive, and a bit sharper across the board. (Note: the 300 II is a bit sharper than pretty much every other telephoto lens ever made.) But as you can see here, the 400 DO is–in the right hands–can you say operator error?–fully capable of producing sale-able, professionally sharp images on a consistent basis. Stay tuned: I will be doing a blog post here on just the subject of the 300 II vs. the 400 DO within a week or so.
The Canon EF 400mm f/4 DO IS USM lens is currently in production and sells new for $6,469.00 at B&H. The DO (or DOE) stands for Diffractive Optical Elements. Canon’s idea was to create a series of lenses made with composite (rather than glass) lens elements that would be lighter and less expensive than traditional telephoto lenses. They got the lighter part right but this lens sold new for well more than $7,000 for quite a while after its introduction.
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“Gannets in Love” is available both as a signed fine art canvas print (above) and as a signed traditional fine art photographic print (matte or glossy). Learn more or purchase a print for your home, your office, or as a gift here.
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“Gannets in Love” was created with the tripod-mounted 400 DO and the EOS-1D Mark III. Coincidentally, the EOS-1D Mark III was also maligned by the so-called internet experts…. A few years ago this image was awarded first place in the Art in Nature category of the Nature’s Best Windland Rice Smith International Awards competition and first place in the Birds category of the National Wildlife Photography contest. Where oh where are the internet experts when you need them?
It had been entered in the BBC Wildlife Photographer of the Year Competition that same year and I had really been hoping for a clean sweep but alas, it did not even make the final round of judging in the BBC contest. And once an image is honored in a major contest it cannot be entered in the BBC competition….
The 400 DO on a Zodiac
With Image Stabilization and its relatively light weight, the 400 DO is a great lens to use when photographing from any type of watercraft. The image above was created from a Panga on one of my killer Galapagos Photo-Cruises. If you are seriously interested in joining me on the July 2016 voyage, please get in touch via e-mail; six slots are already filled.
400 DO Close Focus
The 400 DO focuses down to a not-too-bad 11.48 feet (3.5 meters). With the addition of a 1.4X TC (as here), it can be used effectively to photograph small birds at close range. Adding one or more extension tubes makes it even more versatile. This hummingbird was photographed on a day trip to Tandayapa Bird Lodge the day before we began our Photo-Cruise.
The 400 DO for Hand Held Flight Photography
With 400mm of full-frame reach, a relatively wide (fast) aperture of f/4, and its light weight, the 400 DO is a great lens for hand held flight photography. This nocturnal gull was photographed at Darwin Bay on Tower Island in the Galapagos. Again, if you are seriously interested in joining me on the July 2016 voyage, please get in touch via e-mail.
The 400DO Hand Held with the 1.4X Teleconvrter
I wanted to go light on my visit to Great Saltee Island, Ireland in 2008 so I went ashore with only the 400 DO, my Canon EOS-40D, and a 1.4X TC. That combination yields an equivalent focal length of 896mm, a magniification of 17.92X. Note that with good sharpness techniques and the 400 DO’s great IS system that hand held results with this combo can be razor sharp.
The 400 DO as a Macro Lens
For the image above, I added two Canon EF 25 II Extension tubes and a single Canon EF 12 II Extension tube. Whenever you use extension tubes with a long lens be sure to stop down to prevent vignetting.
A viable alternative to purchasing several of the more expensive Canon extension tubes is to purchase the Kenko Auto Extension Tube Set DG for Canon EOS Lenses. As there is no glass in an extension tube image quality is not an issue.
One Small 400 DO Negative
One small drawback of the 400 DO is that you cannot zoom out (or in). Had I been able to zoom out just a bit here I would not have clipped the gannet’s rectrices (tail feathers). Another lens in this focal length range is the relatively new Canon EF 200-400mm f/4L IS USM lens with Internal 1.4x Extender. The 200-400 is of course far more versatile than the 400 DO. Heck, it is far more versatile than any other super-telephoto lens ever produced. At 7.98 pounds it is 3.78 pounds heavier than the 400 DO and comes with a nice $11,799.00 price tag….
For folks looking for a sharp, hand holdable, affordable lightweight super-telephoto lens the 400 DO can’t be beat.
