Struggling Somewhat at Bosque ... Mint SONY 400mm f/2.8 GM OSS Lens for Sale. Save $2,301.00.

What’s Up?

Bosque has been so good and conditions at 1:56pm are so perfect that I am skipping Instructor Nap Time to head back down to the refuge early. I meet the complete IPT group tonight 🙂

IPT Updates

• The 2020 San Diego 4 1/2-DAY BIRDS AS ART Instructional Photo-Tour (IPT) WED JAN 8, 2020 thru and including the morning session on SUN JAN 12: 4 1/2 days: $2099.(Limit: 8/Openings: 5)

Click here for complete IPT info and details.

Selling Your Used Photo Gear Through BIRDS AS ART

Selling your used (or like-new) photo gear through the BAA Blog is a great idea. We charge only a 5% commission. One of the more popular used gear for sale sites charged a minimum of 20%. Plus assorted fees! Yikes. They went out of business. And e-Bay fees are now up to 13%. The minimum item price here is $500 (or less for a $25 fee). If you are interested please scroll down here or shoot us an e-mail with the words Items for Sale Info Request cut and pasted into the Subject line :). Stuff that is priced fairly — I offer pricing advice to those who agree to the terms — usually sells in no time flat. Over the past year, we have sold many dozens of items. Do know that prices on some items like the EOS-1D Mark IV, the EOS-1DX, the old Canon 100-400, the old 500mm, the EOS-7D, and the 7D Mark II and the original 400mm DO lens have been dropping steadily. Most recently the price of used Canon 600mm f/L IS II lenses have been dropping like a rock with the introduction of the 600 III. You can always see the current listings by clicking here or on the Used Photo Gear tab on the orange-yellow menu bar near the top of each blog post page.

The Used Gear page has been hot for the past two months with the continuing price drops on Canon and Nikon gear. There are still lots of great buys right now on the Used Gear Page. In addition to the recent sales below, there are many pending sales.

FE Sony 400mm f/2.8 GM OSS Lens

BIRDS AS ART Record Low Price

William Schneider is offering an FE Sony 400mm f/2.8 GM OSS lens in mint condition for the BAA record-low price of $10,697.00. This immaculate lens has seen little use. The sale includes the lens hood, the lens trunk, the front lens cover, the rear lens cap, the lens strap, and insured shipping via Fed Ex Ground. Your item will not ship until your check clears unless other arrangements are made.

Please contact Bill via e-mail e-mail or by phone at 1-(262) 269-8628 (Eastern time zone).

This super-fast lens is amazingly light at 6.4 lbs, the same weight as the Nikon 300mm f/2.8. Patrick made lots of great images at St. Paul in the Pribilof Islands last July with the lens alone and with either the 1.4x and 2x teleconverters. He really enjoys the 8.86 ft close-focusing capability and the beautiful bokeh that the lens produces. Now that he owns the new SONY 600mm f/4GM OSS lens, he cannot justify owning both. As this lens sells new right now for $$12,998.00, you can save a cool $2,301.00 by grabbing his virtually new lens asap. artie

ps: at the time of publication this lens is very hard to get; it is not in stock at B&H or at Bedfords.

BIRDS AS ART

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Money Saving Reminder

If you need a hot photo item that is out of stock at B&H, would enjoy free overnight shipping, and would like a $50 discount on your first purchase over $1000.00, click here to order and enter the coupon code BIRDSASART at checkout. If you are looking to strike a deal on Canon or Nikon gear (including the big telephotos) or on a multiple item order, contact Steve Elkins via e-mail or on his cell at (479) 381-2592 (Eastern time) and be sure to mention your BIRDSASART coupon code and use it for your online order. Steve has been great at getting folks the hot items that are out of stock at B&H. Those include the SONY a7r IV, the SONY 200-600, the SONY 600mm f/4 GM, and the Nikon 500mm PF. Steve is eager to please.

Gear Questions and Advice

Too many folks attending BAA IPTs and dozens of photographers 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. Those questions might deal with systems, camera bodies, accessories, and/or lens choices and decisions.

This image was created on November 24, 2019, my second Bosque IPT scouting morning. I used the hand held Sony FE 200-600mm f/5.6-6.3 G OSS lens (at 211mm with the blazingly fast AF King, the Sony Alpha a9 II Mirrorless Digital camera body. ISO 320. Exposure determined by Zebras: 1/15 sec. at f/6.3 in Manual mode. AWB at 6:25am in the pre-dawn. Snow Geese pre-dawn fly-in

Struggling Somewhat at Bosque …

Yes, I have been stuggling somewhat at Bosque for the first two days. That despite the fact that conditions have been very good.

Why?

1: I am still getting used to my SONY gear. The more comfortable you are with your gear the faster you will be able to change various settings and the better your images will be as you will not be missing some good situations.

2: Though it has been relatively warm here, the mornings have still been plenty cold enough. With the smaller SONY bodies, working with heavy gloves is difficult at best. Opt to work with lighter gloves in the early mornings and your hands get very cold very fast.

