What’s Up?
The sun finally came out on Wednesday morning and despite the west wind, Bob Eastman and I had some good chances. I got to use the articulating rear monitor of my new mirrorless camera body, The Latest Greatest Sony Flagship Body, the a-1 ii Mirrorless Camera. I’ve long dreamed of creating ground level vertical images of tall birds by working off the tilted rear screen. What fun. I created 1281 images and kept 45 after the first edit.
We finally had put out the disgustingly smelly rotted raccoon that morning. It was ignored by the vultures for the entire day. We were stunned.
Today is Thursday 2 January 2025. We will of course be headed down to the lake early. Whatever you opt to do, we hope that you too choose to enjoy life and be happy.
As many who commented figured, my very favorite image from the Sebastian Inlet Photo Road Trip and Roadkill Hunt blog post was #3, the diving young pelican blur with the green water. My second favorite was Bob’s sharp diving young pelican.
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This image was created on 1 January 2025 down by the lake near my home at ILE. Seated on the pier, I used the toe-pod technique with the hand held Sony FE 200-600mm f/5.6-6.3 G OSS lens with the Sony FE 1.4x Teleconverter (at 664mm) and the and The Latest Greatest Flagship Body, the Sony a1 II Mirrorless Camera. ISO 400. Exposure determined via Zebras with ISO on the Thumb Wheel; 1/15 sec. at f/9 (wide open) in Manual mode. RawDigger showed that the exposure was dead solid perfect: AWB at 7:17:38am (four minutes before the time of sunrise) on a mostly clear morning. Note: it take about 10-15 minutes for the sun to get over the top of the woods. Tracking: Spot XS/AF-C with Bird Eye/Face Detection enabled performed perfectly. Image #1: Cattle Egret flock on pier with Boat-tailed Grackles |
A Surprising Realization
I had only had the a-1 ii for a few days and every morning had been cloudy dark. Seeing lots of Cattle Egrets feeding on midges on the pier — see Image #2 below, and nothing better to do, I added the 1.4 TC to the 200-600 G lens and set up to do a blastoff flight blur. As I got to the base of the pier, I saw that there where were many dozens of birds foraging on the pier. I sat down and chose a very slow shutter speed figuring that a blur might do well to illustrate the chaos in front of me. But a funny thing happened on the way to the laptop. Most of the images were sharp!
It was not until a few days later that I realized that the photos were sharp because of the vastly improved OSS (Optical Stabilization System) in the a-1 ii.
Breaking a Rule
As a general rule in bird photography, especially when photographing large groups of birds, it is advised that you focus on the closest bird. Note that there are two grackles, one on each side of the pier, that are closer than the closest Cattle Egret. None-the-less, I correctly chose to focus on the Cattle Egret as that made sense for many reasons, the most important of which is that they are the subject. The two out-of-focus grackles serve as a sort of frame (along with the pier railings).
Should You Upgrade to or purchase a Sony a-1 ii?
Aside from the improved ergonomics as compared to the a-1, other nice features include the fact that the rear screen tilts both ways. Pre-capture will surely prove to be a plus while in my option, the Speed Boost feature is a total waste for bird photography. In addition, the resolution on the rear monitor has been improved dramatically. Not to mention that Bird Face-Eye tracking on the a-1 ii is significantly better than on the a-1 and that the 51MP file are to die for.
So, the big question is, is the a-1 ii “worth” a gear upgrade. Remembering that I can never know whether or not something is worth it to you, I can say that I was not floored when using my a-1 ii. The differences between the a-1 ii and the original a-1, are neither huge nor eye-opening. The huge difference between the new camera body and the a9 iii is, of course, the 51MP a-1 raw files (as compared to the 24MP files rendered by the a9 iii).
With the price of a new a-1 having recently dropped $1500.00 to $4,998.00, the decision for new Sony buyers is a very tough one. The a-1 II sells new for 6,498.00. And the price of used a-1 bodies will continue to drop (but not as much as I had thought before using the a-1 ii).
If you do purchase an a-1 ii, be sure to use one of my two affiliate links so that you will receive my a-1 ii settings (in the form of a CAMSETii.DAT file), the Buttons and Dials Guide, and an Info Sheet. Folks who do not purchase their new a-i using my B&H link or from Bedfords here and entering the BIRDSASART discount code at checkout will be able to purchase the a-1 ii guide for $227.43. If you are at all confused and do not want to screw up your order, please get in touch via e-mail.
You can see some of my first a-1 ii images in the blog post here and several more below.
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This image was created on 1 January 2025 down by the lake near my home at ILE. Standing near the foot of the pier, I used the hand held Sony FE 200-600mm f/5.6-6.3 G OSS lens (at 326mm) and the and The Latest Greatest Flagship Body, the Sony a1 II Mirrorless Camera. ISO 800. Exposure determined via Zebras with ISO on the Thumb Wheel; 1/640 sec. at f/6.3 (wide open) in Manual mode. RawDigger showed that the exposure was dead solid perfect: AWB at 8:43:21 am on a sunny morning. Tracking: Spot XS/AF-C with Bird Eye/Face Detection enabled performed perfectly. Image #2: Midges on pier railing |
Swarms of Midges
At any season, there may be a large hatch of tiny midges along the shoreline at Indian Lake Estates. For an unknown reason, huge numbers of these tiny, non-biting bugs gravitate to the pier. I’ve taken early morning sun walks through clouds of them. Anyhoo, many species of birds feast on them both on the piers and in the fields. They make up for the tiny size by their huge number and easy access to hungry birds. In the warmer months, huge hatches of mayflies provide similar fare.
Too lazy to sit down on the pier, I worked off the tilted rear monitor again, this time holding the camera horizontally with the level activated. Note that when there is a massive hatch, the railing are completely covered with midges. Yesterday there was just a smidgeon of midges.
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Typos
With all blog posts, feel free to e-mail or to leave a comment regarding any typos or errors.
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