Sunday was another day of rest for me, getting ready for two private clients early on Monday morning. I meet the small Nickerson IPT group (only four) at 3pm that afternoon. Right now I am rooting for Phil Mickelson to win his second British Open gold tournament.
The Streak
Today’s blog post marks a totally insane, absurd, completely ridiculous, unfathomable, silly, incomprehensible, what’s wrong with this guy?, makes-no-sense, 250 days in a row with a new educational blog post. And I still have dozens of new topics to cover; there should be no end in sight until my big South America trip next fall. 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.
Used Gear Sales Continue to be More Than Brisk!
Jonathan Ward sold his Canon 70-200 f/2.8L IS II USM lens in excellent condition for $2,000 CAD in early July.
Long ago multiple IPT veteran Charles McRae sold his Canon EF 600mm f/4L IS lens in good to very good condition in early July for a record low $4,199.
Walt Novinger sold his Canon 500mm f/4L IS USM lens in very good plus condition for $3,899 in early June.
Jeffrey Fredberg sold his EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6L IS USM L series lens in like-new condition for the record-low BAA price of $749 in late June.
Jim Burns sold his Canon 200-400mm F/4L IS zoom lens with Internal 1.4X Extender in brand new condition for the insane BAA record-low price of $8499 in late June.
Many multiple IPT veteran Monte Brown sold his Canon EOS 5D Mark III (with the BG-E11 vertical battery grip) both in excellent condition for $1599 in early June.
Moody McCall sold his Canon 300mm F/2.8L IS II in excellent condition for $4199 in mid-June.
Long-ago IPT veteran Charles Sleicher sold his Canon EF 500mm f/4L IS USM lens in very good plus condition for $3400 in mid-June.
Top BAA Used Gear seller Jim Keener sold his Canon EOS 5D Mark III in absolute mint condition for $1599 in mid-June.
KW McCulloch sold his Canon EOS-1D X in excellent condition for $2459 in mid-June.
Many multiple IPT veteran Monte Brown sold his Canon EOS 5D Mark III (with the BG-E11 vertical battery grip) both in excellent condition for $1599 in early June.
Les Greenberg sold his Canon EF 300mm f/2.8L IS II lens in mint condition for $4499 in early June.
Top BAA Used Gear seller Jim Keener sold his Canon EF 500mm f/4L IS USM lens (the old five) in very good plus condition for a BAA record low price of $3699 in mid-June.
National Geographic shooter Tim Laman sold his Canon EOS-1D C in good condition for $2100 in early June. The 1D C is a 1D X with 4K video.
Andres Leon sold his Canon 800mm f/5.6L IS lens in very good plus condition for the full asking price of $7899 in early June.
IPT veteran Billy Wingfield sold his Canon EOS-1DX in excellent plus condition for $2400 in early June.
Multiple IPT veteran Larry Master sold his near-mint Canon EOS-1DX for $2800 in early June.
Moody McCall sold his Canon 100-400L IS USA lens in excellent condition for $599 in early June.
Canon 400mm f/4 IS DO II USM Lens
Multiple IPT veteran Bill Lloyd is offering a used Canon 400mm f/4 IS DO II USM lens in mint condition for $5,999. The sale includes the LensCoat that has been on it from day one, the front lens covers, the rear lens cap, the lens trunk, the lens strap, and insured ground shipping by major courier to US addresses only is also included. Your item will not ship until your check clears unless other arrangement are made.
I own the 400 DO II and find a way to take it on most trips. I brought it to Scotland. I have it at Nickerson Beach. And it serves as my big gun in the Galapagos and the Southern Ocean (the Falklands and South Georgia are both coming up). It is a killer for flight especially with a 1.4X III TC. And really skilled folks have had amazing success hand holding it with the 2X III TC for flight and for action. This lens is in high demand; it is the first of its kind that I have had the pleasure to list. artie
This image was created on the first morning of the 2016 UK Puffins and Gannets IPT with the hand held Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM lens (at 286mm) and the a mega mega-pixel Canon EOS 5DS R. ISO 400. Evaluative metering +1 stop: 1/1600 sec. at f/6.3.
Center AF point (Manual selection)/AI Servo/Rear Focus AF as framed was active at the moment of exposure (as is always best when hand holding). The selected and active AF point fell on the center and side of the bird’s upper breast below the neck and the base of the bill. Right on the same plane as the bird’s eye and face.. Click here to see the latest version of the Rear Focus Tutorial. Click on the image to see a larger version.
Eurasian Starling fledgling on seawall
They’re Just Starlings–But Not on a BIRDS AS ART IPT…
When we got to the harbor I noticed a bunch of young starlings on the seawall behind the ticket booths. And I noticed right off the bat that the wind–soft from the south–would be perfect for creating portraits. After we paid for our full day boat trips our National Trust Membership stickers I grabbed a few slices of bread from the back of our van and invited everyone in the group to join me. Only a few did. I guess that they were thinking, “They’re just starlings; we came for puffins.”
Eager to photograph and eager to learn was participant Carlotta Grenier. She was equipped just as I was with the new 100-400 II and a 1DX Mark II. First we talked about working within 10-15 degrees of sun angle. Then we discussed exposure: “You want to be plus one or two thirds (while working in Manual mode) because the bird is a bit darker then the background. Don’t forget that when the sun it out the meter is pretty smart.”
Next we talked about perspective: “If you stand at full height you will likely have a somewhat boring blue water background. If you get down a bit, you can create a nice triangle background made up of the ocean and the distant shoreline–at this point I showed her today’s featured image on my rear LCD–If you get really low, you get a really blurred BKGR and you minimize the detail on the seawall.”
I checked out of few of her images on the back of the camera and noticed that her subjects were too centered. So I taught her how and why to select an off-centered AF point.
Finally I realized that Carlotta had been standing well back and asked her why. “I cannot focus any closer.” I knew immediately that she had the limit range switch set to 3 meters to infinity (correct for flight photography) rather than to Full. Once we set the switch correctly for close focusing work she stepped up and began to knock a few out of the park.
The Lessons
1-All birds are beautiful, even juvenile starlings.
2-Even the most common birds are great for practicing bird photography and for improving your skills.
3-Take advantage of every moment. Good advice for all bird photographers and a good guideline to follow when you are not photographing birds…
4-Being with an enthusiastic leader who truly loves birds can be a good advantage.
Images and card design copyright: Arthur Morris/BIRDS AS ART. Click on the card to enjoy a spectacular larger version.
2017 UK Puffins and Gannets IPT
Monday July 3 through Monday July 10, 2017: $5999: Limit 10 photographers — Openings: 6). Two great leaders: Arthur Morris and BPN co-owner, BPN Photography Gear Forum Moderator, and long-time BAA Webmaster Peter Kes.
Here are the plans: take a red eye from the east coast of the US on July 2 and arrive in Edinburgh, Scotland on the morning of Monday July 3 no later than 10am (or simply meet us then at the Edinburgh Airport–EDI, or later in the day at our cottages if you are driving your own vehicle either from the UK or from somewhere in Europe). Stay 7 nights in one of three gorgeous modern country cottages.
There are five days of planned puffin/seabird trips and one morning of gannet photography, all weather permitting of course. In three years we have yet to miss an entire day because of weather… In addition, we will enjoy several sessions of photographing nesting Black-legged Kittiwakes at eye level.
Images and card design copyright: Arthur Morris/BIRDS AS ART. Click on the card to enjoy a spectacular larger version.
The Details
We will get to photograph Atlantic Puffin, Common Murre, Razorbill, Shag, and Northern Gannet; Arctic, Sandwich, and Common Terns, the former with chicks of all sizes; Black-headed, Lesser-Black-backed, and Herring Gulls, many chasing puffins with fish; Black-legged Kittiwake with chicks. We will be staying in upscale country-side lodging that are beyond lovely with large living areas and lots of open space for the informal image sharing and Photoshop sessions. The shared rooms are decent-sized, each with a private bathroom. See the limited single supplement info below.
All breakfasts, lunches and dinners are included. All 5 puffins boat lunches will need to be prepared by you in advance, taken with, and consumed at your leisure. I usually eat mine on the short boat trip from one island to the other. Also included is a restaurant lunch on the gannet boat day.
If you wish to fly home on the morning of Monday July 10 we will get you to the airport. Please, however, consider the following tentative plans: enjoy a second Gannet boat trip on the afternoon of Monday July 10 and book your hotel room in Dunbar. If all goes as planned, those who stay on for the two extra days will make a morning landing at Bass Rock, one of the world’s largest gannetries. We will get everyone to the airport on the morning of Wednesday July 12. (We may opt to stay in Edinburgh on the night of July 11.) Price and details should be finalized at least six months before the trip but you will need to be a bit patient. It would be ideal if I can get all the work done by the end of September so that folks can arrange their flights then.
Images and card design copyright: Arthur Morris/BIRDS AS ART. Click on the card to enjoy a spectacular larger version. Scroll down to join us in the UK in 2016.
Deposit Info
If you are good to go sharing a room–couples of course are more than welcome–please send your non-refundable $2,000/person deposit check now to save a spot. Please be sure to check your schedule carefully before committing to the trip and see the travel insurance info below. Your balance will be due on March 29, 2017. Please make your check out to “Arthur Morris” and send it to Arthur Morris/BIRDS AS ART, PO Box 7245, Indian Lake Estates, FL, 33855. If we do not receive your check for the balance on or before the due date we will try to fill your spot from the waiting list. If your spot is filled, you will lose your deposit. If not, you can secure your spot by paying your balance.
Please shoot me an e-mail if you are good to go or if you have any questions.
Single Supplement Deposit Info
Single supplement rooms are available on a limited basis. To ensure yours, please register early. The single supplement fee is $1575. If you would like your own room, please request it when making your deposit and include payment in full for the single supplement; your single supplement deposit check should be for $3,575. As we will need to commit to renting the extra space, single supplement deposits are non-refundable so please be sure that check your schedule carefully before committing to the trip and see the travel insurance info below.
Travel Insurance
Travel insurance for big international trips is highly recommended as we never know what life has in store for us. I strongly recommend that you purchase quality insurance. Travel Insurance Services offers a variety of plans and options. Included with the Elite Option or available as an upgrade to the Basic & Plus Options you can also purchase Cancel for Any Reason Coverage that expands the list of reasons for your canceling to include things such as sudden work or family obligation and even a simple change of mind. My family and I use and depend on the great policies offered by TIS whenever we travel. You can learn more here: Travel Insurance Services. Do note that many plans require that you purchase your travel insurance within 14 days of our cashing your deposit check of running your credit card. Whenever purchasing travel insurance be sure to read the fine print careful even when dealing with reputable firms like TSI.
This trip has sold out far in advance every year so do not tarry. I hope that you can join me.
Please Remember to use our 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 🙂
My 93 year old Mom looks pretty darned good and is doing as well as can be expected. There is nothing wrong with her except that she is old. It takes a heroic effort for her to get from her chair to the bathroom or the kitchen or her bed. But she remains in good spirits.
