Arthur Morris/BIRDS AS ART

What’s Up?

Older daughter Jennifer and I flew back to Orlando on the 12:15pm non-stop from Islip. The flight was a breeze. I got home in plenty of time to enjoy a late afternoon swim.

Scroll down a bit for info on next weekend’s Gatorland offerings and scroll down further for DeSoto IPT late registration discount info.

Heartfelt Thanks

Thanks to the many who shared their thoughts on the memorial blog post that I wrote about my Mom (and my Dad as well) both by leaving a comment and via e-mail. To receive so many kind, thoughtful messages, each one containing and outpouring of love, was both wonderful and appreciated. Many of the comments were quite insightful. I think that I wrote this recently somewhere but cannot recall the details, but at worst, it is worth repeating. Someone wrote that in addition to my Dad being part of the “Greatest Generation,” that my Mom and the tens of thousands of other wives and mothers were part of the “Greatest Generation” as well. Though it is obviously true for sure I had never realized it before. These unsung women heroes held the families together during and after the war and nurtured and loved and cared for their (often wounded) husbands after the war. And those wounds often included mental wounds as well as physical ones. And let’s not forget about the Rosie the Riveters as well, the women who worked in factories producing a great variety of the stuff that was needed for our war effort.

Additions

Both in the memorial blog post and in the (shared) eulogy that I presented at my Mom’s memorial service on Sunday, I omitted a few things, several with regards to the fact that Hazel Morris spent most of her life taking care of others. First, she volunteered as a fund raiser for years for Great Oaks Village, a group home for developmentally challenged young adults in San Diego. Her talents as a baker and a seamstress helped raise a whole lot of money for that group. She was a member of the San Diego Woman’s Club for several decades. When she moved back to New York in 2006 or 2007, they honored her service there with an honorary lifetime membership. She held a variety of offices (most notably Treasurer) for that group for years and on the certificate, they noted that Hazel often held this or that position for more years than their constitution allowed because nobody else would take the position. That’s my Mom.

I did note during the eulogy that my Mom took on quite a chore while raising us three kids. Heck, when I was two, I pushed my infant sister Ilene off the kitchen table. When I was about seven I hit her in the head with a hammer, and she stabbed me in the head with a pair of scissors. (None of the wounds were serious). After that, things got worse and we stopped getting along so well. But that only lasted another seven decades. I happily reconciled with Ilene last week in the presence of my Mom. (Credit The School for the Work for that …)

But when it came to taking care of my sister Arna, my Mom (and until his death, my Dad) deserved Nobel Prizes for parenting. When the family left Brooklyn for San Diego in 1969 Arna was not a happy camper. She rebelled in a fashion typical of the time, sex, drugs, rock and roll, and wine (without much emphasis on the rock and roll). She married three guys in a row named Richard. Each turned out to be a disaster. Many times she came back to my folks with piles of auto repair and hospital bills and each time they welcomed her back with open arms. After Richard the Third they added a room to the house for Arna and she straightened her life out a bit. At most, Arna worked a few days a week. When my Dad died in 2001 Arna stayed with Mom and took care of her a bit while Mom cared for and supported Arna.

When my Mom returned to New York to be near my older sister Ilene, Arna came with her. For the last ten years of her life, Arna took care of Mom while Mom took care of and supported Arna. Please do not think that I am judging Arna here. I know that she has always done her best. She is a sweet soul. She flew to Florida in November 1994 to “help Elaine die.” It was as if an angel had come to me to help me though the most difficult days of my life.

Make no mistake about it, I love Arna Lee and I love my Mom and I love my Dad. And my sister Ilene too.

I almost forgot to mention this: my Mom battled anxiety pretty much for the whole or her adult life, right up to the very end. For me, that makes her accomplishments that much the greater …

After this is published, I will add the text above to the original blog post for the record.

Gear Questions and Advice

Too many folks attending BAA IPTs and dozens of folks whom I see in the field, and on BPN, are–out of ignorance–using the wrong gear, especially when it comes to tripods and more especially, tripod heads… Please know that I am always glad to answer your gear questions via e-mail.

The Streak: 25!

Today’s blog post marks a totally insane, irrational, illogical, preposterous, absurd, completely ridiculous, unfathomable, silly, incomprehensible, what’s wrong with this guy?, makes-no-sense, 25 days in a row with a new educational blog post. As always–and folks have been doing a really great for a long time now–please remember to use our B&H links for your major gear purchases. For best results use one of our many product-specific links; after clicking on one of those you can continue shopping with all subsequent purchases invisibly tracked to BAA. Your doing so is always greatly appreciated. Please remember: web orders only. And please remember also that if you are shopping for items that we carry in the BAA Online Store (as noted in red at the close of this post below) we would of course appreciate your business.

Gatorland In-the Field Instructional Meet-Up Sessions

Join me in Kissimmee, FL next weekend to photograph Great (with chicks in the nest) and Snowy Egrets in breeding plumage, Cattle Egret and Tricolored Heron in breeding plumage, Wood Stork, American Alligator (captive), and more. We should get to make lots of head portraits of all the bird species and to photograph them building nests, displaying, copulating, and flying. Learn to see, find, and make the shot in cluttered settings. Learn exposure and how to handle WHITEs. Learn fill flash and flash as main light techniques. All of the birds are free and wild.

Next Weekend’s Gatorland Schedule

• Saturday April 15, morning (early entry): 7:30 till 10:30am: $100. Lunch and Image Review: $75. Saturday afternoon till closing (late stay): $100.
• Sunday morning, April 16, (early entry): 7:30 till 10am: $75.

Cheap Canon lens rentals available: 600 II, 500 II, 400 DO II, or 200-400.

To pay for one or more sessions in full via credit card, call Jim or Jen in the office weekdays at 863-692-0906. You will be responsible for the cost of your Gatorland Photographer’s pass or passes. Please shoot me an e-mail if you have any questions.

Selling Your Used 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. Even the prices on the new 600 II and the 200-400 with Internal Extender have been plummeting. You can see all current listings by clicking here or by clicking on the Used Photo Gear tab on the right side of the yellow-orange menu bar above.

Unsolicited, via e-mail, from Gerry Keshka

Hi Artie, I wanted to share how much I appreciate your Used Gear “service.” You have posted how you help sellers, but the other side of the equations is how much this service helps buyers. I have purchased three lenses (Canon 200-400, 500 f4 II, and 70-200 F2.8) all lovely experiences and I saved almost $5K over retail. Each of the sellers was delightful, willing to help me assess if the purchase was right for me by sharing their experience with the lens. Each lens was in the condition advertised (or better), and typically included several “add-ons” that would have cost several hundred dollars.

Unsolicited, via e-mail, from Sandra Calderbank

Hi Artie, I wanted to take a few minutes to thank you. I have sold two camera bodies on your BAA used gear site. Your friendly expertise and knowledgeable, trustworthy buyers have made this an extremely satisfying experience. Selling on BAA Used Gear page is the best transaction experience I have ever encountered. Thank you for all you do for our photography community. Sincerely, Sandra

Recent Successful Used Gear Sales
March was an amazing month on the Used Gear Page!

• David R. Gibson sold a Canon 300mm f/4 L IS USM lens in excellent plus condition for $749 in March, 2017.
• Good friend and multiple IPT veteran Indranil Sircar sold his Canon EOS 5D Mark III in near-mint condition along with the the Canon BG-11 battery grip for the great low price of $1,579 soon after it was listed in early April.
• Colin Haase sold his Canon EF 600mm f/4 L IS II USM lens in like-new condition for a the BAA record-low price of $9,497 just minutes after I featured it in the blog under the heading “I Cannot Believe that this one has not sold yet …”
• Steve Traudt helped a friend sell her Canon 500mm f4L IS USM lens in near-mint condition for $3899 in late March, a week after it was listed.
• Mike Pace sold his Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8 L IS II in excellent plus condition locally and is sending me a check for 2 1/2% of the original price.
• BAA friend John Armitage sold his Canon EOS 1D-X in excellent plus condition for $2348 the day it was listed.
• In early March long-time-ago IPT veteran Myer Bornstein decided not to sell his Nikon 500mm f/4G ED VR lens and kindly sent me a check for 2 1/2% of the original asking price, $4,999.00.
• Mike Kaplan sold a Canon EOS 7D Mark II in near-mint condition for $925 to a buyer who contacted him on day one when the body was listed in early March.
• Sue Sanborn sold her Canon 300mm f/2.8L IS II USM lens in near-mint condition for $4100 in early March. The value of this great lens has plummeted after the introduction of the 400mm f/4 IS DO II.
• Sandra Calderbank sold her used Canon EOS 7D Mark II in excellent plus condition with less than 20,000 shutter actuations for $948 in early March.
• Mike Pace sold his Canon EF 500mm f/4 L IS lens in very good condition for $4699 CAD to a Canadian only days after it was listed in early March.
• Kenton Gomez sold his Canon EF 500mm f4L IS II lens in excellent plus condition for the BAA record-low price of $7349 in early March, 2017.
• Multiple IPT veteran Jake Levin sold his Canon 300mm f/2.8 IS lens in very good-plus condition for the very sporting price of $2199 USD to a Canadian buyer less than a week after it was listed.
• Owen Peller sold his Canon EF 400m f/4 IS DO telephoto lens — the “old 400 DO,– in like-new condition for $2,299 in early MAR, 2017.

New Listings

Canon 400mm f/4 IS DO II USM Lens (with extras!)

A Record Low BAA Price!

Paul Abravaya is offering a Canon 400mm f/4 IS DO II lens in excellent condition for $5,799. The sale includes everything that comes with a new lens from Canon USA: the rear lens cap, the lens trunk, the original tough front lens cover, the lens strap, the original product box, the hard case and case strap and insured ground shipping via major courier to US addresses only. Additionally the lens comes with a with a Don Zeck lens cover, a Realtree Max4 HD Camo LensCoat, and a Really Right Stuff replacement foot (LCF-52). It was purchased new by Paul on April 16, 2015.

Your item will not ship until your check clears unless other arrangements are made.

Contact Paul via e-mail or by phone at 1-805-427-5856 (please do not call before 7am or after 8pm Pacific time).

I own the 400 DO II and find a way to take it on most trips. I took to Scotland and Nickerson Beach. It has served well as my big gun in the Galapagos and on various Southern Ocean (the Falklands and South Georgia) trips. It is a killer for flight with or without the 1.4X III TC. And really skilled folks have had amazing success hand holding it with the 2X III TC for flight and for action. With this lens in high demand and new ones selling for $6899, Paul’s lens is a great buy that will save you 1100 bucks!. Do know that this lens is so good that it is responsible for the huge price drops of used 300mm f/2.L IS lenses … artie

Canon EF 500 mm f/4L IS USM Super Telephoto Lens

Stan Hoyt is offering a Canon 500mm f4L IS USM Super Telephoto lens in like-new condition for the great low price of $3899. The sale includes all the original components: the lens strap, the rear lens cap, the lens trunk (with keys), and the front lens cover. Also included are the following accessories: a 4th Generation Design CP-51b replacement foot (along with the original lens foot), a Wimberley P-40 lens plate, and a forest green LensCoat. The sale also includes insured ground shipping via major courier to US addresses only. Your item will not ship until your check clears unless other arrangements are made.

Please contact Stan via e-mail.

The old five is a fairly lightweight super-telephoto lens that work well with both TCs. It is fast and sharp. I used mine as my workhorse lens (along with the old 600mm f/4) for almost ten years to photograph birds and wildlife all over the world. Both have been replaced for me by their far more costly version II counterparts. The 500 f/4s have long been the world’s most popular super-telephoto lenses for wildlife and sports. With the extras, Stan’s like-new lens should sell quickly. artie

This image was created on the afternoon of April 6 at Indian Lake Estates, FL. I used the the hand held Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM lens, the Canon Extender EF 1.4X III (at 560mm) and my favorite bird photography camera body, the Canon EOS 5D Mark IV. ISO 400. Evaluative metering -1/3 stop as framed: 1/800 sec. at f/8 in Manual mode. AWB. LensAlign/FocusTune micro-adjustment: 1. Upper Large Zone/AI Servo/Shutter button AF was active at the moment of exposure and worked to perfection. The system activated four AF points that nailed the area around the bird’s eye. Image #1: Sandhill Crane, vertical head and neck portrait

As I Wrote in the Original The Art of Bird Photography …

As I wrote on the top of page 108 in the original The Art of Bird Photography (now only in soft cover), “If the subject is positioned against an uncluttered background or if there is a cluttered background well behind the subject, telephoto lenses — with their narrow angles of view — and the shallow depth of field that comes with the use of wide apertures, will produce lovely, soft, out-of focus backgrounds. I’ll take still blue water or well-lit green foliage every time.”

The Art of Bird Photography

The original The Art of Bird Photography was published in 1998 and thus, there is no digital content. None-the-less ABP is still a most valuable resource for all nature photographers because the basic principles expounded upon are still relevant today for all types of photography including and especially bird, wildlife, and nature photography. The said, we do recommend the purchase of The Art of Bird Photography II (ABP II: 916 pages, 900+ images on CD only) in addition to the purchase of ABP. ABP II is the digital continuation of ABP. Beginning photographers are advised to purchase the two-book bundle here to dramatically flatten their learning curves. I often think “Where would I be now if the info in ABP and ABP II had been available when back then …

Image #1 …

Blue water is still one of my all-time favorite backgrounds. The farther away the better and the sweeter the light the better still. Note, the background in this image was about 60 feet beyond the subject.

This image was created at Gatorland at 8:05am on the morning of April 8, 2017 with the Induro GIT 304L/Mongoose M3.6-mounted Canon EF 600mm f/4L IS II USM lens, the Canon Extender EF 1.4X III, and my very favorite bird photography camera body, the Canon EOS 5D Mark IV. ISO 400. Evaluative metering +1/3 stop: 1/3200 sec. at f/6.3 in Manual mode. AWB. LensAlign/FocusTune micro-adjustment: +5. Left Large Zone/AI Servo/Shutter button AF was active at the moment of exposure. The system activated two AF points that fell slightly behind and below the bird’s eye, not quite ideal. There is a good chance that Center Large Zone might have nailed AF right on the eye. In retrospect, however, it might have been best to have chosen AF Expand and placed the selected sensor right on the bird’s eye … Image #2: Great Egret, head portrait of large chick in nest

Image #2 …

While I love the bird in Image #2, love the fact that the background is very sweet indeed, love that the bill was quite clean, love that I was able to get right on sun angle, and really loved that I was able to isolate this chick with another in the nest, there is one thing that I view as less than ideal. What is it? I was able to isolate the chick in this image only because it was standing up and its nest-mate was lying down. Note: the background here was about ten feet beyond the subject.

