Arthur Morris/BIRDS AS ART

What’s Up?

On Saturday 25 FEB I had a great morning with the Whooper Swans and then relaxed for most of the rest of the day and thought about packing for the trip home 🙂 I will have good internet access every day. I get home late on 28 FEB.

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: 470!

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, 470 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.

These image was created in the harbor at Seahouses, the UK with the hand held Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM lens (at 271mm) with the rugged, blazingly fast Canon EOS-1D X Mark II. ISO 800. Evaluative metering +1/3 stop: 1/640 sec at f/9 in Manual mode. AWB. LensAlign/FocusTune micro-adjustment: -1. Three AF points up from the center AF point/AI Servo Surround/Shutter Button AF as originally framed as is always best when hand holding. Click on the image to see a larger version. Image #1: Ladder

Photographing Stuff: Whatever Catches Your Eye …

You’ve spent an entire day photographing puffins and murres and razorbills and kittiwakes. The boat is headed back to the dock, gliding through the calm waters of Seahouses Harbor. Most folks have long since stowed their photographic gear. But folks who truly love photography not only have their gear at hand, they are actively scanning the harbor for something that catches their eye …

For today’s Image #1, the colors and textures along with the old rusting ladder caught my eye. Framing with the 100-400II was easy. I boosted the colors and added just a touch of grunge effect to achieve the look that I wanted. While I have long been a fan of in-camera HDRs I must finally admit that the image quality of those images is a bit lacking … On the Palouse IPT I will be teaching you how to achieve the HDR look without every going anywhere near an HDR program. In-camera HDRs can be very convenient but the loss of image quality has finally turned me off on creating them.

These image was created in the harbor at Seahouses, the UK with the hand held Canon EF 400mm f/4 DO IS II USM lens and the rugged, blazingly fast Canon EOS-1D X Mark II. ISO 800. Evaluative metering +1/3 stop: 1/1250 sec at f/4 in Manual mode. AWB. LensAlign/FocusTune micro-adjustment: -6. Center AF point/AI Servo Expand/Shutter Button AF as framed as is always best when hand holding. he selected AF point was on the top of the “k. “Click on the image to see a larger version. Insignia on work boat

Bright Colors

While some folks love pinks and pastels and soft colors, bright colors have always been favorites of mine. I had the 400 DO II in my hands on the way back hoping for some flight photography. Once I saw the BK dot 1 insignia painted on the the boat I simply needed to wait for the boat I was sailing on to provide the correct framing, sort of human zooming by watercraft if you would. In any case, once I had the framing that I wanted with the strip of white across the top, I fired off two images.

Your Favorite?

Which if either of today’s featured images floats your boat? Be sure to let us know why.

2017 UK Puffins and Gannets IPT
Monday July 3 through Monday July 10, 2017: $5999: Limit 10 photographers — Openings: 6). Two great leaders: Arthur Morris and BPN co-owner, BPN Photography Gear Forum Moderator, and long-time BAA Webmaster Peter Kes.

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.

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.

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?

We finally had snow on the cranes on the last day of the Japan in Winter ITP, Thursday 23 FEB. Mr. Always Edits Tightly had 214 keeps after the first edit from the morning session only. That was followed up by a great afternoon session. The group flies home tomorrow. I am staying till the 28th.

I prepared this post way back on 23 JAN when I flew to Long Island. My flight to Islip arrived one hour forty minutes late due to weather delays earlier in the day. With a big noreaster hitting Long Island, the last few minutes were a bit rocky. Once we touched down most of the folks on the plane erupted in cheers. Younger daughter Alissa picked me up in fine fashion. I spent most of the next day with my Mom. She does not look a day over 93 3/4. She was 94 in September.

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: 468!

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, 468 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.

This image was created at La Jolla, CA with the Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM lens, the Canon Extender EF 1.4X III (at 520mm) with my very favorite bird photography camera body, the Canon EOS 5D Mark IV. ISO 800. Evaluative metering +2/3 stop: 1/400 sec. at f/9 in Manual mode. Daylight WB. LensAlign/FocusTune micro-adjustment: +4. Middle Large Zone AF/AI Servo/Shutter button AF activated four AF points that fell nicely on the bird’s bill just below and just reaching the bird’s eye. Pacific race Brown Pelican scratching

The Creative Mind: What Would You Do With This Image?

