I am somewhere in South America. Actually, I arrived in Santiago a bit early at 7:10am. I slept more on the redeye flight than I ever have before. That said, I arrived exhausted and will be resting up for two full days before heading to the Falklands for a week with three wonderful clients.
I hope that you are well. Jim and Jen are at the office most days to help you with your mail order needs and Instructional Photo-Tour sign-ups. I still need folks for San Diego, Japan, Galapagos, the Palouse, and the Bear Boat (Grizzly Cubs) trips. Among others 🙂 Please e-mail for couples and discount info for all of the above. Click here for complete IPT info.
I will have relatively decent internet access for all but 22 OCT thru 11 NOV while I am on the Sea Spirit. Best and great picture making, artie
Gear Questions and Advice
Too many folks attending IPTs and dozens of the 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: 335!
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, 335 days in a row with a new educational blog post. There should be no end in sight until my big South America trip next fall. Or not… As always-–and folks have been doing a really great job recently–-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 new BAA Online Store (as noted in red at the close of this post below) we would appreciate your business.
65-point Automatic Selection/AI Servo/Rear Focus AF as framed was active at the moment of exposure (as is always best when hand holding). I selected an array of five AF points about half way down the lower mandible. Click here to see the latest version of the Rear Focus Tutorial. Click on the image to see a larger version.
Brown Pelican scissors preening
Pelican Scissors Preening Perfection
The single most important factor having to do with the success of pelican scissors preening images is the orientation of the plane of the bird’s bill to the back of the camera. In today’s featured image that orientation is perfect with the plane of the bird’s bill 100% parallel to the imaging sensor. The second thing you are looking for is for the bill to be fully open. That’s another bingo for today’s featured image.
Image Optimization and MP4 Video News
My big concern here was the shade of the blue water background. It was a bit green in the converted TIFF. On the morning of Tuesday September 13 I made up my mind to teach or re-teach myself Camtasia so that I could begin creating lots of new MP-4 post processing videos. Many folks have asked what happened to them. I switched to Mac. The good news is that Camtasia for Mac is actually easier than it was with Windows. I viewed a few tutorials and was good to go.
What was to be the first new tutorial but is now the second is called Pelican Scissors Preening. It covers the DPP 4 conversion, two methods of eliminating color casts–neither one of which works but that’s how it goes with color casts. On my third try, a Selective Color adjustment did the trick. Also covered are making, feathering, and saving a selection with the Quick Selection Took, my NIK Color EFEX Pro 4 25/25 recipe, and the basics of NeatImage noise reduction as detailed in the Professional Guide to Post Processing; some folks learn a lot better better by seeing than by reading. In addition you will pick up lots of my workflow and Photoshop tips along the way.
The cost of this nearly 34 minute long Pelican Scissors Preening MP-4 video is $10. You can oder your copy in the BAA Online store here. You can see the older video offerings here. You can order them through the store and pay via Paypal if you wish.
Mike Liked It!
From Mike Ross via a comment on the blog:
I just purchased and watched the Killdeer ISO 6400 MP4 Video. Best $10 I have spent on photography training! Highly recommended.
San Diego offers a wealth of very attractive natural history subjects. With annual visits spanning more than three decades I have lot of experience there….
2017 San Diego 4 1/2-DAY BIRDS AS ART Instructional Photo-Tour (IPT) JAN 11 thru and including the morning session on JAN 15: 4 1/2 days: $1999.
(Limit: 10/openings 8)
Meet and Greet at 7:00pm on the evening before the IPT begins; Tuesday 1/10/17.
Join me in San Diego to photograph the spectacular breeding plumage Brown Pelicans with their fire-engine red and olive green bill pouches; Brandt’s and Double-crested Cormorants; breeding plumage Wood and Ring-necked Duck; other duck species possible including Lesser Scaup, Redhead, and Surf Scoter; a variety of gulls including Western, California, and the gorgeous Heerman’s, all in full breeding plumage; shorebirds including Marbled Godwit, Willet, Sanderling and Black-bellied Plover; many others possible including Least, Western, and Spotted Sandpiper, Whimbrel, Black and Ruddy Turnstone, Semipalmated Plover, and Surfbird; Harbor Seals (depending on the current regulations) and California Sea Lions; and Bird of Paradise flowers. And as you can see by studying the two IPT cards there are some nice bird-scape and landscape opportunities as well.
With gorgeous subjects just sitting there waiting to have their pictures taken, photographing the pelicans on the cliffs is about as easy as nature photography gets. With the winds from the east almost every morning there is usually some excellent flight photography. And the pelicans are almost always doing something interesting: preening, scratching, bill pouch cleaning, or squabbling. And then there are those crazy head throws that are thought to be a form of intra-flock communication.
Did I mention that there are wealth of great birds and natural history subjects in San Diego in winter?
Though the pelicans will be the stars of the show on this IPT there will be many other handsome and captivating subjects in wonderful settings.
The San Diego Details
This IPT will include five 3 1/2 hour morning photo sessions, four 2 1/2 hour afternoon photo sessions, four lunches, and after-lunch image review and Photoshop sessions. To ensure early starts, breakfasts will be your responsibility.
A $599 non-refundable deposit is required to hold your slot for this IPT. You can send a check (made out to “Arthur Morris) to us at BIRDS AS ART, PO Box 7245, Indian Lake Estates, FL, 33855. Or call Jim or Jennifer at the office with a credit card at 863-692-0906. Your balance, payable only by check, will be due on 9/11//2016. 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. Please print, complete, and sign the form that is linked to here and shoot it to us along with your deposit check. If you register by phone, please print, complete and sign the form as noted above and either mail it to us or e-mail the scan. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me via e-mail.
Please Remember to use my Affiliate Links and to Visit the New BAA Online Store 🙂
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 we are 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 we, 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 🙂
It is 2:16pm on WED 12 OCT as we head out of Indian Lake Estates. Jim is driving me to the Orlando Airport for my 6pm flight to MIA and my red-eye flight tonight to SCL. I am scheduled to arrive in Santiago, Chile on Thursday morning at 7:35.am.
If you consider that exactly six days ago almost to the minute I was waking up from having my gall bladder surgically removed I would say that it is quite remarkable that I am on my way. BTW, reading the clinical report of my surgery was a very weird experience; it was like reading the instructions on how to assemble a plastic model aircraft carrier except for the fact that they were talking about cutting into my abdomen!Speaking of which my incisions are all at the itchy/grabby stage. All are healing beautifully and today is the first day that I even noticed them.
After getting to bed early on Tuesday night–before 8:30pm–I was up and packing at 4:15am today. As a diabetic who takes must enough needles and test strips , and supplements, a long trip like this requires lots of planning and preparation. I am pretty sure that I got everything done. As I will be in the snow on South Georgia Island and the cloud forest of Peru, I needed to take lots of different clothing as well. Here is the final tally: 2 check spinner bags at 49 3/4 and 50 pounds. One small duffle bag at 36 pounds. My Think Tank bag weighed in at a svelte 43 1/2 pounds. What fun I will have with the gate agents. As most of my flights are up front, I am good for 3 checked bags …
Anyway, it was an exhausting day of packing and it feels good to be on my way. I will be resting in the hotel all day on Thursday while the three folks on the Falklands land-based pre-trip are going up into the mountains to photograph condors … It will not be too hard to restrain myself.
Best and great picture-making to all, artie
The Tale of the Scale
When I left home in mid-July, I weighed in at 182, my fighting weight. After eating eight jars of various “healthy” nut butters on my 5-week Long Island trip, I weighed 188 3/4 my first morning after getting back home. Yikes! This morning I tipped the scales at 181 1/2, my weight loss efforts aided somewhat by my surgery. I hope to get back home under 180 … I will do my best to eat well and to take care of myself and my blood glucose levels. My last A1C was 54.
Good news. I am heading to South America with bells on this afternoon, Wednesday OCT 12, 2016.
Gear Questions and Advice
Too many folks attending BAA IPTs and dozens of the 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: 334!
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, 334 days in a row with a new educational blog post. There should be no end in sight until my big South America trip next fall. Or not… As always-–and folks have been doing a really great job recently–-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 new BAA Online Store (as noted in red at the close of this post below) we would appreciate your business.
I selected a single AF point three to the left of the center AF point (Manual selection)/AI Servo/Shutter Button AF as originally framed was active at the moment of exposure. The selected AF point fell just about on the middle of the bird’s bill; see the DPP 4 screen capture below.
LensAlign/FocusTune micro-adjustment: -1
Short-billed Dowitcher in basic plumage preening
Why I Love My 5D Mark IV
1: The newly developed 30.4MP full-frame CMOS sensor paired with a DIGIC 6+ image processor that balances fine detail and resolution with low-light performance is, in my words, beyond incredible. It produces the cleanest image files I have ever seen. Check out the virtually noise-free sky blue, smooth as a baby’s tush background in the 100% crop below. And with the vast improvements in the imaging sensor, the fine detail in the 5D IV’s 30mp files is comparable to the 50mp files from the 5DS R.
2- Because I routinely use the 2X III TC with a variety of f/4 super-telephoto lenses, the fact that the 5D IV offers all AF points and all AF Area Selection Modes at f/8 is a huge plus for me over the 5DS R. And the same goes for the 100-400II/1.4X III combo.
3- Crop-ability. Because of its large, high quality image files, sharp 5D Mark IV images can stand up well to relatively large crops (as seen with today’s featured image).
4- 7 frames per second.
5- An improved AF system that does not require much of a learning curve for those familiar with previous Canon DSLRs. Best of all, AF with the 2X III TC is fast and sure and accurate.
6- As compared to the EOS-1D X Mark II, Canon’s blazingly fast flagship body, the 5D IV offers lighter weight and lower cost. Not to mention far superior image quality.
7- The high ISO performance of the 5D IV at least rivals that of the vaunted high ISO king, the EOS-1D X Mark II. Control of fixed pattern noise with the 5D Mark IV is outstanding.
With the pixels on the 5D IV packed less densely than the pixels on the 5DS R, unsharpness due to gear shake and subject movement are no longer exacerbated as they were with the 5DS R. In fact, the sharp images with my 5D Mark IV are sharper than anything I have ever done before; they seem to leap off the display of my Macbook Pro with Retina Display.
The Actual Weights
With a Delkin 64gb e-film Pro Compact Flash card in each body, these are the weights:
5D Mark IV alone with one battery: 2 pounds
5D Mark IV with the battery grip and two batteries: 3 pounds, 1/2 ounce.
1DX Mark II: 3 pounds, 6.5 ounces.
The crazy thing is that even though the 5D IV with the grip and the extra battery weighs only six ounces less than the 1DX II, the 1DX II seems at least a pound heavier because of its much larger size and bulk. The 5D IV is much smaller physically yet fits beautifully in my hand with or without the grip.
Summing Up/Case Closed…
In mid-September, I sold both of my 5DS R bodies and purchased two 5D Mark IV bodies. I envision using the 1D X Mark II for bird photography only in pure flight situations where its faster frame rate is somewhat of an advantage. And as an expensive back-up body.
If…
If what you read here on the blog today or in previous blog posts inspires you to purchase a Canon EOS 5D Mark IV, please consider using my B&H affiliate link for your purchase. Doing so will not cost you a penny and is a great way to thank me for my efforts here on the blog and the time spent answering your gear and photography related e-mails.
The DPP 4 Screen Capture
The DPP 4 Screen Capture
With the cursor on the whitest part of the belly when I made the screen capture, note the very nice RGB values: 235, 235, 227, despite that fact that the image looks a bit under-exposed on the histogram. Note the illuminated red square showing both the selected AF point and the fact that is was active at the moment of exposure. As noted above, having all AF points (and all AF Area Selection modes) available at f/8 is a huge plus especially for me because I use the 2X TC so often. Those with good eyes can see that I increased the exposure 1/6 stop (+.17) via the Brightness slider and that I moved the color Fine Tune three notches to the left toward blue. I have been utilizing the color Fine Tune control more and more lately.