Hand Held Flight with the 1.4X TC
As you can see in the image above, the 400 DO is perfectly capable of producing razor sharp images hand held with a 1.4X TC in place. And that with the much maligned EOS-1D Mark III…. This image was made at Coffee Pot Bayou aboard the Hooptie Deux with Captain James Shadle in January of 2008.
Lens Speed Can Matter
The image above was created with the tripod-mounted 400 DO on a cloudy dark afternoon in Katmai National Park. At ISO 1600 with the wide open aperture I was able to get a just-sharp-enough shutter speed of 1/200 sec. The 400 DO is a great lens for photographing large mammals in low light. Compare it with the slightly faster 8.49 pound Canon EF 400mm f/2.8L IS II USM lens: yours for only $11,499.00 at B&H.
Lens Speed is Important When Hand Holding
Working at f/4 here, again in Katmai National Park on a Bear Boat Photo-Cruise, allowed me to get a shutter speed of 1/500 sec. at ISO 800. This relatively fast shutter speed enabled me to create sharp images while seated and hand holding.
Fast Accurate AF at Close Range
This image was created in Panama using the high speed flash as main light techniques described in detail in the great eGuide, “The Hummingbird Guide – How to Photograph Hummingbirds Using High-Speed Multiple Flash” by Linda Robbins with yours truly. Learn more or purchase here.
When I experimented with using the 400 DO on the hummers in Panama, I was somewhat shocked to find that it acquired focus at close range much faster than the old Canon 500mm f/4L IS lens. And yes, the images were super sharp. If you like tropical birds, tropical birding, and tropical bird photography you can learn more about Canopy Lodge and Canopy Tower here.
Weight-restricted Travel?
I have been blessed to have made several trips to the now closed to all tourism Midway Island NWR. On my trip in March 2010 there were severe weight restrictions on our flight from Honolulu, Hawaii, to Midway. As I knew that I needed a long lens but could not figure out a way to get the 800 f/5.6L IS there, I brought the 400 DO and was thrilled that I did. Again, the light weight of the 400 DO can save the day in a variety of situations.
The 400 DO at the Gator Rookeries
The 400 DO is a great lens to use at Gatorland and at the St. Augustine Alligator Farm. It is light. It focuses closely. It focuses even more closely when you add a 25mm extension tube as I did here. And best of all it is sharp with the 1.4X TC. As here.
Here I used flash as main light techniques to create a sharp, fairly well lit image in a very dark, shaded situation. Learn everything that I know about using flash in the Flash Simplified Section of The Art of Bird Photography II. (ABP II: 916 pages, 900+ images on CD only. It is the continuation of the legendary classic The Art of Bird Photography. Save $10 when you buy both here.
The 400 DO on the Front Seat of Your Vehicle
Whenever and wherever you are driving around and the possibility of photographing birds or other wildlife using your car as a blind exists, it is mandatory that you have a light weight, hand holdable lens on the passenger seat. With a camera body on it and the body turned on. I encountered this great situation on the way to the Refuge Headquarters to pick up the permit for a Bosque IPT. I was very glad that the 400 DO with a TC in place was within easy reach.
Both Bosque IPTs are nearly sold out. Learn more by scrolling down here.
Summing Up
The Canon EF 400mm f/4 DO IS USM lens is not a toy. It is a sharp, lightweight super-telephoto lens that offers a relatively low priced option to folks who cannot either afford or carry any of the lenses in the next higher class. It can also serve as a great on the shoulder intermediate telephoto lens for folks carrying either the Canon EF 800mm f/5.6L IS USM lens or the Canon EF 600mm f/4L IS II USM lens into the field on a tripod. It is not as good a fit with the Canon EF 500mm f/4L IS II USM lens. The latter folks who do lots of hand held photography from some type of watercraft might, however, find that the 400 DO is perfect for them.
400 DO Owners
If you own or have owned a 400 DO, we would love to hear from you. Please leave a comment below and share your thoughts.
Your Favorite?
Feel free to leave a comment and let us know which of the fourteen 400 DO images here is your favorite. As always, be sure to let us know why you made your choice(s).