This image puzzled me for about one second. Right off the bat I loved the great look at the bill pouch from below. And the scratching foot was pretty neat as well. The dirt perch was butt ugly and the end of the bill just merged with the dirt. Before you scroll down, think about how you would crop and process it. Or would you delete it?

The Pelican Rig

Without a doubt, the hand held 100-400 II with the 1.4X III TC and a 5D Mark IV is the world’s best rig for photographing Brown Pelicans on the cliffs of La Jolla. It offers ease of handling, tremendous versatility, a great IS system, and amazing close focus. It is lightweight. And for flight photography simply remove the 1.4X. I used this great rig about 80% of the time for my pelican photography in San Diego. And for lots more as well.

Its ease of handling allows me to get around on the cliffs without having to deal with a tripod. The mounds and little hills at the primary pelican location make setting up a tripod a challenge. And it is obviously easier to get very close hand holding than it is with a cumbersome tripod. In addition, quickly getting the proper elevation — higher or lower as need be — is easier as well. All of these factors make it the perfect rig for trying to capture the great variety of pelican behaviors that you will see every day. And those include the notoriously difficult to anticipate and photograph head throws.

My Crop and Optimization of Today’s Featured Image

My Solution

As I loved the great look at the underside of the bill pouch and the scratching foot but did not like the dirty dir perch or the toes of the other foot, a near square crop seemed obvious to me. After converting the image in DPP 4 I brought the image into Photoshop CC I executed my crop and followed my usual workflow: Digital Eye Doctor and Selective Color work first followed by the NIK 25/25 recipe and NeatImage noise reduction. Piece of cake and I love the optimized image.

The key here was realizing what I liked about the original and cropping to include what I liked while eliminating the weaker part of the image.

Everything above (but for Neat Image noise reduction) plus tons more is detailed in the 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. Learn advanced NeatImage noise reduction in the The Professional Post Processing Guide (by Arash Hazeghi and yours truly).

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.

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. To save your spot, please call and put down a non-refundable deposit of $499.00.

I will be offering small group (Limit 3) Photoshop sessions on Sunday afternoon and Monday morning if necessary. Details on that TBA.

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.

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 Red Roof Inn, St. Petersburg: 4999 34th St. North, St Petersburg, FL 33714. The place is clean and quite inexpensive. Please e-mail for room block information. And 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?

After seven straight days of great photography on the Japan in Winter IPT our eagle boat trip out of Rausu on the morning of Tuesday, 21 FEB was a big challenge. We drove three hours through beautiful blowing snow but when we got on the boat we were greeted by wind against sun conditions … We got off the boat and within ten minutes the beautiful blowing snow returned. Talk about bad luck! The boys and girls were quite understanding as we had a fabulous cloudy day on our first trip up there.

I will surely have good internet access every day. I get home late on 28 FEB.

Request 🙂

If I screw up The Streak numbers please let me know.

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: 466!

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, 465 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.

This image was created on the 2016 UK Puffins and Gannets IPT 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. ISO 400. Evaluative metering +2/3 stop: 1/500 sec at f/8 in Manual mode. AWB. LensAlign/FocusTune micro-adjustment: +5. Center AF point (Manual selection)/AI Servo/Shutter Button AF as originally framed was active at the moment of exposure. The selected AF point was on top of the black neck band directly below and right on the same plane as the bird’s eye. Image #1: Atlantic Puffin with bill open

Bird Photography Tip #1

When you are photographing a bird that is posing for you, be patient. Lots of folks have an “I’ve got this picture already so let’s get on to another subject” attitude. By waiting, you will often be rewarded with an open bill, a wing flap or stretch, or by the bird shaking out its feathers. Or with something unexpected and even better. Most any behavior will an image more interesting than one of the bird just sitting there. Be sure, however to create lots of “just portraits” as in the long run, one or two will stand head and shoulders above the rest in a series of similar images due to a variety of factors that might include minute changes in head angle, eye position and/or focus, attitude, light, and many other possible factors.