A 100% crop of the master TIFF file
A 100% Crop of the Master TIFF File
Whaddya think? The fine feather detail looks excellent to me but it is the smoothness of the background–without any noise reduction other than the noise reduction during the DPP 4 RAW conversion, that blows me away. Check out the tiny feathers on the top of the head. And all that with the 2X III TC…
The 5D Mark IV and Bears…
With so many bears having dark fur, the 5D IV would seem to be the best-ever bear boat camera body… I will, however, have to wait a while to experience that. Scroll down if you would like to join me in Alaska.
Images and card copyright Arthur Morris/BEARS AS ART 🙂
2017 Bear Boat Coastal Brown Bear Cubs IPTs: July 18-24, 2017 from Kodiak, AK: 5 FULL & 2 Half DAYS: $6699. Happy campers only! Maximum 8/Openings 3.
Join me in spectacular Katmai National Park, AK for six days of photographing Coastal Brown Bears. Mid-July is prime time for making images of small, football-sized cubs. The cubs, and these dates, are so popular that I had to reserve them three years in advance to secure them. There are lots of bears each year in June, but the mothers only rarely risk bringing their tiny cubs out in the open in fear of predation by rival bears. In addition to making portraits of both adults and cubs, we hope to photograph frolicking and squabbling youngsters and tender nursing scenes. At this time of year, the bears are either grazing in luxuriant grass or clamming. There will also be some two- and three-year old cubs to add to the fun. And we will get to photograph it all.
We will live on our tour operator’s luxurious new boat. At 78 feet long its 24 foot beam makes it quite spacious as well. And the food is great. We will likely spend most of our time at famed Geographic Harbor as that is where the bears are generally concentrated in summer. On the odd chance that we do need to relocate to another location we can do so quickly and easily without having to venture into any potentially rough seas. We land via a 25 foot skiff that has lots of room for as much gear as we can carry.
Aside from the bears we should get to photograph Horned and Tufted Puffin and should get nice stuff on Mew Gull, Glaucous-winged Gull, Black-legged Kittiwake, Harbor Seal, and Steller’s Sea Lion as well. A variety of tundra-nesting shorebirds including Western Sandpiper and both yellowlegs are also possible. Halibut fishing (license required/not included) is optional.
It is mandatory that you be in Kodiak no later than the late afternoon of July 17 to avoid missing the float planes to the boat on the morning of July 18. Again, with air travel in Alaska (or anywhere else for that matter) subject to possible delays, being on Kodiak on July 16 is a much better plan.
Barring any delays, we will get to photograph bears on our first afternoon and then again every day for the next five days after that, all weather permitting of course. On our last morning on the boat, July 24, those who would like to enjoy one last photo session will have the opportunity to do so. The group will return to Kodiak via float plane from late morning through midday. Most folks will then fly to Anchorage and to continue on red-eye flights to their home cities.
What’s included? 7 DAYS/6 NIGHTS on the boat as above. All meals on the boat. National Park and guide fees. In-the-field photo tips, instruction, and guidance. An insight into the mind of two top professionals; we will constantly let you know what we are thinking, what we are doing, and why we are doing it. Small group image review, image sharing, and informal Photoshop instruction on the boat.
What’s not included: Your round trip airfare to and from Kodiak, AK (almost surely through Anchorage). Your lodging and meals on Kodiak. The cost of the round-trip float plane to the boat and then back to Kodiak as above. The cost of a round trip last year was $550. The suggested crew tip of $200.
Have you ever walked with the bears?
Is this an expensive trip? Yes, of course. But with 5 full and two half days, a wealth of great subjects, and the fact that you will be walking with the bears just yards away (or less….), it will be one of the great natural history experiences of your life. Most folks who take part in a Bear Boat IPT wind up coming back for more.
A $2,000 per person non-refundable deposit by check only made out to “BIRDS AS ART” is required to hold your spot. Please click here to read our cancellation policies. Then please print, read, and sign the necessary paperwork here and send it to us by mail to PO Box 7245, Indian Lake Estates, FL 33855.
Your deposit is due when you sign up. That leaves a balance of $4699. The next payment of $2699 will be due on September 15, 2016. The final payment of $2000 is due on February 15, 2017. We hope that you can join me for what will be a wondrously exciting trip.
Please Remember to use my Affiliate Links and to Visit the New BAA Online Store 🙂
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 we are 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 we, 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 🙂
White blood cell count is 8.1. Both docs have me good to go. Now I just have to try not to do anything too dumb. Thanks all for your good wishes.
I have prepared and scheduled 46 brand new, educational blog posts to be published from tomorrow through and including November 26. As near as I can figure, that leave me with 23 more to get done on the road. Should be a piece of cake. But the effort so far has been Herculean considering that each post requires from one to three hours or more of work. But you guys and gals make it worthwhile in lots of ways.
later and love and great picture making, artie
ps: don’t forget: visit the blog, shop in the BAA Online Store, check out BPN, and most important of all, use the B&H links when you buy yourself a new camera or lens! And remember, the more money you spend on gear the better photographer you will become. Not!
If you click on the B&H link above or the one in the top right corner of each blog post page and then do a search your efforts will invisibly be tracked to BAA, and from where I sit, that is a good thing. Many tanks.
Feeling much better. Hoping for a low white blood cell count report this afternoon so that I can head south. Otherwise, very busy getting ready for 9 1/2 weeks away from home…
Gear Questions and Advice
Too many folks attending BAA IPTs and dozens of the 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: 333!
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, 333 days in a row with a new educational blog post. There should be no end in sight until my big South America trip next fall. Or not… As always-–and folks have been doing a really great job recently–-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 new BAA Online Store (as noted in red at the close of this post below) we would appreciate your business.
Your Ear Please
First off, let me say that I appreciate every single person who subscribes to the BAA Blog and every single person who clicks to visit. I exalt those who use my B&H links, visit the BAA Online Store, take advantage of the Used Gear Page, and leave a comment. All of you–and those who attend IPTs–combine to make my part time job on the blog profitable enough to avoid having to become a greeter at WalMart. So big time thanks and hugs to all of you.
Each time that I have made a big international trip–heck, as I type this on the afternoon of Sunday October 9, 2016, I do not even know for sure that I am heading to South America for nine weeks on Wednesday the 12th–I have prepared a combination of re-cycled and brand new blog posts usually scheduled every other day. When I have done that, log visitation numbers have fallen off 30-40%. For this really big trip, my longest ever by far, I decided to try to publish a brand new blog post every day while I am away. If I go 🙂
Right now–after a colossal effort–I have 48 blog posts in the queue. Those will get me to the day after Thanksgiving, November 25. That leaves 24 more blog posts to be completed to cover the day I get home, December 18. As I will be on line quite a bit in South America (again, if I go), those should be a piece of cake. Wish me luck.
What I ask of each of you is to visit the blog as you usually do, as if I were here. When I do get online, I will respond to your relevant comments as time permits. Much appreciated.
My Trip
Here is the somewhat tentative schedule:
12 OCT fly MCO to MIA to SCL.DEP MCO at 6:00pm, ARR Santiago at 7:35am the next morning, 13 OCT.
13 OCT: Condor Photography day trip.
14 OCT: Inca Tern and Peruvian Pelican day trip.
15 OCT: fly SCL to MPL, Stanley in the Falklands. Continue that same day via a FIGAS flight to The Rookery on Saunders Island to begin the OCT land-based Falklands IPT.
18 OCT: fly FIGAS to Bleaker Island.
21 OCT: Fly to Stanley.
22 OCT: Rockhopper day trip. Board the Sea Spirit for the CES expedition to the Falklands and South Georgia.
I should have decent internet access from 12 OCT through 22 OCT.
6 NOV: get off the Sea Spirit in Ushuaia, Argentina.
I will have no internet access from the afternoon of 22 OCT to the afternoon of 6 NOV.
6 NOV thru 11 NOV: on holiday in Ushuaia. With excellent internet access.
11 NOV: Fly to Lima Peru. Photograph on the coast and in the jungles until 30 NOV. I will have internet access at most locations on the coast and sporadic internet access at the jungle lodges.
30 NOV: fly back to SCL.
1 DEC: Condor Photography day trip.
2 DEC: Inca Tern and Peruvian Pelican day trip.
3 DEC: fly SCL to MPL, Stanley in the Falklands to begin the two-week Falklands land-based IPT. Overnight in Stanley.
4 DEC: Volunteer Point day trip for King Penguins.
5 DEC: Fly via FIGAS to The Neck on Saunders Island.
9 DEC: Fly via FIGAS to Seal Lion Island.
12 DEC: Fly via FIGAS to the Rookery on Bleaker Island.
15 DEC: Fly via FIGAS back to Stanley.
16 DEC: Rockhopper day trip.
17 DEC: Fly back to SCL. ARR Santiago at 10:20pm.
18 DEC: Fly SCL to MIA to MCO. ARR Orlando same day at 10:59pm.
I should have decent internet access off and on from DEC 1-18. At this point I am not sure how I am getting home late on SUN 18 DEC.
Right now, at 8:15pm on SUN 9 OCT, I feel as if I am coming down with a cold. So I am gonna get some rest. You gotta love it.
The one thing that I hate about my EOS 5D Mark IV
Actually, it is not the 5D IV, it is the Canon BG-E20 Battery Grip for EOS 5D Mark IV. First off, it is different from all previous Canon battery grips. For no reason that I can figure. The batteries are offset with one higher than the other. It is difficult for me to insert the batteries into the pack. Once they are in, they usually fall out easily even though there is some sort of snap lock. Since I have a problem inserting the batteries into the battery pack, it is often impossible for me to insert the battery pack into the battery grip.
Canon, simple stuff like this should not be made so difficult. BTW, did I read the instructions? Whaddya you think? But heck, I never had to read the instructions before.
Please Remember to use my Affiliate Links and to Visit the New BAA Online Store 🙂
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 we are 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 we, 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 🙂
Felt pretty good on Sunday but bloated from the air that they inject into you with a laparoscopy; that should last just a few more days.It is a small price to pay for the relative ease of the surgery. Finally slept pretty well last night. Took two naps. No swims till DEC 19. Started packing the small stuff, plugs, power strips, and chargers, plus a first run through of packing my big Think Tank roller.
Gear Questions and Advice
Too many folks attending BAA IPTs and dozens of the 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: 332!
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, 332 days in a row with a new educational blog post. There should be no end in sight until my big South America trip next fall. Or not… As always-–and folks have been doing a really great job recently–-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 new BAA Online Store (as noted in red at the close of this post below) we would appreciate your business.
Answers Wide. Be sure to click on the image to enlarge
Answers… And folks are still not understanding perspective as it relates to image design…
In the Perfect Kneeling Knee-pod Technique Illustrated. Image Design Question. And Pick Your Prize ID Quiz… blog post here, I wrote:
A: Be the first to identify the six species of birds in this photograph in a comment below and we will be glad to send you either the Top 100 CD or APB II.
Here are the species:
1-Laughing Gull. There are five or six. Most are adults with their grayish hoods.
2-Marbled Godwit. Lots of them. They are our only large, cinnamon-colored shorebird and you can see their long, up-curved bills on the few birds that are not sleeping.
3-Black Skimmer. Just one but easy to pick out by its shape, orange bill, black cap, and white neck.
4-Willets. See the tighter crop below.
5-Short-billed Dowitchers in basic plumage. See the tighter crop below.
6-Ruddy Turnstones. There are two. The brighter, more orange bird still retains some of its breeding plumage.
7-Folks with good eyes can spot some small shorebirds on the mud near the turnstones. These can only be Least Sandpipers as Sanderlings rarely visit the spit and are whiter rather than browner. But it would not have been fair to ask.
This appeared in the same blog post:
Image Design Question
Why was it important to get close at 24mm? Same question in a different form: what would the big negative have been if I had moved back and zoomed in?
