SONY 200-600 Versatility. A Cold and Windy Afternoon Beach Walk -- Thanks to Buddy Tom Pfeifer. Perhaps Not the Wisest Move ... And an Exposure Question

What’s Up?

I optimized the six images for this blog post (in less than 30 minutes) while waiting for my early morning flight from Islip to Orlando on Thursday, December 19, 2019. It was a bit nippy on Long Island when I exited my cab at the airport at 4:11am: 16 degrees F, with me in a sweatshirt … I began working on this blog post on the plane (while off-line).

I was glad to learn that IPT veteran Terry Tsuchiyama will be joining the still-small San Diego IPT group.

Please …

Please consider leaving a comment and letting us know which of today’s eight featured images you wish was yours, and why.

This Week’s Sign That the Apocalypse is Upon Us

Near the end of the flight, I had a nice chat with the guy in my row. The last thing that I said to him before we exited was “I really need to be careful not to leave. anything behind.” Laptop: check. Water bottle: check. Pen: check! Cell phone: check. I got my Think Tank roller out of the overhead and was ready to deplane when the guy in the row behind me said, “You might want to grab your brown shoes from under your seat.:

Because the plane was so cold when we boarded, I put on my super-warm MEC booties and thought that putting my shoes under my seat rather than under the seat in front of me would be a good plan and keep them out of the way. Well, they were not only out of the way, they were out of my mind. That is the last time I will do that; from now on, they will go under the seat in front of me …

Friday Morning Update

My flight was easy-peasy. Jim picked me up at about 9:30am. After a short stop at Publix, we were home by 11am. Then it was back in the pool for a half-mile swim in my second-coldest-ever pool: an even 70 degrees F. Once this is posted I will head down to the lake for a walk.

My Images from a trip to Longyearbeyn with Patrick and Robin Sparkman in 2011 — could it be that long ago? Images copyright Arthur Morris/BIRDS AS ART

Svalbard Arctic Nesting Bird IPT

If you are interested in joining me for a week of bird photography in Arctic Norway (Longyearbyen, Svalbard) in mid-June of this year, please shoot me an e-mail immediately. Common and King Eider, Red-throated Loon, Red Phalarope, Ivory Gull, jaegers, Dovekie, and lots more. This trip fits perfectly with the Cheeseman’s Svalbard Islands June 23 to July 6, 2020 Polar Bear trip. I will be on that.

IPT Updates

Do check out the San Diego Gallery here.

• 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.

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 December 18, 2019 at Point Lookout, LI, NY. I used the hand held Sony FE 200-600mm f/5.6-6.3 G OSS lens (at 400mm) with the blazingly fast AF King, the Sony Alpha a9 II Mirrorless Digital camera body. ISO 500. Exposure determined by Zebras: 1/2000 sec. at f/7.1 in Manual mode. AWB at 1:46pm on a then partly sunny afternoon. Lowest center Flexible Spot (L) worked perfectly by getting sharp focus on the closest birds. Click on the image to see a larger, inexplicably sharper version Image #1: Brant flock in inlet

A Cold and Windy Afternoon Beach Walk

A few decades ago, I did a program for Huntington Audubon. I am not sure how things developed, but skilled Long Island bird photographer Tom Pfeifer kindly invited me to his home for dinner. Since then, I try to meet up with Tom for at least one photo session. I was free from Monday through Wednesday but the weather on Monday was lousy and Tuesday was ice-rain all day. It was supposed to be clear on Wednesday morning but with the winds from the northwest that was a no-go for me. Tom and I agreed to meet at Nickerson at 1pm on Wednesday afternoon to search for the reported Snowy Owl. You know how those usually go …

A Text From Tom

Tom texted me mid-morning saying that he got to the beach early, had quickly found the owl, and had made a few good images. I texted back saying that I would get my gear and cold-weather clothing together as fast as possible and head to Nickerson. I got there at about 12:30pm and called Tom. He said that the owl had flown and was in a lousy spot deep in the beach grasses. I told him that I would scout the inlet at Point Lookout and report back to him. They do not make it easy to park there, so I grabbed only the 2-6 and walked the few blocks. As I approached the water, two big flocks of Brant flew by well off sun angle. When I reached the water’s edge the flock was far to my left but right down sun angle. I set up for sunny flight photography hoping that they would take flight. That never happened. So, I walked the beach to the left and created the bird-scape above.