I slept as well as I have in a while on Friday night at younger daughter Alissa’s home in Holbrook. On Saturday I watched lots of the British Open Golf, did some shopping at Whole Foods (aka “whole paycheck), got my Mom a dozen and a half Little-neck Clams on the half shell, and worked on this blog post. And enjoyed a nice swim in the community pool that was mercifully devoid of folks. Tomorrow the plan is to do a mile.
The Streak
Today’s blog post marks a totally insane, absurd, completely ridiculous, unfathomable, silly, incomprehensible, what’s wrong with this guy?, makes-no-sense, 249 days in a row with a new educational blog post. And I still have dozens of new topics to cover; there should be no end in sight until my big South America trip next fall. 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 DAY 5 of the 2016 UK Puffins and Gannets IPT with the a Induro GIT 304L/Mongoose M3.6-mounted Canon EF 600mm f/4L IS II USM lens and the mega mega-pixel Canon EOS 5DS R.. ISO 400. Evaluative metering at about +1 stop: as originally framed: 1/400 sec. at f/8 in Manual mode. AWB.
One AF point up and two rows to the left of the center AF point/AI Servo/Spot AF (don’t ask me why…)/Rear Focus AF as framed was active at the moment of exposure. Click here to see the latest version of the Rear Focus Tutorial. Click on the image to see a larger version.
We landed on the back side of the morning island because of the height of the tide. Right off the bat we were presented with several close puffins, several of them with fish. It was easy to line them up with dark rock backgrounds. I have lots of pure black backgrounds but I liked this pose best. The whole group was lined up in shooting gallery fashion. After I while, I decided that I would like to photograph the same bird with a gray water background. What to do.
This image–of the same bird–was also created on DAY 5 of the 2016 UK Puffins and Gannets IPT with the Induro GIT 304L/Mongoose M3.6-mounted Canon EF 600mm f/4L IS II USM lens and the mega mega-pixel Canon EOS 5DS R.. ISO 400. Evaluative metering at about -2/3 stop: 1/400 sec. at f/8 in Manual mode. AWB.
One AF point to the right and two rows up from the center AF point/AI Servo/Spot AF (don’t ask me why…)/Rear Focus AF as framed was active at the moment of exposure. Click here to see the latest version of the Rear Focus Tutorial. Click on the image to see a larger version.
To achieve the water background I simply walked to our right about 10 meters and photographed the bird from a bit head on. As the subject was a bit smaller in the frame I placed the bird more in the lower left corner. The huge 5DS R image files permitted me to crop to taste without sacrificing image quality.
Your Favorite?
Which of today’s featured image do you like best? Why?
Exposure Multiple Choice Quiz
The exposure for the two featured images was the same, 1/400 sec. at f/8 in Manual mode. Why?
a-the light was constant so the exposure on the bird was both correct and the same for each image.
b-when you are in Manual mode you do not have to worry about the effect of a light or dark background on the meter.
c-in heavy overcast conditions you do not have to worry about exposure changes due to working off angle to the light.
d-a, b, and c are all correct.
e-it was just a coincidence.
Related Exposure Questions
1- Why did the first image need about +1 stop Exposure Compensation (EC)?
2-Why did the second image require about -2/3 stop of EC?
Images and card design copyright: Arthur Morris/BIRDS AS ART. Click on the card to enjoy a spectacular larger version.
2017 UK Puffins and Gannets IPT
Monday July 3 through Monday July 10, 2017: $5999: Limit 10 photographers — Openings: 6). Two great leaders: Arthur Morris and BPN co-owner, BPN Photography Gear Forum Moderator, and long-time BAA Webmaster Peter Kes.
Here are the plans: take a red eye from the east coast of the US on July 2 and arrive in Edinburgh, Scotland on the morning of Monday July 3 no later than 10am (or simply meet us then at the Edinburgh Airport–EDI, or later in the day at our cottages if you are driving your own vehicle either from the UK or from somewhere in Europe). Stay 7 nights in one of three gorgeous modern country cottages.
There are five days of planned puffin/seabird trips and one morning of gannet photography, all weather permitting of course. In three years we have yet to miss an entire day because of weather… In addition, we will enjoy several sessions of photographing nesting Black-legged Kittiwakes at eye level.
Images and card design copyright: Arthur Morris/BIRDS AS ART. Click on the card to enjoy a spectacular larger version.
The Details
We will get to photograph Atlantic Puffin, Common Murre, Razorbill, Shag, and Northern Gannet; Arctic, Sandwich, and Common Terns, the former with chicks of all sizes; Black-headed, Lesser-Black-backed, and Herring Gulls, many chasing puffins with fish; Black-legged Kittiwake with chicks. We will be staying in upscale country-side lodging that are beyond lovely with large living areas and lots of open space for the informal image sharing and Photoshop sessions. The shared rooms are decent-sized, each with a private bathroom. See the limited single supplement info below.
All breakfasts, lunches and dinners are included. All 5 puffins boat lunches will need to be prepared by you in advance, taken with, and consumed at your leisure. I usually eat mine on the short boat trip from one island to the other. Also included is a restaurant lunch on the gannet boat day.
If you wish to fly home on the morning of Monday July 10 we will get you to the airport. Please, however, consider the following tentative plans: enjoy a second Gannet boat trip on the afternoon of Monday July 10 and book your hotel room in Dunbar. If all goes as planned, those who stay on for the two extra days will make a morning landing at Bass Rock, one of the world’s largest gannetries. We will get everyone to the airport on the morning of Wednesday July 12. (We may opt to stay in Edinburgh on the night of July 11.) Price and details should be finalized at least six months before the trip but you will need to be a bit patient. It would be ideal if I can get all the work done by the end of September so that folks can arrange their flights then.
Images and card design copyright: Arthur Morris/BIRDS AS ART. Click on the card to enjoy a spectacular larger version. Scroll down to join us in the UK in 2016.
Deposit Info
If you are good to go sharing a room–couples of course are more than welcome–please send your non-refundable $2,000/person deposit check now to save a spot. Please be sure to check your schedule carefully before committing to the trip and see the travel insurance info below. Your balance will be due on March 29, 2017. Please make your check out to “Arthur Morris” and send it to Arthur Morris/BIRDS AS ART, PO Box 7245, Indian Lake Estates, FL, 33855. If we do not receive your check for the balance on or before the due date we will try to fill your spot from the waiting list. If your spot is filled, you will lose your deposit. If not, you can secure your spot by paying your balance.
Please shoot me an e-mail if you are good to go or if you have any questions.
Single Supplement Deposit Info
Single supplement rooms are available on a limited basis. To ensure yours, please register early. The single supplement fee is $1575. If you would like your own room, please request it when making your deposit and include payment in full for the single supplement; your single supplement deposit check should be for $3,575. As we will need to commit to renting the extra space, single supplement deposits are non-refundable so please be sure that check your schedule carefully before committing to the trip and see the travel insurance info below.
Travel Insurance
Travel insurance for big international trips is highly recommended as we never know what life has in store for us. I strongly recommend that you purchase quality insurance. Travel Insurance Services offers a variety of plans and options. Included with the Elite Option or available as an upgrade to the Basic & Plus Options you can also purchase Cancel for Any Reason Coverage that expands the list of reasons for your canceling to include things such as sudden work or family obligation and even a simple change of mind. My family and I use and depend on the great policies offered by TIS whenever we travel. You can learn more here: Travel Insurance Services. Do note that many plans require that you purchase your travel insurance within 14 days of our cashing your deposit check of running your credit card. Whenever purchasing travel insurance be sure to read the fine print careful even when dealing with reputable firms like TSI.
This trip has sold out far in advance every year so do not tarry. I hope that you can join me.
Please Remember to use our 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 started this blog post on the way to Orlando Airport and finished it up on the flight to Islip. Best news: I got TSA-Pre!
Friday morning was one of those rare super-great ones. All the rest are usually just plain great. I felt very good and was sending out love to the universe and everyone in it. And everyone smiled back.
Flight was a breeze. Was met by my younger daughter Alissa who drove me to my Mom’s. It is just after 5pm and I am gonna hit the pool soon. No rest for the weary.
The Streak
Today’s blog post marks a totally insane, absurd, completely ridiculous, unfathomable, silly, incomprehensible, what’s wrong with this guy?, makes-no-sense, 248 days in a row with a new educational blog post. And I still have dozens of new topics to cover; there should be no end in sight until my big South America trip next fall. 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 that was two up and one to the left of the center AF point/AI Servo Expand/Rear Focus AF as originally framed. It fell on the edge of the left side of the upper breast of the front bird, just below the neck and right on the same plane as the eye of the rear bird–just as I planned it. AF was of course active at the moment of exposure (as is always best when the subject is moving). Click here to see the latest version of the Rear Focus Tutorial.
LensAlign/FocusTune micro-adjustment: +5.
Common Murres courting
Image Design Question
What would you say to someone who said, “I don’t like the image because you cut the wings of the rear bird”? In the same vein, what do you think of my crop? Be sure to compare the final crop above with full frame original image below as seen in either the DPP 4 screen capture and in the animated GIF.
DPP 4 Screen Capture
DPP 4 Screen Capture
Note here that I have moved the Shadow slider to +5 to open up the chocolate colored heads that looked black in the RAW file even though I had pushed the exposure far to the right. Heck, the first time I converted the image I did not notice that some of the WHITEs on the upper breast of the front bird were at 255, 255, 255. So I went back and reconverted after moving the Brightness slider to -.17 and moving the Highlight slider to -1. Be sure to check out the animated GIF below.
If you are converting in ACR and you open up the shadows as I did here, you will be introducing a ton of noise. Aside from more accurate color the ability to open up the shadows with high settings is one of the great advantages of converting in DPP 4. I did apply NeatImage as detailed in the The Professional Photographers’ Guide to Post Processing using Arash’s new numbers for luminance and chrominance noise reduction in the updated guide.
Again, be sure to check out the before and after animated GIF below to see the striking difference in the dark tones.
DPP 4 Shadow Slider Rocks!
See how beautifully +5 on the DPP 4 Shadow slider revealed the chocolate tones of the murre’s heads without introducing a ton of the noise that you would get with an ACR conversion.
Question for Eagled-eyed Readers
Aside from the crop and the opening up of the dark tones, can you spot the single structural change that I made to the image in Photoshop? It is a small one so you will need to carefully compare the original or the converted TIFF with the optimized version that opens this blog post…
You can order your copy of “The Photographers’ Guide to Canon Digital Photo Professional 4.0” (aka the DPP 4 Raw Conversion eGuide) by Arash Hazeghi and Arthur Morris by clicking here.
The DPP 4 RAW Conversion Guide Updated
Thanks to lots of hard work by Arash Hazeghi, the DPP 4 RAW Conversion Guide has been updated. There were quite a few changes in the basic set-up and in the preferences in the latest version, 4.4.30.2 and Arash covered those in fine fashion. Most importantly, the Chrominance and Luminance NR value tables have been updated to include the 5DS (R) and the 1D X Mark II.
If you already own the DPP 4 RAW Conversion Guide, please click here to send Jim an email and be sure to cut and paste page 1 of the current guide or your receipt into the body of the e-mail to serve as proof of purchase. Your update will be sent from Hightail, so please watch for that.