Lots of folks tried. Nobody came close. By getting close at 24mm I was getting high enough to keep some separation between the top of the photographer’s head and the mud bar. Check out the red line. If I had moved back and zoomed in, I would have been getting effectively lower, and the top of the photographer’s head would have merged with the mud bar above the red line. For me, that would have been an image killer. And for you too…
Your best chance of learning to understand how changes in perspective relate to image design is to head back to the A Common Weakness in Perceptual Vision Skills and Understanding Perspective Choices as They Relate to Photography. And Suggestions On How to Improve blog post here, and start studying the Suggestions on How to Improve section.
This skill is a major one if you are ever going to develop the proverbial “good eye.” For me and many other top photographers, this skill comes easily and very quickly. If that is not the case for you, you really do need to start moving left right up and down when you are in the field and see how your movements effect the juxtapositions of the subject to other elements of the composition (including the background, as with today’s image).
Answers Tight. Be sure to click on the image to enlarge
Shorebird ID Answers Tight
4-Willets. If you enlarge the image, you can see the two taller gray shorebirds that are shorter than the godwits. These can only be Willets. There are two more to the right, the one indicated by the short vertical black line and another sleeping above it near a Laughing Gull. Willets: tall and gray.
5-Short-billed Dowitchers in basic plumage. If you check out the group of shorebirds on the right, you will note that they are medium-sized shorebirds and those that are not sleeping show their long straight bills. They are well shorter than Willets. Now that you know, you can find two others sleeping among the godwits.
And the Winner Is!
Warren (HOWE) September 29, 2016 at 11:04 am
Here’s my shot. Laughing gull, Black Skimmer, Marbled Godwit, Willet, Ruddy Turnstone, Least Sandpiper.
Though Warren missed a relatively easy one, Short-billed Dowitcher, he got the toughest one, Least Sandpiper, IDed six species correctly, and did not have a single error. He is therefore, the winner. He has a choice of the Top 100 CD or ABP II.
Shorebirds; Beautiful Beachcombers
Written for naturalists and birders, the text tells you everything you’ve always wanted to know about North America’s sandpipers, godwits, yellowlegs, phalaropes, plovers, avocets, stilts, and oystercatchers. With 70 of Arthur’s images and 26 more by some of the world’s best nature photgraphers, this book contains the finest collection of shorebird photographs ever published in a single volume. You will learn not only to identify all of North America’s regularly-occurring species, but to age them as juveniles, first-winter birds, breeding adults, faded molting adults, or winter (basic) plumage adults.
To learn more the species featured in today’s blog post get yourself a signed copy of my Shorebirds/Beautiful Beachcombers. The book is out of print and when our last few copies are gone they will be hard to get.
birds as art: The Avian Photography of Arthur Morris/The Top 100
The companion e-book to the solo exhibit at TheNat, San Diego, California
birds as art: The Avian Photography of Arthur Morris/The Top 100
My latest e-book, created on a wing and a prayer in less than two weeks–see Harebrained Scheme here–includes the 67 spectacular images that will hang in the Ordover Gallery at the San Diego Natural History Museum in a career-retrospective solo exhibition. In addition, there are an additional 33 images in the spectacular e-book that barely missed making the show.
This exhibition companion e-book makes it possible for everyone to “visit” TheNAT gallery and, in addition, to enjoy seeing my top one hundred bird photographs under one roof. Each image includes a title, the species name, the location, relevant EXIF data, and an anecdotal caption.
birds as art: The Avian Photography of Arthur Morris/The Top 100: $23 for the professionally produced CD (includes shipping to US addresses only)
Please click here to purchase the physical CD. As above, your purchase price includes shipping to all US addresses. If you would like your CD signed on the inside cover with a black Sharpie, you will need to place your order by phone and request a signed copy: 863-692-0906. For our Canadian friends we are offering the CD for $28 with shipping to Canada via phone orders only: 863-692-0906.
Those who purchase the CD are advised to copy the file to their computers and then archive the CD.
The new e-book via is also available via convenient download for $20 by clicking here.
birds as art: The Avian Photography of Arthur Morris/The Top 100: $20 via convenient download.
Overseas folks, and anyone else as well, can purchase the e-book via convenient download for $20 by clicking here.
Please Remember to use my Affiliate Links and to Visit the New BAA Online Store 🙂
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 we are 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 we, 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 🙂
I realized on Friday, the day after my surgery, that if I had assumed that the gall bladder pain was actually referred kidney stone pain and/or waited a day or two on the gall bladder pain and it had gone away, that it might have ruptured. This would have required a much more difficult and extensive surgery, at least ten days in the hospital, and a far greater risk of post surgery infection. I would never have made the South Georgia Expedition much less my Falkland pre-trip…
Worst case would have been to have gone to South America, gotten through the Falklands pre-trip, and had the gall bladder rupture on the ship. With no chance of being evacuated, sepsis would have occurred followed in a day or two by a very painful death. So here I am starting to pack and feeling great, anticipating that my white blood cell count will be fine by Monday morning. Or not. Either way, I am and have been totally blessed as usual. More stuff below.
More Stuff
I took one oxycodone for pain last night. Never again. I did not fall asleep for 4 1/4 hours after getting into bed at ten. Slept from 2:15am till 5:00am. That was it. I did stay flat for six hours, mostly doing crosswords when I knew that I had no chance to sleep. Had a productive day. While I was in the hospital, the Western Medicine protocol, i.e., the hospital rules, did not allow me (with my A1C of 5.4) to manage my own diabetes with my own insulin so my sugars sky-rocketed. Considering that high glucose levels after surgery (for both diabetics and non-diabetics) raise the chance of infection fivefold and slow down the healing process, I had Jim smuggle in my insulin in on FRI morning; By afternoon, I had it down close to normal range. It was totally normal on Satruday. But in fear of the high sugar levels, my body now has 6 pounds of fluid trapped in my cells 🙂 It will dissipate over the next two weeks but right now I feel like that Pillsbury guy… You gotta love stupid rules.
But heck, the surgeon was great and I am alive because of him (and because of my DO Dr. Holmes, who was on top of things on Tuesday morning).
Jim Dolgin is the first sign-up for the Spring Fort DeSoto IPT. You can check out the slightly revised info in yesterday’s blog post here or by clicking on the BAA IPTs tab on the orange/yellow menu bar above.
Gear Questions and Advice
Too many folks attending BAA IPTs and dozens of the 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: 331!
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, 331 days in a row with a new educational blog post. There should be no end in sight until my big South America trip next fall. Or not… As always-–and folks have been doing a really great job recently–-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 new BAA Online Store (as noted in red at the close of this post below) we would appreciate your business.
Selling Your Used Gear Through BIRDS AS ART
Selling your used (or like-new) photo gear through the BAA Blog or via a BAA Online Bulletin is a great idea. We charge only a 5% commission. One of the more popular used gear for sale sites charges a minimum of 20%. Plus assorted fees! Yikes. The minimum item price here is $500 (or less for a $25 fee). If you are interested please e-mail with the words Items for Sale Info Request cut and pasted into the Subject line :). Stuff that is priced fairly–I offer free pricing advice, usually sells in no time flat. In the past few months, we have sold just about everything in sight. Do know that prices on some items like the EOS-1D Mark IV, the old Canon 500mm, the EOS-7D, and the original 400mm IS DO lens have been dropping steadily. You can see all current listings by clicking here or by clicking on the Used Photo Gear tab on the yellow-orange tab on the right side of the menu bar above.
SEPT/OCTUsed Gear Sales Continue to be Flaming Hot!
Joseph Higbee sold a Canon EF 2X III Extender in excellent condition for $349 an hour after it was listed on September 26. Soon thereafter he sold a Canon EF 70-200mm f2.8L IS II USM lens in excellent condition for $1449 and a Canon EOS 7D in excellent condition for $299.
In less than one day in late September Steve Zarate sold his Canon EOS 7D camera in very good condition for a BAA record low price of $279 and his Canon EOS 7D II in excellent condition for a BAA record low price of $799.
Within two days of listing Joe Alexander sold his Canon EF 100-400mm L IS USM lens in excellent plus condition for $599in late September when he also sold one of each of these: Canon EF 1.4x III and Canon EF 2x III Extender in excellent plus condition for $249 each within an hour of listing them. When he first contacted me he had them priced, way, way, way too low…
Yours truly, Arthur Morris, sold one of his two Canon EOS 5DS R bodies in excellent condition but for a very small, very fine sort of x-shaped crack in the upper-right corner of the top LCD screen, for $2549 in late September.
Doug Rogers sold his Vortex Razor 85mm Ultra High Definition Scope in like-new condition for $795.00 in mid-September.
Ed Hutchinson sold his Canon EF 100-400mm L IS USM lens, the “old 1-4,” in like-new condition for $649 and his EOS 5D Mark III in like-new condition for $1499 within days of listing them in mid-September.
Hisham Atallah sold his Canon 600mm f/4L IS II lens in excellent condition for $9499 in mid-September within days of listing it.
Good friend and BAA Japan IPT co-leader–the oft-honored BBC and Nature’s Best photographer Paul McKenzie–sold his Canon EOS 1DX in excellent condition with an extra Canon battery for $2299 in mid September two days after it was listed.
Eric Karl sold his Canon EF 200-400mm f/4L IS USM Lens with Internal Extender in excellent condition for the full asking price, a very low $8,099 in mid-September.
Gary Meyer sold his Canon EOS 5D Mark III in mint condition for $1599 with an off-brand battery grip in mid-September.
New Listings
Canon 600mm f/4L IS II USM Lens
Another Weapon of Mass Destruction!
IPT veteran Larry Master is offering a Canon EF600 f/4L IS II USM lens in excellent plus condition for $9,295. The sale includes a LensCoat, an Aquatech soft lens cap, the rear lens cap, the front lens cover, the lens and trunk straps, lens manual, original case, and insured ground shipping via FEDEX or UPS to US addresses only. The lens will not ship until your check clears unless other arrangements are made.
Please contact Larry via e-mail or by phone at 1-518-645-1545 (Eastern time).
As y’all know, the 600 II has been my go-to long lens since its introduction several years ago. It is relatively lightweight and super-sharp. It goes great with the 1.4X III TC and with a bit of practice and good sharpness techniques, you should be able to make sharp images with the 2X III TC down to 1/60 sec. Not to mention that Rob Snell does pretty darned good with his. As a new one goes for $11,499 you can save a tidy $2004 by grabbing Larry’s lens right now. artie
Canon EOS 7D Mark II with battery grip
Lowest price ever for like new with the BG-E16
Jim Brown is offering a Canon EOS 7D Mark II with the BG-E16 Battery Grip in like-new condition with only 17,377 shutter actuations for only $1049. Both items are in their original boxes with all items that came as new. The camera was purchased new on 12/02/2014. Serial # 032021002973. These will ship USPS insured Priority mail in two separate boxes when your check clears unless other arrangements are made. PayPal accepted.
Please contact Jim via e-mail or by phone at 239-434-9498 (Eastern time).
Simply put, the 7D II is the greatest ever value in a digital camera body. It’s 1.6 crop factor is great for folks wishing for greater reach. I used and loved two of them until I went to all full frame. A 7D II image is one of two of mine being honored in this year’s Nature’s Best contest. In addition a 7D II video is in the final, final round of judging. artie
This image was created on the Fort DeSoto Fall IPT with the hand held Canon EF 600mm f/4L IS II USM lens and the Canon EOS-1D X Mark II. ISO 1000. Evaluative metering +1 2/3 stops: 1/500 sec. at f/4.5 in TV mode (shutter priority). AWB.
Center Zone AF/AI Servo Expand/Rear Focus AF as originally framed was active at the moment of exposure (as is always best when hand holding). Click here to see the latest version of the Rear Focus Tutorial. Click on the image to see a larger version.
Image #1: Reddish Egret shaking head and neck vigorously
Image courtesy of and copyright 2016: Rob Snell
My Thoughts on Rob Snell’s Reddish Egret shaking head and neck vigorously image.
