It Does Not Get Any Easier Than This ...

Stuff

We had a great morning at DeSoto on Sunday with flying and diving Brown Pelicans. In addition, our friendly oystercatcher was chowing down in the same spot on the same stuff. After a few hours we were headed back to the hotel when I spotted two handsome Wood Storks. We got really close, talked about exposure, and in the bright sun practiced working right on sun angle. We made lots of head portraits both vertical and horizontal. We saw what happened to the BKGRs when you zoomed out. Eventually the birds flew from the seawall to a nearby beach because a fisherman was throwing his cast net and catching plenty of bait. We made our way down to the beach and created images of the storks walking and preening. I was just about to call the morning and head back to the hotel and lunch when a thin cloud covered the sun. We wound up staying another one and one-half hours. And the fisherman gave us a ton of live bait for our bucket … Whoa, did we have fun.

Great IPT News

An amazing nine folks have already committed to the new, expanded UK Puffins and Gannets 2018 IPT with the Bempton Cliffs pre-trip. And all have signed up for the pre-trip. There is just one slot left so if you are interested in joining us, please do not tarry. You can learn more about this great trip here.

The Streak

Today marks sixty-one days in a row with a new educational blog post! This one took about an hour to prepare. With all of my upcoming free time (or not …), the plan right now is to break the current record streak of (I think) four hundred eighty something … Good health and good internet connections willing.

Booking.Com

I could not secure the lodging that I needed for last year’s UK Puffins and Gannets IPT in Dunbar, Scotland, so I went from Hotels.Com to Booking.Com and was pleasantly surprised. I found the rooms that I needed with ease at a hotel that was not even on Hotels.Com, and it was a nice hotel that I had seen in person. And the rates were great. If you’d like to give Booking.Com a shot, click here and you will earn a $25 reward.

Thanks to the many who have already tried and used this great service.

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.

This image was created on the first afternoon of the 2017 Fort DeSoto IPT 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 264mm), and my favorite egret photography camera body, the Canon EOS 5D Mark IV. ISO 400. Evaluative metering -2/3 stop: 1/800 sec. at f/9 in Manual mode. AWB. LensAlign/FocusTune micro-adjustment: -1. Upper Large Zone/Shutter Button AF was active at the moment of exposure. The AF system activated three AF points that grabbed the back of the bird’s lower neck. Great Egret, young of the year — aka: hatch-year bird.

It Does Not Get Any Easier …

Sun in the west, dark storm clouds in the east that reflect off the water providing an almost black backgournd. Get on sun angle and make an exposure check. Pick upper large zone AF, acquire focus, frame, check the in-viewfinder level, and fire. With images like this one where I want to darken the background during the RAW conversion, I experiment by moving the Shadow slider one or two to the left. Next I took a bit off the bottom where the reflections petered out and added the same amount to the top using the Crop Tool love handles to expand the canvas and John Haedo Content Aware Fill to fill it in. As I said, this image was a piece of cake.

If In Doubt …

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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 :).