What’s Up?
We made it safely and on time to Santiago, Chile at 7:10am on Thursday, met our local guide at 8:50am, and headed up into the Andes for a day of Condor photography. I had gotten nearly 6 hours of sleep on our red-eye flight, Denise just about 20 minute worth. We head to the Falklands today, Saturday October 24, 2015. I am hoping to get online a bit in about 6 days….
I will be 100% without internet from 24-30 OCT and then again from 1-14 NOV. Jim will be in the office doing his usually stellar job of minding the store and Jen will be here to help with with all things IPT related. You can reach either of them by phone at 863-693-0906. You can reach Jim by e-mail or Jen at e-mail (the latter with Attn. JEN in the Subject line).
Please refrain from e-mailing me from 23 OCT through 15 NOV.
The BIRDS AS ART Blog and You
To show your appreciation for my efforts here, we do ask that you use our the B&H and Amazon affiliate links on the right side of the blog for all of your purchases. Doing so won’t cost you a penny and is the best way to thank me for the 15-20 hours I put in to bring you fresh and free educational material most every day. Please check the availability of all photographic accessories in the BIRDS AS ART Online Store. We sell only what I use and depend on. We will not sell you junk. We know what you need to make creating great images easy and fun. And we are always glad to answer your gear questions via e-mail (unless I am traveling without internet!)
You can find the following items in the store: Mongoose M3.6 and Wimberley heads, plates, low feet, and accessories, flash brackets, , Delkin e-film Pro Compact Flash Cards, LensCoat products, and our unique line-up of educational materials including ABP I & II, Digital Basics, Site and Set-up e-Guides, Canon and Nikon Camera Users and AF e-Guides, and MP-4 Photoshop video tutorials among others.
And we still have a few Gitzo tripods in stock. I imagine that we will be phasing those out soon….
I would of course appreciate your using our B&H affiliate links for all of your major gear, video, and electronic purchases. For the photographic stuff mentioned in the paragraph above we, meaning BAA, would of course greatly appreciate your business. Here is a huge thank you to the many who have been using our links on a regular basis and visiting the BAA Online store as well.
Selling Your Used Photo Gear Through BIRDS AS ART
Selling your used (or like-new) photo gear through the BAA Blog or via a BAA Online Bulletin is a great idea. We charge only a 5% commission. One of the more popular used gear for sale sites charges a minimum of 20%. Plus assorted fees! Yikes. The minimum item price here is $500 (or less for a $25 fee). If you are interested please e-mail with the words Items for Sale Info Request cut and pasted into the Subject line :). Stuff that is priced fairly–I offer free pricing advice, usually sells in no time flat. In the past few months, we have sold just about everything in sight. Do know that prices on some items like the EOS-1D Mark IV, the old Canon 500mm, the EOS-7D, and the original 400mm IS DO lens have been dropping steadily.
You can see the complete listings by clicking here or always by clicking on the Used Photo Gear tab on the right end of the navigation bar at the top of each blog post page.
After a lull in September, things have really heated up lately:
IPT veteran Larry Master sold his 300mm f/2.8L IS II lens for $4750 on October 22, 2015.
Canon 500mm f/4L IS (the “old five”) was sold by Glen Shellhammer for $4250 in mid-October, 2015.
Canon EF 300mm f/2.8L IS II USM lens was sold instantly by Walt Anderson for $4750 in mid-October, 2015.
Canon EF 500mm f/4L IS USM lens (the “old five”) was sold by Dane Johnson for $4150 in early October 2015.
Sigma 300-800mm f/5.6 zoom lens (Canon mount) was sold by Beth Starr for $4,999 in early October 2015.
Canon EOS-1D X in excellent condition was sold by Patrick Sparkman for $3650 in early October, 2014.
Canon EF 100-400 f 4.5-5.6 L IS USM lens was sold for $699 by Sean Traynor on October 7, 2015.
Canon 100-400 L IS zoom lens (the old 1-4) was sold by Susan Carnahan for $675 in mid-October, 2015.
You can find the complete listings here.
New Listing
Canon 200-400mm f/4L IS lens with Internal 1.4X Extender
Kenton Rowe is offering a used Canon 200-400mm with Internal 1.4X Extender in Very Good condition for $9,799. The sale includes the Canon PL-C 52mm drop-in Circular Polarizing filter (a $240 value), the Canon E-145C Lens Cap (actually a lens hood made of tough synthetic fabric, the rear lens cap, the ET-120 Lens Hood, the lens trunk, and insured shipping via UPS Ground. Your item will not ship until your check clears unless other arrangements are made.
Please contact Kenton via e-mail or by phone at 406.465.6707 (Mountain time).
The 200-400 is a killer lens when you are working with tame birds or large mammals; can you say the Galapagos and Africa, the Southern Ocean Florida? artie
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This image on Thursday October 22, 2015 with the hand held Canon EF 400mm f/4 DO IS II USM lens and the amazing Canon EOS 7D Mark II. ISO 400. Evaluative metering +2 stops off the blue sky: 1/2500 sec. at f/4. AWB. Center AF point/AI Servo Expand/Shutter Button AF as originally framed was active at the moment of exposure (as is always best when hand holding). Click on the image to see a larger version. This JPEG represents the original RAW file before conversion in DPP4 |
Blowing the WHITEs on Purpose/Why?