I love the tension and the background colors, and the obviously vigorous whole-lotta-shaking-going-on. And the superb sharpness. As you will read about below, Rob is a master at making very sharp images. And with this image, Rob did a great job by being at +1 2/3 stops. That yielded a pretty much perfect image. The optimized image above was cropped a bit from the bottom, from the left, and from the top. Rob will be improving by tons as he learns to make consistently better exposures and to get the bird out of the frame.
As you learned in yesterday’s (potentially) monumentally educational The Skills You Need to Develop to Become a Good Bird and Wildlife Photographer blog post here, I feel that of all the skills needed to become a good bird or wildlife photographer, being able to create sharp images is the most difficult for many folks. Of the 80% of the images that I delete well more than half are deleted because of sharpness issues. On the other hand, Rob, hand holding the 600II with maybe the world’s heaviest DSLR, rocks sharpness.
Rob Snell
Of the six wonderful folks on the Fort DeSoto Fall IPT, Rob Snell was one of two first-timers, along with Juan Tolentino. The multiple IPT veterans were Bob DeCroce, Catherine Costolo, Carlotta Grenier, and the irrepressible, sharpness-obsessed Jake Levin. Repeat clients, or recidivists as I like to call them, are a sign that you are doing something very right.
recidivist
(/rəˈsidəvəst/) noun: a convicted criminal who reoffends, especially repeatedly.
Anyway, Rob and I hit it off immediately when we met by chance in the lobby prior to the 2pm meet-up. I was so comfortable with him that I asked him flat out if he would mind driving my car to and from Fort DeSoto each day. “Sure,” he said. On our first ride to the park I learn that Rob shoots the 600II either hand held or on a monopod; the former I am not capable of doing, the latter I frown upon because of possible sharpness issues even though I have never used one and despite the fact that tens of 1,000s of sports photographers use them on a daily basis with great success.
We pull into one of my favorite afternoon spots and I point out a young Yellow-crowned Night Heron. I tell Rob where to park and the other members of the caravan pull in behind us. Within 30 seconds Rob is approaching the bird-handing holding his 600 II. The rest of us are setting up our gear for the next five minutes. I learned later that he was in Av mode wide open at f/4 and ISO 800 as it was quite cloudy. Very good. He was in Evaluative metering–a choice that I often make in new situations. So good on that. Despite that fact that the water was a very light grey, he was shooting the metered exposure. He had not added any light via exposure compensation. He did not hear me shout out, Plus two stops should be good. So his histogram was right in the middle, two stops underexposed. Bad. But boy, the images were sharp. Pretty much every image of his that I saw on the IPT was sharp. Very sharp.
I learned very quickly that Rob was pretty much guessing when it came to exposure and that he suffered from SAFPS, Center AF Point Syndrome. He got better at both as the days flew by. That when the sun is not out at full strength and the scene averages to well lighter than a middle tone it was a revelation to him that the meter was so totally stupid. Conversely, he learned that when the sun is out at full strength , zero or +1/3 stop is usually pretty good. And that with smaller bright white subjects against middle dark backgrounds you often need to go to -1/3 and beyond. Hey, I wrote that in both the The Art of Bird Photography, the original ABP in soft cover, and in The Art of Bird Photography II, ABP II: 916 pages, 900+ images, on CD only! Some things never change. Buy the Two-book Bundle, ABP and ABP II, and save $10. Together they make for a monumental bird photography education. In all cases and situations you need to remember to check your histogram and to check for blinkies in each new situation. And once you understand the sun in/sun out deal you will start nailing your exposures very quickly.
This originals for this creative montage were created on the first afternoon of the Fort DeSoto Fall IPT with the hand held Canon EF 600mm f/4L IS II USM lens and the Canon EOS-1D X Mark II.
All of the originals were, as noted above, two full stops underexposed. Auto ISOs: 640, 800, 1000, 800, 800. 1/4000 sec at f/4. Exposure compensation: +2/3 stop. I had thought that he was at the metered exposure but the EXIF does not lie. In Manual mode.
Center Zone AF/AI Servo Expand/Rear Focus AF as originally framed was active at the moment of exposure (as is always best when hand holding). Click here to see the latest version of the Rear Focus Tutorial.
Image #2: Yellow-crowned Night Heron, juvenile taking flight
Image courtesy of and copyright 2016: Rob Snell
Rob’s Comments
NIGHT HERON MONTAGE — These shots were taken at the first stop on the first afternoon of the Fort DeSoto session. We pulled up to the little beach and artie spotted a juvenile night-heron. I like to shoot handheld (or with a monopod) because I can move faster. Tripods slow me down. I know I lose some stability, but I mostly shoot flying birds at shutter speeds of 1/500 and faster. I grabbed my 1DXII + 600mm 4.0 IS II, put it on my monopod, and took off. The juvenile looked like he was thinking of flying, so I started firing.
PHOTOSHOP — As I previewed these shots it almost looked like a video of the bird taking off. I try to capture motion in my pictures of flying birds, but I wondered if I could make a montage of him taking off without it being too busy. I started with the image with the best background, but I ended up deleting most of it. I put each frame of the bird in a separate layer, and since the background was blown out (properly exposed?), it was easy to isolate each bird with only a little erasing. I changed the opacity of the layers to show the passage of time starting at 20%. I had to move the birds to the left because the standing, squatting, and jumping image would all overlap.
Artie’s Comments
This is one of the most creative take-off montages I have ever seen. I love the gradations in the exposure, the various wing positions, the positioning of each bird in the frame, and the open bill. The last pose is killer good as a stand-alone. As noted above, the RAW file was two stops under-exposed. I was there 🙂 So Rob had to have lightened each image either during conversion or in Photoshop. This introduces noise but the 1DX II handled it quite well and each version of the bird is small in the frame.
I could not have made five frames without clipping the bird even if I was on a tripod. So huge kudos to Rob for nailing the five in the frame while hand holding the 600 II. Much lighter than the previous version but still 8.65 pounds is a lot. Plus the 3.37 pounds of the 1DX Mark II. The strength and skill to pull this one off is remarkable. Thanks a stack to Rob for sharing these two great images with us.
Your Favorite?
Which of Rob’s two images is your favorite? Why? Yeah, they are different but you can still pick a favorite.
Rob’s Dog Supply Business
Those with dogs or those who love dogs in general will surely want to check out Rob’s site here. I am not a big fan of dogs but I was fascinated by some of the items and the video, both dealing with obedience training and collars. The fascinating items include GPS systems for dogs!, dog collars, training collars, leads and leashes, dog houses, and retriever dummies! They have some nice looking ducks. From the website: We train our dogs with the products we sell. Taking care of folks and their dogs since 1972. Our family-owned & operated small business wants to be your one-stop shop. Get fast, friendly service with safe, easy, & secure shopping.
Rob told me straight-up that he is a brilliant, self-taught internet marketer. He was very right.
Please Remember to use my Affiliate Links and to Visit the New BAA Online Store 🙂
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 we are 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 we, 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 🙂
I am home and still feeing great despite 2 1/2 hours of sleep on Thursday night. I can say that I probably did close to 20 hours of work stock-piling new blog blogs post to keep the streak going while and if I am away. Again, huge thanks for all the positive messages.
I finished and scheduled this blog post at 9:46pm on Friday night and was headed to bed at 9:47pm. It took about two hours in all to assemble it.
Gear Questions and Advice
Too many folks attending BAA IPTs and dozens of the 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: 330!
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, 330 days in a row with a new educational blog post. There should be no end in sight until my big South America trip next fall. Or not… As always-–and folks have been doing a really great job recently–-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 new BAA Online Store (as noted in red at the close of this post below) we would appreciate your business.
The Skills You Need to Develop to Become a Good Bird and Wildlife Photographer
Here is my list of the skills that you need to master to improve your bird, nature, and wildlife photography. They are presented immediately below in the approximate order of difficulty with the most difficult to master at the top and the easiest to master at the bottom. All as you might expect are my typically humble opinions. An interesting exercise would be for you to think about how these skills rank in difficulty for you. If you do, and come up with something interesting, please feel free to share your thoughts with us by leaving a comment.
The Skills Needed to Become a Successful Bird, Wildlife, and Natural History Photographer, presented in the the approximate order of difficulty:
1-Creating sharp images.
2-Being able to see the great situations and avoid the lousy ones; this skill can best be developed by checking out the background.
3-And then being able to choose the very best perspective.
4-Mastering your camera’s AF system so that you can create effectively designed images.
5-Understanding what makes pleasing, dramatic, moody, exciting, and/or artistically successful images with major contest potential, and most importantly, images that make you happpy.
6-Understanding the fine points of head angle and subject to imaging sensor orientation.
7-Understanding sun angle.
8-Getting the right exposure
9-Post Processing Skills
10-Understanding the effects of wind direction, wind speed, and sky conditions on bird photography.
If you think that I left anything out…
If you think that I left anything out, something perhaps that you have trouble with, please let me know by leaving a comment.
Resources for…
#s 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and tons more that will never appear on the blog or on BPN: Sign up for as many BIRDS AS ART Instructional Photo-Tours as possible.
#10: This item was added to the list midday on 8 October.
What I Learned on My First BIRDS AS ART Instructional Photo-Tour
From Rob Snell via e-mail with this Subject Line: WHAT A GREAT WEEK! (You will learn about Rob and see two of the excellent images he made on the IPT in Sunday’s blog post.)
Hey Artie Bob/Boss,
It was so nice to meet you and learn SO MUCH! I had a blast! I have a ton of work to do, and 5,000 shots to work through.
Here is are the three most important things that I learned.
#1 EXPOSE TO THE RIGHT — My brother and I have a dog supply business. Part of my job of web marketing is making videos. I’ve learned that it’s better to slightly underexpose your videos than to risk blowing out the highlights. This is not so with still photography! With RAW it’s correct for the histogram to go halfway into the last box on the right. When the exposure is just right, I don’t have to spend so much time trying to save it in post. Now I check my histograms every few moments.
#2 NAIL BOTH THE EXPOSURE AND THE SUN ANGLE and , NAIL THE IMAGE — Most of my photography involves creating videos of hunting dogs, running and hunting just after sun-up, but I do shoot some stills also. I don’t have a lot of control over my position because I’m walking behind guys with shotguns who are walking after the dogs. On the IPT I learned that sun angle is a big, big deal. Looking back I realize that almost every KEEPER photo I’ve ever taken was when I got the exposure right (within 1/3 stop of perfect), *AND* when the dogs were running back towards us into the light.
#3 TAKE FEWER PICTURES — Sometimes I waste time creating under-exposed, poorly lit images that have to be transferred, ingested, curated, backed up, and ultimately deleted. If the light’s not right, don’t take the shot. If the light is right, let ‘er rip!
Peace out — Rob
My Thoughts
I loved the “Boss” reference as I just finished reading the recently released version of Endurance: Shackleton’s Incredible Voyage (Apr 28, 2015) by Alfred Lansing and Nathaniel Philbrick. The crew called Shackleton “boss. The Artie Bob reference arose from a mutual friendship with Joe Mac Hudspeth Jr. I asked Rob if he knew Joe Mac because they were both from Mississippi and both were involved in photographing hunters. He did. Joe Mac gave me my redneck name, “Artie-Bob.”
I learned that Rob was fast and made incredibly sharp images. I also learned that he had not clue as to getting the right exposure. We fixed that pretty easily. Again, lots more on that in tomorrow’s blog post. Lastly I learned that my first impression was spot-on: Rob was a helluva nice guy.
DeSoto in spring is rife with tame and attractive birds. From upper left clockwise to center: breeding plumage Dunlin, dark morph breeding plumage Reddish Egret displaying, breeding plumage Laughing Gull/front end vertical portrait, breeding plumage Laughing Gull with prey item, Laughing Gull on head of Brown Pelican, screaming Royal Tern in breeding plumage, Royal Terns/pre-copulatory stand, Laughing Gulls copulating, breeding plumage Laughing Gull/tight horizontal portrait, Sandwich Tern with fish, and a really rare one, White-rumped Sandpiper in breeding plumage, photographed at DeSoto in early May.