Image #2 Depth-of-Field Questions

a-With plenty of shutter speed (1/3200 second) how might stopping down one stop to f/9 have helped this image?

b-With plenty of shutter speed (1/3200 second) how might stopping down two stops to f/13 have hurt this image?

Your Favorite?

Which of today’s two featured images do you like best? Be sure to let us know why? Ties are fine 🙂

DeSoto in spring is rife with tame and attractive birds. From upper left clockwise to center: breeding plumage Dunlin, dark morph breeding plumage Reddish Egret displaying, breeding plumage Laughing Gull/front end vertical portrait, breeding plumage Laughing Gull with prey item, Laughing Gull on head of Brown Pelican, screaming Royal Tern in breeding plumage, Royal Terns/pre-copulatory stand, Laughing Gulls copulating, breeding plumage Laughing Gull/tight horizontal portrait, Sandwich Tern with fish, and a really rare one, White-rumped Sandpiper in breeding plumage, photographed at DeSoto in early May.

Fort DeSoto Spring IPT/April 19-22, 2017. (Meet & greet at 2pm on Wednesday April 19 followed by an afternoon session) through the full day on Saturday April 22. 3 1/2 DAYs: $1599. Limit 10/Openings 2. To save your spot, please call and put down a non-refundable deposit of $499.00.

Call 863-692-0906 or e-mail for late registration discount e-mail.

Fort DeSoto is one of the rare locations that might offer great bird photography 365 days a year. It shines in spring. There will Lots of tame birds including breeding plumage Laughing Gull and Royal and Sandwich Terns. With luck, we will get to photograph all of these species courting and copulating. There will be American Oystercatcher and Marbled Godwit plus sandpipers and plovers, some in full breeding plumage. Black-bellied Plover and Red Knot in stunning breeding plumage are possible. There will be lots of wading birds including Great and Snowy Egrets, both color morphs of Reddish Egret, Great Blue, Tricolored and Little Blue Heron, Yellow-crowned Night-Heron, and killer breeding plumage White Ibis. Roseate Spoonbill and Wood Stork are possible and likely. We should have lots of good flight photography with the gulls and terns and with Brown Pelican. Nesting Least Tern and nesting Wilson’s Plover are possible.

We will, weather permitting, enjoy 7 shooting sessions. As above, our first afternoon session will follow the meet and greet at 2pm on Wednesday April 19. For the next three days we will have two daily photo sessions. We will be on the beach early and usually be at lunch (included) by 11am. We will have three indoor sessions. At one we will review my images–folks learn a ton watching me choose my keepers and deletes–why keep this one and delete that one? The second will be a review of your images so that I can quickly learn where you need help. For those who bring their laptops to lunch I’d be glad to take a peek at an image or three. Day three will be a Photoshop session during which we will review my complete workflow and process an image or two in Photoshop after converting them in DPP. Afternoon sessions will generally run from 4:30pm till sunset. We photograph until sunset on the last day, Saturday, April 22. Please note that this is a get-your-feet and get-your-butt wet and sandy IPT. And that you can actually do the whole IPT with a 300 f/2.8L IS, a 400 f/4 ID DO lens with both TCs, or the equivalent Nikon gear. I will surely be using my 500 II as my big glass and have my 100-400 II on my shoulder.

DeSoto in spring is rife with tame and attractive birds. From upper left clockwise to center: Laughing Gull in flight, adult Yellow-crowned Night-Heron, copulating Sandwich Terns, Roseate Spoonbill, Great Egret with reflection, Short-billed Dowitcher in breeding plumage, American Oystercatcher, breeding plumage Royal Tern, white morph Reddish Egret, and Snowy Egret marsh habitat shot.

What You Will Learn

You will learn to approach free and wild birds without disturbing them, to understand and predict bird behavior, to identify many species of shorebirds, to spot the good situations, to understand the effects of sky and wind conditions on bird photography, to choose the best perspective, to see and understand the light, to get the right exposure every time after making a single test exposure, and to design pleasing images by mastering your camera’s AF system. And you will learn how and why to work in Manual mode (even if you are scared of it).

The group will be staying at the Holiday Inn Express in St. Petersburg. (Write for a less expensive option). Please call Jim or Jennifer at 863-692-0906 to register. All will need to purchase an Annual Pass early on Tuesday afternoon so that we can enter the park at 6am and be in position for sunrise opportunities. The cost is $75, Seniors $55. Tight carpools will be needed and will reduce the per person Annual Pass costs. The cost of three lunches is included. Breakfasts are grab what you can on the go, and dinners are also on your own due to the fact that we will usually be getting back to the hotel at about 9pm. Non-photographer spouses, friends, or companions are welcome for $100/day, $350 for the whole IPT.

BIRDS AS ART Fort DeSoto In-the-Field Meet-up Workshop (ITFW): $99

Fort DeSoto Spring In-the-Field Cheap Meet-up Workshop (ITFW) on the morning of Sunday, April 23, 2017: $99

Join me on the morning of Sunday April 23, 2017 for 3-hours of photographic instruction at Fort DeSoto Park. Beginners are welcome. Lenses of 300mm or longer are recommended but even those with 70-200s should get to make some nice images. Teleconverters are always a plus.

You will learn the basics of digital exposure and image design, autofocus basics, and how to get close to free and wild birds. We should get to photograph a variety of wading birds, shorebirds, terns, and gulls. This inexpensive morning workshop is designed to give folks a taste of the level and the quality of instruction that is provided on BIRDS AS ART Instructional Photo-tours. I hope to meet you there.

To register please call Jim or Jennifer during weekday business hours with a credit card in hand to pay the nominal registration fee. Your registration fee is non-refundable. You will receive a short e-mail with instructions, gear advice, and meeting place one week before the event.

Please Remember to use my Affiliate Links and to Visit the New BAA Online Store 🙂

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 New BIRDS AS ART Online Store, especially the Mongoose M3.6 tripod head, Wimberley lens plates, Delkin flash cards and accessories, and LensCoat stuff.

As always, 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 please remember that I am always glad to answer your gear questions via e-mail.

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, and for everything else in the new store, 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 those who will be visiting the New BIRDS AS ART 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 :).

What’s Up?

Friday afternoon at Gatorland was not good. Saturday morning was pretty darned good. After the client-less morning session, I went back to the hotel room to write this blog post. Though I am largely at peace with my Mom’s death, when I typed these words In Memoriam to my Mom: Hazel Louise Morris I began to cry and grieve. I had done the same thing the day before while older daughter Jennifer and I were going through a collection of old black and white family pictures. So things are as they should be.

ps: Saturday afternoon at Gatorland was killer good. It is now just after 9:00pm and I am at the airport waiting for my 10:15pm flight to Long Island. My Mom’s Memorial Service is tomorrow afternoon.

Gear Questions and Advice

Too many folks attending BAA IPTs and dozens of folks whom I see in the field, and on BPN, are–out of ignorance–using the wrong gear, especially when it comes to tripods and more especially, tripod heads… Please know that I am always glad to answer your gear questions via e-mail.

The Streak: 23!

Today’s blog post marks a totally insane, irrational, illogical, preposterous, absurd, completely ridiculous, unfathomable, silly, incomprehensible, what’s wrong with this guy?, makes-no-sense, 23 days in a row with a new educational blog post. As always–and folks have been doing a really great for a long time now–please remember to use our B&H links for your major gear purchases. For best results use one of our many product-specific links; after clicking on one of those you can continue shopping with all subsequent purchases invisibly tracked to BAA. Your doing so is always greatly appreciated. Please remember: web orders only. And please remember also that if you are shopping for items that we carry in the BAA Online Store (as noted in red at the close of this post below) we would of course appreciate your business.

On our left, my Mom, Hazel Louse Morris. On our right, my Dad, Private First Class Robert Edward Morris, 1942. During or after basic training at Fort Bragg, NC. Bobby as Hazel liked to call him, was awarded a Purple Heart for his service. Several decades later, after moving to San Diego, my Dad learning that he had in fact been awarded a Bronze Star. Photos of my Dad with two arms are rare.

In Memoriam to my Mom: Hazel Louise Morris

b: September 19, 1922. d: April 5, 2017

My Mom lived a long life. 94 years was a good run. She spent a good deal of it helping others. As many of you know, my Dad, Private First Class Robert E. Morris, was severely wounded on Okinawa in April of 1944. He was hit with 13 rounds of machine gun fire. He rolled out of the truck. Only he and the guy next to him were not killed instantly. That included the soldier he had traded seats with just minutes before because he had forgotten to return the guy’s canteen. My Dad’s best friend, a medic, ran over to help him. He took off my Dad’s coat and his right arm came off with it. His friend, the medic, ran away crying. Another soldier came over and did not know what to do. As I understand it my Dad said, “Take out my f—-ing shoelace and tie a tourniquet to stop the bleeding. His left arm was hanging by a thread.

A young Filipino doctor fought with the higher-ups to save my Dad’s left arm. He spent nineteen months all told in various hospitals, most of that time in Walter Reed Army Hospital in Washington D.C. I am pretty sure that I was conceived there … Once he was fully recovered, he went back to work at Roebling, Luggage, 121 Liberty Street in Manhattan, on the site of what was the original World Trade Center. He wound up pulling luggage off shelves for the next 30 years. I remember taking more than a few hard backhand shots to the back of my head from him into my early twenties. He was a tough man and didn’t take any crap.

So, my Mom put his socks and belt on for most of the next 54 years (except for the years when the three kids, Arthur — thats me, older sister Ilene, and younger-by-a-lot sister Arna Lee took over those chores). My Mom was a great cook and a great baker. She was an expert seamstress. She had a very tough childhood. Her mother whom she loved dearly died when she was thirteen and her mean S-O-B gave her over to the authorities. Then Hazel went into a succession of foster care homes. All of them had one thing in common: they used the money that they got from social services to buy food and beer and clothing for themselves.

Her accounting teacher suggested that she move into the YWCA when she reached her 18th birthday. And that is just what she did. She met Bobby then and within two years they were married (on May 15, 1942). My Dad was drafted. A some point after he had left, my Mom gave birth to my sister Carla. Carla died at age 10 days from infantile diarrhea, a frequent killer in the early 40s.

My Mom showed love by providing the three kids with the two things she had been deprived of in her childhood: lots of great food prepared expertly: fried flounder and fried veal cutlets to die for, a perfect bag lunch every day — often a tuna sandwich with the tuna well chopped up into small pieces with lots of mayo (just like I liked it) and a pack of two Hostess filled chocolate cupcakes. She made My-T-Fine chocolate pudding from scratch every week along with a batch of 144 toll house cookies. I always had perfectly laundered clothes, immaculate Cub Scout uniforms — she was a den mother of course, and hand-sewn Halloween costumes every year. I can still remember the pink and black clown costume she sewed up for me for Halloween when I was about 13. My Mom did lots of charity work for the Ida Lief Chapter of Deborah Hospital. It is no shock that she was named their Mother of the Year in 1966. My Mom was an incredible baker. More than a few men have requested a Hazel Morris apple pie from their death beds.

She did all the shopping, all the laundry, and cooked every meal for the family until 1969 when my Mom and Dad and younger sister Arna (with older sister Ilene only briefly) moved to San Diego, CA. She did all those same things for my Dad until his death on September 25, 2001 at age 80. They were married for more than 59 years. My Mom and Dad loved to bicker, but only when they were awake and in the same room.

Hazel in Bob in hospital room, probably at the then Walter Reed General Hospital, 1945.

At some point when my Dad was in his mid-70s, I asked him, “How is it that with you guys arguing all the time you never got divorced.” He said, and I quote, “I laid in that hospital bed for 19 months. I saw dozens of young brides walk up to the door of that room, take one look at their husbands with no arms and no legs, turn around, walk away, and never came back.” That was my Dad’s way of saying to my Mom, “Hazel. I love you. Thanks for staying with me for all these years.” He was doing his best but “I love you” was never part of his vocabulary. And he too was a great provider.

Hazel Morris and son Arthur, circa 1947 Above all else Hazel was dependable and loyal and faithful. And a great Mom.

A while after they moved to San Diego they took a part time job with ALDA, the American Luggage Dealers association. Their job? Overseeing the production of their holiday catalog. Their seven-year run was so successful that they became the first non-store owners to be honored (as man and woman of the year) by that organization. In the early 1980s ALDA flew everyone in the family to New Orleans where there was a big dinner to honor my folks at the Superdome. Ordinary people, extraordinary lives.

Alice Lockwood on our left, My Mom on our right. Probably somewhere in Brooklyn while my Dad was away …

My Mom’s mother was Carla Smith. Alice Lockwood was her mother’s sister. So Alice was my Mom’s aunt and my great aunt. Alice was married to Frank H. Lockwood, my Uncle Frank. (Does everyone have an Uncle Frank?) Alice Lockwood did not go by Alice. She always brought lollipops for the kids so she was called Lolla or Lol for short. As I believe I have mentioned here before, Lol and Frank had an instrumental role in my life. When I was 12 or 13 they would drive down from the Bronx, pick me up in Brooklyn, and drive to Keyport on the Jersey shore to visit her Mom, Amanda Smith. The trip always entailed several hours on line waiting to get on the Staten Island Ferry.

It was in Keyport that I developed an appreciation for nature in the form of bugs, butterflies, insect, frogs, toads, and snakes. The funniest thing is that I had zero interest in birds back then. If you had asked me about them, I would have stated that bird watching was for sissies. That while I was running around in Marine Park in short pants with a butterfly net and a collecting jar. Go figure.

Please understand that I am very much at peace with my Mom’s passing. She had been on a walker for seven years and was simply tired of it all. I would like to offer my love and condolences to my younger sister Arna, my older sister Ilene and her family, My two daughters and their families, and to all the grandkids and great grandkids as well. Hazel Morris will be missed but she and all of her good deeds will always be alive in our hearts and minds. Love you Mom.

Your son, Arthur Edward Morris

Please Remember to use my Affiliate Links and to Visit the New BAA Online Store 🙂

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 New BIRDS AS ART Online Store, especially the Mongoose M3.6 tripod head, Wimberley lens plates, Delkin flash cards and accessories, and LensCoat stuff.

As always, 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 please remember that I am always glad to answer your gear questions via e-mail.