Learn how and why I and many other discerning photographers choose and use only DPP 4 to convert their Canon RAW files in the DPP 4 RAW Conversion Guide by Arash Hazeghi and yours truly. The latest version supports all of the newer Canon camera bodies including the 5DS R and the 1DX Mark II as well as several older models including the EOS-7D and the EOS-1D Mark IV. The DPP IV Guide is the ideal companion to the 7D Mark II User’s Guide, a runaway best seller.
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 🙂
Thursday was clean-up and packing day. I fly to Long Island’s Islip airport on Friday afternoon for five weeks for the Nickerson IPT and to visit my Mom, my younger sister Arna, and my younger daughter Alissa and her family. A Mets game and Jersey Boys are on the schedule along with the two B&H Event Space programs.
This Just In
It is 9:38am on the way to the airport. It seems that lots of folks are loving this post. Be sure to read all the comments below along with my responses as I have already added lots of additional detail and explanations.
The Streak
Today’s blog post marks a totally insane, absurd, completely ridiculous, unfathomable, silly, incomprehensible, what’s wrong with this guy?, makes-no-sense, 247 days in a row with a new educational blog post. And I still have dozens of new topics to cover; there should be no end in sight until my big South America trip next fall. 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.
Mr. Blue Eyes. Photo courtesy of and copyright 2015 Anita Sue South
Getting to Know Me…
I received the e-mail below on Wednesday
Dear BIRDS AS ART,
I am currently doing a school project on the life and works of Arthur Morris. I have found it very difficult to find out information about his early life including his childhood, his date of birth of and his education. I have tried really hard to locate this information without success. Could you please help me with my research so that I can complete project?
Your sincerely,
Georgia Lesurf, aged 13
London, England
My reply
Hi Georgia,
I was born in Brooklyn, NY on June 14, 1946. My Mom was and is Hazel Morris. She is still alive at age 93 and will soon be 94. I am going to visit her this coming Friday. My Dad, Private First Class Robert E. Morris, was a 100% disabled WWII veteran. After being hit repeatedly by machine gun fire (17 rounds!) from a plane, he lost his right arm on Okinawa and his left arm was hanging on by a thread. He recovered after 19 months in the hospital and many surgeries. He was a tough man and a tough father, rarely saying anything nice about or to me. But I eventually figured out that he did love me. He used to make me soft (not burned like my Mom did) French toast on the weekends and–in my early teens–took me to the luggage store where he worked for three decades on Saturdays around holiday time to help out. I loved that. By withholding praise he drove me to be a success at whatever I attempted be it bowling or golf or fishing or teaching elementary school in New York City or studying and photographing birds…
I had a happy childhood. When I was really little I loved playing in the dirt and rocks in front of my house with the painted lead soldiers that my Dad bought for me on occasion, usually when I was sick. I loved sports: stickball, basketball, softball, and a street game called slapball. In my early teens I became interested in bugs and butterflies and snakes and insects. But I never looked twice at a bird until I was 30 years old. I thought that bird watching was only for sissies. I had to give up basketball because of my bad left knee which is still hurting me a bit everyday and that is when I began watching birds.
I did well in elementary school until 6th grade when I had Mrs. McMenamin as a teacher. She was an anti-Semite; she did not like Jews. She was very tough on me calling my parents up to school most very week even though I was the same well-behaved child I had been for the first five years. I did well in Junior High School and had two great teachers, Harry Leinwand for Social Studies–he called himself “The King,” and Mel Agotta for Math. I went to a specialized High School, Brooklyn Technical High School which at that time was for boys only. My parents and grandparents wanted me to be an engineer. I was accepted to MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI), the two best engineering schools in the US. But I chose to attend Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute—the third best engineering school in the country–on a full scholarship so that I could still enjoy my Mom’s home cooking. The only problem was that I soon realized that I did not want to be a metallurgical or any other type of engineer. I sort of flunked out of Brooklyn Poly a result of joining a fraternity, learning to play poker and bridge, and cutting classes to play basketball. I transferred to Brooklyn College and became a Physical Education major.
In 1970 I got my first job in the NYC school system and taught gym in an elementary school in the ghetto for three years. Bored, I asked to be put into a regular classroom. I struggled mightily for seven years but eventually became a better sixth grade teacher then than I am a bird photographer today. Honest. After 23 years as a school teacher I retired young at age 46 to pursue my dream of becoming a full time nature photographer specializing in birds. Most everyone told me that there was no way that I could succeed. I thanked them for inspiring me and went on to prove them wrong in short order…
Good luck with your project. Let me know if you have any additional questions or if you need a few images. I would love to see the final result.
later and love, artie
Questions and Comments
Questions and comments on my early years are of course welcome.
The best way to get to know me is to join me on an IPT. See the complete schedule here.
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 all things post-op are on hold. As I have shown some real improvement in the past two-three weeks we are gonna give it another six weeks or so. My next visit with Dr. Thill in Orlando will be on August 25, right after I get back from Long Island.
I prepared this post in about an hour on Tuesday.
The Streak
Today’s blog post marks a totally insane, absurd, completely ridiculous, unfathomable, silly, incomprehensible, what’s wrong with this guy?, makes-no-sense, 246 days in a row with a new educational blog post. And I still have dozens of new topics to cover; there should be no end in sight until my big South America trip next fall. 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.
Center AF point/AI Servo Expand/Shutter Button AF as originally framed was active at the moment of exposure (as is always best when hand holding).As I did not pan fast enough the selected sensor was on the center of the bird’s back. Click on the image to see a larger version.
Snowy Egret in flight in bright sun
How Difficult an Exposure is This?
Simple question. Answer soon. Is this a difficult exposure or an easy exposure? Either way, let us know why.
Note: my brightest WHITEs pre-conversion were right where I like them, in the 236-237 range. Bright white with detail.
The Image Optimization
After converting the image in DPP 4, I brought it into Photoshop. First I moved the pupil back in the iris using a small Quick Mask (gasp!) Next I selected the face and applied a Contrast Mask. Then I selected the whole bird and applied a layer of my NIK Color EFEX Pro 25/25 Detail Extractor/Tonal Contrast recipe. Even though I reduced the opacity to 50% I still had to paint the effect away on the darker white feathers to keep them from greying out. Then I moved the bird back in the frame and added canvas to the right as it had been too centered. I filled in the canvas with a stretch; the huge file size of 5DS R images makes that much more palatable than in the past.
Digital Basics
Everything detailed above is covered in detail in my Digital Basics File–written in my easy-to-follow, easy-to-understand style. Are you tired of making your images look worse in Photoshop? The Digital Basics File is an instructional PDF that is sent via e-mail. It includes my complete digital workflow, dozens of great Photoshop tips, details on using all of my image clean-up tools, the use of Contrast Masks, several different ways of expanding and filling in canvas, all of my time-saving Keyboard Shortcuts, Quick Masking, Layer Masking, and NIK Color EFEX Pro basics, the use of Contrast Masks, Digital Eye Doctor techniques, using Gaussian Blurs, Tim Grey Dodge and Burn technique, a variety of ways to make selections and expand canvas, how to create time-saving actions, and tons more.
You can order your copy of “The Photographers’ Guide to Canon Digital Photo Professional 4.0” (aka the DPP 4 Raw Conversion eGuide) by Arash Hazeghi and Arthur Morris by clicking here.
The DPP 4 RAW Conversion Guide Updated
Thanks to lots of hard work by Arash Hazeghi, the DPP 4 RAW Conversion Guide has been updated. There were quite a few changes in the basic set-up and in the preferences in the latest version, 4.4.30.2 and Arash covered those in fine fashion. Most importantly, the Chrominance and Luminance NR value tables have been updated to include the 5DS (R) and the 1D X Mark II.
If you already own the DPP 4 RAW Conversion Guide, please click here to send Jim an email and be sure to cut and paste page 1 of the current guide or your receipt into the body of the e-mail to serve as proof of purchase. Your update will be sent from Hightail, so please watch for that.
Learn how and why I and many other discerning photographers choose and use only DPP 4 to convert their Canon RAW files in the DPP 4 RAW Conversion Guide by Arash Hazeghi and yours truly. The latest version supports all of the newer Canon camera bodies including the 5DS R and the 1DX Mark II as well as several older models including the EOS-7D and the EOS-1D Mark IV. The DPP IV Guide is the ideal companion to the 7D Mark II User’s Guide, a runaway best seller.
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 got lots done on Monday and enjoyed a 3/4-mile swim and an ice bath. It is Tuesday morning and heading up to my appointment with a top-notch Orlando urologist for a post-surgery follow-up–with the San Diego surgeon’s blessings.
I prepared this post in about one and one half hours over a two day period on Sunday and Monday.
The Streak
Today’s blog post marks a totally insane, absurd, completely ridiculous, unfathomable, silly, incomprehensible, makes-no-sense, 246 days in a row with a new educational blog post. And I still have dozens of new topics to cover; there should be no end in sight until my big South America trip next fall. 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.
Used Gear Sales Testimonial
Unsolicited, via e-mail, from top BAA Used Gear seller Jim Keener
The BAA Used Gear Page is the best place I’ve found for selling my used cameras and lenses.
I used eBay and Craigslist until I began checking in at BIRDS AS ART. I saw the gear listed for sale at BAA and it struck me that the people who visit the site are like me in some important ways. We own high quality, often expensive gear. It’s important to us, and we likely take care of it. In other words, a good market exists. And I noticed how Artie marketed each item. Informative, without too big a push. That’s why I decided to try BAA.
The process was easy. I clearly accepted the terms of sale, fully and fairly described what I was selling and the good and bad. I listed he stuff to be included with in the sale. Then Artie came back with what he thought was a fair price, leaving it to me to determine the balance between urgency of the sale and receiving a high price. I’ve followed his lead.
The responses I’ve received from potential buyers have been reassuring. Each has been well informed and courteous. They have not expected perfection, but have fully expected fairness and clarity. I’ve found that providing many photographs of what I’m selling is very helpful in the completing the various transactions.
I’m writing this because of how glad I am to find a place where there is a good market for what I want to sell and what I want to buy — I just tried to buy a 300mm f/2.8 II, but it has sold. The buyers and sellers are informed and fair-minded. And artie offers friendly and experienced advice. I’ve enjoyed the process. The BAA Used Gear page is the best experience I’ve had buying and selling gear.
Used Gear Sales Continue to be More Than Brisk!
Long ago multiple IPT veteran Charles McRae sold his Canon EF 600mm f/4L IS lens in good to very good condition in early July for a record low $4,199.
Walt Novinger sold his Canon 500mm f/4L IS USM lens in very good plus condition for $3,899 in early June.
Jeffrey Fredberg sold his EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6L IS USM L series lens in like-new condition for the record-low BAA price of $749 in late June.
Jim Burns sold his Canon 200-400mm F/4L IS zoom lens with Internal 1.4X Extender in brand new condition for the insane BAA record-low price of $8499 in late June.
Many multiple IPT veteran Monte Brown sold his Canon EOS 5D Mark III (with the BG-E11 vertical battery grip) both in excellent condition for $1599 in early June.
Moody McCall sold his Canon 300mm F/2.8L IS II in excellent condition for $4199 in mid-June.