Fort DeSoto Spring IPT/April 19-22, 2017 (meet & greet at 2pm on Wednesday April 19 followed by an afternoon session) through the full day on Saturday April 22. 3 1/2 DAYs: $1599. Limit 10. 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.
DeSoto in spring is rife with tame and attractive birds. From upper left clockwise to center: Laughing Gull in flight, adult Yellow-crowned Night-Heron, copulating Sandwich Terns, Roseate Spoonbill, Great Egret with reflection, Short-billed Dowitcher in breeding plumage, American Oystercatcher, breeding plumage Royal Tern, white morph Reddish Egret, and Snowy Egret marsh habitat shot.
What You Will Learn
You will learn to approach free and wild birds without disturbing them, to understand and predict bird behavior, to identify many species of shorebirds, to spot the good situations, to understand the effects of sky and wind conditions on bird photography, to choose the best perspective, to see and understand the light, to get the right exposure every time after making a single test exposure, and to design pleasing images by mastering your camera’s AF system. And you will learn how and why to work in Manual mode (even if you are scared of it).
The group will be staying at the 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.
Why Join an IPT?
For many folks, hands-on, in-the-field instruction is the very best way for them to learn to improve their skills… To see some early spring DeSoto images, click here.
BIRDS AS ART Fort DeSoto Spring In-the-Field Cheap Meet-up Workshop (ITFW): $99
Join me on the morning of Sunday, April 22 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 at 863-692-0906 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 the exact meeting place one week before the event.
Please Remember to use my Affiliate Links and to Visit the New BAA Online Store 🙂
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 we are 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 we, 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.
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Typos
In all blog posts and Bulletins, feel free to e-mail or to leave a comment regarding any typos or errors. Just be right 🙂
Me. From the hospital. And home, ready for a nap. Had a great follow-up with my most wonderful surgeon, Dr. Howard, with permission to take it easy and fly to Santiago, Chile on Wednesday, October 12. And then had my release formally approved by my D.O., Dr. David Holmes. But I am not 100% out of the woods yet. Though my white blood cell count has dropped from 19,000 to 12,000, it is still a bit high. I go to town for some blood work on Monday morning with Dr. Holmes getting the results on Tuesday afternoon. I will be all packed up by then but if my WBC has risen, he will tell me not to fly on Wednesday. If it is still going down I will be good to go. Assuming of course that I do not develop any complications between now and then.
So I am right on the verge of experiencing an amazing medical miracle. As always, time will tell and I will love whichever way it goes.
Please Remember to use my Affiliate Links and to Visit the New BAA Online Store 🙂
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 we are 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 we, 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 🙂
As noted yesterday, when I woke up in the recovery room I asked, “When are they going to do my surgery?” All I felt was small pinch in my lower right abdomen. By Thursday evening I was still feeling fabulous.
Thanks a huge stack for the outpouring of good wishes and get-well-soons!
later and love, artie
Gear Questions and Advice
Too many folks attending BAA IPTs and dozens of the 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: 329!
Bad on all those folks that thought a little surgery would bring The Streak to an end. 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, 329 days in a row with a new educational blog post. There should be no end in sight until my big South America trip next fall. Or not… As always-–and folks have been doing a really great job recently–-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 new BAA Online Store (as noted in red at the close of this post below) we would appreciate your business.
Canon 600mm f/4L IS II USM Lens
Another Weapon of Mass Destruction!
IPT veteran Mark Overgaard is offering a Canon EF600 f/4L IS II USM lens in excellent plus condition for $9,495. The sale includes a LensCoat, the rear lens cap, the front lens cover, the lens trunk, the monopod mount, and both the lens and lens trunk straps, the lens manual and warranty card–the latter included for record-keeping purposes only since the warranty is expired, and insured ground shipping via either FEDEX or UPS to US addresses only.
The lens just underwent an 11-point clean and check service from Canon Professional Services.
The lens will not ship until your check clears unless other arrangements are made. Please contact Mark via e-mail or by phone at 831-438-1565 (Pacific time).
As y’all know, the 600 II has been my go-to long lens since its introduction several years ago. Recently, as a concession to age, I have been using the 500 II as my big lens. It is that much lighter and offers that much more reach. If you are young and strong and photograph birds that are on the skittish side, the 600 mm f/4L IS lens just might be perfect for you as it was for me for so many years…. It is relatively lightweight and super-sharp. It goes great with the 1.4X III TC and with a bit of practice and good sharpness techniques, you should be able to make sharp images with the 2X III TC down to 1/60 sec. As a new one goes for $11,499 you can save a nice $2005 by grabbing Mark’s lens right now. artie
I selected the AF point two up from the center AF point/AI Servo Expand/Shutter Button AF as originally framed; AF was active at the moment of exposure. The selected AF point was on the bird’s neck.
Reddish Egret in surf
5D Mark IV Magic
ISO 5000. Not a typo. 1/20 second. Not a typo. I made three images at 1/20 second at 560mm and only one was sharp.
Please do share your thoughts on this ISO 5000 image created at 1/20 second at 560mm…
Image Design Question
Why did I get as high as possible when creating this image?
Just So You Know…
On my last two Fort DeSoto photo trips, I created more than 5,000 images with my two 5D IV bodies and a grand total of zero images with my 1D X Mark II (which sat in my SUV untouched).
If…
If you have been inspired to purchase a 5D Mark IV body by what you read here today or recently please consider clicking on this link: Canon EOS 5D Mark IV or on the logo link above. Doing so won’t cost you one penny and is the best way to thank me for my efforts here on the blog and the time that I spend answering dozens of gear- and photo-related questions via e-mail each week.
Please Remember to use my Affiliate Links and to Visit the New BAA Online Store 🙂
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 we are 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 we, 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 🙂
I woke up in the recovery room and asked, “When are they going to do my surgery?” All I felt was small pinch in my lower right abdomen. I have not spoken to the surgeon yet but hope to do so soon. We chatted briefly in the pre-op waiting room and he was super-nice and exuded confidence. Though I am still a bit loopy from the anesthesia, I gotta say that I am feeling great. With the laparoscopic surgery I have just three big bandaids on my right tummmy.
Thanks a huge stack for the outpouring of good wishes and get well soons!
I worked on this blog post while in the Emergency room at Lake Wales hospital on Wednesday morning waiting for a CAT scan that will hopefully show no appendix involvement as far as my lower right abdominal pain. Time will tell. Well, it wasn’t the appendix…
Right now it is looking as if I will have my gall bladder surgically removed early on Thursday morning. I am lobbying for Wednesday night but that is not looking too likely. Gall bladder is enlarged and inflamed along with gall stones. With my white blood cell count at 18,000, Dr. Cliff Oliver is advising that I proceed. So I am.
The best case is that the organ does not rupture before the surgery and that assuming laparoscopic surgery, there is decent chance that I will be on the plane to Santiago, Chile next Wednesday. Go figure.
This Just In II
The surgery is now scheduled for 11:45am on Thursday. WBC count down to 15,000.
Gear Questions and Advice
Too many folks attending BAA IPTs and dozens of the 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: 328!
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, 328 days in a row with a new educational blog post. There should be no end in sight until my big South America trip next week. Or not… As always-–and folks have been doing a really great job recently–-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 new BAA Online Store (as noted in red at the close of this post below) we would appreciate your business.
Selling Your Used Gear Through BIRDS AS ART
Selling your used (or like-new) photo gear through the BAA Blog or via a BAA Online Bulletin is a great idea. We charge only a 5% commission. One of the more popular used gear for sale sites charges a minimum of 20%. Plus assorted fees! Yikes. The minimum item price here is $500 (or less for a $25 fee). If you are interested please e-mail with the words Items for Sale Info Request cut and pasted into the Subject line :). Stuff that is priced fairly–I offer free pricing advice, usually sells in no time flat. In the past few months, we have sold just about everything in sight. Do know that prices on some items like the EOS-1D Mark IV, the old Canon 500mm, the EOS-7D, and the original 400mm IS DO lens have been dropping steadily. You can see all current listings by clicking here or by clicking on the Used Photo Gear tab on the yellow-orange tab on the right side of the menu bar above.
September Used Gear Sales Continue to be Flaming Hot!
Joseph Higbee sold a Canon EF 2X III Extender in excellent condition for $349 an hour after it was listed on September 26. Soon thereafter he sold a Canon EF 70-200mm f2.8L IS II USM lens in excellent condition for $1449 and a Canon EOS 7D in excellent condition for $299.
In less than one day in late September Steve Zarate sold his Canon EOS 7D camera in very good condition for a BAA record low price of $279 and his Canon EOS 7D II in excellent condition for a BAA record low price of $799.
Within two days of listing Joe Alexander sold his Canon EF 100-400mm L IS USM lens in excellent plus condition for $599in late September when he also sold one of each of these: Canon EF 1.4x III and Canon EF 2x III Extender in excellent plus condition for $249 each within an hour of listing them. When he first contacted me he had them priced, way, way, way too low…
Yours truly, Arthur Morris, sold one of his two Canon EOS 5DS R bodies in excellent condition but for a very small, very fine sort of x-shaped crack in the upper-right corner of the top LCD screen, for $2549 in late September.
Doug Rogers sold his Vortex Razor 85mm Ultra High Definition Scope in like-new condition for $795.00 in mid-September.
Ed Hutchinson sold his Canon EF 100-400mm L IS USM lens, the “old 1-4,” in like-new condition for $649 and his EOS 5D Mark III in like-new condition for $1499 within days of listing them in mid-September.
Hisham Atallah sold his Canon 600mm f/4L IS II lens in excellent condition for $9499 in mid-September within days of listing it.
Good friend and BAA Japan IPT co-leader–the oft-honored BBC and Nature’s Best photographer Paul McKenzie–sold his Canon EOS 1DX in excellent condition with an extra Canon battery for $2299 in mid September two days after it was listed.
Eric Karl sold his Canon EF 200-400mm f/4L IS USM Lens with Internal Extender in excellent condition for the full asking price, a very low $8,099 in mid-September.
Gary Meyer sold his Canon EOS 5D Mark III in mint condition for $1599 with an off-brand battery grip in mid-September.
New Listings
Canon EF 300mm f/2.8L IS II USM Lens
Bob Serling is offering a Canon EF 300mm f/2.8L IS II USM lens being offered for sale in near mint condition for $4449. The glass is pristine and the only blemish on the finish is a very small scratch on the lens mounting foot. The sale includes the rear lens cap, the lens trunk, Canon’s adjustable front lens cover, the lens strap, and insured ground shipping via major courier to US addresses only. Your item will not ship until your check clears unless other arrangements are made. Please contact Bob via e-mail or by phone at (760) 525-5818 in the Pacific time zone.
The 300mm f/2.8L IS II lens is an incredibly sharp telephoto that is easily hand holdable for birds in fllight by most folks for general bird photography–the tamer the better, for and wildlife in low light. The lens is superbly sharp with both the 1.4X and 2X III TCs. The price of this lens is currently depressed. artie
Canon EF 300mm f/2.8L IS USM Lens
Shock the world price!
Bob Serling is offering a Canon EF300mm f/2.8L IS lens (the old 300 f/2..8L IS) in excellent plus condition at a ridiculously low, shock-the-world price of $2399. The glass is pristine, the only blemish is a minor discoloration on the focusing ring. The sale includes the rear lens cap, the lens trunk, a Lenscoat front lens cover, the lens strap, and insured ground shipping via major courier to US addresses only. Your item will not ship until your check clears unless other arrangements are made. Please contact Bob via e-mail or by phone at (760) 525-5818 in the Pacific time zone.
The older version of the Canon 300mm f/2.8L IS is a super-sharp lens that is great for hand held flight and action photography and great with both teleconverters. It has long been the favorite focal length of the world’s best hawk photographers. artie
The days of struggling to design a pleasing image design with only the center AF point and four assist points are gone. With the EOS-5D Mark IV and the EOS-1D X Mark II both offering all AF points and all AF Area Selection modes, folks like me who use the 2X III teleconverter with their 500 and 600mm f/4L IS II super-telephotos or the 1.4X III TC with their 100-400 II lenses can now enjoy fast, accurate AF with any AF point and any AF Area Selection mode with previously unseen speed and precision at f/8.