About a decade and a half ago, I did an article for what was then “Birder’s World” magazine entitled “Go For the Gulls.” I wrote, “If you point your lens at a gull, you will usually not have to wait long for it to do something special.” The same obviously goes for puffins.

These image was created on the 2016 UK Puffins and Gannets IPT with 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) with the rugged, blazingly fast Canon EOS-1D X Mark II. ISO 400. Evaluative metering +2/3 stop: 1/640 sec at f/9 in Manual mode. AWB. LensAlign/FocusTune micro-adjustment: +5. Two AF points up from the center AF point AI Servo/Surround/Shutter Button AF as originally framed was active at the moment of exposure. The selected AF point was on fish just to our right of the tip of the bill, well forward of the plane of the bird’s eyes. Image #2: Atlantic Puffin with fish in bill

Bird Photography Tip #2

Images of birds staring right down the lens barrel can be very powerful. And I mean right down the barrel as in today’s second featured image. At times, if the bird head is turned even a fraction of a degree to one side or the other, the effect is lost. If a bird like a pelican is completely still, you can often move into position to ensure that you get the perfect down the barrel shot. On the other hand, if a bird is turning its head slowly, you should try rapid fire as its head swivels. With luck, you will get one perfect one.

The Stronger Image?

Which is the stronger of today’s two featured images, #1 or #2? Be sure to let us know why you made your choice.

2017 UK Puffins and Gannets IPT
Monday July 3 through Monday July 10, 2017: $5999: Limit 10 photographers — Openings: 6). Two great leaders: Arthur Morris and BPN co-owner, BPN Photography Gear Forum Moderator, and long-time BAA Webmaster Peter Kes.

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.

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.

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?

I am somewhere in Japan. I will likely have good internet access every day. I get home late on 28 FEB.

Please note the correct date (and day of the week) for the Fort DeSoto Spring In-the-Field Cheap Meet-up Workshop (ITFW): the morning of Sunday, April 23, 2017. Scroll down for complete details.

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: 464!

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, 464 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.

This image was created at Fort DeSoto in the spring of 2016 with the hand held Canon EF 400mm f/4 DO IS II USM lens, the Canon Extender EF 2X III, and the rugged, blazingly fast Canon EOS-1D X Mark II. ISO 800. Evaluative metering +1/3 stop as framed: 1/500 sec. at f/9 in Av mode. Daylight WB. Three AF points down and two to the left of the center AF point/AI Servo Surround/Shutter Button AF as framed was active at the moment of exposure (as is always best when hand holding). The selected AF point was just above and to the right of the squirrel’s eye. Click on the image to see a larger version. LensAlign/FocusTune micro-adjustment: +5. Eastern Gray Squirrel on tree

Right Place, Right Time, Right Lens, 2X TC, Right Camera Body, Right Squirrel…

The group was walking back to the vehicles after a good morning session. I had just finished saying that although there were lots of tame squirrels in the picnic area and I had tried dozens of times, I did not have a single good image of these small, furry, gray and brown mammals. I had raised the rear hatch of my Sequoia when this guy popped down the tree. I moved the AF point and fired off two images thinking “That was a pretty cool pose.”

Lucky me.

Photoshop Question

Where was the fairly large dark area in the background that merged a bit with the subject? I actually attempted to remove it months ago without leaving much evidence but failed pretty miserably. I tried again late on the afternoon of Thursday 9 FEB in our Tokyo hotel. How did I do?

Why Av Mode?

Whenever I am just walking along with a rig in my hand I try to remember to set Av mode instead of Manual mode. Why? Not knowing what I might encounter in what situation in the shade of in bright sun, I like to be in Av mode so that I can act quickly by just dialing in the correct EC. That technique worked quite well here as I dialed in +1/3 stop and fired off two quick shots … If I had been in Manual mode it is very likely that I would have needed to make a lot more than two clicks.

