What’s Up
Got home just after 8pm on Wednesday, had a light dinner, and hit the sack. Next up: the long sold-out UK Puffins and Gannets trip.
The Streak
Today’s blog post marks a totally insane completely ridiculous, silly, makes-no-sense 222 days in a row with a new educational blog post. And I still have dozens of new topics to cover; there should be no end in sight until my big South America trip next fall. As always-–and folks have been doing a really great job recently–-please remember to use our B&H links for your major gear purchases. For best results use one of our many product-specific links; after clicking on one of those you can continue shopping with all subsequent purchases invisibly tracked to BAA. Your doing so is always greatly appreciated. Please remember: web orders only. Please remember that if you are shopping for items that we carry in the BAA Online Store (as noted in red at the close of this post below) we would appreciate your business.
Selling Your Used 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 advice, usually sells in no time flat. In the past few months, we have sold just about everything in sight. Do know that prices on some items like the EOS-1D Mark IV, the old Canon 500mm, the EOS-7D, and the original 400mm IS DO lens have been dropping steadily. You can see all current listings by clicking here or by clicking on the Used Photo Gear tab on the yellow-orange tab on the right side of the menu bar above.
Early June Used Gear Sales More Than Brisk!
- KW McCulloch sold his Canon EOS-1D X in excellent condition for $2459 in mid-June.
- Les Greenberg sold his Canon EF 300mm f/2.8L IS II lens in mint condition for $4499 in early June.
- Top BAA Used Gear seller Jim Keener sold his Canon EF 500mm f/4L IS USM lens (the old five) in very good plus condition for a BAA record low price of $3699 in mid-June.
- National Geographic shooter Tim Laman sold his Canon EOS-1D C in good condition for $2100 in early June. The 1D C is a 1D X with 4K video.
- Andres Leon sold his Canon 800mm f/5.6L IS lens in very good plus condition for the full asking price of $7899 in early June.
- IPT veteran Billy Wingfield sold his Canon EOS-1DX in excellent plus condition for $2400 in early June.
- Multiple IPT veteran Larry Master sold his near-mint Canon EOS-1DX for $2800 in early June.
- Moody McCall sold his Canon 100-400L IS USA lens in excellent condition for $599 in early June.
New Listings
Canon EOS 5D Mark III
Sold in one hour!
Top BAA Used Gear seller Jim Keener is offering his Canon EOS 5D Mark III in absolute mint condition for $1599. Your item will not ship until your check clears unless other arrangements are made. The body just underwent a clean and check at Canon and is in perfect working order. The sale includes the the front cap, the strap, and the original box and all the CDS and cables that came in it. Also included are some premium extras: a Peak Designs carrying strap, an extra Canon battery, a Lexar 64GB UDMA 7 CF card, and a Really Right Arca-Swiss compatible plate. Shutter Count software shows a shutter count of < 11,000; this body was purchased new from B&H in March 2015. Please contact Jim via e-mail or by phone at 310-741-7435 (Mountain time, 9-9).
I have owned and used this superb, full frame, 22mp digital body for several years. It was always my first choice for scenic, Urbex, and flower photography until I fell in love with the 5DS R (for a lot more money!). artie
Canon EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6L IS USM Lens
Jeffrey Fredberg is offering his Canon EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6L IS USM L series lens in like-new condition for the record-low BAA price of $749. The sale includes the lens hood, the lens cap, the removable tripod collar, and the lens carrying case with strap. It also includes an Arca-Swiss compatible lens plate. Your item will not ship until your check clears unless other arrangements are made.
Please contact Jeff via e-mail or by phone at 1-617 823 6236 (8am -8pm Eastern time).
I used this lightweight intermediate telephoto lens in Norway for birds and for B-roll stuff. It is superbly sharp and extremely versatile. It would be a great buy either for a travel photographer or a beginning to intermediate bird photographer (who cannot at present afford the 100-400 II). artie
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This in-camera Art Vivid image was created on the afternoon of Day 4 of the second Palouse IPT with the Induro GIT 304L/Induro ballhead-mounted Canon EF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM lens (at 47mm) and the mega mega-pixel Canon EOS 5DS R . The camera is mounted via a Wimberley P-5 camera body plate. ISO 400. Evaluative metering +/-2 stops around a base exposure of +3 1/3 stops with a base exposure of 1/250 sec. at f/7.1 in Av mode. WB = 5500K. Live View with 2-second timer. Center AF point/AI Servo Expand/Rear Focus AF on the ridge line and re-compose. If you do not use Rear Focus for landscape (or sky-scape) photography you will need to use One-Shot AF and keep the shutter button half-pressed (that is a real pain) or get in the habit of focusing, moving the AF switch to M (for Manual focus). When you are using Live View you can–with some images–use Flexi-Zone rear focus AF. Click here to see the latest version of the Rear Focus Tutorial. Click on the image to see a larger version. Image #1: Big, stormy sky |
Strip Club Question
What do you think of the inclusion of the green strip of farmland at the bottom of the frame in this image? Would you have included more, included it as is, cropped it out, or re-framed higher? Why?