Selling Your Used Photo Gear Through BIRDS AS ART
Selling your used (or like-new) photo gear through the BAA Blog or via a BAA Online Bulletin is a great idea. We charge only a 5% commission. One of the more popular used gear for sale sites charges a minimum of 20% plus assorted fees! Yikes. The minimum item price here is $500 (or less for a $25 fee). If you are interested please e-mail with the words “Items for Sale Info Request” cut and pasted into the Subject line :). Stuff that is priced fairly–I offer free pricing advise, usually sells in no time flat as did Dennis Cassidy’s 500 II recently on the blog. Larry Master’s 400 DO and his 800 f/5.6 sold within a week. From Larry via e-mail: Thanks for helping me sell the lenses so quickly!
A Creative Adventure/BIRDS AS ART friend Kitto Kono sold her Nikon 500 f/4 and her 400 f/2.8 VR lenses in less than 3 weeks. Janet Horton’s 7D sold this week after a $100 price reduction. Denise Ippolito’s 100-400 and her 100 macro sold in one day. Peter Kes sold his 70-200 f/2.8L IS II and his 400 DO through BAA in ten days. In the past two months we have sold a Canon 800, a Canon 500 II, and four 400 DO lenses and lots more. If you are interested in using our services, please e-mail.
Used Photography Gear Page
Eagle-eyed readers may have noticed that there is a link to the Used Photography Gear page on the yellow tool bar at the top of each blog page. Folks looking to buy (or to sell) can click on that tab or here. I will on occasion continue to list new gear and great buys in blog posts and in Bulletins and may on rare occasion share all the listings with you on the blog. I will strive to keep the listings current. Great news for Kitty Kono and her Nikon 400mm f/2.8; it sold yesterday! That made her 2 for 2 on selling her older Nikon super-telephotos with BAA.
Support the BAA Blog. Support the BAA Bulletins: Shop B&H here!
We want and need to keep providing you with the latest free information, photography and Photoshop lessons, and all manner of related information. Show your appreciation by making your purchases immediately after clicking on any of our B&H or Amazon Affiliate links in this blog post. Remember, B&H ain’t just photography!
….. …..
Typos
In all blog posts and Bulletins, feel free to e-mail or to leave a comment regarding any typos, wrong words, misspellings, omissions, or grammatical errors. Just be right. 🙂
May 22nd, 2014 The Streak Continues: 173
This post marks 173 consecutive days with a new educational blog post. With so many folks getting in the habit of using our B&H links and our Amazon logo-links why quit now? April was a record month but May has not been so good. So far…. To show your appreciation for my efforts here, I do ask that you use our the B&H and Amazon affiliate links on the right side of the blog for all of your purchases. Please check the availability of all photographic accessories in the BIRDS AS ART Online Store, especially Gitzo tripods, Wimberley tripod heads, and the like. We sell only what I used, tested, and can depend on. We will not sell you junk. We know the tools that you need to make creating great images easy and fun. And we are always glad to answer your gear questions via e-mail.
You can find the following items in the store: Gitzo tripods, Mongoose M3.6 and Wimberley heads, plates, low feet, and accessories, flash brackets, , Delkin e-film Pro Compact Flash Cards, LensCoat products, and our unique line-up of educational materials including ABP I & II, Digital Basics, Site and Set-up e-Guides, Canon and Nikon Camera Users and AF e-Guides, and MP-4 Photoshop video tutorials among others.
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 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 visiting the BAA Online store as well.
This post took 1 hour to assemble. Enjoy it!
BIRDS AS ART BULLETIN #461
BIRDS AS ART BULLETIN #461 has been online here for a few days. I have been remiss in not posting a notice here sooner. IAC, here you go:
- St. Augustine Alligator Farm IPT Report
- The New Essence of the St. Augustine Alligator Farm: Roseate SpoonBILL
- Silhouette Soup From a Stone
- Speaking of Spoonbills
- The Weather and the Food
- Fort DeSoto IPT Report
- Selling Your Used Photo Gear Through BIRDS AS ART
- Used Photography Gear Page
- UK Puffins and Gannets IPT July 2-9, 2014
- Jim Neiger West Coast Flight Workshops, July 2014, Orange County, California
- Flight Plan eGuide
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This image was created on the St. Augustine Alligator Farm IPT on a mostly sunny early morning with the Canon EF 200-400mm f/4L IS USM Lens with Internal 1.4x Extender (hand held with the internal TC in place at 560mm) and the Canon EOS-1D X. ISO 400. Evaluative metering +1/3 stop as framed: 1/160 sec. at f/10 in Av mode. AWB.