400 DO Versatility

Both the old and the new versions of the Canon 400mm DO lenses are extremely versatile a they can be combined with either the 1.4X or 2X teleconverters to produce sharp images. With a full frame body you have effective focal lengths of 400, 560, and 800mms. With the 7D II or any of the older 1.6X crop factor bodies you would be working with 560, 784, or 1280mm! And for most folks, the 400 DO lenses are eminently hand holdable. The Series II 400 DO is a bit sharper than the older version. Do understand that the older version is a lot sharper than most photographers …

Your New “Old 400 DO” ???

Used Canon EF 400mm f/4 IS DO Lens

Yet Another Lowest-ever BAA Price!

IPT veteran Kerry Morris is offering a used Used Canon EF 400mm f/4 IS DO lens in very good plus condition for the record low BAA price of $2099. There are some small scratches and paint chips on the lens body and tripod ring and the lens hood has a few small scratches as well. The sale includes the rear lens cap, the lens trunk, the original soft front lens cover, the lens hood, the 4th Generation Designs CP-42 Custom Lens Plate (with the wrenches and the original packing–a $92 value) and insured UPS or FEDEX ground shipping to US addresses only. Your item will not ship until your check clears unless other arrangements are made.

Please contact Kerry via e-mail or by phone at 818-998-7470 or 818-634-2387 (Pacific time).

I used this lens for several years with great success, especially for birds in flight and while working from various type of water craft. In addition, it would make a great prime super-telephoto lens for folks with a 7D II. The twice honored Gannets in Love was created with the 400 DO. You can see that one and 13 other killer images that I made with my old 400 DO here. The title of that blog post is “The Canon 400mm f/4 IS DO Lens: Fourteen Images that Prove that the Internet Experts are Idiots.” Kerry’s lens is priced to sell. artie

Canon EF 400m f/4 IS DO Telephoto Lens, the “old 400 DO”

Owen Peller is offering a Canon EF 400m f/4 IS DO telephoto lens, the “old 400 DO,” in like-new condition for $2,299. The sale includes the rear lens cap, the lens trunk, the strap, the original soft front lens cover (that has a problem with the drawstring), the lens hood, and insured UPS or FEDEX ground shipping to US addresses only. Your item will not ship until your check clears unless other arrangements are made.

rear cap, strap and the original lens case Canon 400 B.

Please contact Owen via e-mail or by phone at 954-882-1480 (Eastern time).

I used this lens for several years with great success, especially for birds in flight and while working from various type of water craft. In addition, it would make a great prime super-telephoto lens for folks with a 7D II. The twice major contest-honored “Gannets in Love” was created with the 400 DO. You can see that one and 13 other killer images that I made with my old 400 DO here. The title of that blog post is “The Canon 400mm f/4 IS DO Lens: Fourteen Images that Prove that the Internet Experts are Idiots.” Owen’s pristine lens is priced to sell. artie

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. To save your spot, please call and put down a non-refundable deposit of $499.00.

I will be offering small group (Limit 3) Photoshop sessions on Sunday afternoon and Monday morning if necessary. Details on that TBA.

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.

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 Red Roof Inn, St. Petersburg: 4999 34th St. North, St Petersburg, FL 33714. The place is clean and quite inexpensive. Please e-mail for room block information. And 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 Thursday, February 16, we spent a great day with the Whooper Swans and ate too many Ramen noodles. I will likely have good internet access every day. I get home late on 28 FEB.

Please note the correct date (and day of the week) for the Fort DeSoto Spring In-the-Field Cheap Meet-up Workshop (ITFW): the morning of Sunday, April 23, 2017. Scroll down for complete details.

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: 462!

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, 462 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.

This image was created at Fort DeSoto in the spring of 2016 with the hand held Canon EF 400mm f/4 DO IS II USM lens, the Canon Extender EF 2X III, and the rugged, blazingly fast Canon EOS-1D X Mark II. ISO 800. Evaluative metering +1/3 stop as framed: 1/1000 sec. at f/9. Four AF points up from the center AF point/AI Servo Surround/Shutter Button AF as framed was active at the moment of exposure (as is always best when hand holding). The selected AF point was just below the base of the bill, right on the same plane as the bird’s eye. Click on the image to see a larger version. Laughing Gull, breeding plumage, vertical head and shoulders portrait

