What’s Up?
On Monday I headed into town early to have some routine blood work done. In addition, I visited Dr. TJ McKeon for some Active Release Technique chiropractic work on my right shoulder, left knee, and right wrist. Pretty much the rest of today and most of the day tomorrow will be spent FocusTune/LensAlign micro-adjusting my two new 5D Mark IV bodies with three different lenses and five different teleconverters… With Jim’s help I will be returning my loaner 5D IV/24-70 kit to B&H today.
Condolences (along with a few shed tears) to the family and friends of golfing great Arnold Palmer, as nice a man who ever walked the earth. In growing darkness in the parking lot of the Westchester Country Club in Rye, NY, some time in the early 1970s, Arnie stood and chatted with my friend Barry Cohen and me for nearly an hour after putting his golf bag into the trunk of his Cadillac. Arnold Palmer died on Sunday, September 25, 2016 at the age of 87.
It is almost too late to join me at DeSoto today for the Fall IPT but you can try me at home in the morning at 863-692-0906 or on my cell in the afternoon at 863-221-2372. It’s never too late! Scroll down for details on the late registration discount. Do consider joining us for part of the IPT or for the Sunday Morning (cheap) In-the-Field Workshop. Please call or e-mail with any questions.
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: 319!
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, 319 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.
September Used Gear Sales Continue to be Flaming Hot!
- In less than one day in late September Steve Zarate sold his Canon EOS 7D camera in very good condition for a BAA record low price of $279 and his Canon EOS 7D II in excellent condition for a BAA record low price of $799.
- Within two days of listing Joe Alexander sold his Canon EF 100-400mm L IS USM lens in excellent plus condition for $599in late September when he also sold one of each of these: Canon EF 1.4x III and Canon EF 2x III Extender in excellent plus condition for $249 each within an hour of listing them. When he first contacted me he had them priced, way, way, way too low…
- Yours truly, Arthur Morris, sold one of his two Canon EOS 5DS R bodies in excellent condition but for a very small, very fine sort of x-shaped crack in the upper-right corner of the top LCD screen, for $2549 in late September.
- Doug Rogers sold his Vortex Razor 85mm Ultra High Definition Scope in like-new condition for $795.00 in mid-September.
- Ed Hutchinson sold his Canon EF 100-400mm L IS USM lens, the “old 1-4,” in like-new condition for $649 and his EOS 5D Mark III in like-new condition for $1499 within days of listing them in mid-September.
- Hisham Atallah sold his Canon 600mm f/4L IS II lens in excellent condition for $9499 in mid-September within days of listing it.
- Good friend and BAA Japan IPT co-leader–the oft-honored BBC and Nature’s Best photographer Paul McKenzie–sold his Canon EOS 1DX in excellent condition with an extra Canon battery for $2299 in mid September two days after it was listed.
- Eric Karl sold his Canon EF 200-400mm f/4L IS USM Lens with Internal Extender in excellent condition for the full asking price, a very low $8,099 in mid-September.
- Gary Meyer sold his Canon EOS 5D Mark III in mint condition for $1599 with an off-brand battery grip in mid-September.
- IPT veteran Ken Siegel sold his Canon EOS-1DX in excellent condition with several extras for $2899 in early September.
- Roger Doughty sold his Canon EOS-1DX in “like-new” condition for $2,749 and his Canon EOS 7D Mark II in like-new condition for $1,049 both within hours of listing them in early September.
- Multiple IPT veteran Phil Frigon sold his barely used Canon EOS 5DSR in like-new condition for $2799 within three hours of listing it on September 6.
- Joe Alexander sold his Gitzo GT3532LS carbon fiber tripod and a Wimberley V-2 WH-200 gimbal head both in like-new condition for $799 within an hour of listing it on September 6.
New Listings
Canon EF 70-200mm f2.8L IS II USM Lens
Sold in one day!
Joseph Higbee is offering a Canon EF 70-200mm f2.8L IS II USM lens in excellent condition for what I believe is a BAA record low price: $1449. The sale includes the lens in the original box with all in-box items including lens case and strap, front and rear caps, lens hood, tripod collar, and warranty card. Insured ground shipping via UPS to US addresses only. Your item will not ship until check clears unless other arrangements are made.
Please contact Joe via e-mail or by phone at 253 846-1254 (Pacific time).