With the sun out at nearly full strength, but still hoping for a take-off, I simply lowered the ISO until the white areas on the Brant showed Zebras and then backed off one click on the ISO. Post processing in Capture One was straight-forward. Once I had the image in Photoshop, I eliminated a very few birds from each frame-edge using the Patch Tool on the left frame-edge and a Quick Mask refined by a Regular Layer Mask on the right frame-edge. All of my clean-up techniques and tons more Photoshop/current workflow stuff info including all of my personalized Keyboard Shortcuts — is covered in detail in the BIRDS AS ART Current Workflow e-Guide (Digital Basics II), an instructional PDF that is sent via e-mail. Learn more and check out the free excerpt in the blog post here.

This image was also created on December 18, 2019 at Point Lookout, LI, NY. Again I used the hand held Sony FE 200-600mm f/5.6-6.3 G OSS lens (this time at 600mm) with the blazingly fast AF King, the Sony Alpha a9 II Mirrorless Digital camera body. ISO 1600. Exposure determined by Zebras: 1/2000 sec. at f/7.1 in Manual mode. AWB at 1:51pm on a then cloudy afternoon. One up from the bottom left of center Flexible Spot (L) worked perfectly by getting sharp focus on the closest bird just right of center. Click on the image to see a larger, inexplicably sharper version. Image #2: Brant Flock-scape — small group in inlet

My Beach Walk Continued …

I called Tom to let him know about the Brant, but he decided to stay with the owl that was “not doing a thing.” The weatherman was — for a change — right on the money. The forecast was for clouds to develop in the early afternoon and that is exactly what happened. I headed back up the beach and when the Brant came a bit closer, I created Image #2. Notice that with the thickening’ clouds, I increased the ISO correspondingly. All that was needed to create the clean frame-edges for Image #2. was a small crop.

This image was also created on December 18, 2019 at Point Lookout, LI, NY. Again I used the hand held Sony FE 200-600mm f/5.6-6.3 G OSS lens (this time at 524mm) with the blazingly fast AF King, the Sony Alpha a9 II Mirrorless Digital camera body. ISO 2500. Exposure determined by Zebras: 1/2000 sec. at f/9 in Manual mode. AWB at 2:08:23 on a by now cloudy-dark afternoon. One down from center Flexible Spot (S) was placed on the eye of the Purple Sandpiper. Click on the image to see a larger, inexplicably sharper version. Image #3: Purple Sandpiper with Dunlin on a small rock jetty

Making a U-turn …

I was almost back at the path that led up to the tiny town of Point Lookout when I saw a flock of shorebirds land on the small rock jetty about 200 yards up the inlet (to the north which was to my left). I had thought that they were Sanderlings. When I got closer, I noted several Ruddy Turnstones on the beach, and perhaps a dozen more shorebirds on the jetty — three were handsome Purple Sandpipers and the rest were Dunlin. As I just about clipped the eye of the bird just peeking into the frame on our right, I expanded the canvas there using Content-Aware Fill Crop. Everything looked good except for the two eyes! I used the Patch Tool and the Clone Stamp Tool to clean that up.

I could have avoided that by moving the selected AF point once or twice to the left. Note with this image that f/9 was an error. Working at f/7.1 would have allowed me to drop the ISO two clicks to 1600. That said, I’d rate the a9 II high ISO performance as excellent.

How Many Birds?

How many birds do you count in Image #3?

This image was also created on December 18, 2019 at Point Lookout, LI, NY. Again I used the hand held Sony FE 200-600mm f/5.6-6.3 G OSS lens (this time at 600mm) with the blazingly fast AF King, the Sony Alpha a9 II Mirrorless Digital camera body. ISO 1600. Exposure determined by Zebras: 1/500 sec. at f/7.1 in Manual mode. AWB at 2:08:52 on a by now very cloudy-dark afternoon. One down from center Flexible Spot (S) was placed on the eye of the Purple Sandpiper. Click on the image to see a larger, inexplicably sharper version. Image #4: Dunlin juxtaposition

The Strong West Wind

I was able to approach the normally skittish shorebirds quite closely in part because I moved very slowly and in part because of the strong west wind; birds are often reluctant to fly in very windy conditions, sort of pinned down by the wind. Note that Image #4 was created just 29 seconds after Image #3. In good situations, you need to be prepared to work quickly and efficiently in order to maximize your opportunities. The birds were hopping around from rock to rock as small waves hit the jetty so the chances were pretty good that I would be able to isolate a bird or two. And I was hoping that one of the purple sands would hop up to a nice rock all by itself.