Underappreciated

Make no bones about it, Laughing Gull in breeding plumage is a stunning bird. Gulls as a group are underappreciated by most folks. And because they are so common many birders and even bird photographers neglect to take a close look at them. For me the combination of snowy white underparts, the jet-black hood, the white eye crescents, and the wine-red bill and legs is quite beautiful. This bird even seems to show a hint of pink on the breast as I saw in two of the gull species thats photographed in South America. The Franklin’s Gulls — a species that nests on North American prairies, were coming into breeding plumage. And we saw more than a few Brown-hooded Gulls in full breeding plumage with a very pronounced pinkish cast on their breasts. Though all three species are quite similar, Franklin’s Gull is more closely related to Laughing Gull than it is to Brown-hooded.

I will be sharing images of both breeding plumage Brown-hooded Gulls and of Franklin’s Gulls molting into breeding plumage in future blog posts.

Head and Shoulders and Vertical Front-end Portraits

Learn the fine points of creating head and shoulders and vertical front-end portraits in the section on Advanced Composition and Image Design in The Art of Bird Photography II (ABP II: 916 pages, 900+ images on CD only).

400 DO Versatility

Both the old and the new versions of the Canon 400mm DO lenses are extremely versatile a they can be combined with either the 1.4X or 2X teleconverters to produce sharp images. With a full frame body you have effective focal lengths of 400, 560, and 800mms. With the 7D II or any of the older 1.6X crop factor bodies you would be working with 560, 784, or 1280mm! And for most folks, the 400 DO lenses are eminently hand holdable. The Series II 400 DO is a bit sharper than the older version. Do understand that the older version is a lot sharper than most photographers …

Your New “Old 400 DO” ???

Used Canon EF 400mm f/4 IS DO Lens

Yet Another Lowest-ever BAA Price!

IPT veteran Kerry Morris is offering a used Used Canon EF 400mm f/4 IS DO lens in very good plus condition for the record low BAA price of $2099. There are some small scratches and paint chips on the lens body and tripod ring and the lens hood has a few small scratches as well. The sale includes the rear lens cap, the lens trunk, the original soft front lens cover, the lens hood, the 4th Generation Designs CP-42 Custom Lens Plate (with the wrenches and the original packing–a $92 value) and insured UPS or FEDEX ground shipping to US addresses only. Your item will not ship until your check clears unless other arrangements are made.

Please contact Kerry via e-mail or by phone at 818-998-7470 or 818-634-2387 (Pacific time).

I used this lens for several years with great success, especially for birds in flight and while working from various type of water craft. In addition, it would make a great prime super-telephoto lens for folks with a 7D II. The twice honored Gannets in Love was created with the 400 DO. You can see that one and 13 other killer images that I made with my old 400 DO here. The title of that blog post is “The Canon 400mm f/4 IS DO Lens: Fourteen Images that Prove that the Internet Experts are Idiots.” Kerry’s lens is priced to sell. artie

Canon EF 400m f/4 IS DO Telephoto Lens, the “old 400 DO”

Owen Peller is offering a Canon EF 400m f/4 IS DO telephoto lens, the “old 400 DO,” in like-new condition for $2,299. The sale includes the rear lens cap, the lens trunk, the strap, the original soft front lens cover (that has a problem with the drawstring), the lens hood, and insured UPS or FEDEX ground shipping to US addresses only. Your item will not ship until your check clears unless other arrangements are made.

rear cap, strap and the original lens case Canon 400 B.

Please contact Owen via e-mail or by phone at 954-882-1480 (Eastern time).

I used this lens for several years with great success, especially for birds in flight and while working from various type of water craft. In addition, it would make a great prime super-telephoto lens for folks with a 7D II. The twice major contest-honored “Gannets in Love” was created with the 400 DO. You can see that one and 13 other killer images that I made with my old 400 DO here. The title of that blog post is “The Canon 400mm f/4 IS DO Lens: Fourteen Images that Prove that the Internet Experts are Idiots.” Owen’s pristine lens is priced to sell. artie

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. To save your spot, please call and put down a non-refundable deposit of $499.00.

I will be offering small group (Limit 3) Photoshop sessions on Sunday afternoon and Monday morning if necessary. Details on that TBA.