Long-ago IPT veteran Charles Sleicher sold his Canon EF 500mm f/4L IS USM lens in very good plus condition for $3400 in mid-June.
Top BAA Used Gear seller Jim Keener sold his Canon EOS 5D Mark III in absolute mint condition for $1599 in mid-June.
KW McCulloch sold his Canon EOS-1D X in excellent condition for $2459 in mid-June.
Many multiple IPT veteran Monte Brown sold his Canon EOS 5D Mark III (with the BG-E11 vertical battery grip) both in excellent condition for $1599 in early June.
Les Greenberg sold his Canon EF 300mm f/2.8L IS II lens in mint condition for $4499 in early June.
Top BAA Used Gear seller Jim Keener sold his Canon EF 500mm f/4L IS USM lens (the old five) in very good plus condition for a BAA record low price of $3699 in mid-June.
National Geographic shooter Tim Laman sold his Canon EOS-1D C in good condition for $2100 in early June. The 1D C is a 1D X with 4K video.
Andres Leon sold his Canon 800mm f/5.6L IS lens in very good plus condition for the full asking price of $7899 in early June.
IPT veteran Billy Wingfield sold his Canon EOS-1DX in excellent plus condition for $2400 in early June.
Multiple IPT veteran Larry Master sold his near-mint Canon EOS-1DX for $2800 in early June.
Moody McCall sold his Canon 100-400L IS USA lens in excellent condition for $599 in early June.
Canon 300mm f/4L IS USM Lens
Tom Mast is offering a used Canon 300mm f/4L IS USM lens in excellent condition for $625. The sale includes the the front and rear lens caps, the tough fabric lens case, and the original equipment tripod collar, all packaged in the original box. Insured ground shipping by major courier to US addresses only is also included. Your item will not ship until your check clears unless other arrangement are made.
Please contact Tom via e-mail or by phone at 1-813-920-4592 (8am to 8pm Eastern time).
I owned and used this great lens for several years. It is a great flight lens and I always loved its close focusing abilities that made it great for flowers, frogs, and dragonflies. I firmly believe that it is a far better bird photography starter lens than my beloved old “toy lens,” the 400mm f/5.6L lens. Why? It is image stabilized and it does great with all AF points with a 1.4X TC. Grab this one while you can as the price is right. artie
Canon 500mm f/4L IS USM Lens; With Extras!
Henry Raymundo is offering a used Canon 500mm f/4L IS USM lens in excellent condition for $3999 with lots of extras: a Lens Coat, a Wimberley P-40 plate, and a 1.4X II teleconverter (the Extender EF 1.4X II in Canon parlance). The series II 1.4X is as sharp as the series III version and works perfectly with the older super-telephoto lenses. The version III TCs do communicate better AF-wise but only with the Series II super-telephotos… This sale also includes the lens trunk, the manual, the lens strap, the leather front cover, the rear lens cap, and insured ground shipping via major courier. See also item next for a complete kit. Your items will not ship until your check clears unless other arrangement are made.
Please contact Henry via e-mail or by phone at 1-(303) 880-0424 (Mountain time).
The 500 f/4 lenses have long offered the world’s most popular focal length for bird, wildlife, and nature photography. I have owned various iterations of this lens for more than 15 years. I loved my old five. With all the great extras, this is an astounding value. Grab it now or it will be gone. artie
Gitzo 1325 Tripod and Wimberley V-2 Head: super low price for the pair
Henry Raymundo is offering also offering a used Gitzo 1325 tripod and a Wimberley V-2 head both in very good to excellent condition for the silly low price of $699. The sale includes insured ground shipping via major courier. Your items will not ship until your check clears unless other arrangement are made.
Please contact Henry via e-mail or by phone at 1-(303) 880-0424 (Mountain time).
Canon 100-400mm IS L Zoom Lenses
Henry Raymundo is also offering two used Canon 100-400mm IS L Zoom lenses, one in excellent condition for $599, the other in very good plus condition for $549. Each sale includes the rear cap, the lens hood, the tough fabric carrying case, and insured ground shipping via major courier. Your item will not ship until your check clears unless other arrangement are made.
Please contact Henry via e-mail or by phone at 1-(303) 880-0424 (Mountain time).
I owned and used several 100-400 IS L lenses over the years and produced many hundreds of sale-able images along with a fw contest winners and book covers. The old 1-4 makes for a great and inexpensive starter lens for the fledgling bird photographer. artie
Canon EF 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6 DO IS USM Lens
Henry Raymundo is also offering a Canon EF 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6 DO IS USM lens (not the white L version) for the ridiculous low price of $499. The sale includes the front and rear lens caps and insured ground shipping via major courier. Your item will not ship until your check clears unless other arrangement are made.
Please contact Henry via e-mail or by phone at 1-(303) 880-0424 (Mountain time).
Though I have never used this lens I do know that it would make and extremely versatile, lightweight, compact travel or B-roll lens for just about anyone. In a pinch it could serve as a starter bird photography lens for those who live near tame birds, in other words, for those who live in Florida. I know also that this is a great value as it is currently in production and sells new at B&H for $1,399. artie
Canon EOS 7D Camera Body
Henry Raymundo is also offering a Canon EOS 7D camera body in excellent condition for $399 with an extra battery. The sale includes the front and rear lens caps, the original CDs and cables, the battery charger, an extra battery (as noted above) and insured ground shipping via major courier. Your item will not ship until your check clears unless other arrangement are made.
Please contact Henry via e-mail or by phone at 1-(303) 880-0424 (Mountain time).
The original 7D digital camera body makes an ideal starter camera for someone just getting started with digital. Be sure to learn to expose to the right with this body (especially) to keep the small pixel noise to a minimum. artie
B&H August 11, 2016 Event Space Programs
On Thursday, August 11, 2016, I will be presenting two free programs at the B&H Event Space as below. If you would like to attend, it would be best to register asap as both programs have begun filling nicely.
Using Teleconverters with Intermediate and Super Telephotos Lenses: 1:00 to 2:30pm
The word on the street is that you simply cannot make sharp images with teleconverters (TCs) especially with the doublers. 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.
Teleconverters or multipliers come in a variety of strengths, most usually 1.4X and 2X. Nikon also offers a 1.7X TCE. Each will multiply your effective focal length by the factor in its name. A 1.4X TC will make your 400mm lens into a 640mm lens. A doubler, aka a 2X TC, will enable your 600mm lens to give you 1200mm of reach.
In this program, Arthur Morris, internationally noted bird photographer and educator, will share the tips, techniques, and secrets that he has developed and used for more than three decades so that you too can use teleconverters to improve your photography. This program will be illustrated with Artie’s spectacular images of birds, wildlife, flowers, and even a few unexpected subjects.
Putting Art into Your Nature Photography: 3:00 to 4:30pm
With today’s amazing photographic gear that includes camera bodies with surreal autofocus that can routinely produce superb image files in the right hands and fast, sharp lenses (including and especially the amazing super-telephotos) creating images of various birds, animals, flowers, and landscapes, is pretty much child’s play. Anyone can do it. In this program, Arthur Morris, internationally noted bird photographer and educator, will teach you to take your images to the next level. You will learn to identify good situations, to create pleasing backgrounds, to photograph action and behavior, to choose the best perspective, to read and use the light, when and how to create pleasing blurs, and how to consistently create dramatic, evocative images with contest-winning potential.
This program will be illustrated with several hundred of Artie’s spectacular images, many published around the world above his most fitting credit line: BIRDS AS ART.
This in-camera Art Vivid image was created on the last afternoon of the second Palouse IPT with the Induro GIT 304L/Induro ballhead-mounted Canon EF 8-15mm f/4L Fisheye USM lens (at 8mm) and the mega mega-pixel Canon EOS 5DS R . ISO 400. Evaluative metering +/-3 stops around a base exposure of -1 stop with a base exposure of 1/250 sec. at f/5.6 in Av mode. WB = 5500K. Live View with 2-second timer.
Center AF point/AI Servo Expand/Rear Focus AF as 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.
Old, small garage in the Palouse
28 Inches Would Have Been a Lot Better…
In the How Boredom Led me to Photograph a Small Garage from 26 inches away and include the whole building… blog post here, I asked:
How would moving the tripod back 2 inches have helped me to create a better image?
Most folks were 100% grasping at straws. Only multiple IPT veteran Bill Lloyd (WTlloyd) came close when he left the following comment:
Stepping back would have allowed you to crop away the lens vignette, particularly noticeable in the sky.
Actually, I am pretty sure that the problem along the edge of the sky is the chromatic aberration (CA) that is part of the package that you often get when using the circle lens. And yes, moving back two inches would have allowed me to crop out the CA while winding up with the same framing.
Please Remember to use our 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 Sunday I did lots of work getting ready for my Falklands South Georgia pre-trip and continued enjoying my personal Chopped Marathon via TIVO… I swam a slow mile–88 lengths of my Digital Basics lap pool.
I was glad to learn on Sunday that Chas Mc Rae’s old Canon 600mm (finally) sold. I suggested last week that Chas lower his price a bit. He did, and it worked to perfection.
I prepared this post in about two hours on Monday morning.
The Streak
Today’s blog post marks a totally insane, absurd, completely ridiculous, unfathomable, silly, incomprehensible, makes-no-sense, 245 days in a row with a new educational blog post. And I still have dozens of new topics to cover; there should be no end in sight until my big South America trip next fall. 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 in-camera HDR Art Vivid image was created on the Palouse IPT at an old round barn that held innumerable treasures. I used the Induro GIT 304L/ Induro BHM-2 ballhead mounted Canon EF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM lens (at 73mm) and the mega mega-pixel Canon EOS 5DS R. I used the Wimberley P-5 camera body plate to mount the camera on the BHM-2 ballhead. ISO 400. Evaluative metering +/-2 stops around a base exposure of +1/3 stop: 1/160 sec. at f/10 in Av mode. WB = 5000K. Live View with 2-second timer as usual.
Flexi-Zone single/Rear Focus AF was used.The big square was on the emblem. Click here to see the latest version of the Rear Focus Tutorial. Click on the image to see a larger version.
Image #1: Door of old truck
Similar Color Tones and Strikingly Different Images
I noticed well after the fact that today’s featured images feature quite similar color tones but that the subject matter of the two photographs could not have been more different. The strange thing is that both the seemingly natural rolling fields in Image #2 and the truck door in Image #1 are actually both manmade…
Your Favorite?
Which of today’s two images do you like best? Either way, be sure to let us know why you made your choice.
Image #2: Rolling hills with the sun just on the horizon…
Center AF Point (Manual selection)/AI Servo/Rear Focus AF and re-compose. I focused on one of the ridgelines just this side of halfway into the frame. Click here to see the latest version of the Rear Focus Tutorial. Click on the image to see a larger version.
Messing Around in Photoshop Pays Off!
The colors in the RAW file for Image #2 were quite flat and uniform, basically a red-orange. I am not sure how I wound up in Flash WB but the color in the RAW file was exactly as I remembered it. I did, however, want to boost the contrast and find out if the color tones were not quite as uniform as they seemed. After the RAW conversion in DPP 4 I brought the image into Photoshop and opened a Curves Adjustment layer.