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, and for everything else in the new store, 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 those who will be visiting the New BIRDS AS ART 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 :).

What’s Up?

Huge thanks to the many who sent good wishes to me and my family on our recent loss both on the blog and via e-mail and Skype. I am flying back to Long Island late on Saturday to attend my Mom’s memorial service on Sunday afternoon. She will be buried alongside my Dad in San Diego some time next week.

If you would like to join my at Gatorland (see below for details) please try me on my cell phone on Friday: 863-221-2372. Please leave a message if no answer.

Gear Questions and Advice

Too many folks attending BAA IPTs and dozens of folks whom I see in the field, and on BPN, are–out of ignorance–using the wrong gear, especially when it comes to tripods and more especially, tripod heads… Please know that I am always glad to answer your gear questions via e-mail.

The Streak: 21!

Today’s blog post marks a totally insane, irrational, illogical, preposterous, absurd, completely ridiculous, unfathomable, silly, incomprehensible, what’s wrong with this guy?, makes-no-sense, 21 days in a row with a new educational blog post. As always–and folks have been doing a really great for a long time now–please remember to use our B&H links for your major gear purchases. For best results use one of our many product-specific links; after clicking on one of those you can continue shopping with all subsequent purchases invisibly tracked to BAA. Your doing so is always greatly appreciated. Please remember: web orders only. And please remember also that if you are shopping for items that we carry in the BAA Online Store (as noted in red at the close of this post below) we would of course appreciate your business.

Desperately Seeking …

I am desperately seeking at least one photographer for the full day at Gatorland on Saturday. It is an amazing value. A single full day with private or practically private instruction with yours truly that includes two (2) three hour photo sessions as well as a long working lunch that includes image review and Photoshop sessions for only $275. There is nobody signed up yet for the full day on Saturday. One each of the previous two Saturdays I have had only a single student. Read on for the complete details.

Gatorland In-the Field Instructional Meet-Up Sessions

Join me in Kissimmee, FL next weekend to photograph Great (with chicks in the nest) and Snowy Egrets in breeding plumage, Cattle Egret and Tricolored Heron in breeding plumage, Wood Stork, American Alligator (captive), and more. We should get to make lots of head portraits of all the bird species and to photograph them building nests, displaying, copulating, and flying. Learn to see, find, and make the shot in cluttered settings. Learn exposure and how to handle WHITEs. Learn fill flash and flash as main light techniques. All of the birds are free and wild.

Next Saturday’s Gatorland Schedule

Saturday April 8, morning (early entry): 7:30 till 10:30am: $100. Lunch and Image Review: $75. Saturday afternoon till closing (late stay): $100.

Catching Up On Wednesday’s Questions …

In response to why +1 with the ETTL flash, Guido Bee wrote in part “I wonder if the 1/400 sec. would invoke something like the high speed synch provisions of some other flash systems and make it beneficial to be adding the plus 1 to the flash.” I replied, “You are right on when you mention High Speed Synch. That reduces the flash output so I dialed the flash up to compensate for the loss of flash power and render the bird white.

The Better Beamer Question

Though many tried stating no Better Beamer to keep the BKGR dark or to prevent over-flashing the subject at close range, nobody came up with the #1 reason. Why no Better Beamer? To come up with the answer you need to look carefully at the situation … You can see this blog post here along with all of the comments and my responses.

This image was created with the hand held Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM lens (at 200mm) and my favorite bird photography camera body, the Canon EOS 5D Mark IV. ISO 1600. Evaluative metering +2 stops as framed: 1/60 sec. at f/8 in Manual mode. AWB. LensAlign/FocusTune micro-adjustment: +2. Center Large Zone/AI Servo/Shutter button AF was active at the moment of exposure. The system activated a single AF point that was three AF points down and one to the right of the center AF point. What is it?

Three Simple Questions About Gecko Footprints …

#1: What is it?

#2: Do you like it?

#3: Either way, what do you like or dislike about the image?

Images and card copyright Arthur Morris/BEARS AS ART 🙂

2017 Bear Boat Coastal Brown Bear Cubs IPTs: July 18-24, 2017 from Kodiak, AK: 5 FULL & 2 Half DAYS: $6699. Happy campers only! Maximum 8/Openings 3.

Join me in spectacular Katmai National Park, AK for six days of photographing Coastal Brown Bears. Mid-July is prime time for making images of small, football-sized cubs. The cubs, and these dates, are so popular that I had to reserve them three years in advance to secure them. There are lots of bears each year in June, but the mothers only rarely risk bringing their tiny cubs out in the open in fear of predation by rival bears. In addition to making portraits of both adults and cubs, we hope to photograph frolicking and squabbling youngsters and tender nursing scenes. At this time of year, the bears are either grazing in luxuriant grass or clamming. There will also be some two- and three-year old cubs to add to the fun. And we will get to photograph it all.

We will live on our tour operator’s luxurious new boat. At 78 feet long its 24 foot beam makes it quite spacious as well. And the food is great. We will likely spend most of our time at famed Geographic Harbor as that is where the bears are generally concentrated in summer. On the odd chance that we do need to relocate to another location we can do so quickly and easily without having to venture into any potentially rough seas. We land via a 25 foot skiff that has lots of room for as much gear as we can carry.

Aside from the bears we should get to photograph Horned and Tufted Puffin and should get nice stuff on Mew Gull, Glaucous-winged Gull, Black-legged Kittiwake, Harbor Seal, and Steller’s Sea Lion as well. A variety of tundra-nesting shorebirds including Western Sandpiper and both yellowlegs are also possible. Halibut fishing (license required/not included) is optional.

It is mandatory that you be in Kodiak no later than the late afternoon of July 17 to avoid missing the float planes to the boat on the morning of July 18. Again, with air travel in Alaska (or anywhere else for that matter) subject to possible delays, being on Kodiak on July 16 is a much better plan.

Barring any delays, we will get to photograph bears on our first afternoon and then again every day for the next five days after that, all weather permitting of course. On our last morning on the boat, July 24, those who would like to enjoy one last photo session will have the opportunity to do so. The group will return to Kodiak via float plane from late morning through midday. Most folks will then fly to Anchorage and to continue on red-eye flights to their home cities.

What’s included? 7 DAYS/6 NIGHTS on the boat as above. All meals on the boat. National Park and guide fees. In-the-field photo tips, instruction, and guidance. An insight into the mind of a top professional nature photographer; I will constantly let you know what I am thinking, what I am doing, and why I am doing it. Small group image review, image sharing, and informal Photoshop instruction on the boat.

What’s not included: Your round trip airfare to and from Kodiak, AK (almost surely through Anchorage). Your lodging and meals on Kodiak. The cost of the round-trip float plane to the boat and then back to Kodiak as above. The cost of a round trip last year was $550. The suggested crew tip of $200.

Have you ever walked with the bears?

Is this an expensive trip? Yes, of course. But with 5 full and two half days, a wealth of great subjects, and the fact that you will be walking with the bears just yards away (or less….), it will be one of the great natural history experiences of your life. Most folks who take part in a Bear Boat IPT wind up coming back for more.

A $2,000 per person non-refundable deposit by check only made out to “BIRDS AS ART” is required to hold your spot. Please click here to read our cancellation policies. Then please print, read, and sign the necessary paperwork here and send it to us by mail to PO Box 7245, Indian Lake Estates, FL 33855.

Your deposit is due when you sign up. That leaves a balance of $4699. The next payment of $2699 will be due on September 15, 2016. The final payment of $2000 is due on February 15, 2017. I hope that you can join me for what will be a wondrously exciting trip.

Please Remember to use my Affiliate Links and to Visit the New BAA Online Store 🙂

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 New BIRDS AS ART Online Store, especially the Mongoose M3.6 tripod head, Wimberley lens plates, Delkin flash cards and accessories, and LensCoat stuff.

As always, 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 please remember that I am always glad to answer your gear questions via e-mail.

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, and for everything else in the new store, 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 those who will be visiting the New BIRDS AS ART 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 :).

What’s Up?

The blog was down most of the day on Tuesday and on Wednesday morning as well for as yet unexplained reasons. Apologies. With some extra time I was able to get back to work on the Current Workflow Guide. The rest of the day was BAU with a nice walk, an afternoon swim, several meditation sessions, and a School for the Work Aftercare Session. Ah, I almost forgot to mention that Wednesday is a fasting day for me.

I was pleased to learn that Colin Haase sold his Canon EF 600mm f/4 L IS II USM lens in like-new condition for a the BAA record-low price of $9,497 just minutes after I featured it in a recent blog under the heading “I Cannot Believe that this one has not sold yet …” That listing actually generated two interested folks. One of them wound up disappointed. What’s the lesson: get in the habit of checking the Used Gear Page frequently by clicking on the Used Photo Gear tab on the orange/yellow tool bar at the top of each blog pose page.

I was also pleased to learn that Tony Zielinski from Toronto, Canada signed up for the UK Puffins and Gannets IPT. Details on that below.

Gear Questions and Advice

Too many folks attending BAA IPTs and dozens of folks whom I see in the field, and on BPN, are–out of ignorance–using the wrong gear, especially when it comes to tripods and more especially, tripod heads… Please know that I am always glad to answer your gear questions via e-mail.

The Streak: 19!

Today’s blog post marks a totally insane, irrational, illogical, preposterous, absurd, completely ridiculous, unfathomable, silly, incomprehensible, what’s wrong with this guy?, makes-no-sense, 19 days in a row with a new educational blog post. As always–and folks have been doing a really great for a long time now–please remember to use our B&H links for your major gear purchases. For best results use one of our many product-specific links; after clicking on one of those you can continue shopping with all subsequent purchases invisibly tracked to BAA. Your doing so is always greatly appreciated. Please remember: web orders only. And please remember also that if you are shopping for items that we carry in the BAA Online Store (as noted in red at the close of this post below) we would of course appreciate your business.

Desperately Seeking …

I am desperately seeking at least one photographer for the full day at Gatorland on Saturday. It is an amazing value. A single full day with private or practically private instruction with yours truly that includes two (2) three hour photo sessions as well as a long working lunch that includes image review and Photoshop sessions for only $275. There is nobody signed up yet for the full day on Saturday. One each of the previous two Saturdays I have had only a single student. Read on for the complete details.

Gatorland In-the Field Instructional Meet-Up Sessions

Join me in Kissimmee, FL next weekend to photograph Great (with chicks in the nest) and Snowy Egrets in breeding plumage, Cattle Egret and Tricolored Heron in breeding plumage, Wood Stork, American Alligator (captive), and more. We should get to make lots of head portraits of all the bird species and to photograph them building nests, displaying, copulating, and flying. Learn to see, find, and make the shot in cluttered settings. Learn exposure and how to handle WHITEs. Learn fill flash and flash as main light techniques. All of the birds are free and wild.

Next Weekend’s Gatorland Schedule

• Saturday April 8, morning (early entry): 7:30 till 10:30am: $100. Lunch and Image Review: $75. Saturday afternoon till closing (late stay): $100.
• Sunday morning, April 9, (early entry): 7:30 till 10am: $75.

Cheap Canon lens rentals available: 600 II, 500 II, 400 DO II, or 200-400.

To pay for one or more sessions in full via credit card, call Jim or Jen in the office weekdays at 863-692-0906. You will be responsible for the cost of your Gatorland Photographer’s pass or passes. Please shoot me an e-mail if you have any questions.

Selling Your Used 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. Even the prices on the new 600 II and the 200-400 with Internal Extender have been plummeting. You can see all current listings by clicking here or by clicking on the Used Photo Gear tab on the right side of the yellow-orange menu bar above.

Unsolicited, via e-mail, from Gerry Keshka

Hi Artie, I wanted to share how much I appreciate your Used Gear “service.” You have posted how you help sellers, but the other side of the equations is how much this service helps buyers. I have purchased three lenses (Canon 200-400, 500 f4 II, and 70-200 F2.8) all lovely experiences and I saved almost $5K over retail. Each of the sellers was delightful, willing to help me assess if the purchase was right for me by sharing their experience with the lens. Each lens was in the condition advertised (or better), and typically included several “add-ons” that would have cost several hundred dollars.

Unsolicited, via e-mail, from Sandra Calderbank

Hi Artie, I wanted to take a few minutes to thank you. I have sold two camera bodies on your BAA used gear site. Your friendly expertise and knowledgeable, trustworthy buyers have made this an extremely satisfying experience. Selling on BAA Used Gear page is the best transaction experience I have ever encountered. Thank you for all you do for our photography community. Sincerely, Sandra

Recent Successful Used Gear Sales
March has been an amazing month on the Used Gear Page!

• Colin Haase sold his Canon EF 600mm f/4 L IS II USM lens in like-new condition for a the BAA record-low price of $9,497 just minutes after I featured it in the blog under the heading “I Cannot Believe that this one has not sold yet …”
• Steve Traudt helped a friend sell his Canon 500mm f4L IS USM lens in near-mint condition for $3899 in late March, a week after it was listed.
• Mike Pace sold his Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8 L IS II in excellent plus condition locally and is sending me a check for 2 1/2% of the original price.
• BAA friend John Armitage sold his Canon EOS 1D-X in excellent plus condition for $2348 the day it was listed.
• In early March long-time-ago IPT veteran Myer Bornstein decided not to sell his Nikon 500mm f/4G ED VR lens and kindly sent me a check for 2 1/2% of the original asking price, $4,999.00.
• The sale of David R. Gibson’s Canon 300mm f/4 L IS USM lens in excellent plus condition for $749 is pending.
• Mike Kaplan sold a Canon EOS 7D Mark II in near-mint condition for $925 to a buyer who contacted him on day one when the body was listed in early March.
• Sue Sanborn sold her Canon 300mm f/2.8L IS II USM lens in near-mint condition for $4100 in early March. The value of this great lens has plummeted after the introduction of the 400mm f/4 IS DO II.
• Sandra Calderbank sold her used Canon EOS 7D Mark II in excellent plus condition with less than 20,000 shutter actuations for $948 in early March.
• Mike Pace sold his Canon EF 500mm f/4 L IS lens in very good condition for $4699 CAD to a Canadian only days after it was listed in early March.
• Kenton Gomez sold his Canon EF 500mm f4L IS II lens in excellent plus condition for the BAA record-low price of $7349 in early March, 2017.
• Multiple IPT veteran Jake Levin sold his Canon 300mm f/2.8 IS lens in very good-plus condition for the very sporting price of $2199 USD to a Canadian buyer less than a week after it was listed.
• Owen Peller sold his Canon EF 400m f/4 IS DO telephoto lens — the “old 400 DO,– in like-new condition for $2,299 in early MAR, 2017.