I know that this will sound strange, but with my somewhat limited experience with both bodies it seems that the speed and accuracy Large Zone AF with the 5D IV is at least as good as if not better than it is with the vaunted 1DX Mark II.
All with AF Large Zone shutter button AF.
Image #2: Great Blue Heron with Pinfish
Large Zone AF Tip
When working with Large Zone AF place the center of the selected zone on the part of the bird that you want to be sharp–almost always the face or eye–and then and only then, recompose for your desired composition. If you start with your desired composition and hope to acquire focus you may be disappointed.
All with AF Large Zone shutter button AF.
Image #3: Great Blue Heron just swallowed Pinfish
Image #3
Large Zone AF Info
Whether working in either horizontal or vertical format you can choose from one of the three Large Zone zones. With horizontal you can choose the left, center, or right Large Zone zone. With verticals you can choose either top, middle, or bottom Large Zone zone. Upper Large Zone is particularly deadly and effective when oriented vertically as once you choose it the AF zone will end up somewhere on the bird’s head or face, and you can usually move the lens to recompose as needed depending on which way the bird is looking.
Large Zone AF Question
With which one of today’s three images should I have chosen the left Large Zone zone rather than the center Large Zone zone? Why?
Image #4: Large Zone AF is Not Always Perfect
You and Large Zone AF. Is it Perfect?
If you start using Large Zone AF with or without TCs please let us know how it is working for you. Do remember that it is not perfect. There are times when it will fail miserably for a variety of possible reasons (some of which include operator error.)
All of the birds in the Saturday feeding spree were catching shrimp. Those included about six Roseate Spoonbills, several Great and Snowy Egrets, two Yellow-crowned Night-Herons, A little blue and a tricolored, and several dozen winter plumage Laughing Gulls. My eyes lit up when I saw the bird in Image 4 that was perfectly square to the imaging sensor catch a good-sized shrimp. I had several seconds but despite my best efforts the rig simply would not acquire focus. He who giveth also taketh away.
Please Remember to use my Affiliate Links and to Visit the New BAA Online Store 🙂
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 we are 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 we, 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 🙂
Right now it is looking as if I will have my gall bladder surgically removed early on Thursday morning. I am lobbying for tonight but that is not looking too likely. Gall bladder is enlarged and inflamed along with gall stones. With my white blood cell count at 18,000, Dr. Cliff Oliver is advising that I proceed. So I am.
The best case is that the organ does not rupture before the surgery and that assuming laparoscopic surgery, there is decent chance that I will be on the plane to Santiago, Chile next Wednesday. Go figure.
This Just In II
The surgery is now scheduled for 11:45am on Thursday.
Monday afternoon and evening at least through Tuesday morning was great fun. I was and still am the process of passing a kidney stone. Not the worst one ever, but plenty painful. I got into bed at 8:30pm and did not fall asleep until 1:00am 🙂 The best thing about it is that it makes me realize how good I usually feel 🙂 The pain lessened by Tuesday morning but I was still uncomfortable. Then on Tuesday I developed some flu-like symptoms and visited Dr. Holmes. The pain from the stone–yes, I have blood in my urine–started in the center of my back, moved to the right side of my back on Tuesday, and on Wednesday morning I have a slight bloating pain in my right abdomen. And I did have a bit of wicked indigestion on Tuesday morning–the last food that I ate. And throughout my blood sugar levels were spiking first low and then high.
Gear Questions and Advice
Too many folks attending BAA IPTs and dozens of the 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: 327!
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, 327 days in a row with a new educational blog post. There should be no end in sight until my big South America trip coming soon. But likely not… As always-–and folks have been doing a really great job recently–-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 new BAA Online Store (as noted in red at the close of this post below) we would appreciate your business.
This image was created on the first morning of the Fort DeSoto Fall IPT with the hand held Canon 24-105mm zoom lens soon to be replaced by the Canon EF 24-105mm f/4L IS II USM zoom lens (at 55mm) and the Canon EOS 5D Mark IV. ISO 800. Evaluative metering +1 stop: 1/1600 sec. at f/6.3.
Center AF point/AI Servo Expand/Rear Focus AF on the flock of birds and re-compose. Click here to see the latest version of the Rear Focus Tutorial.
Image #1: Skimmers and terns at sunrise
Entering Fort DeSoto Early As I Understand It…
Since a $5 daily entry fee was instituted at Fort DeSoto Park about five years ago, arriving early at the park often left me stumped as to what to do. On the Saturday of our scouting trip last week, we passed a long line of cars and drove around the barrier. To make a long story short, a ranger stopped us. Here is what I learned:
1-The official opening time is 7am.
2-The large barrier gates–there are two, one on the way to North Beach and one on the way to East Beach–are supposed to be and almost always are open at 6am.
2-The pay booth is manned on a daly basis beginning at 6:30am.
3-Once you pay, you are permitted into the park “as a courtesy.”
4-Folks who purchase an Annual Pass are, again, “as a courtesy” permitted to enter the park at 6am by driving in the oncoming traffic lane to the left of the Pay Booth. It is imperative that you have your Annual Pass displayed on the dashboard of your vehicle to ensure that you will not be ticketed. This policy was instituted in part to encourage more folks to purchase an Annual Pass.
5-If you go to the boat ramp and purchase an day ticket from the 24 hour machine, put it on your dashboard, and enter the park n before 6:30am there is a good chance that you will be ticketed. To repeat, entry before 6:30am is only for folks with an Annual Pass.
To access the Fort DeSoto Park home page, click here. Annual passes are available at the Fort DeSoto Park Administration Office near the big flag on the big flagpole just past the Pay Booth and at the Gift Shop on Saturdays. Be sure to ask about the rather limited days and hours at the Pay Booth. The price is $75, Seniors $55, Limited Income, $37.50. I do know that you can purchase an Annual Pass at the Gift Shop on Saturdays. I am not sure about Sundays…
This image was created from the image above simply by boosting the saturation.
Image #2: Skimmers and terns at sunrise/more saturated
Your Favorite?
Please leave a comment and let us know if you like Image #1, the subdued version, or Image #2, the juiced up version. As always, please let us know why?
Some Fort DeSoto Photo Tips
1- If there are some nice clouds around it is a good idea to bring a short zoom lens with you. My favorite right now is the soon to be replaced Canon 24-105, my all-time favorite b-roll lens.
2- Arrive early. I generally like to be in place at least 45 minutes before sunrise.
3- Try to keep your hands out of the sand if at all possible. If not, a small towel helps. You can rinse your hands in the saltwater and then dry them.
4- Those who arrive early will find the lights on in the restrooms at the Bay Pier–a left turn after you make a right at the flag pole. These restrooms are very accessible as compared to those at North Beach.
The Fort DeSoto Site Guide
You can get yourself a copy of the Fort DeSoto Site Guide here. Fort DeSoto is about the only bird photography hotspot that I know of that has the potential to offer great opportunities to every day of the year. The big attractions here are shorebirds, all the large wading birds (including Roseate Spoonbill at various seasons), many species of terns, and gulls. In the spring photograph the breeding behaviors of Royal & Sandwich Terns and Laughing Gull. Flight photography can be good when feeding sprees occur just off of the beach. These feature terns and gulls and Brown Pelican. Spring and fall migration can be excellent for all manner of warblers, vireos, gnatcatchers, tanagers, grosbeaks, and orioles in some of the wooded areas. The Skyway Bridge Piers and environs are also covered in this Site Guide. By purchasing the guide you will know exactly where to be on what tide and what wind. Why waste your time searching for the birds when you can just show up and act like a DeSoto veteran?
Please Remember to use my Affiliate Links and to Visit the New BAA Online Store 🙂
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 we are 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 we, 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 🙂
Monday was spent stock-piling blog posts and finishing the “UK Puffins and Gannets” article for Helen Longest-Saccone and Nature Photographer magazine.
Both the Fort DeSoto IPT and the Sunday morning Cheap in the Field Session (I need to do more of those) were huge successes filled with great folks, tame birds, and more than a few amazing situations. There was one Unhappy Camper at the Sunday workshop who was what she was. And I loved it. The fourteen other Happy Campers went home happy–no shock there, smarter, and with more than a few good images. Lots more on the IPT coming soon.
I am still working on finishing up the draft of the LensAlign/FocusTune micro-adjusting tutorial. Thanks for your continuing patience.
Gear Questions and Advice
Too many folks attending BAA IPTs and dozens of the 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: 326!
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, 326 days in a row with a new educational blog post. There should be no end in sight until my big South America trip next fall. Or not… As always-–and folks have been doing a really great job recently–-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 new BAA Online Store (as noted in red at the close of this post below) we would appreciate your business.
TLD-Bird
The six images above were chosen from among my 14 keepers of this very cooperative subject.
Things to Notice
Notice that I varied the size of the bird in the frame. Notice that with the bird small in the frame I tucked it well into the corner of the image. Notice that I changed my perspective from standing behind my tripod to kneeling to lying in the mud. Notice the right exposure for each image, even the last one; when the sun went behind a cloud I needed to add a lot more light.
Notice that the very same bird can exhibit a variety of postures and thus shapes.
Your Favorite?
Please leave a comment and let us know, via the file name, which of the six images you like best. And why.
What They’re Saying
Via e-mail and personal comment from the young Mr. Patrick Brady; Pat signed up at the last minute.
Artie,
Wow. With ten folks you did a masterful job. I had an amazing time at the workshop and learned so much! Thank you! I got some great pictures (for me) of the night heron and the green heron and afterwards got to see lots of warblers at East Beach. I’m really excited to put what I learned to use on my own.
Cheers, Patrick
Best of luck to Patrick who is moving to the British Virgin Islands for his new job.
Fort DeSoto Spring IPT
Fort DeSoto is such a great teaching laboratory that I will be doing a Spring Fort DeSoto IPT in 2017. Dates TBD.
Living Vicariously: A Completely Free, In-the-Field Morning Fort DeSoto Fall Workshop.
Note: completely free is better than cheap!
Obviously, for a man who loves creating acronyms, a TLD-bird is a tour leader’s dream bird. More on that below…
I met my group of 10 (reduced by two due to the car crash on the drawbridge mentioned in yesterday’s blog pot) at 6:45am. Three folks from the IPT stayed on for their free morning session and were very glad that they did. Well before the sun came up I have a big lesson on exposure and on working in Manual mode. “When the sun is not out at full strength and the scene averages to a light tone (like pre-dawn sand or sky) the meter is stupid. Now point your lens at the sky in Av mode (Aperture for Nikon folks) and take one image with zero EC (exposure compensation). Where is the histogram?” All responded, “In the middle.” “Now, add two stops of light to your exposure again in Av Mode.” I helped the one gentleman who did not know how to set EC and was smart enough to admit it. “Where is the histogram?” All responded, “To the right.” And I added, “Right where we want it.”
“Y’all just learned that when the sun is not out at full strength and the scene averages to a light tone (like pre-dawn sand or sky) the meter is stupid.”
“Now, switch to Manual mode. If you have a zoom lens, zoom to the longest focal length. Set your widest aperture (the one with the smallest f-number like f/4 or f/5.6). Now, adjust the shutter speed so that the indicator on the analog scale comes to the 0 or null mark, that is, in the middle. Now point the lens at the sky and make one image. Where is the histogram?” All responded, “In the middle.” “Now, while pointing the lens at the sky, lower the shutter speed until the indicator on the analog scale shows +2 stops. Take one image. Where is the histogram?” All responded, “To the right.”
“Congratulations! You just learned how to work in Manual mode and that working in Manual mode is no different than working in Av mode.”
The Sunday Morning Cheap In-the-Field Fall Fort Desoto Group and the TLD-Bird.
Image courtesy of and copyright 2016 Fort DeSoto Fall IPT participant Juan Tolentino
The Sunday Morning Cheap In-the-Field Fall Fort Desoto Group and the TLD-Bird
Thanks to Juan for sharing this image with us. One thing he learned on the IPT was exposure. On cloudy days he was underexposing everything by two stops. But he was a quick study and got the WHITEs right here in full sun!