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.

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 Red Roof Inn, St. Petersburg: 4999 34th St. North, St Petersburg, FL 33714. The place is clean and quite inexpensive. Please e-mail for room block information. And 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?

I am somewhere in Japan. I will likely have good internet access every day. I get home late on 28 FEB.

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: 460!

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, 460 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.

This image was created at Gatorland with the hand held Fujifilm XF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 R LM OIS WR lens, the Fujifilm XF 1.4x TC WR teleconverter (at 560mm effective 840mm) and the Fujifilm X-T2 Mirrorless Digital Camera equipped with the Fujifilm VPB-XT2 Vertical Power Booster Grip. ISO 800. Pattern metering +1/3 stop: 1/160 sec. at f/8 in Manual mode. AWB. Shutter Button Continuous Autofocus. Additional AF information is unavailable. Great Egret on nest backlit/this JPEG represents the original image as it came out of the camera

De-haze Revisited …

Check out the flat, foggy-looking original file above. Images like this scream out for the use of the De-haze filter in Photoshop. If you do your RAW conversions in ACR it is best to apply De-haze during the RAW conversion. It is the first item in under the Effects tab. If you convert elsewhere (as I almost always do with my Canon CR2 {RAW} files) you can access De-haze by first going Filter > Camera RAW Filter and then proceeding as above.

Either way experiment with the slider by moving it to the right while being careful not to overdo it. The De-haze filter will quickly be your best friend especially when you are processing images made on a foggy day. Scroll down to see the optimized image.

The Optimized Image

The Optimized Image

In addition to using the De-haze filter during the RAW conversion of this Fujifilm RAC image in ACR, I worked large and eliminated the distracting white feather above and to the left of the bird’s head using Divide and Conquer techniques with the Clone Stamp and Patch Tools. In addition I used a series of small Quick Masks that were refined with Regular Layer Masks. Furthermore I boosted the Vibrance a bit.

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.

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.

Comments on the Image Capture

I was originally attracted to this scene by the early morning backlight especially on the bushes. Backlit scenes often give AF systems a hard time even with Canon gear. The Fujifilm AF system here was totally baffled by the backlight; I created about 70 images of this bird both standing still and displaying. One was acceptably sharp. I would have done much better had I properly been on a tripod and had I been using an higher ISO and thus a faster shutter speed. That said, most of the problems seemed to come from poor focus rather than from motion blur.

Great Egrets in breeding plumage are a beautiful sight …

Gatorland Mini-IPT: 1 1/2 days: AM and PM shooting sessions on Saturday, March 4 and a morning session on Sunday, March 5: $749. Limit 6/Openings 4.

Join me in Kissimmee, FL in early March, prime time to to photograph Great Egrets in breeding plumage. We should get to make lots of head portraits with most any lens and to photograph them building nests, displaying, copulating, and flying. Eggs for sure. Tiny chicks likely. And most likely breeding Wood Storks as well. Learn to see, find, and make the shot in cluttered settings. Learn exposure and how to handle the WHITEs. Learn fill flash and flash as main light. Includes a working lunch on me on Saturday with image review and Photoshop. We may see and photograph some early Snowy Egrets and Tricolored Herons. And of course, we will see and photograph the captive American Alligators. All of the birds are free and wild.

To pay 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. Early entry both mornings and late stay on Saturday.

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?

Our last visit to the Monkey Park, my last ever, was my best ever, by far. Eight inches of fresh snow on the ground along with falling snow. And we ended off with several monkeys eating cedar branches in the snow. It was a totally amazing day. Despite losing many images to a single large out-of-focus snowflake in the wrong spot, I kept 169 images on the first edit. I will surely be sharing lots of them here with you over time.

I will likely continue to have good internet access every day. I get home late on 28 FEB.

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: 458!

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, 458 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.

This image was created at Gatorland while standing on an empty milk crate with the hand held Fujifilm XF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 R LM OIS WR lens with the Fujifilm XF 2x TC WR Teleconverter (at 602.2mm–effective 900 something mm) with the Fujifilm X-T2 Mirrorless Digital Camera Body with the Power Booster Grip. ISO 800. Pattern metering +2/3 stop as framed: 1/800 sec. at f/13 in Manual mode. AWB. Shutter Button Continuous Autofocus. Additional AF information is unavailable.