61-Point/AI Servo/Rear Focus AF active at the moment of exposure performed perfectly selecting a tight cluster of sensors on the bird’s upper bill. Learning which AF Area Selection mode to use in different situations helps you maximize the efficiency of the great AF systems of the 1D X and 5D III. Learn everything that I know about the various AF Area Selection Modes, when to use which one, several ways to move the AF sensor, and tons more in the 1D X AF Guide and the 5D Mark III User’s Guide. Click here to see the latest version of the Rear Focus Tutorial. Click on the image to see a larger version.
Roseate Spoonbill vertical front-end portrait
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Problems, Problems, Problems
This was the lead image in BAA Bulletin #461. There I wrote, I have three problems with this image. If you think that you know what any of them are, please feel free to leave a comment. I will respond. Several folks commented but nobody hit that nail on the head. So I thought that I would run it by the blog readership as there is one very important lesson here, one that I have never seen or heard mentioned by anyone but me. I will give everyone a few days to see if they can come up with the 3 things that bug me and then I will come clean.
For this version I lightened the face, bill, and neck as compared to the image that originally appeared in the Bulletin here.
Your Thoughts?
Please leave a comment and let us know What things about this image bother you. There is one major problem that plagues this vertical image and many horizontal images as well. As always, please be specific and explain your reasoning. Several folks who commented on this image in the Bulletin half hit the nail on the head without being able to identify the problematic concept….
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This is the BreezeBrowser Main View screen capture for today’s image.
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The Breezebrowser Main View Screen Capture
Note that the illuminated red squares show the AF point sensors that were activated by 61-Point AF. Not bad at all. Note: in Breezebrowser you need to check “Show Focus Points” under View to activate this feature. To see the focus points in DPP check “AF Point” under View or hit Alt L. Hit Alt M to see Highlight Alert. To learn how and why I use DPP (Canon Digital Photo Professional) to convert my RAW files, see the info on our DPP RAW Conversion Guide here.
Note the histogram with the WHITEs well into the rightmost histogram box. Regular readers know that I use and depend on BreezeBrowser every day of the year. It allows me to sort my keepers and delete the rejects faster than any other Windows browsing program. We use it on the main computer in the home office to catalog our images file-drawer style. And the companion program, Downloader Pro allows me to download my images quickly and conveniently. It automatically adds my IPTC data and the shooting location. I have it set up to create a folder named by the Month/date/year. The Breezebrowser/Downloader Pro combo saves me many hours each week. To learn more or to purchase this great PC only program, click here. As far as the BreezeBrowser/Downloader Pro Combo goes, if you are using a Windows platform and are not using these two great programs you are at best, wasting your valuable time. My understanding is that Photo Mechanic is best for Mac-users who do not opt to run Parallels or VM Ware fusion on their Macs so that they can enjoy the many advantages of BreezeBrowser. See BreezeBrowswer on a Mac for details.
61-Point AF Area Selection Mode
If you do not know how and when to use 61-Point then you need a copy of either the 1D X AF Guide or the 5D Mark III User’s Guide. And here’s the great news: purchase either camera using one of our B&H Affiliate links, send me your B&H receipt via e-mail and I will be glad to send you a free copy of the corresponding eGuide. Buy both and get two free e-Guides. I own and use two EOS-1D X bodies and one EOS-5D Mark III body.
Coming Tomorrow
The lowdown on the Canon 400mm f/4 IS DO(E) (Diffractive Optical Elements) Lens.
Selling Your Used Photo Gear Through BIRDS AS ART
Selling your used (or like-new) photo gear through the BAA Blog or via a BAA Online Bulletin is a great idea. We charge only a 5% commission. One of the more popular used gear for sale sites charges a minimum of 20% plus assorted fees! Yikes. The minimum item price here is $500 (or less for a $25 fee). If you are interested please e-mail with the words “Items for Sale Info Request” cut and pasted into the Subject line :). Stuff that is priced fairly–I offer free pricing advise, usually sells in no time flat as did Dennis Cassidy’s 500 II recently on the blog. Larry Master’s 400 DO and his 800 f/5.6 sold within a week. From Larry via e-mail: Thanks for helping me sell the lenses so quickly!