The 70-200mm f/2.8L IS is an incredibly versatile, easily hand holdable intermediate telephoto lens. It does very well with both the 1.4X and 2X III TCs. When teamed with a 7D or a 7D II it can–for folks working with relatively tame birds–actually serve as your big lens. I use mine often in the Southern Ocean where its fast speed, f/2.8, can often save the day (or at least save a stop or two of ISO). Visit the very recent blog post here for an example of what you can do with the 70-200II/2XIII/7D II combo. artie
Canon EOS 6D
Joseph Higbee is also offering a Canon EOS 6D in excellent condition for $949. The sale includes the camera in the original box with all in-box items including battery, charger, strap, cables, manual, CD and warranty card. Insured ground shipping via UPS to US addresses only. Your item will not ship until check clears unless other arrangements are made.
Please contact Joe via e-mail or by phone at 253 846-1254 (Pacific time).
I own and use the the “full frame” 20.2 MP Canon 6D DSLR. I love the camera for its fine image quality and outstanding low-light performance, which make it terrific for landscapes and portraits. While it was not designed to be and isn’t my first choice as a wildlife camera, its good image quality makes it fine for bird and mammal portraits. And if you can be satisfied with using mainly the center AF point, the autofocus is decently fast and accurate, so especially for large birds like cranes, it is more than adequate for birds in flight. Multiple IPT veteran and blog regular, David Policansky
Canon EOS 7D
Sold in one day
Joseph Higbee is also offering a Canon EOS 7D in excellent condition for $299. The sale includes the camera in the original box with all in-box items including battery, charger, strap, cables, manual, CD and warranty card. Insured ground shipping via UPS to US addresses only. Your item will not ship until check clears unless other arrangements are made.
Please contact Joe via e-mail or by phone at 253 846-1254 (Pacific time).
This 7D would make a great starter camera body for any new digital photographer or a great gift for a young photographer.. artie
Canon EF 2X III Extender
Sold in one hour!
Joseph Higbee is also offering a Canon EF 2X III Extender in excellent condition for $349. The sale includes the extender in the original box with in-box items including front and rear caps, the lens pouch, the lens case, and the warranty card. Insured ground shipping via UPS to US addresses only. Your item will not ship until check clears unless other arrangements are made.
Please contact Joe via e-mail or by phone at 253 846-1254 (Pacific time).
As regular readers know, the 2X III TC is indispensable for my style of bird photography with all of my super-telephotos as well as with the 70-200 f/2.8L IS lens… artie
Mongoose M3.6 Action Tripod Head
Sold in one day
Joseph Higbee is offering a M-3.6 Mongoose Gimbal Action Head in excellent condition for $450. The sale includes the head in the original box. Insured ground shipping via UPS to US addresses only. Your item will not ship until check clears unless other arrangements are made.
Please contact Joe via e-mail or by phone at 253 846-1254 (Pacific time).
The Mongoose M-3.6 is so good that it is more than rare to see a used one for sale. I believe that this is the first one BAA has ever listed. I have been using the larger Mongoose (now the best-ever version, the M-3.6) for well more than a decade now. I use it to make sharp images with all of my intermediate telephoto zoom lenses and all of my super-telephoto lens including the 600 II and the 800mm f/5.6L IS. artie
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This image was created at Fort DeSoto with the hand held Canon EF 500mm f/4L IS II USM lens, the Canon Extender EF 1.4X III, and the EOS-1 DX (now replaced by the rugged, blazingly fast Canon EOS-1D X Mark II DSLR with 64GB Card and Reader). ISO 800. Evaluative metering +1 stop: 1/1600 sec. at f/6.3 in Manual mode. AWB. Center AF point/AI Servo Expand/Rear Focus AF on the godwit’s bill and re-compose. Click here to see the latest version of the Rear Focus Tutorial. Click on the image to see a larger version. Image #1: Marbled Godwit preening in the company of two sleeping Willets |
On the Level?
I was flat on the ground hand holding the 500 II when I made today’s featured image. I have no idea why I did not have AF active at the moment of exposure… I must have had the bottom of the camera right in the wet sand with my left arm flat on the ground supporting the lens. Or else I would not have created a sharp image. It’s much better to keep AF active in similar situations to prevent accurate focus from being thrown off by your own movements or your breathing…
I had a devil of a time leveling this image using the Ruler Tool and Image > Rotate > Arbitrary basing the rotation on the godwit… Why? In the RAW file the godwit seemed to be leaning well to our left while the sleeping Willet on our right seemed to be leaning to our right… And the horizon, a curved bit of shoreline, makes it look as if it still needs lots of clockwise rotation.