Here I knew that the entire white neck band was blinking showing severe overexposure of the WHITES. No matter what I did during the RAW Conversion in DPP 4 the WHITE RGB values showed 255, 255, 255: detail-less white, just as I expected.
Why didn’t I go to a faster shutter speed?
I chose to burn the white neck band in an effort to be able to get some recoverable detail out of the nearly black underwings, underwings that were shaded from the sun…. See below to learn just how I did that.
Most importantly, as the area of over-exposed WHITEs was so tiny, it did not have any significant impact on the success of the image.
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This JPEG represents the optimized TIFF file |
The Image Conversion in DPP 4
First I applied my 7D II ISO 400 recipe. Then, after trying (and failing) to save the over-exposed WHITES either by moving the Brightness slider or the Highlight slider to the left, I wound up moving the Brightness slider two clicks to the right to +.33 and moving the Shadow slider to the right to +3; both helped to bring up the underwing detail that was so severely lacking in the RAW capture despite my toasting the WHITEs. After all, 255, 255 255 is 255, 255, 255 By that I mean that burned without detail is burned without detail so I might as well bring up the BLACKs a bit.
The Image Optimization
First I selected the whole bird with the Quick Selection Tool and applied a layer of my NIK 50-50 recipe. I added a Regular Layer Mask with the brush set to 33% and painted away part of the effect on everything but the birds head and neck (effectively leaving that at 100%.) Next I moved the bird right and down in the frame using techniques from APTATS II (and APTATS I). Lastly I applied a Contrast Mask and increased the Saturation of that layer as well. Note the huge difference in underwing detail between the original RAW capture that opened this blog post and the optimized version immediately above.
Digital Basics
All of the above as detailed in my Digital Basics File–written in my easy-to-follow, easy-to-understand style. Digital Basics File is an instructional PDF that is sent via e-mail. It includes my complete digital workflow, dozens of great Photoshop tips, details on using all of my image clean-up tools, the use of Contrast Masks, several different ways of expanding and filling in canvas, all of my time-saving Keyboard Shortcuts, Quick Masking, Layer Masking, and NIK Color Efex Pro basics, Contrast Masks, Digital Eye Doctor techniques, using Gaussian Blurs, Tim Grey Dodge and Burn, a variety of ways to make selections, how to create time-saving actions, the Surface Blur (background noise reduction) settings as taught to me by Denise Ippolito, and tons more.
APTATS I & II
Learn the details of advanced Quick Masking techniques in APTATS I. Learn Advanced Layer Masking Techniques in APTATS I. Mention this blog post and apply a $5 discount to either with phone orders only. Buy both APTATS I and APTATS II and we will be glad to apply at $15 discount with phone orders only. Please call Jim or Jennifer weekdays at 863-221-2372 to take advantage of this offer. I am pretty sure that we have extended that offer to the BAA Online Store as well… No time to check right now. 🙂
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You can order your copy of “The Photographers’ Guide to Canon Digital Photo Professional 4.0” (aka the DPP 4 Raw Conversion eGuide) by Arash Hazeghi and Arthur Morris by clicking here. |
The DPP 4 eGuide (PDF)
Learn how and why I and many other discerning photographers choose and use only DPP 4 to convert their Canon RAW files in the DPP 4 RAW Conversion Guide by Arash Hazeghi and yours truly. The latest version supports all of the newer Canon camera bodies and several older models including the EOS-7D and the EOS-1D Mark IV. The DPP IV Guide is the ideal companion to the 7D Mark II User’s Guide, a runaway best seller.
DPP 4 Kudos
From Richard Gollard via e-mail:
I have been doing tons of studying the books and PDFs that I have purchased from BIRDS AS ART. And I have to say that after reading the DPP 4 conversion guide that you did with Arash Hazeghi I tried DPP 4 and was blown away with the difference from the conversions that I made with Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom. Thanks for the consistently great information.
The DPP 4 eGuide (PDF) Updated for 1D Mark IV and the original 7D
The DPP 4 eGuide was recently updated to include the luminance and chrominance noise reduction values for both the 1D Mark IV and the original 7D. If you purchased your copy from BAA please e-mail Jim and request the DPP 4 1d IV/7D update. Please be sure to cut and paste page 1 into your e-mail as proof of purchase.
Click here for complete info on Induro tripods and to learn which one is the best fit for you. Or click here or on the logo-link above to purchase via our OPG affiliate link.
First Induro Kudos
Dennis Zaebst left this on the original Induro blog post:
Hi Artie,
I just received my new GIT 304L from OPG after using your link above. Thanks for the great tip!
I am a convert from an older Gitzo (model 1320, really old). I love all the features of the new 304L tripod and I’m really impressed with it. It’s a really precision piece of equipment. One of the best features, but perhaps not emphasized enough above, are the quick-release leg locks. Just a quarter turn and they are released, and equally quick to lock. This is compared to my old Gitzo, requiring more than a full turn, taking about twice as long to set up and use, or to put away. I was always a bit frustrated with the Gitzo as the legs required a fairly hard pull to extend or collapse, and this was a bit awkward to deal with. Not so with the 304L.
Best, Dennis
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Typos
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