Big UK Puffins & Gannets IPT News. Close Puffins Gear Bag Info. CYAN Color Cast on the Water and the Marching Ants. And A Free Magic Wand/Lasso Tool Excerpt from the new Current BAA Digital Workflow e-Guide.

What’s Up

2017 UK Puffins and Gannets IPT. Monday July 3 through Wednesday July 12, 2017: $5999 + $1499: Limit 10 photographers — Openings: 5).
The (really cheap) two-day Gannet/Bass Rock Add-on is now part of the trip.

Please call 863-692-0906 for info on the substantial Late Registration Discount.

Here is some great info on the July 2017 UK Puffins and Gannets IPT: I have finalized the cottage and vehicle rental arrangements. We have room for several additional folks, at least for a couple and single. And I am in position, as noted above, to offer a rather substantial late registration discount. Please call us at 863-692-0906 or get in touch via e-mail. Scroll down for additional details and our travel plans.

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.

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.

This image was created on a UK Puffins and Gannets IPT with the hand held Canon EF 300mm f/2.8L IS II USM lens, the Canon Extender EF 1.4X III, and the EOS 1D X now replaced by the rugged, blazingly fast Canon EOS-1D X Mark II. ISO 800. Evaluative metering +1/3 stop: 1/640 sec. at f/13 in Av mode. AWB. LensAlign/FocusTune micro-adjustment: 0. One row up and two to the right of the center AF point/AI Servo/Surround/Shutter button AF was active at the moment of exposure. The selected AF point was on the side of the neck right on the same plane as the bird’s eye. Image #1: Atlantic Puffin yawning

Lots of Close Puffins

You do not need really long focal lengths to photograph puffins on the UK Puffins and Gannets IPT. Today’s featured image was created at 420mm. Both the Canon EF 300mm f/2.8L IS II USM Lens and the Canon EF 400mm f/4 DO IS II USM lens are deadly on this trip, either with the Canon Extender EF 1.4X III or the Canon Extender EF 2X III. The Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM lens is superb on this trip with or without either or both the Canon Extender EF 1.4X III and/or the Canon EOS 7D Mark II.

I have pretty much decided that I will be leaving my Canon EF 600mm f/4L IS II USM lens at home and taking the lighter, closer-focusing, easier-to-travel-with Canon EF 500mm f/4L IS II USM lens instead as my big telephoto.

Why Not Lower?

Why would it have been a bad idea to get lower when creating this image?

Critique Today’s Image

Positives? Negatives? Exposure? Image design? Sharpness? Impact?

Image #2: The Converted TIFF and the Marching Ants …

The CYAN Color Cast on the Water and the Marching Ants …

Note the CYAN color cast on the water even though the RGB Values on the WHITEs were pretty close to perfect. None-the-less, even though the color of the water in the converted TIFF was pretty accurate I wanted to make the water BLUER. But, if I worked on the whole image that would have wrecked the WHITES. So my best option was to select the background. Here is a free excerpt from the new Current BAA Digital Workflow e-Guide (aka Digital Basics II):

The Magic Wand Tool

The Magic Wand Tool is great when you need to select large areas of a uniform background bordered by areas with contrast. Let’s say that you have an image of a dark bird in flight and the exposure for the bird is perfect. Most likely the sky will look much lighter than it appeared when the image was made. You would like to darken the sky without making the bird darker. To do this, it is best to use the Magic Wand Tool to select the sky.

Click on the Magic Wand Tool symbol on the tool palette or better yet, use the default keyboard shortcut, M. The cursor looks sort of like a Fourth of July sparkler. Next, check to see that the number 30 appears in the Tolerance window (on the Tool Options Bar). Place the cursor (which will look like a sparkler) anywhere on the background and left click. A rolling dotted line will appear around the selected portion of the image to indicate the selected area; most folks call this line “marching ants.” Check to make sure that no part of the subject was selected. If it was, hit Command D to lose the selection and then start again, this time typing a smaller number, say 25, in the Tolerance window. (Repeat if necessary, lowering the tolerance each time until only the background is selected.)

The Lasso Tool

The Lasso Tool can be used to make selections. Simply click-encircle the area that you wish to select. Once you release the cursor, the marching ants will appear. If you wish to remove something that you have selected, you can switch to the minus brush of simply hold down the Alternate key. This will always switch any + tool to a – tool. Today I rarely use the Lasso Tool except when I am having trouble making an accurate selection with the Quick Selection Tool or the Magic Wand Tool. In those cases, I use both the + (plus) and – (minus) Lasso Tool brushes to fine-tune my selection.

After converting the image in DPP 4, I brought the TIFF into Photoshop and, aside from some minor clean-up and dealing with the color cast, I did not do a whole lot. Following my own directions worked perfectly. With the Tolerance set at 30, lots of the bird was selected. The results were much better once I set the Tolerance to 25; only two small areas of the bird were selected. I used the minus Lasso Tool to circle and eliminate those two.
Once I put the accurate selection of the sky (indicated above by the “marching” ants), I feathered the selection 2 pixels, put it on its own layer (Command J) and applied NIK Color Efex Pro’s White Neutralizer to the layer only. Hello lovely blue water.

The Image Optimization

Everything above is detailed in my Digital Basics File, an instructional PDF that is sent via e-mail. It includes my complete (former PC) 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 and Dodge and Burn, a variety of making selections, how to create time-saving actions, and tons more.