Technique Questions
That’s me lying on the ground in the middle of the group with the blue sun shirt on. Standing next to my left was multiple IPT veteran Bob DeCroce; I originally thought he was to my right. In any case you can see the TLD-bird standing in the water just to the right of my 100-year-old tan sun protection hat and just to the left of the left thigh of the guy to my right, the one in the dark gray shorts.
#1: From what you can see of the bird, why do you think that I was working a bit off sun angle (with my shadow pointed to the right of the subject)?
#2: What was I doing that was very wrong?
#3: Why do you think I did it?
#4: Which of the six images did I make while lying on the ground? (Please use the file #).
What Juan Said
Via e-mail from Juan Tolentino
Thank you for the wonderful IPT. It was amazing! And even more amazing was the huge amount of information that you shared in just 3 1/2 days. I loved it! Juan Tolentino
And Just What Is a TLD-Bird?
We headed out to the spit and noted that the amazing feeding spree from the day before did not repeat itself. We spotted a young Yellow-crowned Night Heron and approached it slowly. Many of them–including the one we were gaining on–are very tame. But with our shadows pointed at the subject, the bird, hunting for fiddler crabs, had its back to us with the sun behind it.The better to see you with my dear crab. Then came the TLD-bird: A second young Yellow-crowned Night Heron flew in and landed about 40 feet from us in beautiful still blue water. It was perfectly square to the light. We got into position, some folks standing, some folks kneeling, and one or two folks–including me eventually–lying in the wet muck.
The handsome bird stood stock-still for 30 minutes. With the sun out on a beautiful clear morning I suggested +2/3 or + 1 stop (or even more plus for those with short lenses). And then check your histogram to make sure that you have some data in the rightmost box. As the sun rose higher in the sky and we got closer, the bird filled more of the frame, so I suggested +1/3 or +2/3 and then check your histogram as above and as always. When the sun it out on a clear day, the meter is smarter; you need less positive EC. Had the bird stayed for an hour, we might have gotten to the point where zero EC, the metered exposure, might have been best. After 25 minutes a light cloud covered the sun and I explained that we all needed to get well above +1, to as much as +2 stops. Remember, when the sun is not out at full strength the meter is dumb…
In addition, we were able to talk about composition: “Choose an AF point that gets the bird out of the center of the frame. Be sure to give the bird 3-4 times as much room in front as behind.” And we discussed One-Shot AF (Single Servo in Nikon) and AI Servo (Continuous in Nikon) and when and why to use which one. Finally the bird moved off and so did we.
So now you know exactly how a tour leader’s dream-bird behaves.
After photographing a cooperative young Great Egret and an amazing juvenile Green Heron that flew in and landed 15 feet from the entire group, an adult Great Blue Heron caught and–after five minutes–swallowed a gorgeous green-striped, silver Pinfish. Pinfish, Lagodon rhomboides, is a saltwater fish of the Sparidae family. Again, it was high-fives all around.
Please Remember to use my Affiliate Links and to Visit the New BAA Online Store 🙂
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 we are 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 we, 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 🙂
The DeSoto Fall IPT went off flawlessly and everyone went home happy. And most folks on the Sunday Cheap In-the-Field Workshop went home happy as well. I drove home midday on Sunday and then pretty much took the rest of the days off… Unusual for me.
Gear Questions and Advice
Too many folks attending BAA IPTs and dozens of the 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: 325!
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, 325 days in a row with a new educational blog post. There should be no end in sight until my big South America trip next fall. Or not… As always-–and folks have been doing a really great job recently–-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 new BAA Online Store (as noted in red at the close of this post below) we would appreciate your business.
B&H Event Space Teleconverter Video Posted!
Using Teleconverters with Telephoto Lenses with Arthur Morris
The word on the street is that you simply cannot make sharp images with teleconverters (TCs) especially with the 2X. Nothing could be further from the truth. With some practice and good sharpness techniques you can learn to use TCs effectively to photograph small, distant, or shy subjects. Check out my latest B&H Event Space video by clicking here. Comments and questions are of course welcome.
Thanks a stack to B&H Event Space boss David Brommer and his excellent video team, Matthew D’Alessio and David Moncion.
I selected the AF point that was two above the center AF point/AI Servo Expand/Rear Focus AF as originally framed was active at the moment of exposure. The selected AF point was on the top of the bird’s breast directly below the nares (nostrils) as shown in the DPP 4 screen capture below. Click here to see the latest version of the Rear Focus Tutorial.
Roseate Spoonbill at sunset
The Perfect Being Late For a Dinner Reservation Excuse…
We had dinner reservations for 7:30pm on Saturday evening. I had planned to leave the beach at seven sharp but as we had been delayed on the way to the park for 30 minutes by a big car wreck on the draw bridge just before the last 7-11, I decided to give the boys and girls a few extra minutes. And then this beautiful so soft looking spoonbill flew in and landed right in front of us. The yellow water was the reflection of a big white cloud to the east, a cloud that was turned golden by the setting sun. So late we were, with apologies.
We dined at the Good Times Continental Restaurant owned and operated by the same lovely couple for 45 years. I have been going there for so many years that like the locals, I am greeted on every visit with a hug. And the Czech/Central European food is outstanding; everyone raved about their meal.
Crazy as it might seem, two of the women who had signed up for the Sunday In-the-Field Workshop were in the car on the bridge that had been smashed from behind… They were both OK but did cancel. More on that amazing morning session soon. You will learn what a TLD-bird is… Any guesses?
The DPP 4 Screen Capture
The DPP 4 Screen Capture
Note that I increased the Brightness by .83 stop and moved the color Fine Tune control toward YELLOW. The Highlight slider was moved to -1. Lastly, note that I chose a spot on the upper breast that was on the same plane as the bird’s eye.
Learn how and why I and other Canon professionals use DPP 4 for all of our RAW conversions in the DPP 4 RAW Conversion Guide here.
AF Point Question
What would have happened if I chose an AF point in the upper-most row and put it on the bird’s eye?
Images and card copyright Arthur Morris/BEARS AS ART 🙂
2017 Bear Boat Coastal Brown Bear Cubs IPTs: July 18-24, 2017 from Kodiak, AK: 5 FULL & 2 Half DAYS: $6699. Happy campers only! Maximum 8/Openings 3.
Join me in spectacular Katmai National Park, AK for six days of photographing Coastal Brown Bears. Mid-July is prime time for making images of small, football-sized cubs. The cubs, and these dates, are so popular that I had to reserve them three years in advance to secure them. There are lots of bears each year in June, but the mothers only rarely risk bringing their tiny cubs out in the open in fear of predation by rival bears. In addition to making portraits of both adults and cubs, we hope to photograph frolicking and squabbling youngsters and tender nursing scenes. At this time of year, the bears are either grazing in luxuriant grass or clamming. There will also be some two- and three-year old cubs to add to the fun. And we will get to photograph it all.
We will live on our tour operator’s luxurious new boat. At 78 feet long its 24 foot beam makes it quite spacious as well. And the food is great. We will likely spend most of our time at famed Geographic Harbor as that is where the bears are generally concentrated in summer. On the odd chance that we do need to relocate to another location we can do so quickly and easily without having to venture into any potentially rough seas. We land via a 25 foot skiff that has lots of room for as much gear as we can carry.
Aside from the bears we should get to photograph Horned and Tufted Puffin and should get nice stuff on Mew Gull, Glaucous-winged Gull, Black-legged Kittiwake, Harbor Seal, and Steller’s Sea Lion as well. A variety of tundra-nesting shorebirds including Western Sandpiper and both yellowlegs are also possible. Halibut fishing (license required/not included) is optional.
It is mandatory that you be in Kodiak no later than the late afternoon of July 17 to avoid missing the float planes to the boat on the morning of July 18. Again, with air travel in Alaska (or anywhere else for that matter) subject to possible delays, being on Kodiak on July 16 is a much better plan.
Barring any delays, we will get to photograph bears on our first afternoon and then again every day for the next five days after that, all weather permitting of course. On our last morning on the boat, July 24, those who would like to enjoy one last photo session will have the opportunity to do so. The group will return to Kodiak via float plane from late morning through midday. Most folks will then fly to Anchorage and to continue on red-eye flights to their home cities.
What’s included? 7 DAYS/6 NIGHTS on the boat as above. All meals on the boat. National Park and guide fees. In-the-field photo tips, instruction, and guidance. An insight into the mind of two top professionals; we will constantly let you know what we are thinking, what we are doing, and why we are doing it. Small group image review, image sharing, and informal Photoshop instruction on the boat.
What’s not included: Your round trip airfare to and from Kodiak, AK (almost surely through Anchorage). Your lodging and meals on Kodiak. The cost of the round-trip float plane to the boat and then back to Kodiak as above. The cost of a round trip last year was $550. The suggested crew tip of $200.
Have you ever walked with the bears?
Is this an expensive trip? Yes, of course. But with 5 full and two half days, a wealth of great subjects, and the fact that you will be walking with the bears just yards away (or less….), it will be one of the great natural history experiences of your life. Most folks who take part in a Bear Boat IPT wind up coming back for more.
A $2,000 per person non-refundable deposit by check only made out to “BIRDS AS ART” is required to hold your spot. Please click here to read our cancellation policies. Then please print, read, and sign the necessary paperwork here and send it to us by mail to PO Box 7245, Indian Lake Estates, FL 33855.
Your deposit is due when you sign up. That leaves a balance of $4699. The next payment of $2699 will be due on September 15, 2016. The final payment of $2000 is due on February 15, 2017. We hope that you can join me for what will be a wondrously exciting trip.
Please Remember to use my Affiliate Links and to Visit the New BAA Online Store 🙂
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 we are 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 we, 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 🙂
On the morning of Day 3 of the DeSoto Fall IPT we absolutely killed. We had a feeding spree with eight totally tame Roseate Spoonbills, several Great and Snowy Egrets, a gorgeous Yellow-crowned Night-Heron or two, Tricolored and a Little Blue Heron, a dark morph Reddish Egret, and several dozen winter Laughing Gulls all catching shrimp and small pipefish in just a few inches of water. I am hoping that the action is repeated for the Sunday morning In-the-Field get-together. Time will tell…
Gear Questions and Advice
Too many folks attending BAA IPTs and dozens of the 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: 324!
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, 324 days in a row with a new educational blog post. There should be no end in sight until my big South America trip next fall. Or not… As always-–and folks have been doing a really great job recently–-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 new BAA Online Store (as noted in red at the close of this post below) we would appreciate your business.
This image was created on the second full day of the DeSoto Fall IPT with the Induro GIT 304L/Mongoose M3.6-mounted Canon EF 500mm f/4L IS II USM lens, the Canon Extender EF 2X III, and the Canon EOS 5D Mark IV. ISO 400. Evaluative metering +1 stop: 1/500 sec. at f/9 was a bit too much for my taste as the WHITEs came into DPP 4 with the RGB values in the high 240s and low 250s. Daylight WB.
Upper Zone/AI Servo/Shutter Button AF as originally framed was active at the moment of exposure. The system performed perfectly by activating two AF points one of which was right on the subject’s eye. Just another reason to love the 5D Mark IV.
LensAlign FocusTune AF micro-adjustment: -5.
Great Egret juvenile head and shoulders portrait
A Bad Morning at Black Rock…
After a great first full day, the morning of our second full day was shaping up to be a big dud. The spot where we had had a great morning the day before was pretty much dead. Carlotta Grenier set up by a small pool and got some great stuff on Black-bellied Plover and Willets with nice reflections. But the rest of the group and I were sucking dirty pond water. So off we went to my back-up spot. Not a bird. On the way out of the park we spotted and off-angle to the light Roseate Spoonbill but it did not like us and flew as we tried to get into position. My second back-up spot was also dead. And my third as well. Not a bird. So we tried a fifth location but the tide was still too low and the light too harsh. As we pulled into the very last chance spot I saw a spoonbill about fifty yards to our left in the shade of some trees. I alerted the group and got everyone into position as the bird approached us and walking into the sun that was now just a bit muted by a light cloud. We had about ten minutes with the bird and everyone was thrilled.