As it was a pretty good situation and Tom was keeping an eye on the owl for me, I decided to give him a FaceTime call and show him the situation. I figured that he might want to walk to his car, drive to the east end of Point Lookout, walk down to the inlet, and then traverse the 200 yards to the small rock jetty. I realize now that that was not quite realistic.

Perhaps Not the Wisest Move …

Once I got Tom on FT I raised the phone to show him how close I was to the birds. As I raised my arm, the small flock of shorebirds flew away, not to be seen again. Oops. At least Tom did not have to make a decision. He did let me know that the owl was still resting in the tall grasses.

Anyhoo, I decided to head to Nickerson and at least take a look at the owl as I had only seen a very few in my 42 or 43 years of birding and bird photography. I called Tom as I pulled into the lot. He told me that the owl had flown to a more favorable position.

This image was also created on December 18, 2019 at Point Lookout, LI, NY. Again I used the hand held Sony FE 200-600mm f/5.6-6.3 G OSS lens (again at 600mm) with the blazingly fast AF King, the Sony Alpha a9 II Mirrorless Digital camera body. ISO 2500. Exposure determined by Zebras: 1/800 sec. at f/7.1 in Manual mode. AWB at 2:24pm on a very cloudy-dark afternoon. One down from center Flexible Spot (S) was placed on the eye of the Purple Sandpiper. Click on the image to see a larger, inexplicably sharper version. Image #5: Brant juxtaposition

Closer Still …

Once I scared off all the shorebirds, I headed back to my vehicle. As I approached the path back to town, I noticed that the Brant were swimming in closer, so I nestled down among some large rocks and created image # 5 (while wishing that I had the 600 GM with the 1.4X TC).

This image was created on December 18 at Nickerson Beach, Long Island, NY. For the owl, I used the Induro GIT 304L/FlexShooter Pro-mounted Sony FE 600mm f/4 GM OSS lens, the Sony FE 2.0x Teleconverter, and the blazingly fast AF King, the Sony Alpha a9 II Mirrorless Digital camera body. ISO 2000. Exposure determined by Zebras: 1/250 sec. at f/9 in Manual mode. AWB at 3:06pm on a variably cloudy afternoon. Image #6:Snowy Owl on dune Click on the image to see a larger, inexplicably sharper version.

Thanks Buddy!

Thanks not only to good buddy Tom Pfeifer who babysat the owl for me until things improved.

i-Phone 8+ image. Image #7:Photographers at the beach

What Excites You?

When I saw the photographers atop the sand ridge and the big sky with the God-rays, I took off my gloves and got out my i-phone. Just as I was framing the image the guy in blue started to leave. I asked him to go back and pose with his lens for a minute. And he did. Without him in the shoot, it would not have been nearly as good.

Exposure Question

After bringing the i-Phone image into Photoshop, a healthy dose of the Shadow slider did a great job of opening up the underexposed photographers. Why had the photographers been so under-exposed?

Good Going!

There were about a dozen photographers working the owl. Perhaps a few more than that. I am glad to be able to report that everyone was well-behaved. Everyone moved slowly when approaching the bird and kept their tripods low. Newly arrived folks were careful to approach from directly behind those already shooting so that their movements were shielded from the bird. And folks who wanted a different angle moved even more slowly and stayed back a bit. After about an hour, the bird turned around, faced into the wind, and took flight.

Tom and old friend Jimmy G headed off the re-find the bird. I headed back to Lissy’s house to pack for my flight home. Tom told me that the bird landed in an uncluttered spot; I was glad for them. I had had a great afternoon.