I am working on an all-new Current Workflow e-guide that better reflects my Macbook Pro/Photo Mechanic/DPP 4/Photoshop workflow. It will include a section on ACR conversions and a simplified method of applying Neat Image noise reduction. Along with all of the Photoshop stuff from Digital Basics that I still use. Learn advanced Quick Masking and advanced Layer Masking techniques in APTATS I & II. You can save $15 by purchasing the pair. Learn how and why I and other discerning Canon shooters convert nearly all of my Canon digital RAW files in DPP 4 using Canon Digital Photo Professional in the DPP 4 RAW conversion Guide here.

Images and card design copyright: Arthur Morris/BIRDS AS ART. Click on the card to enjoy a spectacular larger version.

2017 UK Puffins and Gannets IPT. Monday July 3 through Wednesday July 12, 2017: $5999 + $1499: Limit 10 photographers — Openings: 5).
All who register will be required to join the (really cheap) two-day Gannet/Bass Rock Add-on. See below for details.

Please call 863-692-0906 for info on the substantial Late Registration Discount.

Here are the plans: take a red eye from the east coast of the US on July 2 and arrive in Edinburgh, Scotland on the morning of Monday July 3 no later than 10am (or simply meet us then at the Edinburgh Airport–EDI, or later in the day at our cottages if you are driving your own vehicle either from the UK or from somewhere in Europe). Stay 7 nights in one of two gorgeous modern country cottages.

There are five days of planned puffin/seabird trips and one morning of gannet photography, all weather permitting of course. In three years we have yet to miss an entire day because of weather… In addition, we will enjoy several sessions of photographing nesting Black-legged Kittiwakes at eye level.

Images and card design copyright: Arthur Morris/BIRDS AS ART. Click on the card to enjoy a spectacular larger version.

The Details

We will get to photograph Atlantic Puffin, Common Murre, Razorbill, Shag, and Northern Gannet; Arctic, Sandwich, and Common Terns, the former with chicks of all sizes; Black-headed, Lesser-Black-backed, and Herring Gulls, many chasing puffins with fish; Black-legged Kittiwake with chicks. We will be staying in upscale country-side lodging that are beyond lovely with large living areas and lots of open space for the informal image sharing and Photoshop sessions. The shared rooms are decent-sized, each with a private bathroom. See the limited single supplement info below.

All breakfasts, lunches and dinners are included. All 5 puffins boat lunches will need to be prepared by you in advance, taken with, and consumed at your leisure. I usually eat mine on the short boat trip from one island to the other. Also included is a restaurant lunch on the gannet boat day.

If you wish to fly home on the morning of Monday July 10 we will get you to the airport. Please, however, consider the following tentative plans: enjoy a second Gannet boat trip on the afternoon of Monday July 10 and book your hotel room in Dunbar. If all goes as planned, those who stay on for the two extra days will make a morning landing at Bass Rock, one of the world’s largest gannetries. We will get everyone to the airport on the morning of Wednesday July 12.

Great News on the UK Puffins and Gannets/Bass Rock Extension

On the morning of Jul 10, 2017, we will sleep late and head up to Dunbar Harbor for lunch and an afternoon Gannet boat chumming trip: flight photography until you cannot lift your camera. One gannet boat trip is included in the IPT but everyone always wants more.

Then, as a possible mega bonus — we are scheduled to make a Bass Rock landing on the morning of Tuesday July 12, 2017. I am hoping to go two for two! If not, we do another chumming trip for flying gannets.

Included will be two nights lodging at the wonderful Dunsmuir hotel, two fine dining meals there, any additional meals, all boat, guide, and landing fees, and all transportation including the early morning transfer to the Edinburg Airport on the morning of WED July 12.

So far all five sign-ups are maximizing their travel dollars by signing up for the extension in part because I priced it so cheaply at $1499 despite my greatly increased costs.

Images and card design copyright: Arthur Morris/BIRDS AS ART. Click on the card to enjoy a spectacular larger version. Scroll down to join us in the UK in 2016.

Deposit Info

If you are good to go sharing a room–couples of course are more than welcome–please send your non-refundable $2,000/person deposit check now to save a spot. Please be sure to check your schedule carefully before committing to the trip and see the travel insurance info below. Your balance will be due on March 29, 2017. Please make your check out to “Arthur Morris” and send it to Arthur Morris/BIRDS AS ART, PO Box 7245, Indian Lake Estates, FL, 33855. If we do not receive your check for the balance on or before the due date we will try to fill your spot from the waiting list. If your spot is filled, you will lose your deposit. If not, you can secure your spot by paying your balance.

Please shoot me an e-mail if you are good to go or if you have any questions.

Single Supplement Deposit Info

Single supplement rooms are available on a limited basis. To ensure yours, please register early. The single supplement fee is $1575. If you would like your own room, please request it when making your deposit and include payment in full for the single supplement; your single supplement deposit check should be for $3,575. As we will need to commit to renting the extra space, single supplement deposits are non-refundable so please be sure that check your schedule carefully before committing to the trip and see the travel insurance info below.

Travel Insurance

Travel insurance for big international trips is highly recommended as we never know what life has in store for us. I strongly recommend that you purchase quality insurance. Travel Insurance Services offers a variety of plans and options. Included with the Elite Option or available as an upgrade to the Basic & Plus Options you can also purchase Cancel for Any Reason Coverage that expands the list of reasons for your canceling to include things such as sudden work or family obligation and even a simple change of mind. My family and I use and depend on the great policies offered by TIS whenever we travel. You can learn more here: Travel Insurance Services. Do note that many plans require that you purchase your travel insurance within 14 days of our cashing your deposit check of running your credit card. Whenever purchasing travel insurance be sure to read the fine print careful even when dealing with reputable firms like TSI.

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 :).