Homer IPT Openings
Due to a registrant’s family illness, I have had a cancellation on both Homer IPTs. If you’ve been dreaming of eagles and are interested in joining me for one or for both IPTs, please get in touch via cell phone or text to 863-221-2372 immediately. Time is very short.
What’s Up?
Incredibly, Brown Pelicans have been relatively scarce for the past few days. On Monday morning, using mostly the 300mm f/28 GM lens with the 2X TC and my newly beloved a-1 ii, I made some lovely Western Gull images that are featured in today’s blog post. On Monday afternoon, I experimented with the tripod mounted 600mm f/4GM/2X TC/a-1 ii and had some good chances on flying pelicans. My findings will be detailed in the next post. Tuesday morning was the toughest (i.e., worst) morning of the trip. There were no pelicans at the point and not much flying at the Bridge Club. My goal was to make some nice flight shots of the newly arrived Heermann’s Gulls. I got one very nice one, a nice top shot or two of Royal Tern, and a decent image of a fly-by pair of Black Oystercatchers. On Tuesday afternoon Bob Eastman and I headed to Santee Lakes Regional Park. The ducks were in a flying mood and the wind was right. Even so, it is a very challenging situation: widely varying subject tonalities, varying lighting conditions, ducks in flight at varying distances, and at times, too many ducks in the air at once.
Today is Wednesday 29 January 2025. Bob and I will be headed back to La Jolla for what looks to be another cloudy morning. Whatever you opt to do, we hope that you too choose to have a great day.
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This image was also created on 27 January 2025 at La Jolla, CA. Standing at full height, I used the hand held Sony FE 300mm f/2.8 GM OSS Lens (Sony E) and The Latest Greatest Sony Flagship Body, the a1 II Mirrorless Camera. The exposure was determined via Zebra technology with Exposure Compensation on the thumb dial. Multi Metering +1.0 stop in Shutter Priority mode. AUTO ISO set ISO 200: 1/125 sec. at f/2.8 (wide open). AWB at 7:12:53am on a then cloudy morning. RawDigger showed that the exposure was perfect: Tracking Zone/AF-C with Bird Eye/Face Detection enabled performed perfectly. Image #1: Western Gull on poop covered rock |
The White-washed Rocks
The white-washed sandstone rocks often catch my eye. The patterns can be beautiful. For this one, I placed the bird in the upper right corner to create a poop-streaked vertical bird-scape with the patterns of the whitewash dominating the image. The gull is probably in its third year.
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iPhone 15+. JPEG from the raw file. Time: 7:10:44 AM; Model: iPhone 15 Pro Max; Focal Length: 6.8mm; ISO: 80; Aperture: 1.8; Shutter: 1/120 sec. Exp Comp +1.1 stops. Image #2: Western Gull on poop covered ridge image |
Your Ever-present Wide Angle Lens
As I approach age 79, one of my main goals is to go lighter and lighter. I cannot remember the last time I headed out with two rigs. Nor can I remember carrying an extra lens. I have become something of a one-trick pony. I enjoy the challenge of walking around with a single lens and seeing what I can do, knowing full well that what I have in my hand will not always be the best or most appropriate focal length. Anyhoo, I never have a wide angle lens with me in the field. But I almost always have my iPhone. The result: another small-in-the-frame poop-scape.
Just as I was putting the cell phone back into my pocket, the bird executed and held a perfect wing-stretch pose. It did not, however, hold it long enough for me to get any shots with the 300mm f/2.8. Another negative: though I made sure to capture in raw, the image quality of the optimized image is quite suspect. At best.
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This image was also created on 27 January 2025 at La Jolla, CA. Standing at full height, I used the hand held Sony FE 300mm f/2.8 GM OSS Lens (Sony E) with the Sony FE 2x Teleconverter and the Latest Greatest Sony Flagship Body, the a1 II Mirrorless Camera. ISO 1000. Exposure determined via Zebras with ISO on the Thumb Wheel; 1/2000 sec. at f/5.6 (wide open) in Manual mode. RawDigger showed that the exposure was dead solid perfect: AWB at 7:34:53am on a then sunny morning. Tracking: Zone/AF-C with Bird Eye/Face Detection enabled performed perfectly. Image #3: Western Gull — head, neck, and upper breast portrait |
Storm Clouds on the Horizon
The morning forecast on Monday called for clouds and drizzle. By 7:20am, however, the sun broke through. There was a big storm cloud to the west so the Pacific Ocean became a stunning indigo blue black, a perfect backdrop for the breeding plumage adult Western Gulls. Pelicans would have been nice, but there weren’t any. Needless to say, I made lots of images that included a few good ones. It is hard to beat the color scheme.
Note that when you properly expose for the bright whites, the ocean is rendered at least one stop underexposed. That makes the water bluer and blacker and pleasingly increases the contrast to the dramatic levels seen in this and the following image.
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This image was also created on 27 January 2025 at La Jolla, CA. Again, standing at full height, I used the hand held Sony FE 300mm f/2.8 GM OSS Lens (Sony E) with the Sony FE 2x Teleconverter and the Latest Greatest Sony Flagship Body, the a1 II Mirrorless Camera. ISO 800. Exposure determined via Zebras with ISO on the Thumb Wheel; 1/2500 sec. at f/6.3 (stopped down 1/3 stop — gasp!) in Manual mode. RawDigger showed that the exposure was dead solid perfect: AWB at 7:56:59am on a then sunny morning. Tracking: Zone/AF-C with Bird Eye/Face Detection enabled performed perfectly. Image #4: Western Gull — beginning yawn |
Almost Left Too Soon. Again.