New Listing

Canon EF 70-200mm f2.8 L IS USM Lens

Leonard Malkin is offering a Canon EF 70-200mm f2/.8 L IS lens excellent condition for $899. This is the older, original Image Stabilized version. The sale includes the front and rear lens caps, the tripod collar, the zippered soft case, and insured ground shipping via major courier to US addresses only. Your item will not ship until your check clears unless other arrangements are made. Please contact Leonard via e-mail.

I owned and used this version of the incredibly versatile 70-200 for birds and wildlife and landscapes and Urbex for many years with both teleconverters. It was great indoors for events like granddaughter Maya’s dance recitals. A new copy of the 70-200 II currently sells for $1,899 so you can save a bundle by grabbing Leonard’s lens. artie

This image was created at Gatorland on the April 1, 2017 afternoon meet-up session with the Induro GIT 304L/Mongoose M3.6-mounted Canon EF 600mm f/4L IS II USM lens, the Canon Extender EF 2X III, and my very favorite bird photography camera body, the Canon EOS 5D Mark IV. ISO 400. Evaluative metering -2 1/3 stops: 1/400 sec. at f/13 in Manual mode. AWB. Fill flash at ETTL at -1 stop with the Canon Speedlite 600EX-RT on the Mongoose Integrated Flash Arm via the Canon OC-E3 Off Camera Shoe Cord (2′). LensAlign/FocusTune micro-adjustment: -5. Four AF points to the left and one up from the center AF point/AI Servo/Expand/Shutter Button AF was active at the moment of exposure. The selected AF point rested just below the eye. Image #1: Great Egret backlit

Photographing Strongly Backlit Subjects with Flash

Gatorland is one of my favorite places to photograph strongly backlit subjects while lighting the shadowed side of the bird with flash. Why? The birds are fairly close — this allows the flash to be effective, and because black (read “shaded”) backgrounds are not hard to find. Photographing backlit birds against black backgrounds accentuates the rim light. Photographing backlit birds against the sky or other light backgrounds? You lose all the drama.

The trick with the flash is to dial it up so that the WHITEs are properly exposed. You can check on the LCD; make sure that your LCD brightness is not on Auto. It should be on Manual at 5 or 6. On most of the recent Canon bodies you can find LACD brightness on the YELLOW 2 (wrench symbol) menu. This is one of the most common set-up errors that I encounter. In addition, be sure to check the histogram to see that there is data well into the fifth histogram box on the right. That as always.

Why No Better Beamer?

Why did I not use the Better Beamer in this situation?

Why ETTL +1

This is a high level flash question so you will need to read all of the EXIF carefully … Why did I have the flash at +1? There are several reasons that might or might not be true in part; I am looking for the single best answer.

The Image Optimization

After converting the RAW file in DPP 4 (see the DPP 4 RAW Conversion Guide), I brought the image into Photoshop. Compare Image #1 with the similar frame below to note the small but very effective image clean-up differences. I cleaned up the bill and the lores with my usual cadre of tools, the Spot Healing Brush and the Patch Tool. To tame the bright highlights and eliminate the stray feathers along the top edge of the upper mandible close to the head, I painted a Quick Mask of the cleaner part of the mandible, put it on its own layer, moved it into position with the Move Tool (V), added a Regular layer mask, painted away the whole thing (BDX), and then painted back in just what I needed (X). Voila! I did apply Neat Image noise reduction as the background, so severely underexposed, really needed it.

Everything above plus tons more is of course detailed in my Digital Basics File, an instructional PDF that is sent via e-mail. It includes my complete (former PC) 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, the basics of Quick Masking, Layer Masking, and NIK Color Efex Pro, Digital Eye Doctor techniques, using Gaussian Blurs, Dodge and Burn, a variety of ways to make selections, how to create time-saving actions, and tons more.

Learn advanced Quick Masking and advanced Layer Masking techniques in APTATS I & II. You can save $15 by purchasing the pair. You can learn to apply Neat Image noise reduction in The Professional Photographers Guide to Post Processing.

With the blog being down on Tuesday and Wednesday I got back to work on the all-new Current Workflow e-guide that better reflects my Macbook Pro/Photo Mechanic/DPP 4/Photoshop workflow. It will include a section on ACR conversions and a simplified method of applying Neat Image noise reduction.

This image, the next frame in a sequence, was created at Gatorland on the April 1, 2017 afternoon meet-up session with the Induro GIT 304L/Mongoose M3.6-mounted Canon EF 600mm f/4L IS II USM lens, the Canon Extender EF 2X III, and my very favorite bird photography camera body, the Canon EOS 5D Mark IV. ISO 400. Evaluative metering -1 2/3 stops: 1/400 sec. at f/13 in Manual mode. AWB. “Fill” flash at ETTL at +1 stop with the Canon Speedlite 600EX-RT on the Mongoose Integrated Flash Arm via the Canon OC-E3 Off Camera Shoe Cord (2′). LensAlign/FocusTune micro-adjustment: -5. Four AF points to the left and one up from the center AF point/AI Servo/Expand/Shutter Button AF was active at the moment of exposure. The selected AF point rested just below the eye. Image #2: Great Egret backlit, flash did not fire

Flash Did Not Fire

For this frame the flash did not have enough time to re-charge and therefore it did not fire. This caused a huge underexposure with the WHITEs. To prevent this from happening you can set the Single. While it might be possible to come up with something use-able from this RAW file, my take is that lighting the shaded side of the bird with flash will almost always yield a superior quality image file.

Exposure Question

Why did I need the ambient exposure to be so dark at -2 1/3 stops as framed?

Want to Learn to Use Your Flash?

If you want to learn to use your flash, join me on Saturday at Gatorland. See above for the details. artie

Images and card design copyright: Arthur Morris/BIRDS AS ART. Click on the card to enjoy a spectacular larger version.

2017 UK Puffins and Gannets IPT. Monday July 3 through Monday July 10, 2017: $5999: Limit 10 photographers — Openings: 5).
All who register will be urged to take advantage of the two day Gannet Add-on so please do not buy your flights until making your decision. See below for details.

Here are the plans: take a red eye from the east coast of the US on July 2 and arrive in Edinburgh, Scotland on the morning of Monday July 3 no later than 10am (or simply meet us then at the Edinburgh Airport–EDI, or later in the day at our cottages if you are driving your own vehicle either from the UK or from somewhere in Europe). Stay 7 nights in one of three gorgeous modern country cottages.

There are five days of planned puffin/seabird trips and one morning of gannet photography, all weather permitting of course. In three years we have yet to miss an entire day because of weather… In addition, we will enjoy several sessions of photographing nesting Black-legged Kittiwakes at eye level.

Images and card design copyright: Arthur Morris/BIRDS AS ART. Click on the card to enjoy a spectacular larger version.

The Details

We will get to photograph Atlantic Puffin, Common Murre, Razorbill, Shag, and Northern Gannet; Arctic, Sandwich, and Common Terns, the former with chicks of all sizes; Black-headed, Lesser-Black-backed, and Herring Gulls, many chasing puffins with fish; Black-legged Kittiwake with chicks. We will be staying in upscale country-side lodging that are beyond lovely with large living areas and lots of open space for the informal image sharing and Photoshop sessions. The shared rooms are decent-sized, each with a private bathroom. See the limited single supplement info below.

All breakfasts, lunches and dinners are included. All 5 puffins boat lunches will need to be prepared by you in advance, taken with, and consumed at your leisure. I usually eat mine on the short boat trip from one island to the other. Also included is a restaurant lunch on the gannet boat day.

If you wish to fly home on the morning of Monday July 10 we will get you to the airport. Please, however, consider the following tentative plans: enjoy a second Gannet boat trip on the afternoon of Monday July 10 and book your hotel room in Dunbar. If all goes as planned, those who stay on for the two extra days will make a morning landing at Bass Rock, one of the world’s largest gannetries. We will get everyone to the airport on the morning of Wednesday July 12.

Great News on the UK Puffins and Gannets Extension

On the morning of Jul 11, 2017, those staying for the extension will sleep late and head up to Dunbar Harbor for lunch and an afternoon Gannet boat chumming trip: flight photography until you cannot lift your camera. One gannet boat trip is included in the IPT but everyone always wants more.

Then, as a possible mega bonus — we are scheduled to make a Bass Rock landing on the morning of Tuesday July 12, 2017. I am hoping to go two for two! If not, we do another chumming trip for flying gannets.

Included will be two nights lodging at the wonderful Dunsmuir hotel, two fine dining meals there, any additional meals, all boat, guide, and landing fees, and all transportation including the early morning transfer to the Edinburg Airport on the morning of WED July 12.

So far all five sign-ups are maximizing their travel dollars by signing up for the extension in part because I priced it cheaply at $1499 despite my greatly increased costs.

Images and card design copyright: Arthur Morris/BIRDS AS ART. Click on the card to enjoy a spectacular larger version. Scroll down to join us in the UK in 2016.

Deposit Info

If you are good to go sharing a room–couples of course are more than welcome–please send your non-refundable $2,000/person deposit check now to save a spot. Please be sure to check your schedule carefully before committing to the trip and see the travel insurance info below. Your balance will be due on March 29, 2017. Please make your check out to “Arthur Morris” and send it to Arthur Morris/BIRDS AS ART, PO Box 7245, Indian Lake Estates, FL, 33855. If we do not receive your check for the balance on or before the due date we will try to fill your spot from the waiting list. If your spot is filled, you will lose your deposit. If not, you can secure your spot by paying your balance.

Please shoot me an e-mail if you are good to go or if you have any questions.

Single Supplement Deposit Info

Single supplement rooms are available on a limited basis. To ensure yours, please register early. The single supplement fee is $1575. If you would like your own room, please request it when making your deposit and include payment in full for the single supplement; your single supplement deposit check should be for $3,575. As we will need to commit to renting the extra space, single supplement deposits are non-refundable so please be sure that check your schedule carefully before committing to the trip and see the travel insurance info below.

Travel Insurance

Travel insurance for big international trips is highly recommended as we never know what life has in store for us. I strongly recommend that you purchase quality insurance. Travel Insurance Services offers a variety of plans and options. Included with the Elite Option or available as an upgrade to the Basic & Plus Options you can also purchase Cancel for Any Reason Coverage that expands the list of reasons for your canceling to include things such as sudden work or family obligation and even a simple change of mind. My family and I use and depend on the great policies offered by TIS whenever we travel. You can learn more here: Travel Insurance Services. Do note that many plans require that you purchase your travel insurance within 14 days of our cashing your deposit check of running your credit card. Whenever purchasing travel insurance be sure to read the fine print careful even when dealing with reputable firms like TIS.

Please Remember to use my Affiliate Links and to Visit the New BAA Online Store 🙂

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 New BIRDS AS ART Online Store, especially the Mongoose M3.6 tripod head, Wimberley lens plates, Delkin flash cards and accessories, and LensCoat stuff.

As always, 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 please remember that I am always glad to answer your gear questions via e-mail.

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, and for everything else in the new store, 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 those who will be visiting the New BIRDS AS ART 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 :).

What’s Up?

Monday was a bit on the hectic side getting some stuff done for my Florida Tangible Tax return, doing an Aftercare session with a friend from The School for the Work, and watching The School for the Work web cast in the car in part on my way to the dentist … Then my dental cleaning, a meditation walk in Publix followed by a bit of shopping, and then home for a late afternoon swim.

Gear Questions and Advice

Too many folks attending BAA IPTs and dozens of folks whom I see in the field, and on BPN, are–out of ignorance–using the wrong gear, especially when it comes to tripods and more especially, tripod heads… Please know that I am always glad to answer your gear questions via e-mail.

The Streak: 18!

Today’s blog post marks a totally insane, irrational, illogical, preposterous, absurd, completely ridiculous, unfathomable, silly, incomprehensible, what’s wrong with this guy?, makes-no-sense, 18 days in a row with a new educational blog post. As always–and folks have been doing a really great for a long time now–please remember to use our B&H links for your major gear purchases. For best results use one of our many product-specific links; after clicking on one of those you can continue shopping with all subsequent purchases invisibly tracked to BAA. Your doing so is always greatly appreciated. Please remember: web orders only. And please remember also that if you are shopping for items that we carry in the BAA Online Store (as noted in red at the close of this post below) we would of course appreciate your business.

Gatorland In-the Field Instructional Meet-Up Sessions

Join me in Kissimmee, FL next weekend to photograph Great (with chicks in the nest) and Snowy Egrets in breeding plumage, Cattle Egret and Tricolored Heron in breeding plumage, Wood Stork, American Alligator (captive), and more. We should get to make lots of head portraits of all the bird species and to photograph them building nests, displaying, copulating, and flying. Learn to see, find, and make the shot in cluttered settings. Learn exposure and how to handle WHITEs. Learn fill flash and flash as main light techniques. All of the birds are free and wild.

Next Weekend’s Gatorland Schedule

• Saturday April 8, morning (early entry): 7:30 till 10:30am: $100. Lunch and Image Review: $75. Saturday afternoon till closing (late stay): $100.
• Sunday morning, April 9, (early entry): 7:30 till 10am: $75.

Cheap Canon lens rentals available: 600 II, 500 II, 400 DO II, or 200-400.

To pay for one or more sessions in full via credit card, call Jim or Jen in the office weekdays at 863-692-0906. You will be responsible for the cost of your Gatorland Photographer’s pass or passes. Please shoot me an e-mail if you have any questions.

This image was created with the hand held Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM lens, the Canon Extender EF 1.4X III, and my favorite bird photography camera body, the Canon EOS 5D Mark IV. ISO 800. Evaluative metering +2 1/3 stops as framed: 1/1000 sec. at f/8 in Manual mode. AWB. LensAlign/FocusTune micro-adjustment: 3. Center AF point/AI Servo/Expand/shutter button AF was active at the moment of exposure. The selected AF point fell on the middle of the far wing of the upper bird. This JPEG represent the converted TIFF of Brown Pelicans in flight in dense fog

Something From Nothing on a Foggy Morning …

Who can resist pushing the shutter button when two pelicans fly by overhead on a very foggy morning? Not me. First I added 2 1/3 stops of light to the suggested exposure, acquired focus, and created two very nice images. With some properly exposed images created in thick fog the standard Levels adjustment on a Layer approach fails miserably because the sky shows posterization. So to optimize today’s featured image I tried an alternative method. It worked quite well. Read on to learn what I did.

