25 Lessons...

What’s Up?

Patrick and I had a pretty decent morning with the grebes and met new friend Chris Mayne in Coronado for godwits, gulls, and Surf Scoters.

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The Streak

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This image was created on March 14, 2016, a cloudy morning at La Jolla, CA. I used the the hand held Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM lens (at 400mm) and the mega mega-pixel Canon EOS 5DS R. ISO 800. Evaluative metering +2/3 stop: 1/250 sec. at f/8 in Manual mode. Cloudy WB. Brown Pelican stitched pano

25 Lessons

In the “Blog Post With No Words: What are the unspoken lessons?” here I wrote, “There are at least 25 lessons in today’s blog post. If you learned something or figured something out, please leave a comment to share with the gang.”

Below please find my take on that situation. Kudos to Den Bagwell for his excellent list and his correct follow-up on the most important point, #20.

#1: Your choice of perspective controls the appearance of the background.
#2: Choose an interesting, beautiful, pleasing (or venerable) subject.
#3: Do your best to parallel the subject or wait for the proper head turn toward you.

A + B = C

A + B = C

#4: Learn to think digitally in the field by being aware of stitched pano opportunities when a given subject is too big in the frame.
#5: You must be in Manual exposure so that the exposure does not change with the framing.
#6: You must set a White Balance other than AWB so that the WB does not change with the framing.
#7: In situations like this, you must use either rear focus of One-shot AF.
#8: First focus on the eye of the subject and make an image. Then release the rear button if you are using rear focus or keep the shutter button half pressed if you are using One-shot AF.
#9: Recompose allowing for at least 15% overlap. When re-composing for the 2nd frame it is imperative that you keep the lens as close to perfectly level as possible. See more below…
#10: Keeping the lens level is a lot easier when working on a tripod but that was not at all possible in this situation

Artie and friends. Image courtesy of and copyright 2016: Bryan Holliday

Artie and Friends

#11: By getting low and moving slowly it is possible to get ridiculously close to many free and wild birds.
#12: Hand holding allows for tremendous latitude as far as framing and background choices.
#13: Only by getting very low was I able to come up with a pleasing background.
#14: Good photographers are willing to get down and dirty in order to get the shot.
#15: Good photographers are willing to get dirt, sand, dust, mud or whatever on their cameras and lenses in order to get the shot.
#16: Folks who are passionate about photography are very likely to be good to go as far as #s 14 and 15 are concerned.
#17: Maintaining good overall health is a plus as far as photography and life are concerned.
#18: Knowing bird behavior is a huge plus for photography and included knowing which bird might be easily approached.
#19: Being willing to accept a bit of pain can help you get the shot. Here I struggled to get as left and as high up the mound as possible to better parallel the subject and get the background that I wanted. It was a pretty good test of core strength and it hurt in several places to do so.

Yours truly on the cliffs at La Jolla. iPhone 6s cell phone image courtesy of and copyright 2016: Bryan Holliday

#20: One of the two biggest keys to the success of this image was using the viewfinder level for both the first image and the second, re-composed image to keep both images fairly level. In the position that I was in your kinesthetic sense is hopelessly confused…
#21: The second was to maintain the same elevation when re-composing. As one of the commenters noted, I did not do real well with that and thus lost more than I would have liked from the bottom of the image of the face and the head.
#22: Wearing sun protective clothing is better than wearing sun block…
#23: Remove the foot and lens plate from the 100-400 II when handholding to lighten the load a bit.
#24: I stabilized my rig by plating my left elbow firmly on the ground.
#25: If you are not learning and having fun while you are at it you are missing a lot.

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To show your appreciation for my continuing efforts here, we ask, as always, that you get in the habit of using my B&H affiliate links on the right side of the blog for all of your photo and electronics purchases. Please check the availability of all photographic accessories in the BIRDS AS ART Online Store, especially the Mongoose M3.6 tripod heads, Gitzo tripods, Wimberley heads and plates, LensCoats and accessories, and the like. We sell only what I have used, have tested, and can 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. I just learned that my account was suspended during my absence; it should be up and running by Monday at the latest.

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.

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Typos

In all blog posts and Bulletins, feel free to e-mail or to leave a comment regarding any typos or errors. Just be right 🙂

Please Remember to use our Affiliate Links 🙂

To show your appreciation for my continuing efforts here, we ask, as always, that you get in the habit of using my B&H affiliate links on the right side of the blog for all of your photo and electronics purchases. Please check the availability of all photographic accessories in the BIRDS AS ART Online Store, especially the Mongoose M3.6 tripod heads, Gitzo tripods, Wimberley heads and plates, LensCoats and accessories, and the like. We sell only what I have used, have tested, and can 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. I just learned that my account was suspended during my absence; it should be up and running by Monday at the latest.

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.

Facebook

Be sure to like and follow BAA on Facebook by clicking on the logo link upper right. Tanks a stack!

Typos

In all blog posts and Bulletins, feel free to e-mail or to leave a comment regarding any typos or errors. Just be right 🙂