{"id":974,"date":"2010-02-28T07:18:39","date_gmt":"2010-02-28T11:18:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.birdsasart-blog.com\/?p=974"},"modified":"2011-02-24T14:24:46","modified_gmt":"2011-02-24T18:24:46","slug":"carmens-tale-handholding-the-canon-800mm-f5-6l-is-lens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.birdsasart-blog.com\/baa\/2010\/02\/28\/carmens-tale-handholding-the-canon-800mm-f5-6l-is-lens\/","title":{"rendered":"Carmen's Tale & Handholding the Canon 800mm f\/5.6L IS Lens"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n
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This Wihte Pelican was photographed with the handheld Canon 800mm f\/5.6L IS lens and the EOS-1D MIV camera body. ISO 400. Evaluative metering +1 2\/3 stops: 1\/125 sec. at f\/13. For tips on handholding big lenses, scroll down to item 2. To see a larger, sharper version of this image, click on the photo.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n

A Tale of Carmen<\/h2>\n

Last week I received an e-mail from another old student, Carmine Narine:<\/p>\n

Good Morning Mr. Morris,\u00a0 You may not remember me but I saw your blog online and decided to reach out as I have thought about you many times during the last 20 years.\u00a0 I attended PS 106. You were my 3rd<\/sup>, 4th<\/sup> and 5th<\/sup> grade teacher. My name is Umawattie Narine but I went by Carmen.\u00a0 I remember our trips to bird watch at Jamaica bay and the stencils and sketches of birds we did.\u00a0 But most of all I remember the stamp collection we started. I still have it!\u00a0\u00a0 I wanted to let you know that back then I wasn\u2019t very confident but you made me feel important and smart. You were the best teacher I have ever had.\u00a0 We once listened to Les Miserable in class and when I saw the actual play- I cried and I felt ahead of my time. I know that sounds strange but I felt so good that I knew everything about it because I had a teacher who not only taught us Math and English\u2014 you taught us about life and art.\u00a0\u00a0 You always had confidence in me and it gave me confidence to strive to be better in all things.\u00a0\u00a0 I hope this email reaches you and that you are well.\u00a0 Thank you for everything you did for all the kids whose lives you touched.\u00a0\u00a0 Carmen<\/em><\/p>\n

After I wrote Carmen, she wrote back to me:<\/p>\n

Good Morning Mr. World Famous Bird Photographer!\u00a0\u00a0 I work in Ad Operations for Conde Naste.\u00a0 I manage the ads on our websites and make sure the clients’ campaigns serve and perform well.\u00a0 It is fun and I love it worked at The Weather Channel and the NBA doing the same thing.\u00a0\u00a0 I am so sorry to hear that Mrs. Belsky died,\u00a0 and yes, I do remember her.\u00a0 Her class came a few times on our class\u00a0 trips.
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

I don\u2019t have a picture from our class but I have attached one that should help. I ended up graduating valedictorian from the 6th<\/sup> grade. I was in Mrs. Lowe\u2019s class.\u00a0\u00a0 I have read your Blog- that\u2019s actually how I found you- I was so excited!!\u00a0\u00a0 I am so glad you are doing well and I will continue to follow your Blog. A friend of mine is also a photographer and I tried convincing him to take up Bird Watching.\u00a0\u00a0 Carmen<\/em><\/p>\n

I wrote Carmen back telling her how proud I am of her.\u00a0 It is of course quite rewarding to hear from my old students.<\/p>\n

Handholding the Canon 800mm f\/5.6L IS<\/h2>\n

Recently I have begun handholding the Canon 800mm f\/5.6L IS \/EOS-1D MIV combo to good advantage.\u00a0 I have been using the principles taught to me by my friend, Posse member Jim Neiger.\u00a0 The advantages of handholding are that you are more quickly and easily able to get on the action than if you were using a tripod.\u00a0 Especially when it would be\u00a0necessary to move the tripod before starting to photograph a new situation.\u00a0 And it is easier to frame fast moving birds (especially those that fly somewhat erratic patterns) and to frame and follow frantic action\u00a0 when handholding than it is when working atop a tripod.<\/p>\n

Do know that it is only necessary to\u00a0hold the lens up for short periods of time, say 10-20 seconds at most.\u00a0 Before raising the lens it is best to support it in some manner to prevent fatigue.\u00a0 Jim’s mantra is “practice, practice, practice” so that when you raise the lens you are able to get right on the subject.\u00a0 I have been after Jim for a year or two to put together “The Guide to Handheld Photography With Big Telephoto Lenses.”<\/p>\n

In the opening White Pelican image in this post it would have been impossible to get as low as I wanted low with the tripod-mounted 800 on the crowded pier that the IPT group was working from.\u00a0 So I simply sat on the edge of the dock, supported the lens on my bent knee when waiting for the situation to improve, and then raised the lens when the big, beautiful birds swam into the perfect position.\u00a0 In the relatively low light situation I supported the back of my left wrist and hand again on my bent left knee.\u00a0 (I did not realize that I had been working at such a slow shutter speed; my technique must have been perfect!)\u00a0\u00a0 Do compare the light and the exposure data with that of \u00a0the similar White Pelican image at the top of the February 19 post below; that one was created in full sun.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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This Great Egret calling in flight image was created with the handheld Canon 800mm f\/5.6L lens with the EOS-1D MIV. ISO 400. Evaluative metering +1\/3 stop: 1\/2000 sec. at f\/6.3 set manually.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n

The handheld 800 image above was also created from a small boat. Handholding made it relatively easy to follow the bird in flight even at close range.\u00a0 Ron Mayberry was kind enough to take Lou Newman, Denise Ippolito, and me out for some rookery photography in Sarasota Bay on the morning of my Sarasota Audubon presentation a few weeks ago.\u00a0 (Ron and Lou will be joining me on the 2nd Midway trip; I am posting this from the Orlando Airport on my way to Honolulu.)\u00a0\u00a0 Using a tripod on a small boat with four folks is pretty much out of the question so the decision to handhold was a good one that enabled me to create a rather cool image.\u00a0 Here I used the central AF sensor.\u00a0 Always use AI Servo AF for photographing moving subject.<\/p>\n

Note:\u00a0 As a Canon Explorer of Light I am and have been a paid Canon spokesperson since 1996.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ngg_shortcode_2_placeholder This Wihte Pelican was photographed with the handheld Canon 800mm f\/5.6L IS lens and the EOS-1D MIV camera body. ISO 400. Evaluative metering +1 2\/3 stops: 1\/125 sec. at f\/13. For tips on handholding big lenses, scroll down to item 2. To see a larger, sharper version of this image, click on the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[89,28,27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-974","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-89","category-800mm-f5-6","category-anecdotes","odd"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.birdsasart-blog.com\/baa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/974","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.birdsasart-blog.com\/baa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.birdsasart-blog.com\/baa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.birdsasart-blog.com\/baa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.birdsasart-blog.com\/baa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=974"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.birdsasart-blog.com\/baa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/974\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.birdsasart-blog.com\/baa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=974"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.birdsasart-blog.com\/baa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=974"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.birdsasart-blog.com\/baa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=974"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}