Bob and I had decided to move the car down the hill and then head over to the Bridge Club. On our way to the steps, we saw a nice adult Western Gull resting on a rock. I knew that I had the exposure set correctly for the situation so I instinctively raised my lens and framed the shot. Within a second, the bird began a tremendous yawn. I simply pushed the shutter button and continued firing until the yawn quit. I was happy. Bob, who had not raised his lens, was pissed.
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This image was also created on 27 January 2025 at La Jolla, CA. Again, standing at full height, I used the hand held Sony FE 300mm f/2.8 GM OSS Lens (Sony E) with the Sony FE 2x Teleconverter and the Latest Greatest Sony Flagship Body, the a1 II Mirrorless Camera. ISO 800. Exposure determined via Zebras with ISO on the Thumb Wheel; 1/2500 sec. at f/6.3 (stopped down 1/3 stop — gasp!) in Manual mode. RawDigger showed that the exposure was dead solid perfect: AWB at 7:57:01am on a then sunny morning. Tracking: Zone/AF-C with Bird Eye/Face Detection enabled performed perfectly. Image #5: Western Gull — wide yawn |
Open Wide Please!
What began as a simple yawn quickly became cavernous. I was shocked to see that the a-1 ii lost focus for three frames mid-sequence. But was thrilled to see that the beginning and the end of the run were tack sharp on the bird’s eye, even in Image #5 where we can barely get a glimpse of the eye with the bird looking right down the lens barrel.
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Image #5A: 100% crop of the Western Gull — wide yawn image |
The 100% Crop
The huge crop here yielded a spectacular, perfectly illuminated look at the inside of the gull’s mouth. I remember making a shot very much like this at La Jolla, on film, I think. That was probably close to three decades ago. The photo might be in The Art of Bird Photography.
With their stunning 51MP raw files, sharp Sony a-1 and the a-1 ii images can stand up to immense crops. The creation of Image #5A involved discarding a shade under 95% of the original pixels. In short, the crop-ability of sharp a-1 and a-1 ii images is astounding.
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This image was also created on 27 January 2025 at La Jolla, CA. Standing at full height, I used the Robus RC-5570 Vantage Series 3 Carbon Fiber Tripod/Levered-Clamp FlexShooter Pro-mounted Sony FE 600mm f/4 GM OSS lens with the Sony FE 1.4x Teleconverter, and The Latest Greatest Sony Flagship Body, the a-1 II Mirrorless Camera. ISO 800. The exposure was determined by Zebras with ISO on the rear wheel: 1/4000 second at f/5.6 (wide open) in Manual mode. RawDigger showed that the exposure was perfect. AWB at 8:42:17am on then mostly sunny morning. Tracking: Zone/AF-C with Bird-Eye/Face Detection performed perfectly. Click on the image to enjoy the high-res version. Image #6: Western Gull taking flight |
Flight Photography Off the Tripod
If you cannot easily hand hold a given lens for flight photography, the only solution is to put the lens on a tripod. Though I tried a monopod for a while, and found the Wimberley Mono-Gimbal Head to be great for those who use a monopod, I have given up on them. Why? If you are going to carry something in the field to stabilize your (heavy) lens you might as well go for the most stable solution. With one-point contact, all monopods move around far too much for my taste. With a Levered-Clamp FlexShooter Pro atop my Robus RC-5570 Vantage Series 3 Carbon Fiber Tripod, flight photography off a tripod is an absolute pleasure. With three points of contact, stability is ensured and fatigue is eliminated. And as with most skills, the more you practice, the better the results. That goes double for flight photography.
Pre-Capture
Pre-Capture on the Sony a-1 ii was 100% responsible for the creation of this image. I keep mine set to 0.3 seconds. Always shooting at 30fps, that means that each and every time I press the shutter button to begin a new sequence that ten previously recorded raw files will be saved to the card. Interestingly enough, I have never hit the buffer with my a-1 ii. That is due in part to the fact that when doing flight photography, I cannot keep the bird in the center of the frame long enough to slow down the camera. I can, however, do that when shooting a fight or action sequence. Though such opps are rare, I have yet to hit the buffer.
Vasili Chernishoff uses his remarkable Canon EOS R1 Mirrorless Camera for bird photography. As I do, he leaves Pre-Capture on at all times. I believe that at present, the only option for him is for 0.5 seconds. Working at 40 fps, that means that 20 pre-capture images will be saved every time he presses the shutter button. In no way is that the major factor for the obscene number of images that he created last week, in excess of 80,000. He needs to learn to stop shooting specks (tiny-in-the-frame birds and quit shooting when the background becomes distracting. In short, he needs to learn to be more selective by separating the good situations from the bad situations.
Typos
With all blog posts, feel free to e-mail or to leave a comment regarding any typos or errors.
Amazing crop!
artie: ABP, page 61 🙂
P.S. All good, but I love the tight portrait with stretched neck, and of course the yawner #5.
Thanks, Dan. Jim sent me a cell phone shot of the image. Boy, times have changed. Correct me if I’m wrong — you’ve never used film.
with love, artie
I used film (slides) for about one year with a Minolta x-700 + 80-200mm manual focus lens, then bought my first digital camera – a Canon Rebel XT with an el-cheapo Sigma 70-300mm (loud and finicky, but auto-focus whoo-hoo!)
Eighteen years of film for me. Now I wish that I never heard the “f” word.
with love, a
Image 5A is the best shot I’ve ever seen showing the anatomical details of the inside of a gull’s mouth.
Thanks, Larry. I only wish its tongue were straight!
a
Love those dark blue backgrounds
Amazing crop of the gull’s mouth resulting in an incredible view of the inside of the mouth.
Made with your lens 🙂
with love, artie