This is JPEG represents the optimized image for Brown Pelicans in flight in dense fog

The Two Plane Squadron Image Optimization

When I attempted to select only the background with the Marquee Tool it did not do a very good job of selecting the head of the upper bird. I started over after pulling the curve down to darken the entire image. This time the Marquee Tool worked much better but I still had to fine tune the selection of the head of the upper bird with the Lasso Tool. I did that only after hitting Shift + Command + I to invert the selection. Then I feathered the now pretty close to perfect selection two pixels and hit Command + J to put the selection on its own layer. Then I pulled the curve down all the way to render the pelicans pure black for my silhouette. As the sky was still much too dark so I simply opened a Levels adjustment layer and brightened the WHITEs to the mid-230s by moving the right hand slider to the left. Voila.

Images and card copyright Arthur Morris/BEARS AS ART 🙂

2017 Bear Boat Coastal Brown Bear Cubs IPTs: July 18-24, 2017 from Kodiak, AK: 5 FULL & 2 Half DAYS: $6699. Happy campers only! Maximum 8/Openings 3.

Join me in spectacular Katmai National Park, AK for six days of photographing Coastal Brown Bears. Mid-July is prime time for making images of small, football-sized cubs. The cubs, and these dates, are so popular that I had to reserve them three years in advance to secure them. There are lots of bears each year in June, but the mothers only rarely risk bringing their tiny cubs out in the open in fear of predation by rival bears. In addition to making portraits of both adults and cubs, we hope to photograph frolicking and squabbling youngsters and tender nursing scenes. At this time of year, the bears are either grazing in luxuriant grass or clamming. There will also be some two- and three-year old cubs to add to the fun. And we will get to photograph it all.

We will live on our tour operator’s luxurious new boat. At 78 feet long its 24 foot beam makes it quite spacious as well. And the food is great. We will likely spend most of our time at famed Geographic Harbor as that is where the bears are generally concentrated in summer. On the odd chance that we do need to relocate to another location we can do so quickly and easily without having to venture into any potentially rough seas. We land via a 25 foot skiff that has lots of room for as much gear as we can carry.

Aside from the bears we should get to photograph Horned and Tufted Puffin and should get nice stuff on Mew Gull, Glaucous-winged Gull, Black-legged Kittiwake, Harbor Seal, and Steller’s Sea Lion as well. A variety of tundra-nesting shorebirds including Western Sandpiper and both yellowlegs are also possible. Halibut fishing (license required/not included) is optional.

It is mandatory that you be in Kodiak no later than the late afternoon of July 17 to avoid missing the float planes to the boat on the morning of July 18. Again, with air travel in Alaska (or anywhere else for that matter) subject to possible delays, being on Kodiak on July 16 is a much better plan.

Barring any delays, we will get to photograph bears on our first afternoon and then again every day for the next five days after that, all weather permitting of course. On our last morning on the boat, July 24, those who would like to enjoy one last photo session will have the opportunity to do so. The group will return to Kodiak via float plane from late morning through midday. Most folks will then fly to Anchorage and to continue on red-eye flights to their home cities.

What’s included? 7 DAYS/6 NIGHTS on the boat as above. All meals on the boat. National Park and guide fees. In-the-field photo tips, instruction, and guidance. An insight into the mind of a top professional nature photographer; I will constantly let you know what I am thinking, what I am doing, and why I am doing it. Small group image review, image sharing, and informal Photoshop instruction on the boat.

What’s not included: Your round trip airfare to and from Kodiak, AK (almost surely through Anchorage). Your lodging and meals on Kodiak. The cost of the round-trip float plane to the boat and then back to Kodiak as above. The cost of a round trip last year was $550. The suggested crew tip of $200.

Have you ever walked with the bears?

Is this an expensive trip? Yes, of course. But with 5 full and two half days, a wealth of great subjects, and the fact that you will be walking with the bears just yards away (or less….), it will be one of the great natural history experiences of your life. Most folks who take part in a Bear Boat IPT wind up coming back for more.

A $2,000 per person non-refundable deposit by check only made out to “BIRDS AS ART” is required to hold your spot. Please click here to read our cancellation policies. Then please print, read, and sign the necessary paperwork here and send it to us by mail to PO Box 7245, Indian Lake Estates, FL 33855.

Your deposit is due when you sign up. That leaves a balance of $4699. The next payment of $2699 will be due on September 15, 2016. The final payment of $2000 is due on February 15, 2017. I hope that you can join me for what will be a wondrously exciting trip.

Please Remember to use my Affiliate Links and to Visit the New BAA Online Store 🙂

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 New BIRDS AS ART Online Store, especially the Mongoose M3.6 tripod head, Wimberley lens plates, Delkin flash cards and accessories, and LensCoat stuff.

As always, 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 please remember that I am always glad to answer your gear questions via e-mail.

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, and for everything else in the new store, 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 those who will be visiting the New BIRDS AS ART 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 :).

What’s Up?

I kissed my Mom goodbye on Friday morning and then had an easy flight from ISP down to MCO. Then I snuck away to Gatorland for an hour, made a few good images, learned a few things, and had another great dinner at El Tapatio Mexican Restaurant in Kissimmee.

Saturday at Gatorland was tough with clear skies. I wound up with two clients, Debra Lucas who drove down from AL and a Ken (last name unknown) who signed up on the way in 🙂 Ken was with us for the morning and the lunch session. Both learned to work in Manual mode and both learned a ton. And in the afternoon I worked with Debra on flash as fill and flash to light the shadow side of backlit birds. It is 8:23pm on SAT as I type and I am beat. Sunday morning is a two hour busman’s holiday for me.

Gear Questions and Advice

Too many folks attending BAA IPTs and dozens of folks whom I see in the field, and on BPN, are–out of ignorance–using the wrong gear, especially when it comes to tripods and more especially, tripod heads… Please know that I am always glad to answer your gear questions via e-mail.

The Streak: 16!

Today’s blog post marks a totally insane, irrational, illogical, preposterous, absurd, completely ridiculous, unfathomable, silly, incomprehensible, what’s wrong with this guy?, makes-no-sense, 16 days in a row with a new educational blog post. As always–and folks have been doing a really great for a long time now–please remember to use our B&H links for your major gear purchases. For best results use one of our many product-specific links; after clicking on one of those you can continue shopping with all subsequent purchases invisibly tracked to BAA. Your doing so is always greatly appreciated. Please remember: web orders only. And please remember also that if you are shopping for items that we carry in the BAA Online Store (as noted in red at the close of this post below) we would of course appreciate your business.

Gatorland In-the Field Instructional Meet-Up Sessions

Join us in Kissimmee, FL next weekend to photograph Great (with chicks in the nest) and Snowy Egrets in breeding plumage, Cattle Egret and Tricolored Heron in breeding plumage, Wood Stork, American Alligator (captive), and more. We should get to make lots of head portraits of all the bird species and to photograph them building nests, displaying, copulating, and flying. Learn to see, find, and make the shot in cluttered settings. Learn exposure and how to handle WHITEs. Learn fill flash and flash as main light. All of the birds are free and wild.

Next Weekend’s Schedule

• Saturday April 8, morning (early entry): 7:30 till 10:30am: $100. Lunch and Image Review: $75. Saturday afternoon till closing (late stay): $100.
• Sunday morning, April 9, (early entry): 7:30 till 10am: $75.

Cheap Canon lens rentals available: 600 II, 500 II, 400 DO II, or 200-400.

To pay for one or more sessions in full via credit card, call Jim or Jen in the office weekdays at 863-692-0906. You will be responsible for the cost of your Gatorland Photographer’s pass or passes. Please shoot me an e-mail if you have any questions.

This image was created with the Induro GIT 304L/Mongoose M3.6-mounted Canon EF 600mm f/4L IS II USM lens, the Canon Extender EF 1.4X III, and the mega mega-pixel Canon EOS 5DS R (now replaced for me by the Canon EOS 5D Mark IV). ISO 400. Evaluative metering +1 1/3 stop as framed: 1/1000 sec. at f/7.1 in Manual mode. AWB. LensAlign/FocusTune micro-adjustment: +5. Four rows up and one AF point to the left of the center AF point/AI Servo/Expand/shutter button AF was active at the moment of exposure. Black-legged Kittiwake with seaweed for nest

One Key to Becoming a Better Bird Photographer …

Though it has nothing at all to do with finding birds, seeing the good situations, getting the right exposure, making sharp images, or handling your gear, understanding the light in combination with the sky and wind conditions is a huge factor in your becoming a better bird photographer.Simply put, you need to learn where to be and when. With study and thought you can learn this stuff on your own but the very best way to improve in this area is to join an IPT. Or learn it from one of the many a BAA Site Guides. On our afternoon landing on the UK Puffins and Gannets IPT there is a superb kittiwake, murre, puffin, and Razorbill location, but you need the right wind and you need clouds. It is a worthless spot on a clear sunny day. When conditions are great it can be superb for landing murres, Razorbills, and even puffins. There are similar spots everywhere. Your job is to learn to recognize these locations and then take advantage of them when things are optimal.

A Clousy Day Exposure Reminder

On cloudy and/or gray or white sky days with what most folks think of as lousy light, you almost always need to overexpose significantly. The lighter the scene averages, the more light you need to add. The RAW file for today’s featured image was actually a bit too dark even though I added 1 1/3 stops of light to the exposure suggested by the camera’s evaluative metering system. (Nikon folks should be using Matrix). When photographing on clousy days with snow backgrounds or when doing flight +3 is often a great place to start. Check your image for blinkies and check the histogram. If the histogram is far to the right with no blinkies, you will be good to go. When photographing dark birds on what I call white sky days you might need to go as much as +4 stops off the metering reading on the sky.

ps: with digital capture, there is no such thing as lousy light.

pps: to learn my system for getting the right exposure with digital, see the Exposure Simplified section in The Art of Bird Photography II (ABP II: 916 pages, 900+ images on CD only.) If you are new to bird photography you will want to get the two-book bundle here. The two-book bundle includes both ABP II and the original bird photography how-to classic, The Art of Bird Photography (now in soft cover only).

Images and card design copyright: Arthur Morris/BIRDS AS ART. Click on the card to enjoy a spectacular larger version.

2017 UK Puffins and Gannets IPT. Monday July 3 through Monday July 10, 2017: $5999: Limit 10 photographers — Openings: 6).
All who register will be urged to take advantage of the two day Gannet Add-on so please do not buy your flights until making your decision. See below for details.

Here are the plans: take a red eye from the east coast of the US on July 2 and arrive in Edinburgh, Scotland on the morning of Monday July 3 no later than 10am (or simply meet us then at the Edinburgh Airport–EDI, or later in the day at our cottages if you are driving your own vehicle either from the UK or from somewhere in Europe). Stay 7 nights in one of three gorgeous modern country cottages.

There are five days of planned puffin/seabird trips and one morning of gannet photography, all weather permitting of course. In three years we have yet to miss an entire day because of weather… In addition, we will enjoy several sessions of photographing nesting Black-legged Kittiwakes at eye level.

Images and card design copyright: Arthur Morris/BIRDS AS ART. Click on the card to enjoy a spectacular larger version.

The Details

We will get to photograph Atlantic Puffin, Common Murre, Razorbill, Shag, and Northern Gannet; Arctic, Sandwich, and Common Terns, the former with chicks of all sizes; Black-headed, Lesser-Black-backed, and Herring Gulls, many chasing puffins with fish; Black-legged Kittiwake with chicks. We will be staying in upscale country-side lodging that are beyond lovely with large living areas and lots of open space for the informal image sharing and Photoshop sessions. The shared rooms are decent-sized, each with a private bathroom. See the limited single supplement info below.

All breakfasts, lunches and dinners are included. All 5 puffins boat lunches will need to be prepared by you in advance, taken with, and consumed at your leisure. I usually eat mine on the short boat trip from one island to the other. Also included is a restaurant lunch on the gannet boat day.

If you wish to fly home on the morning of Monday July 10 we will get you to the airport. Please, however, consider the following tentative plans: enjoy a second Gannet boat trip on the afternoon of Monday July 10 and book your hotel room in Dunbar. If all goes as planned, those who stay on for the two extra days will make a morning landing at Bass Rock, one of the world’s largest gannetries. We will get everyone to the airport on the morning of Wednesday July 12. (We may opt to stay in Edinburgh on the night of July 11.) Price and details should be finalized at least six months before the trip but you will need to be a bit patient. It would be ideal if I can get all the work done by the end of September so that folks can arrange their flights then.

Images and card design copyright: Arthur Morris/BIRDS AS ART. Click on the card to enjoy a spectacular larger version. Scroll down to join us in the UK in 2016.

Deposit Info

If you are good to go sharing a room–couples of course are more than welcome–please send your non-refundable $2,000/person deposit check now to save a spot. Please be sure to check your schedule carefully before committing to the trip and see the travel insurance info below. Your balance will be due on March 29, 2017. Please make your check out to “Arthur Morris” and send it to Arthur Morris/BIRDS AS ART, PO Box 7245, Indian Lake Estates, FL, 33855. If we do not receive your check for the balance on or before the due date we will try to fill your spot from the waiting list. If your spot is filled, you will lose your deposit. If not, you can secure your spot by paying your balance.

Please shoot me an e-mail if you are good to go or if you have any questions.

Single Supplement Deposit Info

Single supplement rooms are available on a limited basis. To ensure yours, please register early. The single supplement fee is $1575. If you would like your own room, please request it when making your deposit and include payment in full for the single supplement; your single supplement deposit check should be for $3,575. As we will need to commit to renting the extra space, single supplement deposits are non-refundable so please be sure that check your schedule carefully before committing to the trip and see the travel insurance info below.

Travel Insurance

Travel insurance for big international trips is highly recommended as we never know what life has in store for us. I strongly recommend that you purchase quality insurance. Travel Insurance Services offers a variety of plans and options. Included with the Elite Option or available as an upgrade to the Basic & Plus Options you can also purchase Cancel for Any Reason Coverage that expands the list of reasons for your canceling to include things such as sudden work or family obligation and even a simple change of mind. My family and I use and depend on the great policies offered by TIS whenever we travel. You can learn more here: Travel Insurance Services. Do note that many plans require that you purchase your travel insurance within 14 days of our cashing your deposit check of running your credit card. Whenever purchasing travel insurance be sure to read the fine print careful even when dealing with reputable firms like TSI.

