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This sleeping American Oystercatcher was photographed this morning at Nickerson Beach with the tripod-mounted Canon EF 600mm f/4L IS II USM lens, the Canon 2x EF Extender III (Teleconverter), and the Canon EOS-1D X Digital SLR camera. ISO 400. Evaluative metering -1/3 stop: 1/800 sec. at f/10 in Manual Mode. Central sensor (by necessity) Expand/AI Servo/Rear Focus on the bird’s eye and recompose. Click here if you missed the Rear Focus Tutorial. Click on the image to see a larger version. |
Nickerson Not Too Late
Even with the dreaded northwest wind Nickerson was fantastic this morning. If you are seriously interested in joining us tomorrow, morning and/or afternoon, e-mail me immediately for the rates and be sure to include your phone number. I will check my e-mail after dinner tonight and call you.
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This Sanderling flock was also photographed this morning at Nickerson Beach with the tripod-mounted Canon EF 600mm f/4L IS II USM lens, the Canon 2x EF Extender III (Teleconverter), and the Canon EOS-1D X Digital SLR camera. ISO 50. Evaluative metering -1/3 stop: 1/13 sec. at f/32 in Manual Mode. Central sensor (by necessity) Expand/AI Servo/Rear Focus on the first row of birds and recompose. Click here if you missed the Rear Focus Tutorial. Click on the image to see a larger version. |
Sanderlings, Sanderlings, and More Sanderlings
We enjoyed the fruits of a flock of about 2,000 Sanderlings being chased by a Peregrine Falcon. See the pleasing blur above and the sharp image below.
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This Sanderling flock was photographed this morning at Nickerson Beach with the tripod-mounted Canon EF 600mm f/4L IS II USM lens and the Canon EOS-1D X Digital SLR camera. ISO 400. Evaluative metering +-1/3 stop: 1/800 sec. at f/10 in Manual Mode. Central sensor/AI Servo/Surround/Rear Focus active at the moment of exposure. Click here if you missed the Rear Focus Tutorial. Click on the image to see a larger version. |
Your Favorite?
Which of the three images above is your favorite? Of the two Sanderling flock images, do you prefer the sharp image or the blur? In all cases do let us know why.
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Click on the image for easier reading. Click here for more info from Canon. Feel free to leave a comment with a question about the new Canon 2-4 below. |
Canon EF 200-400mm f/4L IS USM Lens with Internal 1.4x Extender Announcement
At midnight last night Canon at long last announced the coming availability of the EF 200-400mm f/4L IS USM Lens with Internal 1.4x Extender. This versatile lens was announced several years ago and some folks were doubting its very existence. It promises to be a great lens for wildlife and for trips to places like Africa, the Southern Ocean, and the Galapagos. As you will see by clicking on the link it is quite pricey. I will surely try to borrow one before I buy one.
Click here to see more. If you pre-order with B&H, our affiliate code will follow so thanks! If you get your name put on the list to be notified, please e-mail for our affiliate link when you are informed.
Iris Garden Workshop This Week!
I will be joining Denise Ippolito as a previously unannounced co-leader on her Iris Garden Flower Photography Workshop this coming Thursday, May 16, at the spectacular Presby Memorial Iris Gardens in Upper Montclair, NJ. I will be bringing my 600 II along so if you’d like to learn long lens flower photography techniques this one is perfect for you. I will also have my 180mm macro along. Rain date: May 17. Learn more and register here.
Next Year In Holland
Despite a 100-year record cold spring with very few tulip fields in bloom this trip has been a spectacular success. The colors and variety of tulips at Keukenhof simply stun the mind and the senses. Denise and I are planning our Holland trip for next year: the Keukenhof Creative Tulip Photography IPT with a Touch of Holland. If you are a Happy Camper who is interested in joining Denise and me next spring, please shoot me an e-mail. Details will be announced soon.
We are currently fleshing out the details. The dates will be about the same, in mid April. In addition to the Keukenhof and the flower fields we will do an afternoon of windmills at Kinderdijk, a day in Amsterdam including a morning at the Rijks Museum and an afternoon visit to the Ann Frank House plus some street photography. We will do some street photography and fine dining in the little town of Edam. There will be about 7-9 days of photography in all. Those will include an afternoon option for a day or two of Purple Herons for those with long lenses.
Note: not surprisingly, early interest has been huge with several folks who want to sign up right now.
New York City–On Location with Denise Ippolito & Arthur Morris May 25 – 26, 2013, 2-day Workshop-$495
Join Denise Ippolito and Arthur Morris for a two-day creative workshop in the Big Apple. This exciting adventure through the streets of NYC will begin with an informal get-together at our hotel on the evening of May 24th. This will give us all a chance to get to know each other before we hit the streets in the morning for our first exciting photo shoot. We will explore China Town, Little Italy, Times Square, Rockefeller Center, Grand Central Station (tripod permit included) and much more during our two days together. The emphasis will be on street photography, seeing and capturing dynamic images, and expanding your creativity using a variety of in-camera techniques including HDR and Multiple Exposure.
Please contact me via e-mail for complete details and the itinerary.
Typos
On all blog posts, feel free to e-mail or leave a comment regarding any typos, wrong words, misspellings, omissions, or grammatical errors. Just be right. 🙂
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Hi Artie, I’ve been reading your answer, I think, to say the least, very arrogant and immeasurable ego, you have that shield you in your rewards for a response to a joke, considering also how friendly I am, I you wrote when you came to Chile to invite you to know my land desiteresadamente and show the best places to share our passion, photography of birds, I did the best I could to make you feel good and comfortable in my country giving you and your friends the best bird points according to your interest and time available to us for this.
