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Image copyright and courtesy of Ray Morris-Hill. On our lone sunny morning, Ray did a great job with sun angle to create this image of a group of the Dalmatian Pelicans with the snow-covered mountains in the background. He used a Nikon D3-S camera with a 24-70 lens hand held at 24mm. ISO 500. Matrix metering +1/3 stop: 1/1250 sec. at f/8. |
Who, What, or Where is Ray Morris-Hill?
Is Ray Morris-Hill a posh neighborhood in London? Or a skilled photographer living in the UK who enjoys photographing a wide variety of subjects including nature and especially people?
Ray Morris-Hill was the first person to sign up for the Greece/Lake Kerkini/Dalmatian Pelican IPT. We were on the same flight from London to Thessaloniki. Ray is a soft-spoken, easy going pleasant man. As nice a guy as you could hope to meet. The IPT turned out to be a huge success and everyone got along just great. If you missed the whole story, click here.
In my thank you letter to the group, I invited each participant to send me five of their favorite images from the trip. I was quite impressed with several of Ray’s images, so I visited his web site and was even more impressed.
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Image copyright and courtesy of Ray Morris-Hill. Here Ray used the Nikon D-3S with a 70-200mm lens hand held at 130mm to come up with an interesting composition involving several birds at varying distances. ISO 640. Matrix metering +2/3 stop: 1/1250 sec. at f/7.1. |
I am a self employed consultant specialising in the internet and catalogue home shopping market in the UK. I help small businesses with their financial and marketing strategy.
From Ray, “My passion is photographing living things – from fashion to portraits, from sporting action to wildlife. I was a keen film photographer in my twenties but then lapsed for more than twenty years. I bought my first DSLR two and a half years ago when I saw that digital cameras had become seriously good.”
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Image copyright and courtesy of Ray Morris-Hill. Again Ray used the Nikon D-3S with a 70-200mm lens this time hand held at 200mm. ISO 800. Matrix metering +1 stop: 1/1600 sec. at f/5.6. When Ray showed this image at one of our evening critiquing sessions the group let out a collective gasp of admiration. They key here was getting sharp focus on the lead bird. |
Ray continues, “For the last twelve months I have been getting paid for some of my photography work and have been published in several magazines and newspapers. Most recently I was the official photographer for the London Chess Classic tournament. My photos from the event have appeared on websites across the world. The UK publication Chess used more than fifty of my images from the event. In addition, I was published in the Russian daily newspaper Kommersant and the US magazine Chess Life.”
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Image copyright and courtesy of Ray Morris-Hill. Ray created this feather abstract with the Nikon D-3S with a 70-200mm lens hand held at 200mm. ISO 1800. Matrix metering +1 stop: 1/1250 sec. at f/8 set manually. After sharing some of my feather abstracts with the group many folks were inspired to begin creating their own. |
More from Ray: “I think that I was the only member of the Lake Kerkini IPT who had not photographed with Artie before. I was made very welcome and learnt a tremendous amount from being immersed in such an intense photographic environment. Each day I ventured out with a mission to do better than the day before. I particularly liked the evening picture critique sessions. I didn’t have the best photos but what mattered was that I learnt how to make my pictures better.”
I received this e-mail from Ray in response to my thank you e-mail:
Hi Artie,
It was a great trip and I thoroughly enjoyed myself. I know that when going to a place for the first time there is a chance that things won’t work out according to plan but I thought we could not have been more fortunate to have a great hotel, a friendly local restaurant, two enthusiastic fishermen, a terrific group, and of course birds aplenty. The weather was what I had expected; that sunny morning was a bonus. Thanks for all your help and instruction. I plan to write up some notes so that I don’t forget what I learned during the trip but that might take awhile. Best, Ray
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Image copyright and courtesy of Ray Morris-Hill. Here Ray created another sunny morning/snow covered mountain masterpiece, this time using the Nikon D-3S with a 24-70mm lens hand held at 70mm. ISO 500. Matrix metering +1/3 stop: 1/1250 sec. at f/8. |
Thanks Ray for joining us and for your kind words and for your loan of the images. If you enjoy seeing good general photography be sure to check out Ray’s galleries here. And if you enjoy seeing good images of beautiful women be sure to check out the three fashion galleries.
Shopper’s Guide
Below is a list of that Ray used to make the images above. Thanks a stack to all who have used the Shopper’s Guide links to purchase their gear as a thank you for all the free information that we bring you on the Blog and in the Bulletins. Before you purchase anything be sure to check out the advice in our Shopper’s Guide.
Nikon D3 S Digital Camera Body
WOW!!!!!! Pelicans are such cool birds AND your photos are wonderful!
I’m just looking at this blog now. Beautiful shots; especially those on the sunny day and the group flight image. Regarding the last image needing to be rotated, I’m not so certain. The mountains looks straight to me and I believe the ripples are producing an optical illusion that the water surface is not straight when, in fact, it is.
Hi Artie,
I guess heavy CCW rotation is needed on the last pelican image which is not yours however. 😉
Best, Szimi
Anything nice about any of the images?
Fantastic shots. Great DOF. It must be great to be so close to those huge birds that you can photograph them with 70mm.
I think I have to go there myself in the not to distant future 🙂
Markus
The D3S is amazing at high ISO levels and I often shot in Greece at 1600 or 3200 with little noise. For the pictures featured I was fortunate to have a bit more light. I found the auto ISO sensitivity setting very useful to ensure I got the shutter speed and aperture I wanted, letting the ISO adjust to get the exposure right.
Gorgeous images, with fresh and innovative perspectives. The Nikon D3s is famous for its unmatched quality at high ISO settings.I wonder if Ray would comment on the ISO settings he utilized on his D3s for the pelican images.
Gary, I have added the ISO settings for the last five images.
Stunning images enhanced by the really amazing depth of field. When everything works it feels so good!
Great pictures to recieve on a snowy, rainey, cold, and clammy first day of spring in Massachusetts. Thanks for raising my spirits!!!!! Better days are ahead… those Ospreys must be heading north soon??? I hope!