Please Remember to use my Affiliate Links and to Visit the New BAA Online Store 🙂

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 New BIRDS AS ART Online Store, especially the Mongoose M3.6 tripod head, Wimberley lens plates, Delkin flash cards and accessories, and LensCoat stuff.

As always, 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 please remember that I am always glad to answer your gear questions via e-mail.

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, and for everything else in the new store, 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 those who will be visiting the New BIRDS AS ART Online Store as well.

Have a Nice Day!

Happy April Fool’s Day. As some might have figured, I am not moving anywhere. I am both happy and firmly entrenched at Indian Lake Estates with a comfortable home, my great pool, and a great and irreplaceable staff of two, my right-hand man Jim Litzenberg and older daughter Jennifer. That said, I do love San Diego and have thought about living their part time. Thanks to Patrick Sparkman for the idea for this April Fool’s Day blog post.

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 :).

What’s Up?

I made it to Holbrook, Long Island, NY in plenty of time to see my Mom. She is bed-ridden and has been sleeping a lot. She was glad to see me. When she is awake her mind is perfect though she is a bit forgetful. A wonderful young doctor, Lawrence Salob, from an amazing house call service called Island House Doctor, visited on Thursday. He said that she is not in the process of dying but that her lung function has declined rapidly due to COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease). That caused by my Dad being a 4-pack a day man for 35 years. That as a result of his having taken up the habit during WWII because the troops did not have the proper cold weather gear, especially gloves. You gotta love second-hand smoke. My Dad survived the smoker’s daily double, throat cancer and lung cancer. In a way it is ironic that my Dad did not die as a direct result of his smoking but that his smoking will eventually take my Mom. Realize of course that 60 years ago there was no known connection between smoking and various types of cancer and nobody had ever heard of second-hand smoke. My Mom will have a hospice evaluation soon.

Thanks to all who left or e-mailed kind and supportive comments for me, my Mom, and my family. Thanks also for the increased participation on the blog these last few days. Keep it up. Most recently Steve Traudt helped a friend sell his Canon 500mm f4L IS USM lens in near-mint condition for $3899 in late March, a week after it was listed, Mike Pace sold his Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8 L IS II in excellent plus condition locally and is kindly sending me a check for 2 1/2% of the original asking price, and BAA friend John Armitage sold his Canon EOS 1D-X in excellent plus condition for $2,348 the day it was listed. There are just two slots left on the DeSoto IPT.

Gear Questions and Advice

Too many folks attending BAA IPTs and dozens of folks whom I see in the field, and on BPN, are–out of ignorance–using the wrong gear, especially when it comes to tripods and more especially, tripod heads… Please know that I am always glad to answer your gear questions via e-mail.

The Streak: 14!

Today’s blog post marks a totally insane, irrational, illogical, preposterous, absurd, completely ridiculous, unfathomable, silly, incomprehensible, what’s wrong with this guy?, makes-no-sense, 14 days in a row with a new educational blog post. As always–and folks have been doing a really great for a long time now–please remember to use our B&H links for your major gear purchases. For best results use one of our many product-specific links; after clicking on one of those you can continue shopping with all subsequent purchases invisibly tracked to BAA. Your doing so is always greatly appreciated. Please remember: web orders only. And please remember also that if you are shopping for items that we carry in the BAA Online Store (as noted in red at the close of this post below) we would of course appreciate your business.

Gatorland In-the Field Instructional Meet-Up Sessions

Join us in Kissimmee, FL this coming weekend to photograph Great (with chicks in the nest) and Snowy Egrets in breeding plumage, Cattle Egret and Tricolored Heron in breeding plumage, Wood Stork, American Alligator (captive), and more. We should get to make lots of head portraits of all the bird species and to photograph them building nests, displaying, copulating, and flying. Learn to see, find, and make the shot in cluttered settings. Learn exposure and how to handle WHITEs. Learn fill flash and flash as main light. All of the birds are free and wild.

Debra Lucas has signed up for all day SAT; she will be driving down from AL. And Mike Pool will be joining me on Sunday. That leaves room for you.

This Coming Weekend’s Schedule

• Saturday April 1, morning (early entry): 7:30 till 10:30am: $100. Lunch and Image Review: $75. Saturday afternoon till closing (late stay): $100.
• Sunday morning April 2, (early entry): 7:30 till 10am: $75.

Last minute sign-ups can either shoot me an e-mail try my cell at 1-863-221-2473.

Next Weekend’s Schedule

• Saturday April 8, morning (early entry): 7:30 till 10:30am: $100. Lunch and Image Review: $75. Saturday afternoon till closing (late stay): $100.
• Sunday morning, April 9, (early entry): 7:30 till 10am: $75.

Cheap Canon lens rentals available: 600 II, 500 II, 400 DO II, or 200-400.

To pay for one or more sessions in full via credit card, call Jim or Jen in the office weekdays at 863-692-0906. You will be responsible for the cost of your Gatorland Photographer’s pass or passes. Please shoot me an e-mail if you have any questions.

DPP 4 Screen Capture for: Great Egret flying over marsh

The Magic of Large Zone on the 5D IV

As regular readers know I have been enamored with Upper Large Zone as my go-to vertical AF selection area. As I mentioned recently, I encountered a big feeding spree in a pool in the marsh in the lake near my home. The situation was very cluttered and lots of images were ruined by too many birds or by a poor framing job by yours truly. I did have some nice incoming flight images. I used Large Center Zone exclusively while working in horizontal format. What truly amazed me was that virtually all of the images where I successfully acquired AF were razor sharp on the eye. I will be using Large Center Zone a lot more in the future for both flight and action. As I type here, I remember that I started using Large Center Zone on the dancing Red-crowned Crowned Cranes in Japan with success, switching at times to left or right Large Zone as needed …

This image was created with the Induro GIT 304L/Mongoose M3.6-mounted Canon EF 600mm f/4L IS II USM lens and my very favorite bird photography camera body, the Canon EOS 5D Mark IV. ISO 400. Evaluative metering +1/3 stop off the sky was about -1 2/3 stops as originally framed: 1/5000 sec. at f/5.6 in Manual mode. AWB. LensAlign/FocusTune micro-adjustment: 0. Large Center Zone/AI Servo/shutter button AF was active at the moment of exposure. The system activated two AF points one of which just caught the tip of the secondary feathers (as seen in the DPP 4 screen capture below). The image is razor sharp on the bird’s eye. Great Egret in flight

5D Mark IV Image Quality

The superb image quality of 5D Mark IV allows for significant crops. This is about as large a crop as I ever use.

Why Not Level This Image?

It is fairly obvious on several counts that this image needed to be rotated a degree or two clockwise. How can you tell that? Why didn’t I level it?

Background Clean-up

I cleaned up some of the light background grasses along with some other distracting elements primarily with the Spot Healing Brush. I also used the Patch Tool. Here is a great Patch Tool tip that I have never published anywhere before: If you use the Patch Tool and you note a small crescent or two on the edge or edges of the patched area, simply use the Patch Tool on the crescents. One pass is usually enough to eliminate them but sometimes it takes two.

DeSoto in spring is rife with tame and attractive birds. From upper left clockwise to center: breeding plumage Dunlin, dark morph breeding plumage Reddish Egret displaying, breeding plumage Laughing Gull/front end vertical portrait, breeding plumage Laughing Gull with prey item, Laughing Gull on head of Brown Pelican, screaming Royal Tern in breeding plumage, Royal Terns/pre-copulatory stand, Laughing Gulls copulating, breeding plumage Laughing Gull/tight horizontal portrait, Sandwich Tern with fish, and a really rare one, White-rumped Sandpiper in breeding plumage, photographed at DeSoto in early May.

Fort DeSoto Spring IPT/April 19-22, 2017. (meet & greet at 2pm on Wednesday April 19 followed by an afternoon session) through the full day on Saturday April 22. 3 1/2 DAYs: $1599. Limit 10/Openings 2. To save your spot, please call and put down a non-refundable deposit of $499.00.

Fort DeSoto is one of the rare locations that might offer great bird photography 365 days a year. It shines in spring. There will Lots of tame birds including breeding plumage Laughing Gull and Royal and Sandwich Terns. With luck, we will get to photograph all of these species courting and copulating. There will be American Oystercatcher and Marbled Godwit plus sandpipers and plovers, some in full breeding plumage. Black-bellied Plover and Red Knot in stunning breeding plumage are possible. There will be lots of wading birds including Great and Snowy Egrets, both color morphs of Reddish Egret, Great Blue, Tricolored and Little Blue Heron, Yellow-crowned Night-Heron, and killer breeding plumage White Ibis. Roseate Spoonbill and Wood Stork are possible and likely. We should have lots of good flight photography with the gulls and terns and with Brown Pelican. Nesting Least Tern and nesting Wilson’s Plover are possible.

We will, weather permitting, enjoy 7 shooting sessions. As above, our first afternoon session will follow the meet and greet at 2pm on Wednesday April 19. For the next three days we will have two daily photo sessions. We will be on the beach early and usually be at lunch (included) by 11am. We will have three indoor sessions. At one we will review my images–folks learn a ton watching me choose my keepers and deletes–why keep this one and delete that one? The second will be a review of your images so that I can quickly learn where you need help. For those who bring their laptops to lunch I’d be glad to take a peek at an image or three. Day three will be a Photoshop session during which we will review my complete workflow and process an image or two in Photoshop after converting them in DPP. Afternoon sessions will generally run from 4:30pm till sunset. We photograph until sunset on the last day, Saturday, April 22. Please note that this is a get-your-feet and get-your-butt wet and sandy IPT. And that you can actually do the whole IPT with a 300 f/2.8L IS, a 400 f/4 ID DO lens with both TCs, or the equivalent Nikon gear. I will surely be using my 500 II as my big glass and have my 100-400 II on my shoulder.

DeSoto in spring is rife with tame and attractive birds. From upper left clockwise to center: Laughing Gull in flight, adult Yellow-crowned Night-Heron, copulating Sandwich Terns, Roseate Spoonbill, Great Egret with reflection, Short-billed Dowitcher in breeding plumage, American Oystercatcher, breeding plumage Royal Tern, white morph Reddish Egret, and Snowy Egret marsh habitat shot.

What You Will Learn

You will learn to approach free and wild birds without disturbing them, to understand and predict bird behavior, to identify many species of shorebirds, to spot the good situations, to understand the effects of sky and wind conditions on bird photography, to choose the best perspective, to see and understand the light, to get the right exposure every time after making a single test exposure, and to design pleasing images by mastering your camera’s AF system. And you will learn how and why to work in Manual mode (even if you are scared of it).

The group will be staying at the Holiday Inn Express in St. Petersburg. (Write for a less expensive option). Please call Jim or Jennifer at 863-692-0906 to register. All will need to purchase an Annual Pass early on Tuesday afternoon so that we can enter the park at 6am and be in position for sunrise opportunities. The cost is $75, Seniors $55. Tight carpools will be needed and will reduce the per person Annual Pass costs. The cost of three lunches is included. Breakfasts are grab what you can on the go, and dinners are also on your own due to the fact that we will usually be getting back to the hotel at about 9pm. Non-photographer spouses, friends, or companions are welcome for $100/day, $350 for the whole IPT.

BIRDS AS ART Fort DeSoto In-the-Field Meet-up Workshop (ITFW): $99

Fort DeSoto Spring In-the-Field Cheap Meet-up Workshop (ITFW) on the morning of Sunday, April 23, 2017: $99

Join me on the morning of Sunday April 23, 2017 for 3-hours of photographic instruction at Fort DeSoto Park. Beginners are welcome. Lenses of 300mm or longer are recommended but even those with 70-200s should get to make some nice images. Teleconverters are always a plus.

You will learn the basics of digital exposure and image design, autofocus basics, and how to get close to free and wild birds. We should get to photograph a variety of wading birds, shorebirds, terns, and gulls. This inexpensive morning workshop is designed to give folks a taste of the level and the quality of instruction that is provided on BIRDS AS ART Instructional Photo-tours. I hope to meet you there.

To register please call Jim or Jennifer during weekday business hours with a credit card in hand to pay the nominal registration fee. Your registration fee is non-refundable. You will receive a short e-mail with instructions, gear advice, and meeting place one week before the event.

Please Remember to use my Affiliate Links and to Visit the New BAA Online Store 🙂

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 New BIRDS AS ART Online Store, especially the Mongoose M3.6 tripod head, Wimberley lens plates, Delkin flash cards and accessories, and LensCoat stuff.

As always, 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 please remember that I am always glad to answer your gear questions via e-mail.

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, and for everything else in the new store, 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 those who will be visiting the New BIRDS AS ART 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 :).

What’s Up?

On Tuesday morning I went down to the lake just as the sun broke through the fog. It was so, so beautiful. There was zero wind and the blue water was like a mirror. There were no birds in the perfect spot — most of them are in one of three big fields — but I did get one nice frame of Limpkin …

I learned that John Armitage’s 1D-X sold in less than a day for the record low BAA price of $2348. The rest of the day was BAU = business as usual 🙂

Thanks!

Thanks to all who commented on the last two blogs posts, here and here. Your taking the time to make the blog interactive is always greatly appreciated. On Tuesday evening I replied to all of the many comments individually. If you check them out you will find out that the learning never stops.

Gear Questions and Advice

Too many folks attending BAA IPTs and dozens of folks whom I see in the field, and on BPN, are–out of ignorance–using the wrong gear, especially when it comes to tripods and more especially, tripod heads… Please know that I am always glad to answer your gear questions via e-mail.

The Streak: 12!

Today’s blog post marks a totally insane, irrational, illogical, preposterous, absurd, completely ridiculous, unfathomable, silly, incomprehensible, what’s wrong with this guy?, makes-no-sense, 12 days in a row with a new educational blog post. As always–and folks have been doing a really great for a long time now–please remember to use our B&H links for your major gear purchases. For best results use one of our many product-specific links; after clicking on one of those you can continue shopping with all subsequent purchases invisibly tracked to BAA. Your doing so is always greatly appreciated. Please remember: web orders only. And please remember also that if you are shopping for items that we carry in the BAA Online Store (as noted in red at the close of this post below) we would of course appreciate your business.

Gatorland In-the Field Instructional Meet-Up Sessions

Join us in Kissimmee, FL this coming weekend to photograph Great (with chicks in the nest) and Snowy Egrets in breeding plumage, Cattle Egret and Tricolored Heron in breeding plumage, Wood Stork, American Alligator (captive), and more. We should get to make lots of head portraits of all the bird species and to photograph them building nests, displaying, copulating, and flying. Learn to see, find, and make the shot in cluttered settings. Learn exposure and how to handle WHITEs. Learn fill flash and flash as main light. All of the birds are free and wild.