There, I decided to try the various items in the drop-down Preset menu. The first, Color Negative (RGB) was interesting; it turned the image various shades of a lovely blue. I clicked on the second item, Cross Process (RGB) and as soon as the image rendered, I said, “Bingo!” It had increased the contrast and introduced a beautiful color gradient from the dark red-orange foreground to the yellowish/orange almost golden tones at the top of the frame. Before I clicked on Cross Process (RGB) I had never even heard of it. But I will not soon forget it.
I learned 99.9% of what I know about Photoshop from various friends, professional colleagues, and students over the past 15 years so it feels great when I come up with something new on my own…
Pronunciation Question Answered
Q: Is it turbines with the second syllable sounding like “bins or with the second syllable rhyming with “signs?”
A: Though the long I version (turbines–second syllable rhymes with signs) is preferred in the UK, either pronunciation is acceptable in the US (according to several online dictionaries…)
Palouse 2016 Horizontals Card
Why Different?
The 2017 BIRDS AS ART Palouse Instructional Photo-Tour
In what ways will the 2017 BIRDS AS ART Palouse Instructional Photo-Tour be different from the most other Palouse workshops?
There are so many great locations that a seven-day IPT (as opposed to the typical three- or five-day workshops) will give the group time to visit (and revisit) many of the best spots while allowing you to maximize your air travel dollars. In addition, it will allow us to enjoy a slightly more relaxed pace.
You will be assured of being in the right location for the given weather and sky conditions.
You will learn and hone both basic and advanced compositional and image design skills.
You will learn to design powerful, graphic images.
You will visit all of the iconic locations and a few spectacular ones that are much less frequently visited.
You will learn long lens landscape techniques.
You will learn to master any exposure situation in one minute or less.
You will learn the fine points of Canon in-camera (5D Mark III, 5DS R, and 7D II) HDR techniques.
You will learn to use your longest focal lengths to create rolling field and Urbex abstracts.
You will learn when and how to use a variety of neutral density filters to create pleasing blurs of the Palouse’s gorgeous rolling farmlands.
As always, you will learn to see like a pro. You will learn what makes one situation prime and another seemingly similar one a waste of your time. You will learn to see the situation and to create a variety of top-notch images.
You will learn to use super-wide lenses both for big skies and building interiors.
You will learn when, why, and how to use infrared capture; if you do not own an infrared body, you will get to borrow mine.
You will learn to use both backlight and side-light to create powerful and dramatic landscape images.
This trip will run with one participant.
Palouse 2016 Verticals Card
The 2017 BIRDS AS ART Palouse Instructional Photo-Tour
June 8-14, 2017. Seven full days of photography. Meet and greet at 7:30pm on Wednesday, June 7: $2,499. Limit 12/Openings: 11.
Rolling farmlands provide a magical patchwork of textures and colors, especially when viewed from the top of Steptoe Butte where we will enjoy spectacular sunrises and at least one nice sunset. We will photograph grand landscapes and mini-scenics of the rolling hills and farm fields. I will bring you to more than a few really neat old abandoned barns and farmhouses in idyllic settings. There is no better way to improve your compositional and image design skills and to develop your creativity than to join me for this trip. Photoshop and image sharing sessions when we have the time and energy…. We get up early and stay out late and the days are long.
Over the past three years, with the help of a friend, we found all the iconic locations and, in addition, lots of spectacular new old barns and breath-taking landforms and vistas. What’s included: In-the-field instruction, guidance, lessons, and inspiration, my extensive knowledge of the area, all lunches, motel lobby grab and go breakfasts, and Photoshop and image sharing sessions. As above, there will be a meet and greet at 7:30pm on the evening before the workshop begins.
To Sign Up
Your non-refundable deposit of $500 is required to hold your spot. Please let me know via e-mail that you will be joining this IPT. Then you can either call Jim or Jennifer at 863-692-0906 during business hours to arrange for the payment of your deposit; if by check, please make out to “BIRDS AS ART” and mail it to: Arthur Morris/BIRDS AS ART, PO Box 7245, Indian Lake Estates, FL, 33855. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me via e-mail: artie.
Travel Insurance Services offers a variety of plans and options. Included with the Elite Option or available as an upgrade to the Basic & Plus Options. You can also purchase Cancel for Any Reason Coverage that expands the list of reasons for your canceling to include things such as sudden work or family obligation and even a simple change of mind. You can learn more here: Travel Insurance Services. Do note that many plans require that you purchase your travel insurance within 14 days of our cashing your deposit check. Whenever purchasing travel insurance be sure to read the fine print carefully even when dealing with reputable firms like TSI.
Please Remember to use our 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 got some BAA work done and spent a lot of time on BPN on Saturday as my jet-lag continued to improve. On the recently concluded 2016 Puffins and Gannets IPT long-time friend and client Mike (Mikeegee) Goldhamer was back for a second go-round. And yesterday, I learned that George Golumbeski who was also on the first puffin IPT, will be joining me in 2017 for a second shot at the puffins and gannets.
I prepared this blog post in about 90 minutes on Sunday morning.
The Streak
Today’s blog post marks a totally insane, absurd, completely ridiculous, unfathomable, silly, unbelievable, incomprehensible, makes-no-sense, 244 days in a row with a new educational blog post. And I still have dozens of new topics to cover; there should be no end in sight until my big South America trip next fall. 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 puffin boat as we headed back to the harbor at Seahouses on July 2, Day 5 of the 2016 UK Puffins and Gannets IPT. I used the hand held Canon EF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM lens (at 105mm) and the fast, rugged, professional Canon EOS-1D X Mark II with 64GB c-Fast Card and Reader. ISO 800. Evaluative metering -1/3 stop in Av mode: 1/2000 sec. at f/7.1. AWB.
Center AF point/AI Servo Spot AF/Rear Focus AF on the horizon and re-compose. Click here to see the latest version of the Rear Focus Tutorial. Click on the image to see a larger version.
Herring Gull flying under rainbow
Serendipitous Gull-bow and the Singh-Ray 77mm Warming Polarizer…
“Rainbow” was the call, off of the port side of the boat that had carried us to the puffins, Arctic Terns, murres, Razorbills, and Black-headed Gulls. I grabbed my most accessible camera body, the 1DX II, got my 24-105 and the Singh-Ray 77mm Warming Circular Polarizer from my Xtrahand Vest, and spun the polarizer to dark. Then I went to work. I started wide at about 28mm and was surprised that I was able to get the whole rainbow into the frame. As the central part of the rainbow began to fade, it became evident that the section of the rainbow on our right was the brighter side so I zoomed in to 105mm. In both cases I rear focused on the horizon and re-composed upwards. As the boat was moving parallel to the rainbow and the distance was great, I was not worried about any focusing accuracy problems; I had a ton of depth-of-field. When I saw the gull flying towards the boat in the perfect position under the rainbow I held the shutter button down for about ten frames. The best wing position was the one in today’s featured image.
Singh-Ray Filters
Singh-Ray filters have been used by the world’s top photographers for many decades. I always have my 77mm Singh-Ray Warming Polarizer in the upper left pocket of my Xrtrahand vest where I can grab it quickly in case of a rainbow; they are few and far between… I also used my 5-stop 77mm ND to do some diving gannet videos; it enabled me to work with wide apertures to minimize dust spotting.
No other filter manufacturer comes close to matching the quality of Singh-Ray’s optical glass that is comparable to that used by NASA. And they continue to pioneer the most innovative products on the market like their ColorCombo polarizer, Vari-ND variable and Mor-Slo 15-stop neutral density filters. When you use their filters, you’ll create better, more dramatic images and, unlike other filters, with absolutely no sacrifice in image quality. All Singh-Ray filters are handcrafted in the USA.
Best News: 10% Discount/Code at checkout: artie10
To shop for a Singh-Ray 5-Stop Mor-Slo Filter (for example), click on the logo link above, click on “Neutral and color
Solid Neutral Density Filters (glass), then click on “Mor-Slo™ 5, 10, 15 and 20-Stop Solid Neutral Density Filters (glass),” choose the size and model, add to cart, and then checkout. At checkout, type artie10 into the “Have a coupon? Click here to enter your code” box, and a healthy 10% discount will be applied to your total. In addition to enjoying the world’s best filter at 10% off you will be supporting my efforts here on the blog.
Xtrahand Vest
On the 2016 UK Puffins and Gannets IPT, my Xtrahand Vest proved to be incredibly valuable on the two island landings each day. It enabled me to bring a ton of extra gear every day along with extra clothing, my lunch, lots of water, and my insulin and needles. I use a custom-designed Magnum Vest that John Storrie knows as the BIRDS AS ART Big Lens Vest. It is based on their Magnum vest. If you do a search for “vest’ or vested “interest” on the blog it will take you to many mentions in both the blog and the Bulletins with lots of additional info. See especially the blog posts here and here.
Once you call John you can discuss customizing your vest. Be sure to have a tape measure in hand. Please let him know that BAA sent you.
Images and card design copyright: Arthur Morris/BIRDS AS ART. Click on the card to enjoy a spectacular larger version.
2017 UK Puffins and Gannets IPT
Monday July 3 through Monday July 10, 2017: $5999: Limit 10 photographers — Openings: 6). Two great leaders: Arthur Morris and BPN co-owner, BPN Photography Gear Forum Moderator, and long-time BAA Webmaster Peter Kes.
Here are the plans: take a red eye from the east coast of the US on July 2 and arrive in Edinburgh, Scotland on the morning of Monday July 3 no later than 10am (or simply meet us then at the Edinburgh Airport–EDI, or later in the day at our cottages if you are driving your own vehicle either from the UK or from somewhere in Europe). Stay 7 nights in one of three gorgeous modern country cottages.
There are five days of planned puffin/seabird trips and one morning of gannet photography, all weather permitting of course. In three years we have yet to miss an entire day because of weather… In addition, we will enjoy several sessions of photographing nesting Black-legged Kittiwakes at eye level.
Images and card design copyright: Arthur Morris/BIRDS AS ART. Click on the card to enjoy a spectacular larger version.
The Details
We will get to photograph Atlantic Puffin, Common Murre, Razorbill, Shag, and Northern Gannet; Arctic, Sandwich, and Common Terns, the former with chicks of all sizes; Black-headed, Lesser-Black-backed, and Herring Gulls, many chasing puffins with fish; Black-legged Kittiwake with chicks. We will be staying in upscale country-side lodging that are beyond lovely with large living areas and lots of open space for the informal image sharing and Photoshop sessions. The shared rooms are decent-sized, each with a private bathroom. See the limited single supplement info below.
All breakfasts, lunches and dinners are included. All 5 puffins boat lunches will need to be prepared by you in advance, taken with, and consumed at your leisure. I usually eat mine on the short boat trip from one island to the other. Also included is a restaurant lunch on the gannet boat day.
If you wish to fly home on the morning of Monday July 10 we will get you to the airport. Please, however, consider the following tentative plans: enjoy a second Gannet boat trip on the afternoon of Monday July 10 and book your hotel room in Dunbar. If all goes as planned, those who stay on for the two extra days will make a morning landing at Bass Rock, one of the world’s largest gannetries. We will get everyone to the airport on the morning of Wednesday July 12. (We may opt to stay in Edinburgh on the night of July 11.) Price and details should be finalized at least six months before the trip but you will need to be a bit patient. It would be ideal if I can get all the work done by the end of September so that folks can arrange their flights then.
