Black Skimmer Aerial Battle Tips. And A + B = C

Your Call?

Which of today’s three featured images do you like best? Please leave a comment and be sure to let us know why.

What’s Up?

Nothing much, but the rain came down hard in Lake Ronkonkoma all day on Sunday. Today is Monday 9 August 2021. I will be photographing early at Nickerson on Monday morning and then meeting private In-the-Field client and good friend Bill Schneider. We will photograph on Monday afternoon and do two sessions on Tuesday and Wednesday. 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 when they shop online. As you might expect, doing so will not cost you a single penny, but would be appreciated tremendously by yours truly. And doing so works seamlessly with your Amazon Prime account.

This blog post took about an hour to prepare, and makes 223 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.

Click on the composite to view a larger version. The Homer 2020 IPTs image

Homer Bald Eagles Winter 2022

The photography on this trip of a lifetime is beyond amazing. You can do the whole trip with either the Canon 100-500 or the SONY 200-600 along with any 70-200mm lens. Flight photography until you cannot raise your arms, creative set-ups, lots of snow we hope (earlier in the season is best for that), and lots of opportunities for point-blank head portraits and talon shots. All in a variety of spectacular settings. This is an expensive (but competitively priced) trip. If you are seriously interested in joining me for the world’s best Homer/Kachemak Bay Bald Eagle trip(s) — mid-FEB thru early MARCH 2022, please contact me immediately via e-mail for dates and details. I am looking for a roommate who will be doing all eleven days.

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New and Better Bedfords Discount Policy!

You can now save 3% on all of your Bedfords photo gear purchases by entering the BIRDSASART coupon code at checkout. Your discount will be applied to your pre-tax total. In addition, by using the code you will get 2nd day air shipping via Fed Ex.

Grab a Nikon AF-S Teleconverter TC-14E III and save $14.99. Purchase a Canon EOS R5 and your discount will be $116.97. Purchase a Sony FE 600mm f/4 GM OSS lens and save a remarkable $389.94! Your Bedford’s purchase no longer needs to be greater than $1,000.00 for you to receive a discount. The more you spend, the more you save.

Money Saving Reminder

Many have learned that if you need a hot photo item that is out of stock at B&H and would enjoy free second-day air shipping, your best bet is to click here, place an order with Bedfords, and enter the coupon code BIRDSASART at checkout. If an item is out of stock, contact Steve Elkins via e-mail or on his cell phone at (479) 381-2592 (Central time). Be sure to mention the BIRDSASART coupon code and use it for your online order to save 3% and enjoy free 2nd-day air shipping. Steve has been great at getting folks the hot items that are out of stock at B&H and everywhere else. The wait lists at the big stores can be a year or longer for the hard to get items. Steve will surely get you your gear long before that. For the past year, he has been helping BAA Blog folks get their hands on items like the SONY a9 ii, the SONY 200-600 G OSS lens, the Canon EOS R5, the Canon RF 100-500mm lens, and the Nikon 500mm PF. Steve is personable, helpful, and eager to please.

Gear Questions and Advice

Too many folks attending BAA IPTs (remember those?) 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.

This image was created on 7 August 2021 at Nickerson Beach. While seated on dry sand at the colony ropes, I used the hand held Sony FE 600mm f/4 GM OSS lens and The One, the Sony Alpha 1 Mirrorless digital camera. ISO 1600. Exposure determined via Zebras with ISO on the rear dial: 1/2500 sec. at f/4 (wide open). RawDigger showed that the raw file was brightness was perfect. AWB at 6:22 am on a then-cloudy afternoon. Tracking: Center Zone/AF-C, the zone-like AF points were all over the map with the images in this series, every image was sharp on the eye of the closest bird. Go figure. Be sure to click on the image to enjoy the larger version. Image A: Black Skimmers midair chase

Black Skimmer Aerial Battle Tips

The windier the afternoon, the greater the potential for aerial fights. We had many fights on Saturday afternoon. I started with the bare 600 GM on the tripod but found it difficult because sometimes the fights were close and almost overhead. So I took the lens off the tripod and went to hand holding. While scanning for action, I rested my left forearm on the top of my bent left knee. To photograph, I simply raised the lens, attempted to acquire the subject and acquire focus in the same motion, and held the shutter button down. The action can be over so fast that you pretty much assume that the system will acquire focus instantly once the shutter button is half pressed. Sometimes the birds would engage some twenty or thirty yards to your right and wind up 60 downwind yards to your left in a matter of seconds. While hand holding was the much better option, the really good images were few and far between.

BTW, with the clouds and the low light, the 600mm f/4 was the obvious choice over the much slower 200-600 f/6.3 G lens. The former saves you four clicks of ISO (or 1 1/3 stops). The latter is much easier to hand hold.

The bottom line: hand hold if at all possible!

This image, the 2nd frame in the series, was created on 7 August 2021 at Nickerson Beach. While seated on dry sand at the colony ropes, I used the hand held Sony FE 600mm f/4 GM OSS lens and The One, the Sony Alpha 1 Mirrorless digital camera. ISO 1600. Exposure determined via Zebras with ISO on the rear dial: 1/2500 sec. at f/4 (wide open). RawDigger showed that the raw file was brightness was perfect. AWB at 6:22 am on a then-cloudy afternoon. Tracking: Center Zone/AF-C, the zone-like AF points were all over the map with the images in this series, every image was sharp on the eye of the closest bird. Go figure. Be sure to click on the image to enjoy the larger version. Image B: Black Skimmers midair chase

Few and Far Between …

I created 2145 images on Saturday afternoon. I kept only 94 after the first edit, less than 5%. More than 1200 images were of the midair battles. You would smile if you saw the deletes. There were a few out-of-focus images. There were lots where one of the two birds were clipped. There were lots of images where one or both birds were facing away. Remember that you are assuming that you will find the bird when you raise the lens and that you are assuming that you will acquire focus. I had many dozen images that featured with sky or a tiny bit of a head or a wing.

When the birds were close and/or overhead, I often clipped a wing or a head or cut the subject cleanly in half. With 51MPs, I saved lots of images with a killer pose on one of the birds; the best of those will be cropped fairly tightly while creating an image of a single bird in flight, usually in some sort of striking pose.

Image C: Photo Illustration: a composite of A & B: Black Skimmers midair chase

A + B = C

Image C was created by grabbing the lower bird from Image B and replacing the lower bird in Image B. That was done with a large Quick Mask using techniques from APTATS I & II.

Typos

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