Need Your Help
Of today’s four featured images, which one do you like best? Of the three tern chick images, which one is best, and why? Do you like the one with the wing in the upper left, the one with the wing in the upper right, or the one with the clear light-blue sky? Be sure to let us know why you made your choice. In addition, you can learn a ton by considering the Wind Direction question below.
Many thanks. Much love.
What’s Up?
I slept late (for me), and woke to a still, gorgeous morning here at ILE. After eight great sessions on the second JAX IPT, I did not even think about going out to photograph. That, in part, because the fields down by the lake are too wet to drive on. I did get lots of work done, did my bursts and a swim, and ate well. I made some progress on my 2020 tax return, answered lots of Used Gear Page e-mails, and added four folks to the Sony A1 Info and Updates group, a one-day record!
If you are looking for a Sony SEL 400mm f/2.8 GM OSS lens, get in touch with Steve Elkins at Bedford asap and be sure to use the BIRDSASART discount code at checkout to save 3% and enjoy free second-day air Fed-Ex shipping.
Today is Tuesday 20 July 2020. I am beginning to think about packing for my trip to Long Island. Wherever you are, and whatever you are doing, I hope that you too have a great day.
Remember that you can find some great photo accessories (and necessities!) on Amazon by clicking on the Stuff tab on the orange/yellow menu bar above. On a related note, it would be extremely helpful if blog-folks like me, who spend too much money on Amazon, would get in the habit of clicking on the Amazon logo link on the right side of each blog post. As you might expect, doing so will not cost you a single penny, but would be appreciated tremendously by yours truly. And it works seamlessly with your Amazon Prime account.
This blog post took about one hour to prepare and makes 205 consecutive days with a new one. Please remember that if an item — a Delkin flash card, or a tripod head — for example, that is available from B&H and/or Bedfords, and is also available in the BAA Online Store, it would be great, and greatly appreciated if you would opt to purchase from us. We will match any price. Please remember also to use my B&H affiliate links or to save 3% at Bedfords by using the BIRDSASART discount code at checkout. Doing either often earns you free guides and/or discounts. And doing so always earns my great appreciation.
Canon EOS-1DX Mark II Professional Digital Camera Body
BIRDS AS ART Record-low Price!
BAA friend Ron Horn is offering a Canon EOS-1DX II in excellent plus condition for the BAA record low price of $2199.00. The camera has only 44,000 shutter actuations (rated to 400,000). Both LCDs are pristine and there are a few very minor cosmetic marks on the body. The sale does not include the original box but does include everything that came in it along with an extra battery, a custom Kirk L-bracket (approximately a $175.00 value), and insured ground shipping to the lower 48 states. Your item will not ship until your check clears.
Please contact Ron via e-mail
The 1DX Mark II is a rugged, fast Canon professional digital camera body. It features an excellent AF system and high quality image files with great dynamic range. When he used Canon, it was the first choice of Arash Hazeghi, the world’s premier photographer of birds in flight. This body is still in production and currently sells new for $4,499.00. Save a very sweet $2300.00 by grabbing Ron’s dSLR ASAP. artie
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Image #1: Happiness Is … |
Happiness Is …
Happiness is being very tall at sunrise at 1200mm with some tern chicks on the ridge. I am in the middle, Donna Bourdon is to my left, and Clemens Van der Werf is on my right. The ridge is dead center past the adults, the last bit of visible sand between the shadows of the two big lenses. It is a rare day when I am just about as tall as Clemens. We all took turns on the ladders. Being up on a ladder is also great for handheld flight as you can see the birds coming and you can get some nicer-than-sky backgrounds.
Wind Direction Question
Study the image and see if you can determine the wind direction on this clear sunny morning. Leave a comment if you figure it out.
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The iPhone Photography e-Guide
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Hard to Believe
Yes, Cliff has a great eye and wonderfully creative vision. Yet it is still hard for me to believe that he can make so many great images with “just“ an i-phone. Almost more amazingly Cliff captures with his iPhone and does all of his post-processing on the phone! In this great new e-Guide written for BIRDS AS ART you will learn to set up your iPhone quickly and efficiently and how to use it. In addition, there are dozens and dozens of tips on Cliff’s favorite apps and his favorite gear. Scroll down to the bottom to see the Table of Contents.
The iPhone Photography e-Guide: $20.00.
To order your copy of the iPhone Photography e-Guide please click here.