Gatorland Abstract

I was standing atop my plastic milk crate trying to acquire and maintain focus at effective 1200mm on a mostly all-white bird with my Fuji rig. It was not an easy task. I could never figure out how to pre-focus manually with the Fuji system. If it is possible and you know how to do it please do share. If it is not possible, that would be a big negative as I know that if I could have pre-focused manually that 9 times out of 1o the AF system would at least have had a decent chance …

What Is It?

If you think that you know what we are looking at, please leave a comment.

Image Questions

What do you think caught my eye?

Would you have seen this image? Why or why not?

If you did see it, would you have pulled the trigger? Why or why not?

Great Egrets in breeding plumage are a beautiful sight …

Gatorland Mini-IPT: 1 1/2 days: AM and PM shooting sessions on Saturday, March 4 and a morning session on Sunday, March 5: $749. Limit 6/Openings 4.

Join me in Kissimmee, FL in early March, prime time to to photograph Great Egrets in breeding plumage. We should get to make lots of head portraits with most any lens and to photograph them building nests, displaying, copulating, and flying. Eggs for sure. Tiny chicks likely. And most likely breeding Wood Storks as well. Learn to see, find, and make the shot in cluttered settings. Learn exposure and how to handle the WHITEs. Learn fill flash and flash as main light. Includes a working lunch on me on Saturday with image review and Photoshop. We may see and photograph some early Snowy Egrets and Tricolored Herons. And of course, we will see and photograph the captive American Alligators. All of the birds are free and wild.

To pay 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. Early entry both mornings and late stay on Saturday.

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 :).

Stuff

We totally lucked out with the Snow Monkeys on our first afternoon; can you say snow? And best of all, more snow is in the forecast for today. I will likely have good internet access every day while I am in Japan. I get home late on 28 FEB.

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: 456

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, 456 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.

This image was created near my home at Indian Lake Estates, FL with the hand held the Fujifilm XF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 R LM OIS WR lens, the Fujifilm XF 1.4x TC WR teleconverter, and the Fujifilm X-T2 Mirrorless Digital Camera equipped with the Fujifilm VPB-XT2 Vertical Power Booster Grip. ISO 800. Evaluative metering +1/3 stop: 1/800 sec. at f/7.4 in Manual mode. AWB. Shutter Button Continuous Autofocus. Additional AF information is unavailable. Sandhill Crane on hill 🙂

Fujifilm Gear AF Frustration at Times …

I went down to the lake near my home and the morning of 2 FEB with my Fujifilm gear. I had several good opportunities. The best was with a group of cranes on a small hill in early morning light. For a while, everything worked well. Then, for no reason at all, the system would not focus. I’d have the active AF sensor (just one selected) right on the bird and and pretty much nothing. The box would light up green but only for a fraction of a second and then go back to grey. When I pressed the shutter button the camera would not fire. I do have it set not to fire unless the image is accurately focused. The problem was that it simply would not hold focus. A minute later all would be fine again.

Most days it works just fine. One day about two weeks ago it would go for minutes without focusing — the green AF box did not light up at all. The next day it was fine. When photographing the pelicans in San Diego there were times when the camera would not focus when I had one of the outer sensors selected. If I moved the AF box in toward the sensor, the system worked fine. At times I am left wondering if I am doing something wrong or if I have a wrong setting. Then everything starts working fine again … In general when the system acquires focus it holds beautifully and always produces sharp images.

Several times on the morning in question one bird would start to dance or two birds would begin to squabble. I’d reframe and attempt to focus but the chances of the system focusing fast enough were between slim and none. Thus, getting a sharp image with the Fujifilm AF system with the 1.4X TC in place was pretty much a hopeless endeavor. Perhaps if I had not had the TC on or perhaps if I were more familiar with the AF system I would have done better. But my gut feeling is that photographing birds in action and birds and flight with the Fujifilm gear will be a huge challenge. I have made a few decent flight images with the Fujifilm gear.

