Thrilled To Say That I Was 100% Wrong

Your Job

After clicking on each of today’s four featured images (the first four only), rate them in order with the strongest first and the weakest photo last (in your opinion.) Your comment might look something like this:

4, 1, 3, 2. I will share my ratings and reasons with you in the next blog post.

What’s Up?

We did well again on the flying ducks at Santee Lakes Preserve on Wednesday afternoon. Thursday morning superseded Tuesday morning as the worst session of the trip. I created a meager 1325 images and kept only 11. My abysmal keeper rate was less than 1%, an all-time low. I am having dinner tonight at the fabulous King’s Fish House in San Diego with Martin Wood, president and CEO of Delkin Devices, Scott Clarke also of Delkin, Bob Eastman, and my great friend and health advisor, Dr. Cliff Oliver and Annie, his significant other.

Today is Friday 31 January 2025. The plan is for Bob and me to head out early to Coronado Beach for a final visit — we fly back to Florida on Sunday. We’re hoping for a sunny morning filled with Marbled Godwits and Heermann’s Gulls. After seeing only a handful of the West Coast’s most beautiful gull in more than two weeks, 40 showed up in La Jolla about three days ago and for the last two mornings, there have been more than a hundred present along with several hundred Royal Terns. The handsome Heermann’s were likely wintering to the north and are beginning their southward journey to their breeding grounds in Baja, Mexico. Whatever the heck you opt to do, we hope that you too choose to have a great day and be happy.

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This image was 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 2x Teleconverter, and The Latest Greatest Sony Flagship Body, the a-1 II Mirrorless Camera. ISO 1250. The exposure was determined by Zebras with ISO on the rear wheel: 1/3200 second at f/8 (wide open) in Manual mode. RawDigger showed that the exposure was perfect. AWB at 3:54:02pm on sunny afternoon. Zone/AF-C with Bird-Eye/Face Detection performed perfectly. Click on the image to enjoy the high-res version. Image #1: Brown Pelican, Pacifc race juvenile turning in flight

Thrilled To Say That I Was 100% Wrong

In the How Good is This One? Or Not? blog post here, I wrote in part:

Most impressive is the AF performance (of Vasili Chernishoff’s Canon EOS R1 Mirrorless Camera) with birds in flight at 1200mm with the RF 600m f/4 and the RF 2X teleconverter. My gut feeling that AF accuracy is better at 1200mm than the Sony a-1 ii with the 600mm f/4 GM and the 2X TC. And that, my friends, is sayin a lot. The difference however might be operator error (on my part), but I do not think so.

I was standing on the downhill sidewalk at La Jolla watching some distant pelicans flying in and landing on the low shelf when I realized that I had never tried the a-1 ii for birds in flight with the 600mm f/4 GM lens and the 2X TC. In my mind, I was comparing the a-1 AF at 1200mm to the R1 at 1200mm. Results with the a-1 at 1200mm were somewhat sporadic.

Since the opportunity presented itself, I went to work with the a-1 ii at 1200mm and when I got the images on my MacBook Pro, I was thrilled to learn that I had been 100% wrong. All of the flight shots were tack sharp on the bird’s eyes. Hooray. That makes the Sony a-1 ii even deadlier for bird photography. And with 51MP and Zebra technology, the a-1 ii versus the R1 (with 24 MP) is simply no contest.

This image was also created on 27 January 2025 at La Jolla, CA. Again, 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 2x Teleconverter, and The Latest Greatest Sony Flagship Body, the a-1 II Mirrorless Camera. ISO 2500. The exposure was determined by Zebras with ISO on the rear wheel: 1/3200 second at f/8 (wide open) in Manual mode. RawDigger showed that the exposure was perfect. AWB at 4:10:46pm on sunny afternoon. Zone/AF-C with Bird-Eye/Face Detection performed perfectly. Click on the image to enjoy the high-res version. Image #2: Brown Pelican, Pacifc race adult in soaring flight

a-1 ii AF at 1200mm

The Bird Face-Eye tracking of the Sony a-1 ii AF at 1200mm is as good as it is with the 300mm f/28 GM lens alone. And that, my friends is saying a lot. Most impressive is when Zone or Tracking: Zone grabs and tracks the eye of a bird flying away from you.

This image was also created on 27 January 2025 at La Jolla, CA. Again, 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 2x Teleconverter, and The Latest Greatest Sony Flagship Body, the a-1 II Mirrorless Camera. ISO 2000. The exposure was determined by Zebras with ISO on the rear wheel: 1/3200 second at f/8 (wide open) in Manual mode. RawDigger showed that the exposure was perfect. AWB at 4:11:59pm on sunny afternoon. Zone/AF-C with Bird-Eye/Face Detection performed perfectly. Click on the image to enjoy the high-res version. Image #3: Brown Pelican, Pacifc race, bright breeding plumage adult in flight

High Flyers at 1200mm

When you are fortunate enough to have some birds flying well above the water, or the ocean as with Image #3, the background detail is pleasingly smoothed out. And working with a long focal length like 1200mm heightens that effect.

This image was also created on 27 January 2025 at La Jolla, CA. Again, 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 2x Teleconverter, and The Latest Greatest Sony Flagship Body, the a-1 II Mirrorless Camera. ISO 2000. The exposure was determined by Zebras with ISO on the rear wheel: 1/3200 second at f/8 (wide open) in Manual mode. RawDigger showed that the exposure was perfect. AWB at 4:17:00pm on sunny afternoon. Zone/AF-C with Bird-Eye/Face Detection performed perfectly. Click on the image to enjoy the high-res version. Image #4: Brown Pelican, Pacifc race, breeding plumage adult in flight — braking to land

Pano Crop

The full braking flight pose here made the choice of a pano crop an obvious and easy one. There is nothing in the world that says that 3X2 or 2X3 are the only acceptable proportions for an image. And the same is true for square or boxy crops. You are the artist; feel free to crop your images to maximize the artistic feel and impact of your photographs.

The Photo Mechanic screen capture for my favorite-ever Brown Pelican Pacific race mega-breeding plumage tight flight image

Another Creative Crop

When I saw the raw file above for the first time on my laptop, I was quite thrilled with it. But in its original form, above, it simply did not work. Just the right crop — as shown above by the marching ants, was needed. I am happy with the result, now below as in the previously linked to post.

This image was created on 21 January 2025 on an In-the-Field Workshop 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 a1 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 9:05:21am on sunny morning. Tracking: Zone/AF-C with Bird-Eye/Face Detection performed perfectly. Click on the image to enjoy the larger, inexplicably sharper high-res version. Brown Pelican Pacific race mega-breeding plumage tight flight

Typos

With all blog posts, feel free to e-mail or to leave a comment regarding any typos or errors.