Working Long, Clean, Tight, and Graphic Can Be Fatal. Too Cute But Not Sharp Enough...

What’s Up?

More of the same on Monday: lots of clerical work and answering e-mails–many of those involving Used Gear Sales, preparing blog posts, posting different stuff on FaceBook–including a collection of tulip images, an easy 3/4 mile swim, and more core exercises and stretching. All accompanied by UFC reruns on Tivo.

Congrats to the team from Endicott, NY on defeating the team from South Korea in the Little League World Series. It was a mega exciting 2-1 game that went down to the final strike.

Gear Questions and Advice

Too many folks attending IPTs and dozens of the folks whom I see in the field and on BPN, are–out of ignorance–using the wrong gear, especially when it comes to tripods and more especially, tripod heads… Please know that I am always glad to answer your gear questions via e-mail.

The Streak

Today’s blog post marks a totally insane, irrational, illogical, preposterous, absurd, completely ridiculous, unfathomable, silly, incomprehensible, what’s wrong with this guy?, makes-no-sense, 292 days in a row with a new educational blog post. There should be no end in sight until my big South America trip next fall. Or not… 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. And please remember also that if you are shopping for items that we carry in the new 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.

Used Gear Sales Continue to be Brisk

• Multiple IPT-veteran Sheldon Goldstein decided to keep his Canon EOS-5D Mark III and have it converted to Infrared by Kolari Vision using the link on the right side of each blog page. Folks who use that link will receive a free copy of my IR White Balance Guide.
• David Snyder sold his Nikon Manual Focus 500mm f/4P lens in good condition for $1199 in late August, 2016.
• Michael Hansen sold a Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM lens in excellent plus condition for $1599 in late August.
• Peter Noyes sold his Apple MacBook Pro with 15.4 inch Retina Display, 16 GB memory, 1 TB Flash Drive, 2.8 GHZ Intel Core I7 processor, and Force-Touch keypad for $1,199 in late August.
• Multiple IPT-veteran Mike Goldhamer sold his Canon EOS-5D Mark III (with the battery grip) in excellent plus condition for $1550 in late August.
• Multiple IPT veteran Bill Lloyd sold his Canon 400mm f/4 IS DO II USM lens in mint condition for $5,999. in mid-August.
• Many multiple IPT-veteran Mike Goldhamer sold his Canon EOS-5D Mark III in excellent plus condition for $1550.
• Eric Karl sold his Canon 7D Mark II camera in like-new condition with the BG-E16 battery grip for $1,099 in mid-August.
• Tom Mast sold his Canon 300mm f/4L IS USM lens in excellent condition for $625 in late July.
• Henry Raymundo sold his Gitzo 1325 tripod and a Wimberley V-2 head both in very good plus condition for the very low price of $699 and two used Canon 100-400mm IS L Zoom lenses, one in excellent condition for $599, the other in very good plus condition for $549–all in late July.
• Jonathan Ward sold his Canon 70-200 f/2.8L IS II USM lens in excellent condition for $2,000 CAD in early July.
• Long ago multiple IPT veteran Charles McRae sold his Canon EF 600mm f/4L IS lens in good to very good condition in early July for a record low $4,199.
• Jeffrey Fredberg sold his EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6L IS USM L series lens in like-new condition for the record-low BAA price of $749 in late June.
• Jim Burns sold his Canon 200-400mm F/4L IS zoom lens with Internal 1.4X Extender in brand new condition for the insane BAA record-low price of $8499 in late June.

New Listings

Canon 400mm f/4 IS DO II USM Lens (with extras!)

A Record Low BAA Price!

Paul Abravaya is offering a Canon 400mm f/4 IS DO II lens in excellent condition for $5,799. The sale includes everything that comes with a new lens from Canon USA: the rear lens cap, the lens trunk, the original tough front lens cover, the lens strap, the original product box, the hard case and case strap and insured ground shipping via major courier to US addresses only. Additionally the lens comes with a with a Don Zeck lens cover, a Realtree Max4 HD Camo LensCoat, and a Really Right Stuff replacement foot (LCF-52). It was purchased new by Paul on April 16, 2015.

Your item will not ship until your check clears unless other arrangements are made.

Contact Paul via e-mail or by phone at 1-805-427-5856 (please do not call before 7am or after 8pm Pacific time).

I own the 400 DO II and find a way to take it on most trips. I took to Scotland and Nickerson Beach. It serves as my big gun in the Galapagos and on Southern Ocean (the Falklands and South Georgia) trips. It is a killer for flight with or without the 1.4X III TC. And really skilled folks have had amazing success hand holding it with the 2X III TC for flight and for action. With this lens in high demand and new ones selling for $6899, Paul’s lens is a great buy that will save you 1100 bucks!. artie

Canon EOS 5DSR DSLR

IPT veteran Larry Master is offering a barely used Canon EOS 5DSR in like-new condition for $2799. The sale includes the front body cap, two batteres, the battery charger, the original product box, the original cables, manuals, and CDs, and insured ground shipping via major courier to US addresses only. Your item will not ship until your check clears unless other arrangements are made.

Please contact Larry via e-mail or by phone 518-645-1545 EDT.

Without an anti-aliasing filter, the 5DS R will–for those with good sharpness techniques–produce large high-quality image files that feature hard to believe detail. You have seen the amazing 100% crops showing fine-feather detail in many blog posts including (but not limited to) this one. And as you can see here, it is not bad for flight photography either. artie

Canon EOS 7D Mark II

Top pro Jim Zuckerman is offering a Canon 7D Mark II in excellent condition for $899. The sale includes the body cap, the instruction manuals in English and Spanish, two Canon batteries, the battery charger, and insured ground shipping via major courier to US addresses only. Your item will not ship until your check clears unless other arrangements are made.