Dr. Cliff Oliver
Dr. Cliff Oliver is an award-winning photographer, former photography instructor for the San Diego Natural History Museum, cutting-edge integrative health care professional, and international workshop leader. He created and taught the first 5-day immersion iPhone photography workshop at Hollyhock, Canada’s premier Leadership Learning Center. He teaches quarterly iPhone photography classes at the Athenaeum Music & Arts Library School of the Arts (these include Art on the iPhone, iPhoneography, Portraits and Selfies, and Practicing in the Field). His images have been on the cover of WildBird magazine, on display at Scripps Oceanography Institute, and been honored with multiple first-place finishes in the International Exhibition of Photography Del Mar. The San Diego Natural History Museum’s, “Birds of the World” centennial exhibit featured several of his images. One of his iPhone images received an honorable mention in the Athenaeum 23rd annual juried exhibition. He has displayed images at Art Speaks: Expressions of Hope and Healing and has produced a series of books, called Zen I, II, III, IV, V, VI and VII that feature original images that promote inner peace. The last 4 books feature only images taken on the iPhone. He teaches individuals and groups the skills of capturing iPhone/mobile photographs and then how to create personalized works of art.
To see some of Cliff’s iPhone images, click here. Learn more about Cliff and what he does on his Center for Balance website here. And don’t forget, if I had never met Cliff I would be pushing up daisies somewhere. To request my Health Basics File that contains the whole story, please shoot me an e-mail by clicking here..
Induro’s GIT505XXL Grand Series 5 Stealth Carbon Fiber Tripod
Optimized for the highest level of stability and utilizing a flat modular magnesium alloy platform, the Induro GIT505XXL Grand Series 5 Stealth Carbon Fiber Tripod reaches to 81.3″ tall with the legs fully splayed, and without a center column, can get you as low as 5.5″. With a maximum load of 88.2 lbs., it is strong and sturdy enough for all bird photography applications. Each leg is divided into 5 sections and features half-turn twist locks for fast adjustments. Portability is maintained as well with a folded length of 27.6″. I ordered mine from B&H last week and got it just in time for the second JAX IPT. It got me where I needed to be!
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This image was created on 18 July 2021 on a beach near Jacksonville, FL, on the last morning of the second JAX IPT. Standing on the third step of a large step-stool, I used the 81 inch tall Induro GIT505XXL Grand Series 5 Stealth Carbon Fiber Tripod/Levered-Clamp FlexShooter Pro-mounted-Sony FE 600mm f/4 GM OSS lens, the Sony FE 2.0x Teleconverter, and The One, the Sony Alpha 1 Mirrorless Digital Camera (Body Only). ISO 1600. The exposure was determined by Zebras with ISO on the rear wheel: 1/640 sec. at f/8 (wide open) in Manual mode. RawDigger showed this exposure to be perfect. AWB at 6:59am on a clear, sunny morning. Tracking” Expand Spot/AF-C was active at the moment of exposure and performed perfectly. Click on the image to enjoy a larger version. Image #2: Royal Tern chick begging on ridge of sand dune |
I Was Lucky Early
I had spotted some chicks on the sand ridge in these images the day before, so I positioned my ladder to be right on sun angle as soon as the sun cleared the ever-present cloud bank on the eastern horizon. I was very lucky early on as I had clear views of several chicks atop the ridge. After that, it was very difficult to find a slot through the numerous adults (and young) blocking line of sight to the birds on the ridge.
This is the original image with the wing of a fly-by adult in the upper left corner.
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This image was created on 18 July 2021 on a beach near Jacksonville, FL, on the last morning of the second JAX IPT. Standing on the third step of a large step-stool, I used the 81 inch tall Induro GIT505XXL Grand Series 5 Stealth Carbon Fiber Tripod/Levered-Clamp FlexShooter Pro-mounted-Sony FE 600mm f/4 GM OSS lens, the Sony FE 2.0x Teleconverter, and The One, the Sony Alpha 1 Mirrorless Digital Camera (Body Only). ISO 1600. The exposure was determined by Zebras with ISO on the rear wheel: 1/640 sec. at f/8 (wide open) in Manual mode. RawDigger showed this exposure to be perfect. AWB at 6:59am on a clear, sunny morning. Tracking” Expand Spot/AF-C was active at the moment of exposure and performed perfectly. Click on the image to enjoy a larger version. Image #3: Royal Tern chick begging on ridge of sand dune |
Flopped
For this version, I flopped the upper part of the sky so that the wing would be — as suggested by friend and colleague Denise Ippolito, in the upper right hand corner. I selected the upper part of the sky and then used techniques from APTATS to flop the selection horizontally. The whole process took about 30 seconds.
You can learn advanced Quick Masking and Layer Masking techniques in the APTATS I & II Bundle. Save $15 by purchasing the pair.