Ballhead/Mongoose M3.6 Strategies
To make the image above, I needed to mount a short lens rig on my Induro ballhead (as I did often in the Palouse). Most of the time, my Mongoose M3.6 is mounted on my Induro GIT 304 L tripod. To remove the Mongoose, I simply engage the horizontal lock, grab the head, and turn it counter-clockwise to spin it off. Then I grab my BHM-2 Induro ballhead (it weighs less than one pound), make sure that the horizontal panning knob is hand-tightened all the way, and spin it on clockwise. I like to position the main knob 45 degrees on the left side with the horizontal panning knob in the 45 degrees right position. Then I loosen the ball and point the locking knob for the clamp at the subject. This ensures that I will not loosen it by mistake when I am reaching for the horizontal panning knob. Tomorrow we will teach you to adjust the drag on your ballhead. (Many folks simply have no clue…)
When I go back to any telephoto lens, I reverse the procedures outlined above to re-mount the Mongoose.
If you are using an intermediate telephoto lens on a ballhead, you are doing so out of ignorance. 271 out of 272 folks who have tried a Mongoose M3.6 have purchased one on the spot. Regular readers know that I have been using my Mongoose with all of my super-telephoto lenses–500, 600, and 800mm versions for well more than a decade and making sharp images.
For the first time in years we have several Mongoose M3.6 tripod heads on the shelf. Order yours by clicking here.
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This in-camera HDR Natural image was created on the afternoon of Day 4 of the second Palouse IPT with the Induro GIT 304L/Mongoose M3.6-mounted Canon EF 200-400mm f/4L IS USM Lens with Internal 1.4x Extender (at 366mm) and the mega mega-pixel Canon EOS 5DS R. ISO 800. Evaluative metering +/-2 stops around a base exposure of +2/3 stop: 1/80 sec. at f/11 in Av mode. WB = 7500K. Live View with 2-second timer. I used rear focus Live View Flexi-Zone AF to focus on the foreground wheel fence. Image #2: Old farm machinery |
Old Farm Machinery Question
What is it?
The Mongoose M3.6 and Intermediate Telephoto Lenses
There were lots of folks on the two Palouse IPTs using intermediate telephoto lenses like the Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II USM lens or the Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM lens on various lousy ballheads. I found working with them on image design and composition to be extremely difficult at best. With the Mongoose M3.6 I simply point the lens at the subject, adjust the zoom, fine-tune the side to side framing and lock the horizontal panning knob, fine tune the up and down framing, lock the vertical panning knob, level the image by rotating the lens in the tripod collar, and then tighten the tripod collar. At times I may need to refine the framing either by zooming a bit in or out of by adjust the side to side or up and down framing. All with a weightless rig and no ballhead flop…
BTW, I was thrilled with my decision to take the 70-200 f/2.8L IS II and leave the 100-400 II at home as I made many fine images between 70 and 100mm. With the circle lens, the 11-24, the 24-105, the 70-200, and the 200 to 400 with internal extender, I had a great range of focal lengths covered on the Palouse trip, from 8mm to 784mm. I pretty much used them all.
Your Favorite?
Which of today’s two featured images is your favorite? Be sure to share you thoughts as to why.
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Palouse 2016 Verticals Card |
The 2017 BIRDS AS ART Palouse Instructional Photo-Tour
June 8-14, 2017. Seven full days of photography. Meet and greet at 7:30pm on Wednesday, June 7: $2,499
Please click here for complete details or e-mail me with any questions.
Please Remember to use our Affiliate Links and to Visit the New BAA Online Store 🙂
To show your appreciation for my continuing efforts here, we ask, as always, that you get in the habit of using my B&H affiliate links on the right side of the blog for all of your photo and electronics purchases. Please check the availability of all photographic accessories in the New BIRDS AS ART Online Store, especially the Mongoose M3.6 tripod head, Wimberley lens plates, Delkin flash cards and accessories, and LensCoat stuff.
As always, we sell only what I have used, have tested, and can depend on. We will not sell you junk. We know what you need to make creating great images easy and fun. And we are always glad to answer your gear questions via e-mail.