Please contact Jim via e-mail or by phone at 1-615-414-7644 (Central time).

Though I currently own and use two 5DS R and one 1DX Mark II body, I owned and used two 7D II bodies for about two years; several of my 7D II images made the final judging rounds in both the BBC and Nature’s Best competitions. I still feel that it is by far the greatest digital camera body value ever… artie

Canon EOS 5D Mark II

Top pro Jim Zuckerman is also offering a Canon 5D Mark II in excellent condition for $799. The sale includes the body cap, two Canon batteries, the battery charger, the Canon strap, the Really Right Stuff ‘L’ bracket, and insured ground shipping via major courier to US addresses only. Your
item will not ship until your check clears unless other arrangements are made.

Please contact Jim via e-mail or by phone at 1-615-414-7644 (Central time).

The 5D II is a fine body for landscapes, Urbex, flowers, and travel photography. I had mine converted to Infrared by Kolari vision and love the image quality. artie

Canon EF 14mm f/2.8L II USM Lens

Top pro Jim Zuckerman is also offering a Canon EF 14mm f/2.8L II USM lens in very good condition for the amazingly low price of $1049. The sale includes the rear lens cap, the front lens cap, and insured ground shipping via major courier to US addresses only. Your item will not ship until your check clears unless other arrangements are made. Your item will not ship until your check clears unless other arrangements are made.

Please contact Jim via e-mail or by phone at 1-615-414-7644 (Central time).

This lens is ideal for serious landscape photographers and for architectural, wedding, and night sky star photography. It sells new for $2099. artie

This image was created at Nickerson Beach, Long Island, NY with the Induro/GIT 304L/Mongoose M3.6-mounted Canon EF 600mm f/4L IS II USM lens, the Canon Extender EF 2X III, and the blazingly fast, rugged, loaner Canon EOS-1D X Mark II with 64GB Card and Reader. ISO 400. Evaluative metering +2/3 stop: 1/800 sec. at f/11. Center AF point/AI Servo Expand/Rear Focus AF as framed was active at the moment of exposure. The selected AF point fell on the skimmer chick’s lower belly. Click here to see the latest version of the Rear Focus Tutorial. Click on the image to see a larger version. LensAlign/FocusTune micro-adjustment = 0. Black Skimmer–large chick testing and exercising wings

Working Long, Clean, Tight, and Graphic Can Be Fatal…

I’ve said it here dozens of times, but few believe me: When working with ultra-long focal lengths to implement my clean, tight, and graphic style, I am often dead in the water when it comes to photographing action and behavior. Working at 1200mm for today’s featured image, I did my very best raising the lens when the large chick unexpectedly jumped up and began flapping in place. The AF system tracked perfectly for the three-frame sequence as I held the star button–my choice for rear button focus–in, but the AF point was on the young bird’s lower belly, at least an inch in front of the plane of the bird’s eyes. Thus, the bird’s head and face in the RAW file were nowhere near sharp.

Theoretically, as the 1DX II offers all AF points at f/8, I could have gone with an active AF point a row or two above the center AF point, if, and only if I had the ability to see into the future. Had I been working at 840mm it would have been a piece of cake to keep the active AF point on the bird’s face and create a series of sharp on the face images with lots of room in the frame. Alas…

DPP 4 Quick Check window showing the active AF point

The Image Optimization

First I added a bit of canvas above. Then, with the the bird’s head and face unsharp, I did my best to sharpen that area selectively using a strong Contrast Mask: 20/80/0 (after selecting the head and face with a Quick Mask and putting it on its own layer). While I love the sharpness of the bird’s feet and the look of the sand and the amazing underwing detail showing the primary and secondary feathers emerging from the feather shafts, and the image presents pretty well on the web, it is just not sharp enough where it needs to be–on the bird’s face–to enter in a major contest. Bummer.

You can learn to do pretty much all of the above and lots more in my Digital Basics File. Learn advanced Quick Masking and advanced Layer Masking techniques in APTATS I & II. You can save $15 by purchasing the pair.

Digital Basics is an instructional PDF that is sent via e-mail. It includes my complete digital workflow, dozens of great Photoshop tips, details on using all of my image clean-up tools, the use of Contrast Masks, several different ways of expanding and filling in canvas, all of my time-saving Keyboard Shortcuts, the basics of Quick Masking, Layer Masking, and NIK Color Efex Pro, Digital Eye Doctor techniques, using Gaussian Blurs, Dodge and Burn, a variety of ways to make selections, how to create time-saving actions, the Surface Blur settings that I use to smooth background noise, and tons more.

Please Remember to use my Affiliate Links and to Visit the New BAA Online Store 🙂

To show your appreciation for my continuing efforts here, we ask, as always, that you get in the habit of using my B&H affiliate links on the right side of the blog for all of your photo and electronics purchases. Please check the availability of all photographic accessories in the New BIRDS AS ART Online Store, especially the Mongoose M3.6 tripod head, Wimberley lens plates, Delkin flash cards and accessories, and LensCoat stuff.

As always, we sell only what I have used, have tested, and can depend on. We will not sell you junk. We know what you need to make creating great images easy and fun. And please remember that I am always glad to answer your gear questions via e-mail.

I would of course appreciate your using our B&H affiliate links for all of your major gear, video, and electronic purchases. For the photographic stuff mentioned in the paragraph above, and for everything else in the new store, we, meaning BAA, would of course greatly appreciate your business. Here is a huge thank you to the many who have been using our links on a regular basis and those who will be visiting the New BIRDS AS ART Online Store as well.

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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 🙂