Mystery Solved, I Think…
This one was really bugging me so I kept staring at the image. And I think that I figured it out. Take a close look at the godwit’s ankles–don’t worry, they are visible but you think that they are the bird’s knees. But the two visible joints mid-legs actually correspond to our ankle bones. Trust me on that. If the bird were normal, the two ankles should be on the same level. But the ankle on our right, the one on the bird’s left leg, is already lower than the ankle on the bird’s right leg. So if we rotate the image to put the two ankles on the same horizontal plane the image would need a good deal more counter-clockwise rotation. Which would obviously be wrong.
There can be only one possible explanation. The godwit has a very bad left leg, so bad that its left leg is well shorter than it’s right leg…
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Image #2: I believe that this image is now correctly square to the world, i.e., level |
The Correctly Leveled Image
On my second attempt to get this one right, I leveled the image based on the sleeping Willet on our right. The godwit now looks as if it is leaning a bit to our right, but I believe that that is a result of its left leg being shorter than its right leg.
Whaddya you think?
The Image Design
With three birds and the tallest one near the center, this was a tough image design. By placing the godwit just a bit to our left of center I feel that the elements of the composition are nicely balanced. I do not think that I could have done any better.
Whaddya you think?
I am expecting that we should have some good opportunities with this species on the Fort DeSoto IPT. See the details below.
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Fort DeSoto in fall is rife with tame birds. All of the images in this card were created at Fort DeSoto in either late September or early October. I hope that you can join me there this fall one way or another. Click on the composite to enjoy a larger version. |
BIRDS AS ART Fort DeSoto In-the-Field Meet-up Workshop (ITFW): $99
Join me on the morning of October 2, 2016 for 3-hours of photographic instruction at Fort DeSoto Park. Beginners are welcome. Lenses of 300mm or longer are recommended but even those with 70-200s should get to make some nice images. Teleconverters are always a plus.
You will learn the basics of digital exposure and image design, autofocus basics, and how to get close to free and wild birds. We should get to photograph a variety of wading birds, shorebirds, terns, and gulls. This inexpensive morning workshop is designed to give folks a taste of the level and the quality of instruction that is provided on BIRDS AS ART Instructional Photo-tours. I hope to meet you there.
To register please call Jim or Jennifer during weekday business hours with a credit card in hand to pay the nominal registration fee. Your registration fee is non-refundable. You will receive a short e-mail with instructions, gear advice, and meeting place one week before the event.
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Folks attending the IPT will be in the field early and stay out late to take advantage of sunrise and sunset colors. The good news is that the days are relatively short in early fall. Click on the composite to enjoy a larger version. |
Fort DeSoto Short Notice Fall IPT/September 28 (meet & greet at 2pm followed by our afternoon session) through the full day on October 1, 2016. 3 1/2 DAYs: $1549. Limit 10/Openings: 6. Sunday morning ITFW free to IPT registrants.
Fort DeSoto, located just south of St. Petersburg, FL, is a mecca for migrant shorebirds in fall. There they join dozens of egrets, herons, night-herons, gulls, and terns who winter on the T-shaped peninsula that serves as their wintering grounds. With any luck, we should get to photograph two of Florida’s most desirable shorebird species: Marbled Godwit and the spectacular Long-billed Curlew. Black-bellied Plover and Willet are easy, American Oystercatcher likely. Great Egret, Snowy Egret, Great Blue Heron, and Tricolored Heron are easy as well and we will almost surely come up with a tame Yellow-crowned Night-Heron or two. We should get to do some Brown Pelican flight photography. And Royal, Sandwich, Forster’s, and Caspian Terns will likely provide us with some good flight opportunities as well. Though not guaranteed, Roseate Spoonbill and Wood Stork would not be unexpected.
Folks who sign up for the IPT are welcome to join me as my guest on the ITFW on the Sunday morning following the workshop. See above for details on that.
On this and all other IPTs you will learn basics and fine points of digital exposure and to get the right exposure every time after making a single test exposure, how to approach free and wild birds without disturbing them, to understand and predict bird behavior, to identify and age many species of shorebirds, to spot the good situations, to choose the best perspective, to see and understand the light, to, and to design pleasing images by mastering your camera’s AF system. And you will learn learn how and why to work in Manual mode (even if you’re scared of it).