Debra Lucas has signed up for all day SAT; she will be driving down from AL.

This Coming Weekend’s Schedule

• Saturday April 1, morning (early entry): 7:30 till 10:30am: $100. Lunch and Image Review: $75. Saturday afternoon till closing (late stay): $100.
• Sunday morning April 2, (early entry): 7:30 till 10am: $75.

Next Weekend’s Schedule

• Saturday April 8, morning (early entry): 7:30 till 10:30am: $100. Lunch and Image Review: $75. Saturday afternoon till closing (late stay): $100.
• Sunday morning, April 9, (early entry): 7:30 till 10am: $75.

Cheap Canon lens rentals available: 600 II, 500 II, 400 DO II, or 200-400.

To pay for one or more sessions in full via credit card, call Jim or Jen in the office weekdays at 863-692-0906. You will be responsible for the cost of your Gatorland Photographer’s pass or passes. Please shoot me an e-mail if you have any questions.

This image was created at Gatorland on my Sunday busman’s holiday on March 26, 2017. I used the Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM lens (at 312mm) and my very favorite camera body, the Canon EOS 5D Mark IV. ISO 2000. Evaluative metering +2 1/3 stops: 1/60 sec. at f/5.6 in Tv mode. AWB. LensAlign/FocusTune micro-adjustment: -1. Center AF point/AI Servo/Shutter Button AF was active at the moment of exposure. The selected AF point was on the branch in the middle of the frame. Click on the image for a larger version. Black Vulture silhouette

Not Your Everyday Gatorland Image …

When you think of nature photography at Gatorland you think of displaying Great Egrets, tight head shots of Cattle Egret (and all the rest!) a variety of chicks in the nest, and a nice gator image or two. But there are lots of other opportunities for those who keep their eyes open. I have probably walked by this image a dozen times or more but on the morning of Sunday, 26 MAR I finally had my eyes open and saw this for the first time.

When I want a minimum safe shutter speed — in this case 1/60 sec. — I turn to Tv mode. I have ISO Safety Shift set on all my cameras. Once I enter the exposure compensation: + 2 1/3 stops for this image, the camera sets the needed ISO. Using ISO Safety Shift functions exactly the same as if I had set Auto ISO. See my comments on the original image capture below.

To learn the exact location of the vulture perch tree you will need to keep your eyes wide open or join me on a Gatorland weekend meet-up session 🙂

This is the converted TIFF for today’s featured image.

The Image Optimization

During the RAW conversion in DPP 4 I brightened the image 2/3 of a stop, moved the Shadow slider 2 clicks to the left to make the BLACKs blacker, and increased the Contrast by moving the slider to +1. All of these moves were done to create the stark silhouette look. Once I had the image in Photoshop, the big problem was the lower left, especially the intruding stump of a dead tree. I used the Clone Stamp Tool to eliminate that and the palm fronds as well. I decided to leave the bunch of leaves in the lower left corner to balance the motif. (Thanks to the late, great German nature photographer Fritz Pölking for the word “motif.”)

To add some extra room above the birds I used one of the simpler APTATS II tutorials. That took all of 20 seconds. Notice that two of the birds in the original were without heads. To remedy that situation, I grabbed two different heads (one at a time) via small Quick Masks and moved them roughly into position. Then I used the Warp command under Transform to re-shape them a bit. I added a Regular Layer mask to fine-tune the Quick Masks and after flattening that layer, I tidied things up with the Clone Stamp Tool with the hardness raised to 85% to yield clean, sharp edges.

Everything above plus tons more is of course detailed in my Digital Basics File, an instructional PDF that is sent via e-mail. It includes my complete (former PC) 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, the basics of Quick Masking, Layer Masking, and NIK Color Efex Pro, Digital Eye Doctor techniques, using Gaussian Blurs, Dodge and Burn, a variety of ways to make selections, how to create time-saving actions, and tons more.

I am working on an all new Current Workflow e-guide that better reflects my Macbook Pro/Photo Mechanic/DPP 4/Photoshop workflow. It will include a section on ACR conversions and a simplified method of applying Neat Image noise reduction. Learn advanced Quick Masking and advanced Layer Masking techniques in APTATS I & II. You can save $15 by purchasing the pair. Learn how and why I and other discerning Canon shooters convert nearly all of my Canon digital RAW files in DPP 4 using Canon Digital Photo Professional in the DPP 4 RAW conversion Guide here.

Image Design Question

What would you have done with the lower left corner? Would you have left the cluster of leaves?

Images and card design copyright: Arthur Morris/BIRDS AS ART. Click on the card to enjoy a spectacular larger version.

2017 UK Puffins and Gannets IPT. Monday July 3 through Monday July 10, 2017: $5999: Limit 10 photographers — Openings: 6).
All who register will be urged to take advantage of the two day Gannet Add-on so please do not buy your flights until making your decision. See below for details.

Here are the plans: take a red eye from the east coast of the US on July 2 and arrive in Edinburgh, Scotland on the morning of Monday July 3 no later than 10am (or simply meet us then at the Edinburgh Airport–EDI, or later in the day at our cottages if you are driving your own vehicle either from the UK or from somewhere in Europe). Stay 7 nights in one of three gorgeous modern country cottages.

There are five days of planned puffin/seabird trips and one morning of gannet photography, all weather permitting of course. In three years we have yet to miss an entire day because of weather… In addition, we will enjoy several sessions of photographing nesting Black-legged Kittiwakes at eye level.

Images and card design copyright: Arthur Morris/BIRDS AS ART. Click on the card to enjoy a spectacular larger version.

The Details

We will get to photograph Atlantic Puffin, Common Murre, Razorbill, Shag, and Northern Gannet; Arctic, Sandwich, and Common Terns, the former with chicks of all sizes; Black-headed, Lesser-Black-backed, and Herring Gulls, many chasing puffins with fish; Black-legged Kittiwake with chicks. We will be staying in upscale country-side lodging that are beyond lovely with large living areas and lots of open space for the informal image sharing and Photoshop sessions. The shared rooms are decent-sized, each with a private bathroom. See the limited single supplement info below.

All breakfasts, lunches and dinners are included. All 5 puffins boat lunches will need to be prepared by you in advance, taken with, and consumed at your leisure. I usually eat mine on the short boat trip from one island to the other. Also included is a restaurant lunch on the gannet boat day.

If you wish to fly home on the morning of Monday July 10 we will get you to the airport. Please, however, consider the following tentative plans: enjoy a second Gannet boat trip on the afternoon of Monday July 10 and book your hotel room in Dunbar. If all goes as planned, those who stay on for the two extra days will make a morning landing at Bass Rock, one of the world’s largest gannetries. We will get everyone to the airport on the morning of Wednesday July 12. (We may opt to stay in Edinburgh on the night of July 11.) Price and details should be finalized at least six months before the trip but you will need to be a bit patient. It would be ideal if I can get all the work done by the end of September so that folks can arrange their flights then.

Images and card design copyright: Arthur Morris/BIRDS AS ART. Click on the card to enjoy a spectacular larger version. Scroll down to join us in the UK in 2016.

Deposit Info

If you are good to go sharing a room–couples of course are more than welcome–please send your non-refundable $2,000/person deposit check now to save a spot. Please be sure to check your schedule carefully before committing to the trip and see the travel insurance info below. Your balance will be due on March 29, 2017. Please make your check out to “Arthur Morris” and send it to Arthur Morris/BIRDS AS ART, PO Box 7245, Indian Lake Estates, FL, 33855. If we do not receive your check for the balance on or before the due date we will try to fill your spot from the waiting list. If your spot is filled, you will lose your deposit. If not, you can secure your spot by paying your balance.

Please shoot me an e-mail if you are good to go or if you have any questions.

Single Supplement Deposit Info

Single supplement rooms are available on a limited basis. To ensure yours, please register early. The single supplement fee is $1575. If you would like your own room, please request it when making your deposit and include payment in full for the single supplement; your single supplement deposit check should be for $3,575. As we will need to commit to renting the extra space, single supplement deposits are non-refundable so please be sure that check your schedule carefully before committing to the trip and see the travel insurance info below.

Travel Insurance

Travel insurance for big international trips is highly recommended as we never know what life has in store for us. I strongly recommend that you purchase quality insurance. Travel Insurance Services offers a variety of plans and options. Included with the Elite Option or available as an upgrade to the Basic & Plus Options you can also purchase Cancel for Any Reason Coverage that expands the list of reasons for your canceling to include things such as sudden work or family obligation and even a simple change of mind. My family and I use and depend on the great policies offered by TIS whenever we travel. You can learn more here: Travel Insurance Services. Do note that many plans require that you purchase your travel insurance within 14 days of our cashing your deposit check of running your credit card. Whenever purchasing travel insurance be sure to read the fine print careful even when dealing with reputable firms like TSI.

Please Remember to use my Affiliate Links and to Visit the New BAA Online Store 🙂

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 New BIRDS AS ART Online Store, especially the Mongoose M3.6 tripod head, Wimberley lens plates, Delkin flash cards and accessories, and LensCoat stuff.

As always, 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 please remember that I am always glad to answer your gear questions via e-mail.

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, and for everything else in the new store, 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 those who will be visiting the New BIRDS AS ART 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 :).

What’s Up?

After my morning session at Gatorland I drove home, stopped at Publix, and enjoyed a nice late afternoon swim. Then I optimized one of today’s featured images. See more below.

Please take a moment to go back to yesterday’s blog post here and take a crack at a few of the questions. The more folks who comment the more everyone learns. Including me.

Gear Questions and Advice

Too many folks attending BAA IPTs and dozens of folks whom I see in the field, and on BPN, are–out of ignorance–using the wrong gear, especially when it comes to tripods and more especially, tripod heads… Please know that I am always glad to answer your gear questions via e-mail.

The Streak: 11!

Today’s blog post marks a totally insane, irrational, illogical, preposterous, absurd, completely ridiculous, unfathomable, silly, incomprehensible, what’s wrong with this guy?, makes-no-sense, 11 days in a row with a new educational blog post. As always–and folks have been doing a really great for a long time now–please remember to use our B&H links for your major gear purchases. For best results use one of our many product-specific links; after clicking on one of those you can continue shopping with all subsequent purchases invisibly tracked to BAA. Your doing so is always greatly appreciated. Please remember: web orders only. And please remember also that if you are shopping for items that we carry in the BAA Online Store (as noted in red at the close of this post below) we would of course appreciate your business.

Gatorland In-the Field Instructional Meet-Up

Join me in Kissimmee, FL this coming weekend to photograph Great (with chicks in the nest) and Snowy Egrets in breeding plumage, Cattle Egret and Tricolored Heron in breeding plumage, Wood Stork, American Alligator (captive), and more. We should get to make lots of head portraits of all the bird species and to photograph them building nests, displaying, copulating, and flying. Learn to see, find, and make the shot in cluttered settings. Learn exposure and how to handle WHITEs. Learn fill flash and flash as main light. All of the birds are free and wild.

This Coming Weekend’s Schedule

Saturday April 1, morning (early entry): 7:30 till 10:30am: $100. Lunch and Image Review: $75. Saturday afternoon till closing (late stay): $100.
Sunday morning (early entry): 7:30 till 10am: $75.

Cheap Canon lens rental available: 600 II, 500 II, 400 DO II, 200-400.

To pay for one or more sessions in full via credit card, call Jim or Jen in the office weekdays at 863-692-0906. You will be responsible for the cost of your Gatorland Photographer’s pass or passes. Please shoot me an e-mail if you have any questions

This image was created at Gatorland on my busman’s holiday: March 26, 2017. I used the Induro GIT 304L/Mongoose M3.6-mounted Canon EF 600mm f/4L IS II USM lens, the Canon Extender EF 2X III, and my very favorite bird photography camera body, the Canon EOS 5D Mark IV. ISO 400. Evaluative metering +1/3 stop: 1/400 sec. at f/10 in Manual mode. AWB. Manual fill flash at 1/8 power with the Canon Speedlite 600EX-RT with a Better Beamer on the Mongoose Integrated Flash Arm via the Canon OC-E3 Off Camera Shoe Cord (2′). LensAlign/FocusTune micro-adjustment: -5. Center AF point/AI Servo/Expand/Shutter Button AF was active at the moment of exposure. The selected AF point was just below and slightly in front of the bird’s eye. Image #1: Cattle Egret, breeding plumage, horizontal head portrait

Horizontal or Vertical From the Same Spot

After having a bunch of Cattle Egrets fly in on Saturday afternoon, I was hoping that a few would stick around to explore for nest sites. This beauty did. It posed for many minutes on the same clean perch for several photographers in early morning light. It is not often that you are at just the right focal length and just the right distance that you can create a horizontal head portrait and a vertical front-end portrait of the same bird. All that I had to go was rotate the lens in the tripod ring. Image #1 was created at 8:02:08 and Image #2 just 8 seconds later at 8:08:16. If you are have your camera properly set up with Orientation-linked AF point set to Separate AF pts: Area+pt then you will not have to switch either the AF point or the AF area selection mode. As regular readers know, I recently began using Upper Large Zone set up for verticals. In any case, it was simply a matter of recognizing the possibilities, rotating the lens in the tripod ring, acquiring focus, and making a second series of images.

Image Question

Is there conclusive proof that I moved my lens an inch or two to my left before making Image #2? If yes, what is the proof?

Your Favorite?

Which of today’s featured images is your favorite? Be sure to let us know why as each image has its strong points. Note that this bird needs to change barbers …

This image was also created at Gatorland on my busman’s holiday: March 26, 2017. I used the Induro GIT 304L/Mongoose M3.6-mounted Canon EF 600mm f/4L IS II USM lens, the Canon Extender EF 2X III, and my very favorite bird photography camera body, the Canon EOS 5D Mark IV. ISO 400. Evaluative metering +1/3 stop: 1/400 sec. at f/10 in Manual mode. AWB. Manual fill flash at 1/8 power with the Canon Speedlite 600EX-RT with a Better Beamer on the Mongoose Integrated Flash Arm via the Canon OC-E3 Off Camera Shoe Cord (2′). LensAlign/FocusTune micro-adjustment: -5. Upper Large Zone/AI Servo/Shutter Button AF was active at the moment of exposure. The AF system activated a line of three AF points dead-centered on the bird’s eye; you cannot ask for better than that. Image #2: Cattle Egret, breeding plumage, vertical front-end portrait

Black Crud or No Black Crud?

