What’s Up
Again on Thursday I felt a bit better than the day before and got some more work done on the BAA Current Workflow Guide. I am pretty sure that as I have aged I have developed ADD …
Gear Questions and Advice
Too many folks attending BAA IPTs and dozens of 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.
Please Don’t Forget …
As always–and folks have been doing a really great job for a long time now–please remember to use our B&H links for your major and minor 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 BAA Online Store (as noted in red at the close of this post below) we would of course appreciate your business.
Gitzo GT 4542LS
New Package.
Hisham A. is offering a Gitzo Series 4 Systematic 4 Section Long Tripod GT4542LS in excellent condition along with a Gura Gear Bataflae 32L Backpack (a discontinued $400 value) for $799. The backpack holds an unmounted 600mm lens. The sale includes insured ground shipping to US addresses via major courier.
Please contact Hisham via e-mail or by phone at 720 771 2693 (Eastern time).
BIRDS AS ART June 3-4 Gatorland In-the Field Instructional Meet-Up Sessions
Last of the Season!
Join me in Kissimmee, FL for all or part of the weekend of June 3-4, 2017. We should get to photograph several species of nesting herons and egrets as well as Wood Stork, American Alligator (captive), and more. We should get to make lots of head portraits of all the bird species and to photograph both small chicks and fledged young. Learn to see, find, and make the shot in cluttered settings. Learn exposure and how to handle WHITEs. All of the birds are free and wild. These inexpensive sessions are 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 see you there.
June 3-4, 2017 Schedule
- Saturday June 3 Meet-up Morning (early entry): 7:30 till 10:30am: $99.
- Lunch and Image Review: $99.
- Saturday afternoon till closing (late stay): $99.
- Sunday June 4 Meet-up Morning, (early entry): 7:30 till 10am: $90.
Cheap Canon lens rentals available: 600 II, 500 II, 400 DO II, or 200-400.
To pay for one or more sessions in full via credit card, call Jim or Jen in the office weekdays at 863-692-0906. You will be responsible for the cost of your Gatorland Photographer’s pass or passes. Please shoot me an e-mail with questions.
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This image was created on the May 14 Gatorland In-the-Field Meet-up session with the hand held Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM lens, the Canon Extender EF 1.4X III (at 560mm) and my favorite bird photography camera body, the Canon EOS 5D Mark IV. ISO 800. Evaluative metering -1 2/3 stops: 1/1600 sec. at f/9. AWB. LensAlign/FocusTune micro-adjustment: 0. One row up and two to the right of the center AF point/AI Servo/Expand /Shutter button AF was active at the moment of exposure as originally framed. Great Egret aigrettes |
If at First …
If at first you do not succeed, try, try again. I must have tried photographing the aigrettes (breeding plumes) of Great Egret 100 times without success. And I failed every single time until I made this image (at least to my mind). It sort of reminds me of the dewy spider web against dark backgrounds (only without the dew).
What Do You Think?
Does this image work for you? Why or why not? Is it too abstract?
More Depth-of-Field?
As I had plenty of shutter speed, I could have easily stopped down a two full stops to f/18 (at 1/400 sec.) Do you think that more depth of field would have improved this image? Or made it worse?
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 :).
Love it! Love the blurriness, the tack sharpness only in a few places, the patterning of white on the black. This truly is Birds as Art.
I like the abstract nature of the image. The fact that one part of the image is sharp is good enough for me. After that the rest can be just abstract pattern. I am good with that.
Kind of like Jay says “Sharpness is a bourgeois concept” HCB.
I also like the exposure. Creates separation from the black with appropriate detail in the white.
While focus stacking would be interesting, I doubt that any thing as light as these would stand still in any motion of the atmosphere. Fine just as it is.
I like the abstract part of feathers, specially when they are iridescent like the Resplendent Quetzal ones. Light is everything and the details can be astonishing. DOF seems fine to me.
I kind of like this image. The out of focus portions don’t bother me since it kind of adds to the texture of the image. I think the composition is good with the lines running parallel both horizontally and vertically. I don’t know if the bird was stationary but perhaps it would have been possible to focus stack the image and get a deeper depth of field as another choice.
It works for me. Sharpness can be overrated.
I like this image a lot! But then, I like abstractions.
It is impossible to tell if more DOF would have resulted in a better image. Not even sure f/32 would have rendered each aigrette sharp…but even if it had, that may have resulted in a confusing image. As shot, this image helps guide the viewer’s eye around the frame. Sometimes it’s not about having edge to edge sharpness, it’s about placing the plane of sharp focus exactly where it needs to be. You’ve done that here.
Although I like the image as presented, I would welcome greater depth of field. That could be beneficial both online and especially for larger prints.
Thanks very much for posting the image and for all of your other inspirational and instructive posts.
Best wishes.