San Diego offers a wealth of very attractive natural history subjects, including and especially the Pacific race of California Brown Pelican. With annual visits spanning more than four decades, I have lots of photographic experience there … Click on the composite to enjoy a larger version.

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)

Introductory Meet and Greet at 7:00pm on the evening before the IPT begins; WED JAN 7, 2020.

Join me in San Diego to photograph the spectacular breeding plumage Brown Pelicans with their fire-engine red and olive green bill pouches; Brandt’s (nesting with eggs and possibly chicks) and Double-crested Cormorants; breeding plumage Wood and Ring-necked Duck; other duck species possible including Lesser Scaup, Redhead, and Surf Scoter; a variety of gulls including Western, California, and the gorgeous Heermann’s, all in full breeding plumage; shorebirds including Marbled Godwit, Willet, Sanderling and Black-bellied Plover; many others are possible including Least, Western, and Spotted Sandpiper, Whimbrel, Black and Ruddy Turnstone, Semipalmated Plover, and Surfbird; Harbor Seals (depending on the current regulations) and California Sea Lions; and Bird of Paradise flowers. And as you can see by studying the IPT cards, there are some nice bird-scape and landscape opportunities as well. Not to mention a ton of excellent flight photography opportunities and instruction.

Please note: where permitted and on occasion, ducks and gulls may be attracted (or relocated) with offerings of grains or healthy bread.

Learning Exposure, Whether You Like It Or Not

Whether you like it or not, we will be beating the subject of exposure like a dead horse. In every new situation, you will hear my thoughts on the exposure situation along with my thoughts on both Nikon and Canon histograms and the subject of blinkies. Whether you like it or not, you will learn to work in manual mode and to get the right exposure every time as long as a bird gives you ten seconds with the light constant. And you will learn what to do when the light is changing constantly. What you learn about exposure will be one of the great takeaways on every IPT.

Though the pelicans will be the stars of the show on this IPT, there will be many other handsome and captivating subjects in wonderful settings. Click on the composite to enjoy a larger version.

It Ain’t Just Pelicans

With gorgeous subjects just sitting there waiting to have their pictures taken, photographing the pelicans on the cliffs is about as easy as nature photography gets. With the winds from the east almost every morning there is usually some excellent flight photography as well. And the pelicans are almost always doing something interesting: preening, scratching, bill pouch cleaning, or squabbling. And then there are those crazy head throws that are thought to be a form of intra-flock communication. You will be guided as to how to make the best of all of those opportunities. And depending on the weather and local conditions and tides, there are a variety of fabulous photo chances available in and around San Diego.

Did I mention that there are lots of great birds and natural history subjects in San Diego in winter? Click on the composite to enjoy a larger version.

The San Diego Details

This IPT will include five 3 1/2 hour morning photo sessions, four 2 1/2 hour afternoon photo sessions, four lunches, and after-lunch image review and Photoshop sessions. To ensure early starts, breakfasts will be your responsibility. And so that we can get some sleep, dinners will be on your own.

A $599 non-refundable deposit is required to hold your slot for this IPT. You can send a check (made out to “Arthur Morris) to us at BIRDS AS ART, PO Box 7245, Indian Lake Estates, FL, 3385, or call Jim or Jennifer at the office with a credit card at 863-692-0906. Your balance, payable only by check, is due upon registration. Please print, complete, and sign the form that is linked to here and shoot it to us along with your deposit check. If you register by phone, please print, complete and sign the form as noted above and either mail it to us or e-mail the scan. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me via e-mail.

Travel Insurance

Travel insurance for both big international trips and US-based IPTs is highly recommended as we never know what life has in store for us. I strongly recommend that you purchase quality travel 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 or running your credit card. Whenever purchasing travel insurance, be sure to read the fine print carefully even when dealing with reputable firms like TSI.

Variety is surely the spice of life in San Diego. Click on the composite to enjoy a larger version.

Getting Up Early and Staying Out Late

On all BIRDS AS ART IPTS including and especially the San Diego IPT, we get into the field early to take advantage of unique and often spectacular lighting conditions and we stay out late to maximize the chances of killer light and glorious sunset silhouette situations. We often arrive at the cliffs a full hour before anyone else shows up to check out the landscape and seascape opportunities.

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 :).