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This image was created on 18 July 2021 on a beach near Jacksonville, FL, on the last morning of the second JAX IPT. Standing on the third step of a large step-stool, I used the 81 inch tall Induro GIT505XXL Grand Series 5 Stealth Carbon Fiber Tripod/Levered-Clamp FlexShooter Pro-mounted-Sony FE 600mm f/4 GM OSS lens, the Sony FE 2.0x Teleconverter, and The One, the Sony Alpha 1 Mirrorless Digital Camera (Body Only). ISO 1600. The exposure was determined by Zebras with ISO on the rear wheel: 1/640 sec. at f/8 (wide open) in Manual mode. RawDigger showed this exposure to be perfect. AWB at 6:59am on a clear, sunny morning. Tracking” Expand Spot/AF-C was active at the moment of exposure and performed perfectly. Click on the image to enjoy a larger version. Image #4: Royal Tern chick begging on ridge of sand dune |
The Wing is Gone
For the third version, I eliminated the wing completely. This actually turned out to be a bit more work than flopping the wing from left to right. Why? When I grabbed the upper right corner, flopped it, and moved it into place over the wing in the upper left corner, there was a bit of a tonality mis-match. A bit of work with the Patch Tool and Content-Aware Fill eliminated the mismatched tones.
Typos
With all blog posts, feel free to e-mail or to leave a comment regarding any typos or errors.
Image #4, without the wing, is my favorite. But, you could have guessed that. At least I’m consistent.
#3. Agree with Denise, and better with the wing than without. Creates tension (with the promise of release), tells a story, gives the eye and brain more to explore instead of just locking on the throat. Like the giant photogs too.
Regarding the wind, it’s difficult to say from your image. First, it appears you are on or close to sun angle and the birds on the ground appear to be facing you. Generally, they face the wind, suggesting that sun and wind angle are coincident. Birds take off and land into the wind and it appears that one in the frame appears to be landing facing you so that is in keeping with the earlier statement. Conclusions can’t be reached from the circling birds or the foliage on the ground so I’ll stick with the assertion that wind/sun angles are coincident.
Thanks for leaving a comment, Adam. The birds on the ground are involved in yelling and screaming each time a bird lands with a fish. And the chicks are facing all directions as they look for an incoming bird with a fish. If you look at the five birds in the air, you will know exactly where the wind is coming from.
Barring strong winds like those we had each afternoon, birds on the ground are less affected by the wind than birds in the air, especially when they are otherwise occupied.
with love, artie
Ah, I was looking at the photo on my phone and now that I can enlarge it on a monitor screen, here are my “corrected” observations. The birds on the ground are largely facing 90 degrees towards the right, the one low flying bird is moving almost 180 degrees away from the photographers. The other birds are flying 90 degrees in either direction from the photographer with a few of those headed towards the right banking. So, I would have to guess that the wind is coming from right to left as the photographers are facing the birds. Close?
Not even close :). The answer is right with the low flying bird that is landing. Get out your compass …
with love, artie
Ah, so that bird is landing (and not swooping), so the answer is the wind is in your face, and since your are shooting in the morning and the sun rises in the East then the wind is out of the West. That was exhausting.
I like the wing in the upper right corner- number 4 looks a bit sterile to me 🙂 but it is a fabulous shot either way.
I think the wind is left to right because you are shooting to the right, with the wind. What strikes me about the photo is one of you is shooting straight, one to the right, and one to the left. Something for everyone.
Sorry, but parts of that do not make sense 🙂 Check out the flying birds …
with love, a
I prefer image 3 over image 2 for balance but do like the clean image 4 over the previous two.
Definitely the wingless image. The wing is a distraction.
I actually like the wing in upper right. Upper left was just distracting. While I love clean images like #3, Image #2 is a more unique capture.
As far as wind, I was confused at first because the birds are looking to the right, or north and birds usually look into the wind. Then I realized the adults would be flying in with food and landing into the wind. The chicks are looking for the incoming birds. That puts the wind coming from the south-southwest. Also, the bend in the sea oats appears to confirms this.
Thanks, Warren. To be sure, you need to look at the birds in flight …
with love, artie
I got image numbers wrong…
Should be:
I actually like the wing in upper right. Upper left was just distracting. While I love clean images like #4, Image #3 is a more unique capture.
My first thought was why did he leave that in the corner?
I like the wing in the right corner. Visually, we read from left to right. Eye comes in from left look at the bird see the wing, brings you back down to the chick.
I agree with Neil (and as implied by Maggi), I find the wing in the corner distracting, The story is clear from the chick’s actions. Also, a non-birder may not realize at first that it is a wing in the upper corner.
Although the first 2 — images #2 & 3 — tell the story of the in-coming parent bird, this is implied by the pose of the chick. I find the bird wings in the corners distracting, making image #4 a terrific clean image of a chick which would usually be sitting in a big mess. If the birds are landing into wind you have the wind in your faces.
No contest for me…. Removing the wing would the first and only thing I would do, after cropping, not much, from the top and right of the image. The other bird’s wing just should not be there!