Images and card design copyright: Arthur Morris/BIRDS AS ART. Click on the card to enjoy a spectacular larger version. Scroll down to join us in the UK in 2016.
Deposit Info
If you are good to go sharing a room–couples of course are more than welcome–please send your non-refundable $2,000/person deposit check now to save a spot. Please be sure to check your schedule carefully before committing to the trip and see the travel insurance info below. Your balance will be due on March 29, 2017. Please make your check out to “Arthur Morris” and send it to Arthur Morris/BIRDS AS ART, PO Box 7245, Indian Lake Estates, FL, 33855. If we do not receive your check for the balance on or before the due date we will try to fill your spot from the waiting list. If your spot is filled, you will lose your deposit. If not, you can secure your spot by paying your balance.
Please shoot me an e-mail if you are good to go or if you have any questions.
Single Supplement Deposit Info
Single supplement rooms are available on a limited basis. To ensure yours, please register early. The single supplement fee is $1575. If you would like your own room, please request it when making your deposit and include payment in full for the single supplement; your single supplement deposit check should be for $3,575. As we will need to commit to renting the extra space, single supplement deposits are non-refundable so please be sure that check your schedule carefully before committing to the trip and see the travel insurance info below.
Travel Insurance
Travel insurance for big international trips is highly recommended as we never know what life has in store for us. I strongly recommend that you purchase quality insurance. Travel Insurance Services offers a variety of plans and options. Included with the Elite Option or available as an upgrade to the Basic & Plus Options you can also purchase Cancel for Any Reason Coverage that expands the list of reasons for your canceling to include things such as sudden work or family obligation and even a simple change of mind. My family and I use and depend on the great policies offered by TIS whenever we travel. You can learn more here: Travel Insurance Services. Do note that many plans require that you purchase your travel insurance within 14 days of our cashing your deposit check of running your credit card. Whenever purchasing travel insurance be sure to read the fine print careful even when dealing with reputable firms like TSI.
This trip has sold out far in advance every year so do not tarry. I hope that you can join me.
Please Remember to use our 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 did a bit better with the jet lag on Friday but still crashed on the couch at 7:30pm after a day that included two one hour naps and a great swim. I was up and working at 3:30am on Saturday. This blog post was prepared early that morning in about 2 1/2 hours.
With five folks signed up for the 2017 Japan in Winter IPT spots are fast becoming scarce, especially for a couple; scroll down for info on this amazing trip.
The Streak
Today’s blog post marks a totally insane, absurd, completely ridiculous, unfathomable, silly, incomprehensible, makes-no-sense, 243 days in a row with a new educational blog post. And I still have dozens of new topics to cover; there should be no end in sight until my big South America trip next fall. 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 2016 Japan in Winter IPT with the hand held Canon EF 400mm f/4 DO IS II USM lens and the mega mega-pixel Canon EOS 5DS R. ISO 800. Evaluative metering +2 stops off the grey sky: 1/800 sec. at f/4. Shade WB.
Center AF point (manual selection)/AI Servo Expand/Shutter Button AF as framed was originally framed was of course active at the moment of exposure (as is always best when hand holding). The active AF point was on the bird’s neck. Click on the image to see a larger version.
Whooper Swam: incoming flight. Lake Kussharo, Hokkaido, Japan
The 400 DO II/5DS R Combo
The 400 DO II/5DS R combo was the perfect hand holdable flight lens for the Japan in Winter IPT for the Whooper Swans, for the raptors at the Akan Crane Center, and for the Steller’s Sea-eagles in Rausu. And there were times when it sufficed for the Red-crowned Cranes as well. The 5DS R offers superb AI Servo AF with fast initial focusing acquisition and accurate tracking. And the huge, high quality image files allow for significant cropping.
The Image Optimization
After converting this image in DPP 4 I brought it into Photoshop and cropped from all four sides for composition. The optimized TIFF represented 64% of the original pixels and yielded an impressive high quality 92mb 8-bit file. The wing of an extraneous swan in the upper right corner was covered with a series of Quick Masks that were refined by Layer Masks and eliminated with the Clone Stamp Tool. To smooth things out I applied a 70 pixel Gaussian Blur to a duplicate layer of the whole image and then used a Hide-all (or Inverse) Layer Mask so that I was able to paint the effect in as needed. On the sky I used a white brush at 100% and on the lower background at about 50%.
I applied my 25/25 NIK Color EFEX Pro Detail Extractor/Tonal Contrast recipe to the bird only after it was selected with the Quick Selection Tool and placed on its own layer. I saved the feathered selection so that I was able to apply NeatImage noise reduction separately to the Background and the subject as detailed in the The Professional Photographers’ Guide to Post-Processing by Arash Hazaghi with Arthur Morris.
Critique This Image
What do you like? What don’t you like? How might it have been improved?
Digital Basics
Everything detailed above is covered in detail in my Digital Basics File–written in my easy-to-follow, easy-to-understand style. Are you tired of making your images look worse in Photoshop? The Digital Basics File is an instructional PDF that is sent via e-mail. It includes my complete digital workflow, dozens of great Photoshop tips, details on using all of my image clean-up tools, the use of Contrast Masks, several different ways of expanding and filling in canvas, all of my time-saving Keyboard Shortcuts, Quick Masking, Layer Masking, and NIK Color Efex Pro basics, the use of Contrast Masks, Digital Eye Doctor techniques, using Gaussian Blurs, Tim Grey Dodge and Burn technique, a variety of ways to make selections and expand canvas, how to create time-saving actions, and tons more.
You can order your copy of “The Photographers’ Guide to Canon Digital Photo Professional 4.0” (aka the DPP 4 Raw Conversion eGuide) by Arash Hazeghi and Arthur Morris by clicking here.
The DPP 4 RAW Conversion Guide Updated
Thanks to lots of hard work by Arash Hazeghi, the DPP 4 RAW Conversion Guide has been updated. There were quite a few changes in the basic set-up and in the preferences in the latest version, 4.4.30.2 and Arash covered those in fine fashion. Most importantly, the Chrominance and Luminance NR value tables have been updated to include the 5DS (R) and the 1D X Mark II.
If you already own the DPP 4 RAW Conversion Guide, please click here to send Jim an email and be sure to cut and paste page 1 of the current guide or your receipt into the body of the e-mail to serve as proof of purchase. Your update will be sent from Hightail, so please watch for that.
Learn how and why I and many other discerning photographers choose and use only DPP 4 to convert their Canon RAW files in the DPP 4 RAW Conversion Guide by Arash Hazeghi and yours truly. The latest version supports all of the newer Canon camera bodies and several older models including the EOS-7D and the EOS-1D Mark IV. The DPP IV Guide is the ideal companion to the 7D Mark II User’s Guide, a runaway best seller.
If you are ever at all concerned with noise in your optimized images this new e-guide will astound you.
The Professional Photographers’ Guide to Post-Processing: $48.
Your e-book (11mb) will be delivered either by e-mail or by Hightail (for download).
Arash’s Take on the guide…
In recent years, advances in CMOS image sensor technology have enabled DSLR cameras to capture detailed, high-quality images at very high ISO settings; this has taken low-light and action photography to a whole new level. To make the most out of your camera’s high ISO performance, proper post-processing, including advanced noise reduction and efficient sharpening, is essential. The first step in effective post-processing is executing an optimal RAW conversion that produces a TIFF file that is clean, free of artifacts, and detailed, without too much sharpening or strong noise reduction. For Canon users, we recommend converting your RAW images in Canon Digital Photo Professional 4 (DPP 4). We cover exactly how to do that in the DPP 4 RAW Conversion Guide. This new supplemental guide deals with the post-RAW conversion processing of your TIFF files for final presentation.
In order to use this guide, you need Adobe Photoshop (CS4 or later) as well as the Neat Image noise reduction plugin for Photoshop. This plugin can be downloaded here. We recommend the pro version. You will need an up-to-date PC or Mac computer to process your files. A modern quad-core processor (Intel i7 or Xeon) with at least 16GB of RAM and a fast SSD drive for running Photoshop is recommended. It is best to do your image processing on a high quality IPS LCD panel capable of displaying Adobe RGB color gamut. We recommend calibrating your screen using a hardware color calibration solution such as Spyder or Xrite. The consumer LCD screens used in many laptops and low-end desktops suffer from poor contrast ratios and a limited color gamut. Images processed on inferior screens may appear noisy, too dark, too bright, or unsharp. And they will often show a color cast when viewed on a high quality monitor that has been properly calibrated.
Artie’s Take on the guide…
This guide is for serious photographers who wish to maximize the quality of their optimized, noise reduced files and who want to learn to sharpen their images after they are sized for a final usage. The emphasis is on sharpening for electronic presentation. The guide includes the brilliant techniques that Arash developed for applying just the right amount of NR to the subject (while retaining all the fine detail) and then applying a lot more NR to the background where it is almost always needed. His efforts were refined by Arthur Morris to ensure that the guide is clear, concise, easy-to-read, and easy to-easy-to-follow; artie’s great strength is his how-to writing. He has used Arash’s brilliant NR and sharpening techniques on his 15 inch Macbook Pro with Retina Display with great success.
The entire guide is based on the remarkable Pro Version of NeatImage. Only the Pro Version supports 16-bit files. This Photoshop Plug-in requires a separate $79.95 purchase. Why NeatImage when there are so many other Noise Reduction programs available?
When someone asked about Topaz Denoise on the blog I got in touch with Arash. here was his response:
I asked Arash about Topaz Denoise. Here is his response:
It cannot calibrate the noise levels. I tried it. It was garbage.
Best
Arash Hazeghi Ph.D.
To which I added:
In the guide, we teach folks to calibrate noise levels for an image or series of images. As an option, also covered in the guide, we teach you to create a Noise Profile for each ISO with a given camera by photographing a NeatImage calibration target.
Arash continued the next day; this published here for the first time:
Here is a more elaborate answer. A preset is a “one size fit all” solution; it is not the same as a calibration. If you look carefully through your images you will find that the ISO value used and the amount of visible noise in the image aren’t always correlated. An image at ISO 400 can look noisier than an image taken at ISO 3200. Many factors other than the ISO determine the amount of visible noise in an image. Two images taken at the same ISO may require significantly different amounts of NR. Furthermore, different areas of the same image often require different amounts of noise reduction.
The presets are made by looking at the noise characteristics of a flat neutral or 18% grey target with no detail. They don’t include shadows, highlights, grain size, or the possibility of the effects of post-capture exposure boosts. (In other words, images made at a given ISO that are lightened during or after conversion will always exhibit more noise than properly exposed images.) The presets are often made using in-camera JPEGs that have been already noise-reduced, sharpened, and compressed thus smearing (destroying) the fine feather detail. Sometimes they are made from ACR RAW conversions that are vastly inferior as compared to properly executed DPP 4 RAW conversions.