I would of course appreciate your using our B&H affiliate links for all of your major gear, video, and electronic purchases. For the photographic stuff mentioned in the paragraph above we, and for everything else in the new store, we, meaning BAA, would of course greatly appreciate your business. Here is a huge thank you to the many who have been using our links on a regular basis and those who will be visiting the New BIRDS AS ART Online Store as well.
Be sure to like and follow BAA on Facebook by clicking on the logo link upper right. Tanks a stack!
Typos
In all blog posts and Bulletins, feel free to e-mail or to leave a comment regarding any typos or errors. Just be right 🙂
image #2 is a Separator
I love image #2 The greens and browns and circles draw me into the subject which looks like some kind of giant insect.
I like the green strip, it anchors the image without being distracting
I love the image of the green strip and huge sky. I think its amazing – the distance implied by the tiny strip of distant green pairs with the “zig-zaggy” clouds to really capture a sense of roiling skies and turbulent weather. I think if you had more of the green with more depth (and closer) land, would feel like a serene and beautiful country scene. This picture feels like the calm before a storm – a battlefield before the armies arrive. Its very cool.
I don’t have as strong a reaction to the equipment picture. Its a cool looking device, but not as interesting a picture. My favorite part of the scene is the fence.
I’m sorry, but I can’t choose between the two images. They are each very different and I like them equally for different reasons. I think the green strip in the first image is perfect. It creates a very strong tension between the earth and the clouds. You make that strip bigger and you lose some of the tension. And the clouds are very nice–almost like twisters that pull your vision upward.
The textures in the second image are also very nice and it’s interesting that the piece of machinery in the middle of the image kind of looks like a metal mammal: head, long neck, long body. It’s a playful image. Like I said–for me–they’re both really interesting and wonderful to look at. Thanks for posting these two.
We had machines like this when I was a farm kid in Kansas 70 years ago. However this is not quite right for the machines that were in use for wheat and oats. We powered ours with a belt driven by our 1924 John Deere model D tractor. The thresher would remain stationary and the cut grain stalks would be brought to it. By the 1950s all of these were being replaced by tractor pulled combines and then by self-propelled units.
Your eye is drawn to the green strip but not enough to keep you interested, show a little more.
I like it, but I would have loved to have seen a little more of the lush rolling green hills… provided there was nothing distracting in them. I think the increase in color contrast would add a little more to the shot. Either way, I’d keep your overall theme the same… big sky.
I’d guess it’s a hay baler.
I like the green strip.
Combine harvester/baler. I pity the horses that had to drag that beast!
You’ve photographed that fence before & made it look huge, it looks tiny in this one. Perspective is a funny thing.
Art, I believe that this is an old time thresher. They were run off a pulley attached to a power-take-off on an old steam tractor. To my knowledge, they were replaced by the modern “combine”.
1) I like the green strip. Without it, the picture is just another shot of clouds. The green breaks things up, adds a contrasting color, and makes the picture more interesting. Your title was a nice way to draw attention to the post.
2) It looks like an old hay bailing machine. It’s not uncommon to see them throughout the Midwest and Great Plains states. A google search of “old bailing machines” will show images of similar machines.
First, I think the green grass at the bottom is just enough to ground the image which is really about the sky. More wouldn’t have added anything in my view. I believe the farm equipment is a picker. In Kansas or Iowa I might have guessed corn but I don’t know how much corn they raise in Washington. The narrow wheel base would lead me to believe it covers one row so I’d guess maybe chickpees or some other low growing crop. They grow a lot of chickpees in the Palouse.
Image #1: viewing the image as is, I found my eye to be jumping around the image a lot with no ‘anchor’. I would like to see more of the green grass – perhaps up to 1/3 of the frame. The clouds are fantastic!!
Image #2: I agree with Harry Layne: it looks like the farm equipment is a piece of art constructed to look like a horse in a pasture. The fence made out of old metal wheels is really cool. However, I’m not a fan of the way the image is framed with the horse right in the middle of the image. It’s too obvious. I’d like to see a more creative viewpoint. Perhaps moving off to the right more would have done that? I also would like to see all the wheel fence in the top part of the image, and maybe not so much grass at the bottom of the frame. I like the playful feel of the image, but not the framing.
I prefer image #1.
Love the old farm machinery. At first, I mistook it for constructed art – a Trojan Horse on wheels. The texture, colors, and relationship to the fence are stunning.
Some sort of harvester? Love the image… what an amazing collection & so photogenic! Re the top image….. I like it as is!