Adapted Bob Eastman comment
Artie. (I stayed out on deck on most Kachemak Bay crossings) because it was the trip of a lifetime for me. I wanted to live the dream and capture the moment in time and the beauty surrounding us. Alaska was and is amazing and so beautiful. Seeing the soaring eagles and the snow covered mountaintops was surreal. Three weeks was not enough!
Always with love b
What’s Up?
I headed to Stick Marsh on Thursday morning to check on the latest construction project. I will be sharing the details with the group in this year’s second Stick Marsh Site Guide Subscription Service e-mail by Monday.
Today is Friday 24 March 2023. I am up early and will be headed down to the lake here at ILE soon. This blog post took about 90 minutes to prepare and makes three hundred fifty-eight days in a row with a new educational post written just for you. Wherever you are and whatever you are doing, I hope that you too have a great day. My plan is to continue to post every day until the streak reaches one year and one day and then begin posting every other day. It won’t be long now.
Please remember to use the B&H and Amazon links that are found on most blog pages and to use the BIRDSASART discount code at checkout when purchasing your new gear from Bedfords to get 3% back on your credit card and enjoy free second-day air FedEx. Please, also, consider joining a BAA IPT. You will be amazed at how much you will learn!
You can find some great photo accessories (and necessities, like surf booties!) on Amazon by clicking on the Stuff tab on the orange/yellow menu bar above. On a related note, it would be extremely helpful if blog-folks who, like me, spend too much money on Amazon, would get in the habit of clicking on the Amazon logo link on the right side of each blog post when they shop online. As you might expect, doing so will not cost you a single penny, but would be appreciated tremendously by yours truly. And doing so, works seamlessly with your Amazon Prime account.
Please remember that if an item — a Delkin flash card, or a tripod head — for example, that is available from B&H and/or Bedfords, is also available in the BAA Online Store, it would be great, and greatly appreciated, if you would opt to purchase from us. We will match any price. Please remember also to use my B&H affiliate links or to earn 3% cash back at Bedfords by using the BIRDSASART discount code at checkout for your major gear purchases. Doing either often earns you free guides and/or discounts. And always earns my great appreciation.
The Stick Marsh Site Guide Subscription Service
I fully understand that you can go to Google Maps, find Stick Marsh, visit, and likely make some good images. You might think, I can do fine just without artie’s advice. But you will do a whole lot better with it. Especially considering the latest construction project.
The Site Guide Subscription Service was a new concept last year. I e-mailed the first issue in late-March 2022. The Basics e-mail includes specific directions to the site, and a map of the rookery area with specific instructions and wind, weather, and where-to-be advice. Sign up now to receive last year’s five e-mails and the latest info in the Stick Marsh Site Guide e-Mail #6: March 20, 2023 Update. To sign up for the Stick Marsh Site Guide Subscription Service, call Jim in the office weekday afternoons at 863-692-0906 with your credit card in hand or send a PayPal for the $100.00 to us at birdsasart@verizon.net. Please be sure to include the words Stick Marsh with your PayPal.
Canon EF 100-400mm 1:4-5.6 L IS II USM Zoom Lens
BIRDS AS ART Record-Low Price
Sean Traynor is offering a Canon EF 100-400mm 1:4-5.6 L IS II USM Zoom Lens in Excellent condition for a BIRDS AS ART record-low $1,098.00. The sale includes the front and rear lens caps, the lens strap, the tough fabric carrying case, the LensCoat that has been on the lens since Day One, the manual, the original box, and UPS insured ground shipping (to lower-48 US addresses only) Your item will not ship until your check clears unless other arrangements are made.
Please contact Sean via e-mail or by phone at (201)-696-1962 Eastern time zone).
This incredibly versatile zoom lens — with its amazing .98-meter close focus — was my favorite Canon telephoto zoom lens ever. By far. It is easy to hand hold, great for tight portraits, for birds in flight, for quasi-macro stuff, and lots more. For flight, it is deadly with an EOS R, R5, R6, or R7! This lens sells new for $2099.00 so you can save a handsome $1001.00 by grabbing Sean’s lens right now. artie
Nikon D500 DSLR Camera Body
Larry Peavler is offering a like-new Nikon D500 DSLR Camera Body with only 2,408 actuations for a BIRDS AS ART Record-Low $749.00. The sale includes one battery, the charger, the cable, the front body cap, the strap, the original product box, and insured ground shipping via a major carrier to the lower 48.