A calibrated noise profile is created for each image in its present form independent of the ISO value, the exposure levels, or the RAW convertor. It makes no assumptions. NeatImage NR calibrations can be compared to purchasing a hand-crafted, custom-tailored suit versus buying a suit off the rack at WalMart. In engineering terms, NeatImage calculates the noise spectrum for each image and then with proper adjustment attenuates only the frequencies that don’t overlap with the detail. Other NR tools like Topaz, Nik etc. apply constant attenuation regardless of what the spectrum looks like. Try the guide and see for yourself.
You can learn more about NeatImage or purchase a copy here.
Consider joining me in Japan in February, 2017, for the world’s best Japan in Winter workshop. Click on the card to enjoy the spectacular larger version.
Japan In Winter IPT. February 9-24, 2017: $11,499 (was $13,999)/double occupancy. Limit 8/Openings: 3.
Price Reduced $2,500 on 3-8-16!
All lodging including the Tokyo hotel on 9 FEB, all breakfasts & dinners, ground transport and transfers including bus to the monkey park hotel, and all entrance fees and in-country flights are included. Not included: international flights, all lunches–most are on the run, and alcoholic beverages.
Please e-mail for couple and IPT repeat customer discount information.
This trip is one day longer than the great 2014 trip to allow for more flexibility, more time with the cranes, and most importantly, more time for landscape photography. Hokkaido is gorgeous. You will enjoy tons of pre-trip planning and gear advice, in-the-field instruction and guidance, at-the-lodge Photoshop and image review sessions in addition to short introductory slide programs for each of the amazing locations. Skilled photographer Paul McKenzie handles the logistics and we enjoy the services of Japan’s best wildlife photography guide whom I affectionately call “Hokkaido Bear.” His network of local contacts and his knowledge of the weather, the area, and the birds is unparalleled and enables him to have us in the best location every day.
Arrive Tokyo: 9 FEB 2017 the latest. 8 FEB is safer and gives you a day to get acclimated to the time change. Your hotel room for the night of the 9th is covered.
Bus Travel to Monkey Park Hotel: 10 FEB: A 1/2 DAY of monkey photography is likely depending on our travel time… This traditional hotel is first class all the way. Our stay includes three ten course Japanese dinners; these sumptuous meals will astound you and delight your taste buds. There are many traditional hot springs mineral baths (onsens) on site in this 150 year old hotel.
Full Day snow monkeys: FEB 11.
Full Day snow monkeys: FEB 12.
13 FEB: Full travel day to Hokkaido/arrive at our lodge in the late afternoon. The lodge is wonderful. All the rooms at the lodge have beds. Bring your warm pajamas. A local onsen (hot springs bath and tubs) is available for $5 each day before dinner–when you are cold, it is the best thing since sliced bread. The home-cooked Japanese styles meals at the lodge are to die for. What’s the best news? Only a small stand of woods separates us from the very best crane sanctuary. During one big snowstorm we were the only photo group to be able to get to Tsurui Ito; we had the whole place to ourselves in perfect conditions for crane photography!
FEB 14-23: Red-crowned Crane, raptors in flight, Whooper Swans, and scenic photography. Ural Owl possible. An overnight trip to Rausu for Steller’s Sea Eagle and White-tailed Eagle photography on the tourists boats is 100% dependent on the weather, road, and sea ice conditions. Only our trip offers complete flexibility in this area. It has saved us on more than once occasion. The cost of 2 eagle-boat trips is included. If the group would like to do more than two boat trips and we all agree, there will be an additional charge for the extra trip or trips. No matter the sea ice conditions, we will do two eagle boat trips (as long as we can make the drive to Rausu; it snows a lot up there). We have never been shut out.In 2016 there was no sea ice but our guide arranged for two amazingly productive boat trips.
Lodging notes: bring your long johns for sleeping in the lodge. At the Snow Monkey Park, and in Rausu, the hotel the rooms are Japanese-style. You sleep on comfortable mats on the floor. Wi-fi is available every day of the trip.
FEB 24. Fly back to Tokyo for transfer to your airport if you are flying home that night, or, to your hotel if you are overnighting. If you need to overnight, the cost of that room is on you.
Life is short. Hop on the merry-go-round.
To Sign Up
To save your spot, please send your $5,000 non-refundable deposit check made out to “Birds as Art” to Arthur Morris/BIRDS AS ART, PO Box 7245, Indian Lake Estates, FL 33855. I do hope that you can join me for this trip of a lifetime. Do e-mail with any questions or give me a buzz at 863-692-0906.
Purchasing travel insurance within 2 weeks of our cashing your deposit check is strongly recommended. On two fairly recent Galapagos cruises a total of 5 folks were forced to cancel less than one week prior to the trip. My family and I use Travel Insurance Services and strongly recommend that you do the same.
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 🙂
Welcome to jet-lag city/IPT/travel exhaustion; on Thursday I took nice swim along with two 2 1/2 hour naps–one in the morning and another in the late afternoon. For the rest of the day I pretty much sat on the couch like a zombie watching OJ in America and UFC stuff on TIVO. I was in bed by 10:30pm and up and at ’em at 2:30am (7:30am in the UK).
This blog post took nearly 3 hours to prepare.
So you wanna be a professional photographer/educational blogger/tour leader? Heck, it is still a great life and I would not change it for anything.
BAA Bulletin #481
Three great new gannet flight images including a killer 5DS R Vertical
BAA Bulletin #481 is online and can be accessed here.
Don’t Faint!
Your Very Last Chance to join the Nickerson Beach IPT
The Gannet Boat Slaughter
The 5DS R versus the 1DX Mark II for hand held flight photography…
A Big 5DS R Advantage
Sitting Down on the Job
The 2017 UK Puffins and Gannets IPT
Used Photo Gear Sales Hot!
The Blog is the Bomb!
My latest e-book birds as art: The Avian Photography of Arthur Morris/The Top 100
Your Help Needed and Appreciated/Affiliate Stuff
DPP 4 RAW Conversion Guide Kudos
Vie e-mail from Steven Swart
I live in sunny South Africa where the crime rate is high and the value of our currency is low. I normally take my pictures around the Cape Town wetlands and in our national parks. I use the Canon EOS 7D Mark II and the Canon EF 400mm f/5.6L USM lens. Last night, after I downloaded DPP 4 and followed the instructions in your and Arash’s e-book, I was astounded by the differences. When I used Camera Raw my captures were not sharp and the colors were very bland. After I did my first conversion I was totally stunned! The detail and quality were superb, and the colors accurate! I really did not expect this at all. This guide is worth every penny. It’s as if I made a massive upgrade by buying a new lens or a new camera. Best of all, I am sure that I will get better with practice.
Today’s blog post marks a totally insane, absurd, completely ridiculous, unfathomable, silly, incomprehensible, makes-no-sense, 242 days in a row with a new educational blog post. And I still have dozens of new topics to cover; there should be no end in sight until my big South America trip next fall. 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.
Center AF point(manual selection)/AI Servo/Shutter Button AF as originally framed was active at the moment of exposure (as is always best when hand holding). The selected AF point was on the edge of the wing between the open bill of the primary subject. Click on the image to see a larger version.
As noted previously the action on the gannet boat was non-stop and the weather was superb: rain on the way out, then cloudy, then heavy rain on the way back. What the image in the Gannet Fireworks: One afternoon, five photographers, more than 12,000 images in just two hours…here did not show, was that isolating a single bird was a problem. There were literally hundreds of gannets circling the boat diving for the fish tossed by the mate. Four boxes worth.
Scroll down to the see the original image capture and learn about the image optimization.
Image #2: the original via a DPP 4 screen capture
The DPP 4 Screen Capture
In the DPP 4 screen capture above you can see the active focusing point as described in the caption for Image #1. You can see what a proper histogram looks like on a cloudy day. And you can see that I pulled the dot in the Fine Tune box to the right (toward the warmer colors) to eliminate some of the BLUE tones that are always present on cloudy days. I used the noise reduction values for the 1D XII from the most recent update of the RAW Conversion Guide by Arash Hazeghi and yours truly. Now that Arash has updated the Luminance and Chrominance noise reduction tables to include both the 5DS R and the 1DX II I have been creating and saving the recipes for each of these cameras at the various ISOs. By creating a recipe for each camera at each ISO I cut my time in DPP 4 by at least 50%. I have been promising a tutorial on how to create and save these recipes for some time now and promise to get it done when I am on Long Island after the Nickerson Beach IPT. With all the WHITEs and so little BLACK in this image, NeatImage NR was not needed.
The Image Optimization
A close look at the original image will reveal that I eliminated at least 11 birds or parts of birds–one gull and the rest gannets–to bring some order to the chaos. I do realize that some folks would consider this criminal and that others might feel that the more cluttered original would have been a better choice to make my point. Some might even prefer an optimized version of the original capture. But I am the artist here and the original was far to cluttered and chaotic for my tastes.
Since this is a photo illustration I toyed with the idea of moving the main gannet up a bit… But after doing just that, I went back in the History palette and left it where it started.
After the RAW conversion in DPP 4 I brought the image into Photoshop and used lots of Quick Masks refined by Regular Layer Masks to cover many of the birds. I also employed the Clone Stamp Tool as well as Divide and Conquer and protective cloning on a layer techniques for the clean-up. I selected, feathered and saved the head of the main subject and ran my 25/25 NIK CEP Detail Extractor/Tonal Contrast recipe on that layer. Then I merged that layer, duplicated a new layer (Cntrl + J), loaded the selection of the head, and applied a Contrast Mask. Then, on the same layer, I made a Curves adjustment (Cntrl + M) by pinning the whites and pulling up the darker tones of the fill and open mouth).
Would You Move the Main Subject Up a Bit?
Do you think that I should have moved the main subject gannet up in the frame a bit? Why or why not? If yes, how?
Digital Basics
Everything detailed above is covered in detail in my Digital Basics File–written in my easy-to-follow, easy-to-understand style. Are you tired of making your images look worse in Photoshop? The Digital Basics File is an instructional PDF that is sent via e-mail. It includes my complete digital workflow, dozens of great Photoshop tips, details on using all of my image clean-up tools, the use of Contrast Masks, several different ways of expanding and filling in canvas, all of my time-saving Keyboard Shortcuts, Quick Masking, Layer Masking, and NIK Color Efex Pro basics, the use of Contrast Masks, Digital Eye Doctor techniques, using Gaussian Blurs, Tim Grey Dodge and Burn technique, a variety of ways to make selections and expand canvas, how to create time-saving actions, and tons more.
You can order your copy of “The Photographers’ Guide to Canon Digital Photo Professional 4.0” (aka the DPP 4 Raw Conversion eGuide) by Arash Hazeghi and Arthur Morris by clicking here.
The DPP 4 RAW Conversion Guide Updated
Thanks to lots of hard work by Arash Hazeghi, the DPP 4 RAW Conversion Guide has been updated. There were quite a few changes in the basic set-up and in the preferences in the latest version, 4.4.30.2 and Arash covered those in fine fashion. Most importantly, the Chrominance and Luminance NR value tables have been updated to include the 5DS (R) and the 1D X Mark II.
If you already own the DPP 4 RAW Conversion Guide, please click here to send Jim an email and be sure to cut and paste page 1 of the current guide or your receipt into the body of the e-mail to serve as proof of purchase. Your update will be sent from Hightail, so please watch for that.
