One Plus Two 1200mm Sunset Silhouette Flight Images

It’s Getting Beyond Late …

Been thinking of joining me on the San Diego IPT? It is getting very late. Consider taking advantage of the largest-ever late-registration discount. Scroll down here for details.

The Stronger Image?

Which of today’s images do you like best? Do understand that Images 2 and 2A are different versions of the same image. Everyone is invited to leave a comment and let us know why they made their choice. Note: be absolutely sure to click on each image to view a larger, high-res version.

What’s Up?

Apologies for not realizing until this morning that many of the comments on yesterday’s post were being held for moderation. I just approved all of them without comment. I was glad to see that all of the comments were civil, and was (happily) surprised that I did not receive a lot more flak than I did. IAC, you might find some stuff of interest by revisiting the comments.

Saturday morning was decent as the light fog lifted early. I had another Little Blue Heron on The Perch, and got some more nice images of the vultures. Sunset was not bad, but I did not get anything spectacular (as had been the case for the two previous evenings) he said modestly.

I was glad to learn on Saturday afternoon that multiple IPT veteran Shelly Lake will be joining me Tuesday morning at Lakeland for a Your Pick In-the-Field session. If you would like to join me for some In-the-Field instruction at either ILE or Lakeland in the next ten days or so, shoot me an e-mail or try me on my cell at 863-221-2372. Please leave a message and shoot me a text if I do not pick up. The details are below.

Today is Sunday 2 January 2022. The forecast for this morning is for decreasing cloudiness with a breeze from the South. As almost always when I am home, I will be heading down to the lake for a bit. Wherever you are, and whatever you are doing, I hope that you too have a great day. This blog post took about 90 minutes to prepare including the time spent on the image optimizations. This post makes 53 consecutive days with a new one.

Please remember that you can find some great photo accessories (and necessities, like surf booties!) 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 who, like me, 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.

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, 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 for your major gear purchases. Doing either often earns you free guides and/or discounts. And always earns my great appreciation.

Your-Pick In-the-Field Sessions

The beauty of the Your Pick In-the-Field Sessions plans below is that I am free most days from now till mid-January and we can schedule sessions to coincide with the perfect weather forecast. They are ideal for central Florida locals or folks visiting the region for whatever reason. Interested? Get in touch via e-mail or better yet, try my cell at 863-221-2372. Please leave a message and shoot me a text if I do not pick up. Inquire for couples and group rates.

Indian Lake Estates In-the-Field Sessions

Two hours of intensive instruction: $300.00. Add a working brunch with image review: $100.00. Sunset shoot: $100.00. Guest room lodging available. Mix and match.

Sunny mornings with east winds are best. Likely subjects include ridiculously tame Sandhill Cranes along with Black and Turkey Vultures, Crested Caracara, Limpkin, Great Egret, Great Blue Heron, and more. Bald Eagle possible; crane chicks coming soon.

Lakeland or Circle B Bar Preserve

Two hours of intensive instruction: $325.00. Add a working brunch with image review: $100.00. Mix and match.

Sunny mornings with east winds are best at Lakeland. Likely subjects include point-blank American White Pelican, Anhinga, Limpkin, Common Moorhen, White Ibis, a variety of wintering ducks including Ring-necked and Wood Ducks, and lots more.

Cloudy mornings or afternoons (shooting session only) are best at Circle B Bar Preserve. Likely subjects include Great Blue Heron, Great Egret, Little Blue Heron, Snowy Egret, Tricolored Heron, White Ibis, Common Moorhen, Osprey, Red-shouldered Hawk, American Alligator, Wild Boar, and more. If you wish to mix and match, loving at ILE is available.

Sony Alpha 1 Bodies in Stock at Bedfords/free card offer!

Steve Elkins of Bedfords let me know late yesterday that he had several Sony a1 bodies in stock. If one of them has your name on it, please click here and be sure to enter the BIRDSASART coupon code check the box for free shipping to enjoy free Second Day Air Fed-Ex. Right now, in lieu of the 3% credit refunded to the card you used for your purchase, you will receive a Sony 160GB CFexpress Type A TOUGH Memory Card, a $399.99 value!