3- On Monday morning I was expecting it to be about the same as Sunday morning, so-so. But it turned out to be spectacular and I did not do the best job if anticipating things and wound up with the wrong gear in my hands.

4- Even when I’ve know exactly what was going to happen, I’ve again wound up with the wrong gear in my hands. Having been away from Bosque for four or five years I am just getting into the rhythms and patterns of the geese and cranes. It does seem that vast numbers of geese are arrving daily …

5- I do not have the 3- and 5-stop ND filters for the SONY 600GM that I had for my big Canon glass. I am trying to find out if you can even buy extra drop-in filter holders for the big SONY glass … If you shoot Canon and are interested in the 52mm Singh-Ray 3-stop and 5-stop ND filters mounted in an extra Canon Drop-In Filter Holder for 52mm screw-In filters please e-mail me as I have one of each for sale. If you will be at Bosque within the next week, that would be even better. In any case, it is not — as noted eleswhere here — even possible to get down to slow shutter speeds with big glass on sunny days. And I missed the ability to do that.

6- I have some great heated gloves but working out the logisitics has been a bit problematic. In any case, I love them: from Motion Heat, in Canada.

7- I purchased the wrong Singh-Ray filter for my 200-600. See more on that below.

Despite the fact that I have been screwing up consistently, I have been in the right place session after session. Sunday evening was spectacularly good yet there were only about three other shooters in the right place at sunset. That out of many dozens …

This image was also created on November 24, 2019, my second Bosque IPT scouting morning. I used the hand held Sony FE 200-600mm f/5.6-6.3 G OSS lens (at 441mm) with the 61-MP monster, the Sony Alpha a7R IV Mirrorless Digital Camera body. . A 95mm George Lepp Solid 3-stop Neutral Density Singh-Ray filter was screwed to the front element of the 200-600 so that I could get to a relatively slow shutter speed without having to stop down to f/32 … ISO 64. Exposure determined by Zebras: 1/13 sec. at f/16 in Manual mode. AWB at 10.03am on a clear day. Snow Geese blast off

More on Singh-Ray Neutral Density Filters

The reason I use neutral density filters is so that I can work at very slow shutter speeds in bright sun. At times, you simply cannot get down to 1/8 second even at your lowest ISO. You must, at all costs, avoid working at small or even tiny apertures. Why? Small apertures like f/16, f/22, or higher bring up too much background detail and reveals even microscopic sensor dust. Working at f/8 or wider produces softer looking backgrounds and reduces problems with sensor dust.

I caused my own problem by ordering a 3-stop ND for my 200-600 instead of the 5-stop.

My Singh-Ray Order This Morning

The Solution

I went online here and ordered two 5-stop ND filters, one for the 200-600 and one for the 100-400 and the 24-105. Overnight shipping arriving tomorrow. You only live once. If you order a Singh-Ray filter, please use the preceding link and type in the ARTIE10 discount code at checkout to save 10%. Tanks!

This image was created on November 24, 2019, my third Bosque IPT scouting afternoon. I used the Induro GIT 404/FlexShooter Pro-mounted Sony FE 600mm f/4 GM OSS lens and the Sony Alpha a7R IV Mirrorless Digital Camera body. ISO 320. Exposure determined by Zebras: 1/30 sec. at f/6.3 in Manual mode. AWB at 5.04pm after sunset on a partly cloudy afternoon. Snow Geese with cottonwoods blur

In Low Light …

Notice that when working in very low light, you do not need an ND filter to get down to a slow shutter speed without using a small or tiny aperture.

A Guide to Pleasing Blurs

Learn everything there is to know about creating pleasingly blurred images in A Guide to Pleasing Blurs by Denise Ippolito and yours truly. This 20,585 word, 271 page PDF is illustrated with 144 different, exciting, and artistic images. The guide covers the basics of creating pleasingly blurred images, the factors that influence the degree of blurring, the use of filters in creating pleasing blurs, and a great variety of both in-the-field and Photoshop techniques that can be used to create pleasingly blurred images.

Artie and Denise teach you many different ways to move your lens during the exposure to create a variety of pleasingly blurred images of flowers and trees and water and landscapes. They will teach you to recognize situations where subject movement can be used to your advantage to create pan blurs, wind blurs, and moving water blurs. They will teach you to create zoom-blurs both in the field and during post-processing. Artie shares the techniques that he has used and developed for making blurred images of flocks of geese in flight at his beloved Bosque del Apache and Denise shares her flower blur magic as well as a variety of creative Photoshop techniques that she has developed.

With the advent of digital capture creating blurred images has become a great and inexpensive way to go out with your camera and have fun. And while many folks think that making successful blurred images is the result of being a sloppy photographer, nothing could be further from the truth. In “A Guide to Pleasing Blurs” Artie and Denise will help you to unleash your creative self.

If In Doubt …

If you are in doubt about using the BAA B&H affiliate link correctly, you can always start your search by clicking here. Please note that the tracking is invisible. Web orders only. Please, however, remember to shoot me your receipt via e-mail.

Please Remember to use my Affiliate Links and to Visit the 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 or Bedfords, 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 or Bedfords 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 :).