Please contact Larry via e-mail.
The D500 is Nikon’s top-of-the-line crop factor body. It multiplies your focal length by 1.5X. Joe Przybyla and Dan Kearl, both excellent photographers on Bird Photographer’s.Net, use the D500 as their workhorse camera bodies. Joe, the co-author of The BAA Middle of Florida Photographic Site Guide, was after this old dog for a long time to try a D500 when I used Nikon. artie
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This image was created on 7 March on the third 2023 Homer/Kachemak Bay Bald Eagle IPT. Working from Captain Gabe’s workboat, I used the handheld Sony FE 400mm f/2.8 GM OSS lens Tracking: Expand Spot/AF-C with Bird Face/Eye detection enabled performed to perfection. Be sure to click on the image to enjoy a high-res version. Image #1: Bald Eagle tight flight — handsome |
The Continuing Quest for Different
After 15 days of phenomenal Bald Eagle flight photography, I had kept several thousand sharp flight shots with perfect exposures and pleasing wing positions. Conditions were perfect on the last morning. Inspired in part by the flight head shots in the Stunned by Sony a1 Autofocus. Lens, TC, and focal length? blog post here, I decided to try for tight flight shots using the handheld Sony 400mm f/2.8 with the 1.4X TC (and of course, with the a1). The flight head shots in the aforementioned blog post were created almost accidentally with the 70-200II and the 1.4X TC. The eagle was very close to the boat; I raised the lens and fired off a short burst instinctively. That is why I was stunned by the results.
On the morning of 7 March, working in perfect conditions and knowing exactly what I wanted, I came up with more than a dozen really good images (including today’s two featured images).
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This image was also created on 7 March on the third 2023 Homer/Kachemak Bay Bald Eagle IPT. Working from Captain Gabe’s workboat, I used the handheld Sony FE 400mm f/2.8 GM OSS lens Tracking: Expand Spot/AF-C with Bird Face/Eye detection enabled performed to perfection. Be sure to click on the image to enjoy a high-res version. Image #2: Bald Eagle tight flight –ugly |
Handholding the 400mm f/2.8 at 560mm
Stronger folks with more stamina than I, faster reflexes, and superior hand-eye coordination, would have done a lot better than I did that morning with the same gear. Why? Because they are physically in position to better take advantage of Sony’s amazing AF system. After an hour of trying for the tight flight shots, intentionally cutting off the eagle’s wings, I was knackered; my left shoulder was aching from having lifted the lens many dozens of times, and my bone on bone left thumb was protesting loudly. That despite the fact that the Sony 400mm f/2.8 is the lightest, best balanced lens in its class available.
Was it worth it? For me, absolutely.
Note the difference in the blue tones in #1 versus #2. Th first image was created in full early morning sun. The second image was made as a faint cloud covered the sun briefly.
Your Call?
Which of today’s featured images do you like best — handsome or ugly? Why?
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2024 Homer/Kachemak Bay Bald Eagle IPTs
IPT #1: WED 21 FEB 2024 through the full day on SUN 25 FEB 2024. Five full days/20 hours on the boat: $5500.00. Limit 5 photographers/Openings 3.
IPT #2: MON 26 FEB 2024 through the full day on FRI 1 MAR 2024. Five full days/20 hours on the boat: $5500.00. Limit 5 photographers/Openings 2.
Register for both trips to maximize your travel dollars and enjoy a $1000 discount while you are at it.
This trip features non-stop flight photography as well as many opportunities to create both environmental and point-blank portraits of one of North America’s most sought-after avian subjects: Bald Eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus). Other reliable subjects will include Sea Otter, Glaucous-winged and Short-billed (formerly Mew) Gulls.
In addition, we should see Common Murre, Black Guillemot, Pelagic Cormorant, two or three species of loons, and a smattering of ducks including two species of merganser, all three scoters, Common and Barrow’s Goldeneyes, Bufflehead, Harlequin, and Long-tailed Ducks. Close-range photographic chances for these species will require some good luck. Some of these species, especially when in flocks, can, however, often be used effectively when pleasing creating bird-scapes.