Please Note

For static subject the rig featured in today’s blog post is quite good. At some point in the not-too-distant future I will do a full evaluation of the a href=”https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1210897-REG/fujifilm_16501109_xf_100_400mm_f_4_5_5_6_r.html/BI/6633/KBID/7226/kw/FU10040045/DFF/d10-v2-t1-xFU10040045″ target=”_blank”>Fujifilm XF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 R LM OIS WR lens, the Fujifilm XF 1.4x TC WR teleconverter, and the Fujifilm X-T2 Mirrorless Digital Camera equipped with the Fujifilm VPB-XT2 Vertical Power Booster Grip for bird photography along with a point by point comparison to the Canon 1D Mark IV and the 100-400 II.

At present there is no software that I know of that can show you the selected AF point.

Your Experience

If you are currently using the Fujifilm X-T2 Mirrorless Digital Camera I would love to hear of your experience with the AF system. Please be sure to let us know what lens you are using with and whether or not you are using it with a TC. Many tanks.

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. To save your spot, please call and put down a non-refundable deposit of $499.00.

I will be offering small group (Limit 3) Photoshop sessions on Sunday afternoon and Monday morning if necessary. Details on that TBA.

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.

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 Red Roof Inn, St. Petersburg: 4999 34th St. North, St Petersburg, FL 33714. The place is clean and quite inexpensive. Please e-mail for room block information. And 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 April 22, 2017: $99

Join me on the morning of April 22, 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 :).

Stuff

On Thursday in the Keio Plaza Hotel in Tokyo I enjoyed a day of resting comfortably, catching up on jet-lag, exercising, and stock-piling blog posts. I should have good internet access every day from now until the end of the trip. I get home late on the last day of February.

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: 454

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, 454 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.

Left is A. Right is B.

…..

Left is C. Right is D.

Editing and Head Angle Practice with Four Willet Images

1: Which image has the worst head angle?

2: Which two images have perfect head angles?

3: Which two images would you delete?

4: Which do you think is the strongest image? Please let us know why you made your choice.

Please remember that the more folks join the fun the more everyone learns. Including you. And me.

Willets are silly tame at Fort DeSoto in all seasons and in spring they are looking their best in breeding plumage. A few pairs actually breed in the park. See details on the Fort DeSoto Spring IPT immediately below.

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. To save your spot, please call and put down a non-refundable deposit of $499.00.

I will be offering small group (Limit 3) Photoshop sessions on Sunday afternoon and Monday morning if necessary. Details on that TBA.

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.

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 Red Roof Inn, St. Petersburg: 4999 34th St. North, St Petersburg, FL 33714. The place is clean and quite inexpensive. Please e-mail for room block information. And 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 April 22, 2017: $99

Join me on the morning of April 22, 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 :).

Safe and Sound in Tokyo

I woke on Tuesday morning in the hotel by Orlando Airport at 3:40am. My flight to LAX took off a bit after 6:00am and arrived in LA a bit early. My outbound gate (41) was only a five minute walk from Gate 49 where we landed. I hung out in the Admirals Club for a few hours and at 11:35am we were on our way to Tokyo. The flight was the shortest 10 1/2 hour flight ever. I was engrossed in several movies the best of which was “The Accountant.” I was confused for a bit but near the end it all came together. It’s amazing what an autistic child can accomplish … I was quite happy to just get to see the ending of my second favorite movie, “Everybody’s Fine” starring Robert Di Niro. Again, the subject matter hit home.

Before I knew it we had landed at Tokyo’s Narita. It was a good walk to customs but there was no line at all. When I got to carousel B2 my bags were the first out. I grabbed them, found the bus counter, and at 4:48 Tokyo time bought my ticket for the 5:00pm bus. I was in my room at the Keio Plaza hotel at 5:50pm which is 3:50am in Florida, both on Wednesday 8 FEB.

It would be hard to imagine a more perfect travel experience. I forgot to mention that I slept about 20 minutes on the LAX/Narita leg so as I type at 7:47pm Tokyo time, it feels like I am home just about getting ready to hit the sack. I am hoping that I sleep past 3am 🙂