Your answer seems a lack of bad models to me considering my super good will towards you and Denise and your friends at the outputs.
I hope that time and life will remove that devilish ego.
With all my affection and somewhat disappointed greets you warmly.
Osvaldo Larrain L
Professional Photographer
http://www.osvaldolarrain.com
569 92309303
Osvaldo. First off, I greatly appreciated your amazing hospitality on our visit to Chile. And always will.
It seems to me that you are completely off base. As we both know, good photographers make good images with whatever gear they are using. You say below that you were joking. I have no idea how I was supposed to know that your advising me to switch to Nikon was a joke. Photography is my life and my passion and I take it very seriously. My ego has been at least in part responsible for much of my success.
You did not get me in a bad moment. You made a bad joke that I had no idea was a joke and then you tell me that I am arrogant. And lots more…
later and love, artie
Woau , I was joking , maybe I got you in a bad moment , I perfectly know all honored images and your great work , sorry about my coment 🙁
Can anyone explain why Canon sunk thousands of development and research dollars into an $11K lens that will likely be bought by a very limited number of photographers? Are they trying to prove something? Why didn’t they develop a less complex 200-400 or upgrade the OLD 100-400 in a lower price range? It seems to me they would sell a lot more lenses at greater profit at list cost between $2000 – $3000.
I am not Canon but I do know that the Nikon 200-400 (along with the EOS-1D Mark III AF fiasco) put a big hurt on Canon…. As far as I am concerned, there is nothing at all wrong with the 100-400. Denise loves hers and uses it with great success.
While that may be a nice lens, I know for a fact that its one I’ll never own. If I were to plunk down nearly $12,000 for something midrange like that, it’s definitely going to be a 2.8 or better. What threw me for a loop and almost makes me want to get rid of all my beloved Canon equipment was seeing that after you spend $11,799 for that lens, you have the option of buying a case for it, get this, for only $699! What the f@*%? Has Canon lost its mind? What planet are these people from? Please tell me I just had a bad dream and the world really hasn’t gone crazy.
Marvin: The case is included. So it really is a steal. 🙂
David
Thanks David. I had assumed that it would be but it threw me I guess when I saw the case listed for $699. You have to admit though, that is a ridiculous price for a piece of luggage.
Yes, that is for a replacement lens trunk. BTW, I NEVER use a lens trunk for any of my big lenses. Never have either. Except when shipping them.
Love the Oystercatcher! One of my most favorite birds at my most favorite location 🙂
Hi Artie,
Definitely the second one, just love the pastel colours and sense of flow in the constantly moving Sanderling flock. The clean beach strip along the bottom with the white bellies and hints of beaks and legs is great. Not totally sure about the top bit with the breaking waves but on consideration the image is better for it, with the eye starting top left and following the line across right and moving through the flock down to the bottom.
Of the three, I like the sleeping Oystercatcher. I always love solo birds.
Of the other two, I think I like the pleasing blur this time around. Its a little more dynamic!
It’s amazing there were two thousand of them there! I’ve never seen that many shorebirds in one place. Here in Colorado, we get little groups, and all told, I don’t think we have more than 100 of any given species at the local watering holes.
While the price of the 200-400 + 1.4x is rather astonishing ($11,799?!?), I look forward to your review. I’m curious to know how the built-in teleconverter is for bird photography.
I like the pleasing blur better than the static shot. Although I am pretty sure that that is a Least Sandpiper, fifth row up, 12 birds in from the right. 😉
When I first saw it, I thought, “meh.” And then I kept looking, and looking…and I saw something new every time. The best kind of image; one that grows on you.
The lower group of Sanderlings seems to have a distinct pattern of motion–roughly a 45 degree angle, from upper left to lower right–compared with the others. Do you know why that was so? Or is it just one of those serendipitous things that happens with pleasing blur shots?
Just the way that the various groups of birds were moving.
I love the sleeping American Oystercatcher. I don’t like blurred photos, pleasing or not, unless there is an in-focus un-blurred object in the photo. That’s just me. The sharp sanderlings form an interesting pattern and I like the way you framed the shot. But I still like the oystercatcher better because it is an interesting behavior in an altogether pleasing composition. Now (finally) here’s my question; Is the built in teleconverter, by being dedicated to just this one lens, likely to produce better results than a regular teleconverter would? And can the lens be used with a 2.0x teleconverter (without the 1.4 in the light path)?
From what I understand the built-in TC will perform better than an external one. Plus, not dust from adding and removing the TC….
Yes to the 2X question.
Never is late to change to Nikon , much more dynamic range and better noise results .
I guess that that is why my images are so bad and why I only have 7 BBC honored images….
To be precise, Osvaldo, there’s better dynamic range in the shadows, at base ISO – but Canon is at least a match for anything Nikon’s got at the other end of the histogram, where it’s far more likely to matter for bird photographers.
And as for noise, you might want to have a look at the results from the 5D Mk III and 1DX compared to (say) the D4 and then seriously reconsider your opinion: and Nikon has nothing in the DX/APS-C space that betters the best Canon crop bodies.
I look forward to your review of that lens! My favorite of the three is the sharp sanderlings. For me, it gives a wonderful sense of motion. Do birds sleep with their eyes open?