If we need to be out early, we will be the first boat out. If the conditions are great, we will stay out. And when there is a chance for sunset silhouettes, we will be in the right spot.
We will be traveling through gorgeous wilderness country; landscape and scenic opportunities abound.
Also featured is a professional leader, often referred to as the world’s most knowledgeable bird photography trip leader and instructor. He is conversant in Canon, Nikon, and Sony. You will learn practical and creative solutions to everyday photographic problems. You will learn to see the shot, to create dynamic images by fine-tuning your compositions, to best utilize your camera’s AF system, and how to analyze the wind, the sky conditions, and the direction and quality of the light. This is one of the very few trips Homer trips available where you will not be simply put on the birds and told to have fun. You will learn to be a better photographer. But only if that is what you want.
You will learn to get the right exposure when it is sunny, when it cloudy-bright, when it is cloudy, when it is cloudy-dark, or when it is foggy. Not to mention getting the right exposure when creating silhouettes.
You will learn to make pleasing blurs working in manual mode and to create silhouettes working in Shutter Priority mode.
Most importantly you will learn to pick your best flight photographs from tens of thousands of images.
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You will enjoy working with the best and most creative boat captain on his sturdy, photography-spacious, seaworthy, open-deck watercraft.
Only five photographers (not the usual six), plus the leader.
Small group Photoshop, Image Review, and Image Critiquing sessions.
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All images from Homer or Kachemak Bay, AK |
What’s Included
One four hour or two two-hour boat trips every day (weather permitting), all boat fees and boat-related expenses (excluding tips), ground transportation to and from the dock and back to the hotel each day, in-the-field instruction and guidance, pre-trip gear advice, small group post-processing and image review sessions, and a thank you dinner for all well-behaved participants.
What’s Not Included
Your airfare to and from Homer, AK (via Anchorage), the cost of your room at Land’s End Resort, all personal items, all meals and beverages, and tips for the boat captain and/or the first mate.
Please Note
On great days, the group may wish to photograph for more than four hours. If the total time on the boat exceeds 20 hours for the five-day trips the group will share the additional expense at a rate of $225/hour. The leader will pay for the bait.
Some folks may wish to rent their own vehicle to take advantage of local photographic opportunities around Homer. In 2023 those included Moose, Great Grey, and Short-eared Owls.
Deposit Information
A $3000 non-refundable deposit/trip is required. You may pay your deposit with credit card or by personal check (the latter made out to BIRDS AS ART) and sent via US mail only to Arthur Morris. PO Box 7245. Indian Lake Estates, FL 33855. Your balance, due 90 days before the date of departure, is payable only by check (as above).
In Closing
I have been going to Homer off and on for close to two decades. Every trip has been nothing short of fantastic. Many folks go in mid-March. The earlier you go, the better the chances for snow. The only way to assure that you are on the best of these two trips is to sign up for all of them. Can you keep up with me? If you have any questions, or are good to go for one, or two of these great trips, please let me know via e-mail or give me a call on my cell phone at 863-221-2372.
Typos
With all blog posts, feel free to e-mail or to leave a comment regarding any typos or errors.
Image #1 and #2 of Bald Eagle tight flight are well made and interesting. Real close to the Bald Eagles with real good photos.
Artie
The Alaska trip was as i said amazing to say the least and to see so many different things Moose and Owls and Sea Otters and Seals and one day a Coyote and then to top it all off the most amazing Aurora Borealis (Northern Lights) I have ever seen!
Always with love b
PS anyone even remotely considering Alaska, go you will not regret it one bit!
My preference is number one. The cut off wings look more intentional. I like the “X” shape created by the wings and legs as well as the stronger colors. These factors seem to intensify drawing the viewers’ eyes to the eagle’s eye and beak, which is enhanced by the repetition of yellow in the legs/feet.
Hi Artie,
I prefer number two (ugly?). I like being able to see part of the second eye.
Typo: intentionally cutting of the eagle’s wings s/b off
J