Brand New and As-Good-As-Ever Bedfords BAA Discount Policy

Folks who have fallen in love with Bedfords can now use the BIRDSASART coupon code at checkout to enjoy a post-purchase, 3% off-statement credit (excluding taxes and shipping charges) on orders paid with a credit card. The 3% credit will be refunded to the card you used for your purchase. Be sure, also, to check the box for free shipping to enjoy free Second Day Air Fed-Ex. This offer does not apply to purchases of Classes, Gift Cards, or to any prior purchases.

Money Saving Reminder

Many have learned that if you need a hot photo item that is out of stock at B&H and would like to enjoy getting 3% back on your credit card along with free 2nd Day Air Fed-Ex 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 check the box for Free Shipping. That will automatically upgrade to free 2nd Day Air Fed-Ex. Steve has been great at getting folks the hot items that are out of stock at B&H and everywhere else. The waitlists 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 a 1, 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.

Important Note

As an Amazon Associate, I earn a small percentage when you purchase from Amazon after using any of the Amazon links on the blog (including the logo-link immediately above). My link works with Amazon Prime and using it will not cost you a single cent. Huge thanks, BTW 🙂

Please Remember Also

Please, if you enjoy and learn from the blog, remember to use one of my two affiliate programs when purchasing new gear. Doing so just might make it possible for me to avoid having to try to get a job as a Walmart greeter and will not cost you a single penny more. And if you use Bedfords and remember to enter the BIRDSASART code at checkout, you will (still!) save 3% on every order and enjoy free second-day air shipping. In these crazy times — I lost about fifty thousand dollars in income due to COVID 19 — remembering to use my B&H link or to shop at Bedfords will help me out a ton and be greatly appreciated. Overseas folks who cannot order from the US because of import fees, duties, and taxes, are invited to help out by clicking here to leave a blog thank you gift if they see fit.

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. If you are desperate, you can try me on my cell at 863-221-2372. Please leave a message and shoot me a text if I do not pick up.

This image was created on 30 December 2021 down by the lake near my home at Indian Lake Estates, FL. Working off the pier, I used the no-longer available GIT305XXL 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). Multi-metering +1.3 stops/Auto ISO set ISO 3200. 1/1600 sec. at f/8 (wide open) in Shutter Priority mode. AWB at 5:40:16pm several minutes after a nice sunset. Tracking: Zone AF-C Bird Face/Eye detection performed to perfection. Be sure to click on the image to enjoy a high-res version. Image #1: Mottled Duck departing at sunset

The Situation

The weather for the past week has been fairly consistent. It has been foggy in the mornings, partly cloudy during the day, and mostly clear in the late afternoons. With the winds (or breezes) from the south or southwest, the birds coming into roost would be landing away from me so I have been working from the pier as the birds fly over it and toward the roost, from south to north. The most commonly available shot features one or two or three silhouetted Cattle Egrets. I usually create several hundred of those each evening. The size of the bird or the birds in the frame, the wing position or positions, and the background color — water or sky, determine the very few keepers.

I really get excited when something different flies through the color. Every day, a pair of Mottled Ducks feeds on the south side of the pier in the evening, pretty much in the dark. They blast off headed west soon after the sun disappears. On Friday evening, I happened to get on the birds as they took flight and flew through the color. Image #1 is a decent crop to eliminate the second (out-of-focus) bird. On Sunday night I was on some Cattle Egrets when the ducks left. I was too late to get on them …

This image was created on 31 December 2021 down by the lake near my home at Indian Lake Estates, FL. Working off the pier, I used the no-longer available GIT305XXL 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). Multi-metering +2 stops/Auto ISO set ISO 5000. 1/2000 sec. at f/8 (wide open) in Shutter Priority mode. AWB at 5:38:47pm several minutes after a nice sunset. Tracking: Zone AF-C Bird Face/Eye detection performed to perfection. Be sure to click on the image to enjoy a high-res version. Image #2: Great Blue Heron dorsal view at sunset/MORE YELLOW version

More Excitement!