During the RAW conversions in in DPP 4 I added 1/10 stop of light, moved the Shadow slider to -2 (to darken the BKGR) and moved the Highlight slider to -1 to add a bit of detail to the WHITEs.

With Image #1 I did a bit of bill clean-up. Most noticeably, I removed the two areas of black crud that you can see in Image #2. One was just above the upper mandible on the bird’s forehead, the other was at the front of the nares. To eliminate the former area of black crud, I relied for the most part on two small Quick Masks that were refined using the Warp command and a regular Layer Mask. For the latter, I used the Clone Stamp Tool and the Patch Tool to execute the Divide and Conquer technique. These turned out to be a bit easier than I had envisioned. I applied a 20% layer of my Nik Color EFEX Pro 30/30 recipe.

Image #2 on the other hand, is right out of camera: no bill clean-up, no NIK, no nothing (after the same RAW conversion used for Image #1). (Copying and pasting the recipe from one image to another in DPP 4 is a snap.)

Would you have removed the black crud or left it? Why or why not? (Be sure to enlarge each image before deciding).

Images and card design copyright: Arthur Morris/BIRDS AS ART. Click on the card to enjoy a spectacular larger version.

2017 UK Puffins and Gannets IPT. Monday July 3 through Monday July 10, 2017: $5999: Limit 10 photographers — Openings: 6).
All who register will be urged to take advantage of the two day Gannet Add-on so please do not buy your flights until making your decision. See below for details.

Here are the plans: take a red eye from the east coast of the US on July 2 and arrive in Edinburgh, Scotland on the morning of Monday July 3 no later than 10am (or simply meet us then at the Edinburgh Airport–EDI, or later in the day at our cottages if you are driving your own vehicle either from the UK or from somewhere in Europe). Stay 7 nights in one of three gorgeous modern country cottages.

There are five days of planned puffin/seabird trips and one morning of gannet photography, all weather permitting of course. In three years we have yet to miss an entire day because of weather… In addition, we will enjoy several sessions of photographing nesting Black-legged Kittiwakes at eye level.

Images and card design copyright: Arthur Morris/BIRDS AS ART. Click on the card to enjoy a spectacular larger version.

The Details

We will get to photograph Atlantic Puffin, Common Murre, Razorbill, Shag, and Northern Gannet; Arctic, Sandwich, and Common Terns, the former with chicks of all sizes; Black-headed, Lesser-Black-backed, and Herring Gulls, many chasing puffins with fish; Black-legged Kittiwake with chicks. We will be staying in upscale country-side lodging that are beyond lovely with large living areas and lots of open space for the informal image sharing and Photoshop sessions. The shared rooms are decent-sized, each with a private bathroom. See the limited single supplement info below.

All breakfasts, lunches and dinners are included. All 5 puffins boat lunches will need to be prepared by you in advance, taken with, and consumed at your leisure. I usually eat mine on the short boat trip from one island to the other. Also included is a restaurant lunch on the gannet boat day.

If you wish to fly home on the morning of Monday July 10 we will get you to the airport. Please, however, consider the following tentative plans: enjoy a second Gannet boat trip on the afternoon of Monday July 10 and book your hotel room in Dunbar. If all goes as planned, those who stay on for the two extra days will make a morning landing at Bass Rock, one of the world’s largest gannetries. We will get everyone to the airport on the morning of Wednesday July 12. (We may opt to stay in Edinburgh on the night of July 11.) Price and details should be finalized at least six months before the trip but you will need to be a bit patient. It would be ideal if I can get all the work done by the end of September so that folks can arrange their flights then.

Images and card design copyright: Arthur Morris/BIRDS AS ART. Click on the card to enjoy a spectacular larger version. Scroll down to join us in the UK in 2016.

Deposit Info

If you are good to go sharing a room–couples of course are more than welcome–please send your non-refundable $2,000/person deposit check now to save a spot. Please be sure to check your schedule carefully before committing to the trip and see the travel insurance info below. Your balance will be due on March 29, 2017. Please make your check out to “Arthur Morris” and send it to Arthur Morris/BIRDS AS ART, PO Box 7245, Indian Lake Estates, FL, 33855. If we do not receive your check for the balance on or before the due date we will try to fill your spot from the waiting list. If your spot is filled, you will lose your deposit. If not, you can secure your spot by paying your balance.

Please shoot me an e-mail if you are good to go or if you have any questions.

Single Supplement Deposit Info

Single supplement rooms are available on a limited basis. To ensure yours, please register early. The single supplement fee is $1575. If you would like your own room, please request it when making your deposit and include payment in full for the single supplement; your single supplement deposit check should be for $3,575. As we will need to commit to renting the extra space, single supplement deposits are non-refundable so please be sure that check your schedule carefully before committing to the trip and see the travel insurance info below.

Please Remember to use my Affiliate Links and to Visit the New BAA Online Store 🙂

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 New BIRDS AS ART Online Store, especially the Mongoose M3.6 tripod head, Wimberley lens plates, Delkin flash cards and accessories, and LensCoat stuff.

As always, 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 please remember that I am always glad to answer your gear questions via e-mail.

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, and for everything else in the new store, 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 those who will be visiting the New BIRDS AS ART 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 :).

What’s Up?

On Friday I worked on this and another blog post and packed up for my drive up to Gatorland. I will be offering the meet-up on most weekends that I am home so stay-tuned for the next one. I am gonna try to sneak in a swim and a walk before I head up to Kissimmee.

Gear Questions and Advice

Too many folks attending BAA IPTs and dozens of folks whom I see in the field, and on BPN, are–out of ignorance–using the wrong gear, especially when it comes to tripods and more especially, tripod heads… Please know that I am always glad to answer your gear questions via e-mail.

The Streak: 8!

Today’s blog post marks a totally insane, irrational, illogical, preposterous, absurd, completely ridiculous, unfathomable, silly, incomprehensible, what’s wrong with this guy?, makes-no-sense, 8 days in a row with a new educational blog post. As always–and folks have been doing a really great for a long time now–please remember to use our B&H links for your major gear purchases. For best results use one of our many product-specific links; after clicking on one of those you can continue shopping with all subsequent purchases invisibly tracked to BAA. Your doing so is always greatly appreciated. Please remember: web orders only. And please remember also that if you are shopping for items that we carry in the BAA Online Store (as noted in red at the close of this post below) we would of course appreciate your business.

Amazing Friends at the Hotel Sparkyman

Thanks again to dear friends Patrick and Robin Sparkman for putting me up at their home in the Scripps Ranch neighborhood of San Diego on my post-School for the Work visit (just as they put me up last year for an extended stay before and after my prostate surgery). Imagine that they make sure that there is reduced sugar ketchup and a big jar of mayo on hand in advance. Imagine that Robin always has a big jug of ice cold Raspberry Zinger Celestial Seasonings Tea in the fridge. And that she not only refuses to let me do my own laundry but that she folds everything! What luxury, and something that I never do. That Patrick is a great cook who specializes in barbecuing steaks and pork and chicken on his big Green Egg is just icing on the cake. Thank you guys for the Hotel Sparkyman.

Thanks also to Patrick for sharing his superb Least Sandpiper wing stretch image with us here (below). He is as good as it gets when it comes to hand holding at 840 and at 1200mm.

I created this image at La Jolla, CA with the hand held Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM lens and the Canon EOS 5D Mark IV. ISO 400. Evaluative metering +1/3 stop: 1/1250 sec. at f/4 in Manual mode. AWB. Center AF point/AI Servo/Expand/Rear Focus AF on Patrick’s neck and re-compose. Click here to see the latest version of the Rear Focus Tutorial. Click on the image to see a larger version. Image #1: Patrick and Least Sandpiper …

Patrick and Friend …

After working the difficult to photograph cormorant chicks at La Jolla on March 19th (Jennifer’s birthday!) we headed down to the low cliffs. Patrick grabbed his big lens to search for a few shorebirds — they were surprisingly scarce while I was in San Diego. It was quite calm so I grabbed the 100 macro and did some hand held wildflowers. When I was done, I headed down to The Crevice to see what Patrick was doing — see the photo above.

If I had not pointed out the bird with the red arrow would you have spotted it?

Knee Podding It

Notice Patrick’s perfect knee pod technique: left forearm on left thigh just behind bent left knee.

Image Questions

1-How might stopping down to f/8 or even f/11 have helped this image?

2-Why was it necessary to use rear button (of One-Shot) AF to create Image #1?

This image was created at La Jolla, CA by Patrick Sparkman with the hand held Canon EF 600mm f/4L IS II USM lens, the Canon Extender EF 2X III, and the Canon EOS 5D Mark IV. ISO 1600. Evaluative metering +1/3 stop: 1/400 sec. at f/8 in Manual mode. AWB. LensAlign/FocusTune micro-adjustment: +1. Center AF point/AI Servo/Surround/Shutter Button AF was active at the moment of exposure. Click on the image to enjoy a a larger version. Image #2: Least Sandpiper elegant near-wing stretch. Image courtesy of and copyright 2017: Patrick Sparkman

Bingo on Patrick’s Killer Calidris Wingstretch!

Creating a perfect shorebird near-wing stretch image is a big challenge. Most of the time, when everything seems perfect, the bird has its head turned away from you. Thanks to noted avian artist and author Julie Zickefoose who let me know that the upward-pointing feather coming out of the middle of the back is a tertial from the stretch (near-) wing, and that the angled feather to the right of that one, the one at a 45 degree angle, is a primary feather from the far wing.

Calidris: a taxonomic genus within the family Scolopacidae that includes the small sandpipers.

Scolopacidae: a family of birds (suborder Charadrii) including the woodcocks, snipes, sandpipers, tattlers, curlews, and godwits.

Charadrii: shorebirds: plovers; sandpipers; avocets; phalaropes; coursers; stone curlews

A Question on Handling the Greens

Notice the striking difference in the green tones of the seaweed. Patrick likes to really juice up the color in his images. Above, my seaweed is a rendered as a much more subdued color. If you wanted to tone down Patrick’s GREENS using a Hue-Saturation adjustment, which color would you desaturate?

Palouse 2016 Horizontals Card

Why Different?

Announcing the 2017 BIRDS AS ART Palouse Instructional Photo-Tour

In what ways will the 2017 BIRDS AS ART Palouse Instructional Photo-Tour be different from the most other Palouse workshops?

There are so many great locations that a seven-day IPT (as opposed to the typical three- or five-day workshops) will give the group time to visit (and revisit) many of the best spots while allowing you to maximize your air travel dollars. In addition, it will allow us to enjoy a slightly more relaxed pace.

You will be assured of being in the right location for the given weather and sky conditions.

You will learn and hone both basic and advanced compositional and image design skills.

You will learn to design powerful, graphic images.

You will visit all of the iconic locations and a few spectacular ones that are much less frequently visited.

You will learn long lens landscape techniques.

You will learn to master any exposure situation in one minute or less.

You will learn the fine points of Canon in-camera (5D Mark III, 5DS R, and 7D II) HDR techniques.

You will learn to create this look in Photoshop from a single image while winding up with a higher quality image file.

You will be able to share a variety of my exotic Canon lenses including the Canon EF 11-24mm f/4L USM lens and the Canon EF 8-15mm f/4L Fisheye USM lens, aka the “circle lens.”

You will learn to use your longest focal lengths to create rolling field and Urbex abstracts.

You will learn when and how to use a variety of neutral density filters to create pleasing blurs of the Palouse’s gorgeous rolling farmlands.

As always, you will learn to see like a pro. You will learn what makes one situation prime and another seemingly similar one a waste of your time.

You will learn to see the situation and to create a variety of top-notch images.

You will learn to use super-wide lenses both for big skies and building interiors.

You will learn when, why, and how to use infrared capture; if you do not own an infrared body, you will get to borrow mine.

You will learn to use both backlight and side-light to create powerful and dramatic landscape images.

You will learn to create the very popular detailed, slightly grungy, slightly over-saturated look in Photoshop.

Palouse 2016 Verticals Card

The 2017 BIRDS AS ART Palouse Instructional Photo-Tour
June 8-14, 2017. Seven full days of photography. Meet and greet at 7:30pm on Wednesday, June 7: $2,499. Limit 10/Openings: 7.

Rolling farmlands provide a magical patchwork of textures and colors, especially when viewed from the top of Steptoe Butte where we will enjoy spectacular sunrises and at least one nice sunset. We will photograph grand landscapes and mini-scenics of the rolling hills and farm fields. I will bring you to more than a few really neat old abandoned barns and farmhouses in idyllic settings. There is no better way to improve your compositional and image design skills and to develop your creativity than to join me for this trip. Photoshop and image sharing sessions when we have the time and energy…. We get up early and stay out late and the days are long.

Over the past three years, with the help of my friend Denise Ippolito, we found all the iconic locations and, in addition, lots of spectacular new old barns and breath-taking landforms and vistas. What’s included: In-the-field instruction, guidance, lessons, and inspiration, my extensive knowledge of the area, all lunches, motel lobby grab and go breakfasts, and Photoshop and image sharing sessions. As above, there will be a meet and greet at 7:30pm on the evening before the workshop begins.

To Sign Up

Your non-refundable deposit of $500 is required to hold your spot. Please let me know via e-mail that you will be joining this IPT. Then you can either call Jim or Jennifer at 863-692-0906 during business hours to arrange for the payment of your deposit; if by check, please make out to “BIRDS AS ART” and mail it to: Arthur Morris/BIRDS AS ART, PO Box 7245, Indian Lake Estates, FL, 33855. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me via e-mail: artie.

Travel Insurance Services offers a variety of plans and options. Included with the Elite Option or available as an upgrade to the Basic & Plus Options. You can also purchase Cancel for Any Reason Coverage that expands the list of reasons for your canceling to include things such as sudden work or family obligation and even a simple change of mind. You can learn more here: Travel Insurance Services. Do note that many plans require that you purchase your travel insurance within 14 days of our cashing your deposit check. Whenever purchasing travel insurance be sure to read the fine print carefully even when dealing with reputable firms like TSI.

Please Remember to use my Affiliate Links and to Visit the New BAA Online Store 🙂

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 New BIRDS AS ART Online Store, especially the Mongoose M3.6 tripod head, Wimberley lens plates, Delkin flash cards and accessories, and LensCoat stuff.

As always, 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 please remember that I am always glad to answer your gear questions via e-mail.

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, and for everything else in the new store, 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 those who will be visiting the New BIRDS AS ART 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 :).