Then we spent almost an hour with the beautiful tame young Great Egret that is featured above. We went over exposure and AF fine points. We shot the bird in the sun against sweet blue water backgrounds and in the shade against lovely green grass. The bird was 100% oblivious to humans. Finally the group tired of the situation and we headed back to the vehicles. Carlotta needed help with her Mongoose so we helped her and then talked for about 30 minutes on a variety of tripod, tripod head, and gear and gear clean-up topics. Then we headed back to the hotel for quick showers and another great lunch at the Neptune Grill in Gulfport.
By absolutely refusing to give up we turned what was looking like a very poor morning into a joyous celebration with high fives all around.
Upper Zone AF…
Upper Zone AF for vertical head and shoulders portraits (as above) with the 5D Mark IV is deadly accurate and a much better choice than 65-point Automatic Selection.
White Neutralizer
When you have some sweet sky blue tones in your image it is almost always worth seeing if the White Neutralizer filter in NIK Color Efex Pro can bring them to life. It will come in to Photoshop on it’s own layer and you can modify it by reducing the opacity of the layer or adding a Regular Layer Mask and then fine-tuning things. I used the former approach here to the tune of about 75%. This technique usually works well with a variety of sky blue tones.
Your Call…
Do you think that the BLUEs are lovely or that I have over-done it a bit. Do feel free to let us know your thoughts.
The Fort DeSoto Site Guide
You can get yourself a copy of the Fort DeSoto Site Guide here. Fort DeSoto is about the only bird photography hotspot that I know of that has the potential to offer great opportunities to every day of the year. The big attractions here are shorebirds, all the large wading birds (including Roseate Spoonbill at various seasons), many species of terns, and gulls. In the spring photograph the breeding behaviors of Royal & Sandwich Terns and Laughing Gull. Flight photography can be good when feeding sprees occur just off of the beach. These feature terns and gulls and Brown Pelican. Spring and fall migration can be excellent for all manner of warblers, vireos, gnatcatchers, tanagers, grosbeaks, and orioles in some of the wooded areas. The Skyway Bridge Piers and environs are also covered in this Site Guide. By purchasing the guide you will know exactly where to be on what tide and what wind. Why waste your time searching for the birds when you can just show up and act like a DeSoto veteran? And yes, all of my back-up sites are detailed in the guide.
Please Remember to use my Affiliate Links and to Visit the New BAA Online Store 🙂
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 we are 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 we, 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 🙂
Things were looking really bleak on Friday morning for the DeSoto Fall IPT group but by refusing to give up we pulled a rabbit out of the hat at the last minute. Story on Sunday. Gotta get some sleep…
Gear Questions and Advice
Too many folks attending IPTs and dozens of the 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: 323!
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, 323 days in a row with a new educational blog post. There should be no end in sight until my big South America trip next fall. Or not… As always-–and folks have been doing a really great job recently–-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 new BAA Online Store (as noted in red at the close of this post below) we would appreciate your business.
Important Oreo Cookie Info
As many of you know, I have–over my lifetime–consumed more than one-half million Oreo cookies, dunked two at a time in cold milk. One box a day–three cellophane-wrapped packets of 12 cookies each–for about 35 years. Every day. In doubt? Do the math.
In an e-mail from my good friend, Dr. Cliff Oliver of La Jolla, CA, he wrote, And to think, you could have been the poster child forthis.
Hcq
I followed the link and found an article titled Oreos and Milk: A Cancer-Causing Combination?
Then I scrolled down to the article summary and replied as follows to Cliff’s e-mail.
Doctor, doctor,
re: the article summary:
Statistics show that the Oreo cookie is the number one cookie in America (and many other countries) and many people love eating them with milk.
Yup, that was me.
When you combine high fructose corn syrup with salt and animal fat (cow’s milk), you make a combination of chemicals that elicit a pleasure response in the brain that demands more stimulation.
They did taste really good.
The scientifically formulated balance of sugar, fat, and chemicals in Oreos and milk keeps the brain wanting more, even when the stomach is full.
Who me? I only ate one box a day for 35 years. If you are counting, that is more than half a million.
A recent scientific study determined that the high fat/high sugar combination is as addictive as morphine and cocaine.
Well,they got that right.
Consuming large quantities of Oreo cookies, and washing it down with high fat milk laden with hormones and antibiotics, creates a lethal blend that greatly increases your risk of cancer, obesity, and diabetes.
Lucky me. Two out of three ain’t bad!
TFS. a
What is it?
What Is It?
Sorry, there is only two clues:
#1: This image was made somewhere in our solar system.
#2: Though this is the BIRDS AS ART blog remember, it ain’t just birds…
If you think that you know what it is, please do share by leaving a comment. If not, guess and leave a comment anyway. Answer in a few days.
Please Remember to use my Affiliate Links and to Visit the New BAA Online Store 🙂
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 we are 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 we, 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 🙂
On Thursday we had a great day (even with wind against sun in the morning). We endured the threat of thunderstorms pretty much all day long but escaped unscathed. As the skies got black toward sunset we beat a hasty retreat and as we headed back to the hotel it poured. It is 9:06pm now and I am off the bed. So good night and good morning.
Gear Questions and Advice
Too many folks attending BAA IPTs and dozens of the 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: 322!
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, 322 days in a row with a new educational blog post. There should be no end in sight until my big South America trip next fall. Or not… As always-–and folks have been doing a really great job recently–-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 new BAA Online Store (as noted in red at the close of this post below) we would appreciate your business.
I selected a single AF point that was three to the right of the center AF point/AI Servo Expand/Shutter Button AF as originally framed was active at the moment of exposure. The selected AF point was squarely on the base of the bird’s bill. The optimized image is a small crop from our left and above.
LensAlign FocusTune AF micro-adjustment: -5.
Short-billed Dowitcher/adult preening with tail splayed
A Whole New World: 500 II + 2XIII TC + 5D Mark IV…
I decided a while back to leave the 600 II at home and take the 500 II to South America to save weight and to help keep my right shoulder in the great shape it is now. Plus it is way easier to travel with the 500 II than it is to travel with the far bulkier 600 II. So I committed to using the 500 II as my long tripod-mounted super-telephoto on the DeSoto Fall IPT. As compared to the 600 II, its smaller size and lighter weight makes it exponentially easier to get into position. With the 5d IV AF is fast and sure and stable.
LensAlign/Focus Tune Micro-adjusting
LensAlign/Focus Tune micro-adjusting is a pain in the butt. I recently spent well more than two full days doing all of my lenses and TCs with my two new Canon EOS 5D Mark IV bodies. My time was well spent. The breathtakingly sharp images that I am producing made all of that time spent dealing with the sometime huge challenges that come with micro-adjusting beyond well worth it.
A Realization
When trying to figure out the reasons that I have long been able to create super-sharp photographs such as today’s featured image with the 2X TCs and f/4 super-telephoto lenses while others have struggled mightily one factor that pops into mind is the fact that I have been micro-adjusting (MA-ing) my gear ever since LensAlign and FocusTune came into being. Here’s the key: the MA values with TCs are generally greater than the MA values with the prime lenses alone and the MA values with the 2X TCs are generally greater then the MA values with the 1.4X TCs. Fact: the longer the effective focal length, the harder it is to come up with a good MA value… So add perfect sharpness techniques to a lens/TC/body combo that has been accurately FocusTuned and the sharpness can be astounding.
An Interesting Pat Sparkman Thought on the 500 II versus the 600 II
My friend Patrick Sparkman, a brilliant photographer who is far more technically proficient than yours truly, has long reasoned that dropping down from the 600 II to the 500 II will allow you to create sharper images, images that when cropped to the same subject size as images made with the 600 will be at least as sharp if not sharper… I am now in the process of proving that to be true.
100% crop of today’s featured image
100% Crop of Today’s Featured Image
When exposed well to the right high ISO images from the 5D Mark IV can be virtually noise free. The only noise reduction applied to today’s image was done during the RAW conversion in DPP 4. The image file was so clean that I did not even consider running NeatImage on it. Remarkable indeed.
Your Thoughts?
Please leave a comment and let us know what you think of the fine feather detail and noise levels in today’s ISO 1600 featured image.
If…
If the images you are seeing here on the blog and what you are reading inspires or prompts you to purchase a Canon EOS 5D Mark IV, please consider using my B&H affiliate link. Doing so will not cost you one penny and is the best way to thank me for my efforts here on the blog and the time spent answering your gear and photo related questions via e-mail.
Please Remember to use my Affiliate Links and to Visit the New BAA Online Store 🙂
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 we are 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 we, 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.
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Typos
In all blog posts and Bulletins, feel free to e-mail or to leave a comment regarding any typos or errors. Just be right 🙂
It is almost 9pm on Wednesday evening as I type. I woke at 2:56am this morning, finished 2 1/2 days of micro-adjusting my two new 5D IV bodies with four lenses and five different teleconverters… I swam a half mile at 9:30 and drove across the state arriving at the IPT hotel at 1:30pm. I met the group at 2pm and we headed out at three. No nap!
Ed Hutchinson sold three of the four items he listed in less than a day and so did Joseph Higbee!
Gear Questions and Advice
Too many folks attending BAA IPTs and dozens of the 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.
New Listing
Canon EOS-1D Mark IV
Zach Zacharias is offering a used Canon EOS1D Mark IV in excellent condition for a BAA record low $1,349.00. The sale includes the camera body with front cap, the battery charger with the original plus one extra battery, the manuals and CDs, the original straps, all the cables, and UPS insured ground and insured. Your item will not be shipped until your check clears.
Two 1D Mark IVs served as my workhorse camera bodies for more than four years. The 1.3crop factor allows for extra reach in a fast, rugged pro body. Zach’s 1D IV is priced to sell. artie
The Streak: 321!
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, 321 days in a row with a new educational blog post. There should be no end in sight until my big South America trip next fall. Or not… As always-–and folks have been doing a really great job recently–-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 new BAA Online Store (as noted in red at the close of this post below) we would appreciate your business.
I selected the AF point two up from the center AF point/AI Servo Surround/Shutter Button AF as framed was active at the moment of exposure. The selected AF point was on the bottom of the bird’s neck right on the same plane as the bird’s eye.
LensAlign/FocusTune micro-adjustment: -5.
Great Blue Heron/immature with saltwater catfish
The First Afternoon
I have a small but great group. Three multiple IPT veterans and two newbies. And one more multiple IPT veteran arriving on Thursday evening. All nice. All happy campers. It was a cloudy afternoon filled with tame Short-billed Dowitchers, tame Willets, tame Least Sandpipers, tame Great Egrets, and a fishing Snowy Egret attracting baitfish by splashing the water with its bill. Only Bob DeCroce got on a Great Egret with a pretty decent fish. And then it happened; I looked up and saw a Great Blue Heron flying right at us with a big catfish in its bill. It dropped the fish on the grass and I prayed for it to pick it up. It did, and eventually ate the whole thing (much to our delight)! After the GBH’s fish dinner it was high fives all around.
I selected the AF point two to the right of the of the center AF point/AI Servo Surround/Shutter Button AF as framed was active at the moment of exposure. Four up from the cetner AF point would have been just as good or better. The latter would have placed the selected AF point right on the bird’s eye.
LensAlign/FocusTune micro-adjustment: -5.
Great Blue Heron/Down The Hatch
I Could Believe It Ate the Whole Thing
Nobody in the group thought that the bird would be able to swallow the relatively large catfish. Having seen them swallow fish twice as big, I knew that it was just a matter of time. The key to the success of this image was my choice of perspective; I got low to get the green strip at the bottom of the frame rather than having it intersect the bird’s face as it would have if it had been in the middle of the frame.
Please Remember to use my Affiliate Links and to Visit the New BAA Online Store 🙂
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 we are 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 we, 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 🙂
