Here's Looking Down at You! And another depth-of-field lesson ...

Stuff

We had another great morning at DeSoto on Monday. We enjoyed making lots of tight head portraits of various herons and egrets and enjoyed some great flight photography as well. I am looking forward to finishing up teaching and getting back home on Tuesday afternoon. I fly to Long Island on Thursday to visit younger daughter Alissa and her family and to see my two sisters.

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-two days in a row with a new educational blog post! This one took about 45 minutes 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 last morning of the 2017 Fort DeSoto Fall 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 560mm), and my favorite heron eyeball photography camera body, the Canon EOS 5D Mark IV. ISO 500. Evaluative metering +1 stop: 1/250 sec. at f/16 in Av mode. AWB. LensAlign/FocusTune micro-adjustment: -1. Upper Large Zone/Shutter Button AF was active at the moment of exposure. The AF system activated four AF points in the vicinity of bird’s right eye and the base of the bill. Great Blue Heron, from below.

Here’s Looking Down at You!

If you find yourself looking up at a heron or an egret from below, you can make some dramatic images by stopping down, focusing as near to the eyes as possible, and doing your best to design a pleasing image. You need to be patient and wait until the bird is looking right down the lens barrel with both eyes visible. I first came up with this idea about 20 years ago while lying down on the Sanibel Fishing pier and looking up at a Great Egret that was on the railing.

If you were a baitfish and looked up to see the view above, your time might be short …

Depth of Field Note

Note: even at f/16 the distal 1/2 inch of the bill is not even close to being in sharp focus. When do you need to stop down? When you are relatively close to the subject and working near the minimum focusing distance of the lens. Depth of field decreases as the camera to subject distance decreases. And it increases as the camera to subject distance increases. Working at 560mm at about 10 feet with a full frame body the total depth of field is less than 7/8 inch …

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 Blue Heron, 100% crop of eyes.

Sharpness Question

How does the sharpness of this unsharpened 100% crop look to you?

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 :).