At brunch (included) we will review my images–folks learn a ton watching me edit–why keep this one and delete that one? If you opt to bring your laptop, we can take a look at a few of your images from the morning session. We will process a few of my images in Photoshop after converting them in DPP. That followed by Instructor Nap Time.
As I already have one signed up for this workshop, it is a go. Hotel info will be e-mailed when you register. The best airport is Tampa (TPA). It is always best if IPT folks stay in the same hotel so if you are interested it would be a good idea to register now and make your hotel reservations as soon as you hear from us. We can, however, coordinate with local folks who opt to stay at home.
Because of the relatively late date, payment is full is due upon registration either by check or credit card. If the former, please e-mail us immediately so that we can save you a spot. If the latter, please call Jim or Jennifer during weekday business hours at 863-692-0906 with a credit card in hand to register. Your registration fee is non-refundable unless the IPT sells out with eight so please check your plans carefully before committing. You will receive a confirmation e-mail with detailed instructions and gear & clothing advice a fairly soon.
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 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 🙂
Hi
It’s a nice topic for discussion but to level it correctly you can only do it based on water surface.
There’s gonna be a narrow stripe of water in focus and you need to level to it. Either eyeballing or make marks on separate layers.
Art, I’ve always found that the better “level” information always comes from horizontal/vertical things in the image if there are any. The legs of wildlife are rarely vertical.
In this case it’s the water (although it does have some ripples). As long as the reflecting surface is horizontal, the reflection of an object will be directly above/below the object (especially towards the centre of the frame, although this is less critical with telephotos).
Even with rippled water you can usually get a general sense of where the reflection is (as long as the reflection is larger than each ripple of course).
The reflections are one of the subconscious clues we pick up on when viewing a scene, so we can take advantage of them and then check to see that the result is what we want. Usually it is.
Hi David, I agree in part, especially on the ripples. I use them often to help level things (as I did in part with this image). I would however take you to task on one thing that you said; where I come, from the legs of birds standing in water are always vertical, except when one is broken.
🙂
a
When looking directly at the front of the bird maybe. But in this case none of these three birds have vertical legs do they?
Thanks. Ah, more light on the situation. Many of the birds are bow-legged: I consider such birds to be standing “vertically.” Bow legged and cock-eyed is another story 🙂
later and love, artie
Hi, Artie. Lovely image(s). Marbled godwits are such great birds. You seem to have ruled out the possibility that the bottom the godwit was standing on wasn’t even. As a wader myself, I’d think that would be at least as likely as that one leg was shorter than the other.
Term for movement of the tip of the upper bill is “distal rhynchokinesis” from words for “bill” and “movement.” Shorebirds use this action below the surface, so we rarely see it above the surface (as when they stretch or preen), though more so now with high speed photography.
Hi Artie,
The term for bending of the upper bill is “rhynchokinesis”.
Great image!
Many thanks Mike!
artie
I will second your comments concerning Arnold Palmer. I had the pleasure of meeting and talking with him once aboard the USS Eisenhower while it was conducting it’s initial flight operations after commissioning. He said he considered Ike a close friend and jumped at the offer to see first hand the ship named after him. He later put on a golf ball driving exhibition on the flight deck that was most impressive and very much enjoyed by the ship’s crew. A very personable man indeed.
Hey Artie,
Love the image.
What bothers me is the angle of the vegitation in the background in the first image. The second is much better as far as level. Regarding the legs, simply looks to me that the legs are not perfectly square to you. Looks as though the birds left leg is just a little closer, hense making the “ankle” appear a little lower. It appears as though there was still angle of inclination, even though you got as low as you could, and if the birds legs were not quite square to you, the apparent different in the position of the ankles would be enhanced. Also, if you look at the diameter of the right leg, below the ankle (which doesn’t naked sense so I don’t know what you call it), it appears smaller, to me confirming the legs are not perfectly square to you.
Anyway, after looking at the image for a while, I really like it. A wall hanger!
Thanks Frank. At this point I am surely of only one thing. This image is confusing everyone including me 🙂 But it’s fun to have to put your thinking cap on 🙂
ps: if I am remembering correctly, I would have had to dig a hole to get any lower…
Was a fun analysis, but bottom line, great image. Next time, bring a shovel!
Beautiful. I like the composition–looks perfectly balanced to me. And the oof birds and vegetation behind are very pleasing. Your final leveling looks ok to me because the water movement under the two oof birds looks level and so do those two birds.
I agree with your suggestion to rotate by about one degree but counterclockwise.