A Creative Adventure/BIRDS AS ART friend Kitto Kono sold her Nikon 500 to a Blog subscriber in less than a week. Janet Horton’s 7D sold this week after a $100 price reduction. Denise Ippolito’s 100-400 and her 100 macro sold in one day. Peter Kes sold his 70-200 f/2.8L IS II and his 400 DO through BAA in ten days. In the past two months we have sold a Canon 800, a Canon 500 II, 3 400 DO lenses, a Nikon 500mm, and lots more. If you are interested in using our services, please e-mail.
Used Photography Gear Page
Eagle-eyed readers may have noticed that there is a link to the Used Photography Gear page on the yellow tool bar at the top of each blog page. Folks looking to buy (or to sell) can click on that tab or here. I will on occasion continue to list new gear and great buys in blog posts and in Bulletins and may on rare occasion share all the listings with you on the blog. I will strive to keep the listings current. Great news for Kitty Kono and her Nikon 400mm f/2.8; it sold yesterday! That made her 2 for 2 on selling her older Nikon super-telephotos with BAA.
Both of these items are priced to sell fast!
EOS-1D Mark IV
BAA friend Nancy Bell is offering a used Canon EOS-1D Mark IV camera body for sale for $3200. The body is in excellent condition. It enjoyed annual routine cleaning and service at a Canon Factory Service Center; the last one was done on 5/30/13. The sale includes the original box, battery charger, 3 Canon batteries, the instruction manual, all connection cables, a Canon neck strap, and insured Fed-Ex Ground shipping to US addresses only.
Payment by personal or teller’s check; the item will ship item only after the check clears. Please contact Nancy via e-mail or by phone at 970-484-8791–Colorado, MDT.
Canon 400mm f/4 DO IS Lens
BAA friend Nancy Bell is also offering a used Canon 400mm f/4 DO IS USM lens for sale for only $4499. The lens is in very good to excellent condition with some minor blemishes on the exterior finish and some signs of wear on lens hood interior rim. The glass is perfect and he lens is both light and sharp. The last yearly routine cleaning and service at a Canon Factory Service Center was on 5/30/13.
The sale includes the leather lens hood, the lens trunk, and insured Fed-Ex Ground shipping to US addresses only.
Payment by personal or teller’s check; the item will ship item only after the check clears. Please contact Nancy via e-mail or by phone at 970-484-8791–Colorado, MDT.
Price Reduced
Used Canon 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS USM Lens for Sale/Price Reduced $300!
Multiple IPT veteran Bill Wingfield is offering a Canon 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS USM lens in excellent condition for $1125! The glass is clean and the lens is in perfect working condition. The sale includes the lens hood, the fabric case, and insured shipping by UPS Ground to US addresses only. Personal checks only; your new lens will be shipped after your check clears.
For more than a decade I used the 100-400 to create hundreds of sharp, sale-able image. It is a very versatile lens.
You can reach Bill via e-mail or by phone at 843-729-6670.
Best Super-telephoto Lens Value
Used Canon 800mm f/5.6L IS Lens for Sale
Multiple IPT veteran, the too-kind Jim Bicket, is offering a Canon EF 800mm f/5.6L IS USM lens in excellent condition for $8750. The lens is like new except for some wear on the bottom of the lens hood near the forward edge when the hood is reversed. The sales includes the LensCoat that has protected the lens since day 1, the leather hood, the original hard case and key, and insured shipping via UPS Ground to US addresses only. Personal checks only; your new lens will be shipped only after your check clears.
This great lens, my favorite for 3 years, sells new at B&H for $13,999.00. A month ago B&H was offering one in mint condition for a ridiculous $10,249.90; it sold overnight. Go figure. Jim’s lens will save you a ton of dough and you will have a great lens with lots of reach. I can’t believe that this one has not sold yet as Jim is practically giving it away!
Interested folks can contact Jim via e-mail or try him at 501-915-9336.
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