I saw the great blue coming at about 500 yards. It was headed right for the richest water color. I stayed on it for quite a while. Conservative me fired off more than one hundred images. Even at 1200mm, every single one was sharp. I kept seven. The one above, one of the last that I made, was best by far. One image with an almost identical wing position had some vegetation at the bottom of the frame. I did not like that, but I do love the dorsal views that can be had when you are working from the pier. This was my alternative version.

This is the same image as above, processed differently. Image #2A: Great Blue Heron dorsal view at sunset/MORE ORANGE version

Processing Silhouettes

Because I always strive to expose to the right, the colors in the raw files often look washed out. When processing silhouettes, you have lots of options when it comes to the look of the image. You have many tools at your disposal. During the raw conversion those include but are not limited to the Color Temperature and Exposure sliders, setting the white and black points, the Highlights and Shadows sliders, and the Vibrance and Saturation sliders. Most mar conversion engines allow you to work on the Hue, Saturation, and Luminance of the individual colors. In Adobe Camera Raw, you can find those sliders under the Color Mixer tab.

You can tweak the colors of your .TIF file in Photoshop after the raw conversion with a Vibrance adjustment. Hue/Saturation allows you to work on the individual color channels. I often use a Levels adjustment to further blacken the BLACKs and to control the midtones. As I final step, I will often try Image > Auto Tone or Auto Color, almost always reducing the Opacity significantly. The results can be magical. Which color version do you prefer with the GBH image?

1200mm Sharpness

I could never have conceived of the fact that I would one day be shooting flight off a tripod at 1200mm and making consistently razor sharp flight images … Even more scary is the fact that others, far more skilled and younger and stronger than I, are routinely creating sharp flight images at 1200mm while hand holding their Sony 600 GM lens with the 2X TC and the Alpha 1. It is a whole new world out there. I am glad to be part of it.

The BIRDS AS ART Current Workflow e-Guide (Digital Basics II). You can order your copy from the BAA Online Store here, by sending a PayPal for $40 here, or by calling Jim or Jennifer weekdays at 863-692-0906 with your credit card in hand. Be sure to specify Digital Basics II.

The BIRDS AS ART Current Workflow e-Guide (Digital Basics II)

The techniques mentioned above for working on the color of your images, and tons more great Photoshop tips and techniques — along with all of my personalized Keyboard Shortcuts — are 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. While the new e-Guide reflects my MacBook Pro/Photo Mechanic/DPP 4/Photoshop workflow, folks using a PC and/or BreezeBrowser will also benefit greatly by studying the material on DB II. Note: folks working on a PC and/or those who do not want to miss anything Photoshop may wish to purchase the original Digital Basics along with DB II while saving $15 by clicking here to buy the DB Bundle.

Folks who learn well by following along rather than by reading can check out the complete collection of MP 4 Photoshop Tutorial Videos by clicking here. Note: all of the videos are now priced at an amazingly low $5.00 each.

You can learn how and why I converted all of my Canon digital RAW files in DPP 4 in the DPP 4 RAW Conversion Guide here. More recently, I became proficient at converting my Nikon RAW (NEF) files in Adobe Camera Raw. About three years ago I began converting my Nikon and Sony RAW files in Capture One and did that for two years. You can learn more about Capture One in the Capture One Pro 12 Simplified MP4 Video here. The next step would be to get a copy of Arash Hazeghi’s “The Nikon Photographers’ Guide to Phase One Capture One Pro e-Guide” in the blog post here.

You can learn advanced Quick Masking and advanced Layer Masking techniques in APTATS I & II. You can save $15 by purchasing the pair.

Typos

With all blog posts, feel free to e-mail or to leave a comment regarding any typos or errors.

Typos

With all blog posts, feel free to e-mail or to leave a comment regarding any typos or errors.