Just under the godwit is a narrow orange disc of shadow – in Lightroom I put the levelling line directly through that and it seemed to work – on the full screen version I then realised that a couple of millimetres behind the godwit is a division between the pale blue foreground and the pale brown background and this also becomes level. There is what looks like a splash puddle in front of the bird on the left which also levels off. Both legs of the bird on the right also become equally ‘vertical’
LR read -1.18
I think that it is unfortunate that cameras with a built-in level don’t drop that information into the exif data so that Lightroom can automatically level the image based on it.
That being said, I think you did a good job of leveling a difficult image. I think that the resulting lean of the center bird makes sense due to the preening. I can’t tell if it also has a bad leg.
Nice idea Keith, but the in-camera level is just a guideline. In most of the EOS bodies Canon lists an acceptable error of +/- 1˚. But when viewed at a larger scale or printed, a tilt of even a fraction of a degree can be distracting.
In addition, there are times when you want to over-ride the level…
artie
I agree with Richard. Judging by the reflections being vertically aligned/mirrored, it looks level. Definitely a tricky one though because there’s some small waves in the water too, confusing the reflection a little. Image #2 also has a more horizontal alignment of the in-focus water (taking into account the small waves), which also helps confirm the level.
Looking again, is that water/waves or just slightly undulating wet sand?
Looking again, for a 3rd, 4th and 5th time, I’m stumped. Now I think “level” is halfway between the two images. 🙂
Artie, what is the term for the behaviour shown with the beak of the godwit bending?
Good question. I did not even notice that. The tips of the bills of shorebirds are quite flexible and as seen here they can bend them up quite a bit. I am not aware of a term for that. Do know also that the bill tips are rather soft and filled with nerves so that they can feel their prey items in the mud (where they cannot see them).
a
I guess I should have done this in the first place and Googled it! The truth is I have tried it before and just didn’t ask the right question. What is it called when a long-billed bird bends its beak or has a bendy-beak? It is called “rhynchokinesis”. Now we both know!
Beautiful image! Love the placement and contrast ( color/sharpness) between the Godwit and the oof Willets and background. Going by the reflection alignment, looks pretty well -leveled.
Is this just not a case of the bird’s foot being slightly deeper in the sand/mud?
The Willet to the right appears to me to have similarly lop-sided ankles albeit in the opposite direction.
Could be but I do not think so. I have been looking at shorebirds for 37+ years now have never seen on standing lopsided because of differences in the substrate. If anything, this image might actually need another 1 degree of clockwise rotation… This would even out the ankles of the Willet on our right and accentuate what I believe is the Godwit’s bad leg even more…
I tend to agree with PKUK. The Godwit’s body is angled slightly with its left leg closer to the camera. In addition, its right leg might be slightly bent and is further away from the camera. Whether this is from posturing associated with the behavior captured or from terrain differences is impossible to say from a still image. But that seems more likely than an anatomical difference. Regardless, the image feels balanced; so I would say that is a good job of leveling a difficult image with so many skewed lines.
I routinely see shorebirds with badly damaged legs. And other species too.
a
ps: thank for your kind words.
Of course you do. There are lots with even missing legs. That’s really not the point here though is it? Assuming you didn’t just snap the photo and then move on, you watched the bird for some time. If it walked at all, or flew, a damaged leg would be obvious. Same with an anatomical anomaly like a longer leg. Presumably this didn’t happen or you would have said so, or made the subject question into a quiz-type post. I am also willing to bet you have definitely (even frequently) seen shorebirds standing askew. Shorebirds roost positioning themselves with regard to the wind, not the slope of a shoreline. Watch them before or after they have tucked one leg up to rest; it happens all the time, it just might not be as pronounced on the smaller and shorter legged peeps you see all the time on sloped beaches. So the simplest explanation seems to make the most sense, at least to me.
Derek,
You wrote this: ” But that seems more likely than an anatomical difference.” So I was disagreeing with you.
The image is from two or three years ago. As I remember, the bird slept most of the time so I am not sure that I saw him walking about 🙂 If I did, there is a good chance that I would not remember that.
I am not clear as to what your “simplest explanation is” though I suspect that you are talking about uneven terrain. If I am correct, then you are wrong. The bottom at this location is soft mud.
later and love, a
ps: a far as I can recall, all the shorebirds I have ever seen have done a pretty good job of standing level. In other words, I have never seen a shorebird at rest tilted to one side or the other. But I have only seen several million so perhaps I have missed a few; not!