Learn how and why I and many other discerning photographers choose and use only DPP 4 to convert their Canon RAW files in the DPP 4 RAW Conversion Guide by Arash Hazeghi and yours truly. The latest version supports all of the newer Canon camera bodies and several older models including the EOS-7D and the EOS-1D Mark IV. The DPP IV Guide is the ideal companion to the 7D Mark II User’s Guide, a runaway best seller.
If you are ever at all concerned with noise in your optimized images this new e-guide will astound you.
The Professional Photographers’ Guide to Post-Processing: $48.
Your e-book (11mb) will be delivered either by e-mail or by Hightail (for download).
Arash’s Take on the guide…
In recent years, advances in CMOS image sensor technology have enabled DSLR cameras to capture detailed, high-quality images at very high ISO settings; this has taken low-light and action photography to a whole new level. To make the most out of your camera’s high ISO performance, proper post-processing, including advanced noise reduction and efficient sharpening, is essential. The first step in effective post-processing is executing an optimal RAW conversion that produces a TIFF file that is clean, free of artifacts, and detailed, without too much sharpening or strong noise reduction. For Canon users, we recommend converting your RAW images in Canon Digital Photo Professional 4 (DPP 4). We cover exactly how to do that in the DPP 4 RAW Conversion Guide. This new supplemental guide deals with the post-RAW conversion processing of your TIFF files for final presentation.
In order to use this guide, you need Adobe Photoshop (CS4 or later) as well as the Neat Image noise reduction plugin for Photoshop. This plugin can be downloaded here. We recommend the pro version. You will need an up-to-date PC or Mac computer to process your files. A modern quad-core processor (Intel i7 or Xeon) with at least 16GB of RAM and a fast SSD drive for running Photoshop is recommended. It is best to do your image processing on a high quality IPS LCD panel capable of displaying Adobe RGB color gamut. We recommend calibrating your screen using a hardware color calibration solution such as Spyder or Xrite. The consumer LCD screens used in many laptops and low-end desktops suffer from poor contrast ratios and a limited color gamut. Images processed on inferior screens may appear noisy, too dark, too bright, or unsharp. And they will often show a color cast when viewed on a high quality monitor that has been properly calibrated.
Artie’s Take on the guide…
This guide is for serious photographers who wish to maximize the quality of their optimized, noise reduced files and who want to learn to sharpen their images after they are sized for a final usage. The emphasis is on sharpening for electronic presentation. The guide includes the brilliant techniques that Arash developed for applying just the right amount of NR to the subject (while retaining all the fine detail) and then applying a lot more NR to the background where it is almost always needed. His efforts were refined by Arthur Morris to ensure that the guide is clear, concise, easy-to-read, and easy to-easy-to-follow; artie’s great strength is his how-to writing. He has used Arash’s brilliant NR and sharpening techniques on his 15 inch Macbook Pro with Retina Display with great success.
The entire guide is based on the remarkable Pro Version of NeatImage. Only the Pro Version supports 16-bit files. This Photoshop Plug-in requires a separate $79.95 purchase. Why NeatImage when there are so many other Noise Reduction programs available?
When someone asked about Topaz Denoise on the blog I got in touch with Arash. here was his response:
I asked Arash about Topaz Denoise. Here is his response:
It cannot calibrate the noise levels. I tried it. It was garbage.
Best
Arash Hazeghi Ph.D.
To which I added:
In the guide, we teach folks to calibrate noise levels for an image or series of images. As an option, also covered in the guide, we teach you to create a Noise Profile for each ISO with a given camera by photographing a NeatImage calibration target.
Arash continued the next day; this published here for the first time:
Here is a more elaborate answer. A preset is a “one size fit all” solution; it is not the same as a calibration. If you look carefully through your images you will find that the ISO value used and the amount of visible noise in the image aren’t always correlated. An image at ISO 400 can look noisier than an image taken at ISO 3200. Many factors other than the ISO determine the amount of visible noise in an image. Two images taken at the same ISO may require significantly different amounts of NR. Furthermore, different areas of the same image often require different amounts of noise reduction.
The presets are made by looking at the noise characteristics of a flat neutral or 18% grey target with no detail. They don’t include shadows, highlights, grain size, or the possibility of the effects of post-capture exposure boosts. (In other words, images made at a given ISO that are lightened during or after conversion will always exhibit more noise than properly exposed images.) The presets are often made using in-camera JPEGs that have been already noise-reduced, sharpened, and compressed thus smearing (destroying) the fine feather detail. Sometimes they are made from ACR RAW conversions that are vastly inferior as compared to properly executed DPP 4 RAW conversions.
A calibrated noise profile is created for each image in its present form independent of the ISO value, the exposure levels, or the RAW convertor. It makes no assumptions. NeatImage NR calibrations can be compared to purchasing a hand-crafted, custom-tailored suit versus buying a suit off the rack at WalMart. In engineering terms, NeatImage calculates the noise spectrum for each image and then with proper adjustment attenuates only the frequencies that don’t overlap with the detail. Other NR tools like Topaz, Nik etc. apply constant attenuation regardless of what the spectrum looks like. Try the guide and see for yourself.
You can learn more about NeatImage or purchase a copy here.
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 🙂
Jim and I got home from the airport at about 7pm. After a small, quick dinner I hit the sack and slept till 5am. Not bad. I fly up to Long Island next Friday for the Nickerson IPT and to visit my Mom who will be 94 in September. Cutdown date for the IPT hotel is tomorrow so if you are thinking of taking advantage of the Nickerson IPT late registration discount today is the day to act. See yesterday’s blog post or the IPT page for details.
The Streak
Today’s blog post marks a totally insane, absurd, completely ridiculous, unfathomable, silly, incomprehensible, makes-no-sense, 241 days in a row with a new educational blog post. And I still have dozens of new topics to cover; there should be no end in sight until my big South America trip next fall. 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 in-camera HDR Art Vivid image was created on Day 4 of the second 2016 Palouse IPT with the with the Induro GIT 304L/Mongoose M3.6-mounted Canon EF 200-400mm f/4L IS USM Lens with Internal 1.4x Extender (at 200mm) and the mega mega-pixel Canon EOS 5DS R. ISO 800. Evaluative metering +/-2 stops around a base exposure of +2/3 stop: 1/500 sec. at f/4 in Av mode. WB = 6000K. Live View with 2-second timer.
Wind turbine farm and rolling farm fields
200-400 with Internal Extender Versatility
The Canon 200-400mm f/4L IS lens with Internal Extender was easily my most valuable lens on the Palouse IPTs. It allowed me–with and without the internal TC engaged, to zoom in for the tight detail and abstract images that I love while enabling to go as wide as 200mm when creating rolling field scenics like the one above.
Image Design Questions
Would you have pointed the lens up or down or left or right? If yes, how much and why? Same question in a different form: all things being equal, would you have changed the image design or the focal length at all? If yes, how so and why?
Depth of Field Question
Why is this image pretty much sharp at the wide open aperture of f/4? One a related note, why do you think that I went with 1/500 second?
Pronunciation Question
Is it turbines with the second syllable sounding like “bins or with the second syllable rhyming with “signs?”
Palouse 2016 Horizontals Card
Why Different?
Announcing the 2017 BIRDS AS ART Palouse Instructional Photo-Tour
In what ways will the 2017 BIRDS AS ART Palouse Instructional Photo-Tour be different from the most other Palouse workshops?
There are so many great locations that a seven-day IPT (as opposed to the typical three- or five-day workshops) will give the group time to visit (and revisit) many of the best spots while allowing you to maximize your air travel dollars. In addition, it will allow us to enjoy a slightly more relaxed pace.
You will be assured of being in the right location for the given weather and sky conditions.
You will learn and hone both basic and advanced compositional and image design skills.
You will learn to design powerful, graphic images.
You will visit all of the iconic locations and a few spectacular ones that are much less frequently visited.
You will learn long lens landscape techniques.
You will learn to master any exposure situation in one minute or less.
You will learn the fine points of Canon in-camera (5D Mark III, 5DS R, and 7D II) HDR techniques.
You will learn to use your longest focal lengths to create rolling field and Urbex abstracts.
You will learn when and how to use a variety of neutral density filters to create pleasing blurs of the Palouse’s gorgeous rolling farmlands.
As always, you will learn to see like a pro. You will learn what makes one situation prime and another seemingly similar one a waste of your time. You will learn to see the situation and to create a variety of top-notch images.
You will learn to use super-wide lenses both for big skies and building interiors.
You will learn when, why, and how to use infrared capture; if you do not own an infrared body, you will get to borrow mine.
You will learn to use both backlight and side-light to create powerful and dramatic landscape images.
This trip will run with one participant.
Palouse 2016 Verticals Card
The 2017 BIRDS AS ART Palouse Instructional Photo-Tour
June 8-14, 2017. Seven full days of photography. Meet and greet at 7:30pm on Wednesday, June 7: $2,499
Rolling farmlands provide a magical patchwork of textures and colors, especially when viewed from the top of Steptoe Butte where we will enjoy spectacular sunrises and at least one nice sunset. We will photograph grand landscapes and mini-scenics of the rolling hills and farm fields. I will bring you to more than a few really neat old abandoned barns and farmhouses in idyllic settings. There is no better way to improve your compositional and image design skills and to develop your creativity than to join me for this trip. Photoshop and image sharing sessions when we have the time and energy…. We get up early and stay out late and the days are long.
Over the past three years, with the help of a friend, we found all the iconic locations and, in addition, lots of spectacular new old barns and breath-taking landforms and vistas. What’s included: In-the-field instruction, guidance, lessons, and inspiration, my extensive knowledge of the area, all lunches, motel lobby grab and go breakfasts, and Photoshop and image sharing sessions. As above, there will be a meet and greet at 7:30pm on the evening before the workshop begins.
To Sign Up
Your non-refundable deposit of $500 is required to hold your spot. Please let me know via e-mail that you will be joining this IPT. Then you can either call Jim or Jennifer at 863-692-0906 during business hours to arrange for the payment of your deposit; if by check, please make out to “BIRDS AS ART” and mail it to: Arthur Morris/BIRDS AS ART, PO Box 7245, Indian Lake Estates, FL, 33855. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me via e-mail: artie.
Travel Insurance Services offers a variety of plans and options. Included with the Elite Option or available as an upgrade to the Basic & Plus Options. You can also purchase Cancel for Any Reason Coverage that expands the list of reasons for your canceling to include things such as sudden work or family obligation and even a simple change of mind. You can learn more here: Travel Insurance Services. Do note that many plans require that you purchase your travel insurance within 14 days of our cashing your deposit check. Whenever purchasing travel insurance be sure to read the fine print carefully even when dealing with reputable firms like TSI.
Please Remember to use our 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 started and finished this blog post at 35,000 feet en route from EDI to MCO. I am still tired. I can’t wait to get back in the pool. And I need to get back to doing my core exercises…
Call 863-692-0906 or e-mail for late-registration discount info!
Meet and greet at 3pm on the afternoon of Monday, July 18.
Please e-mail for repeat customer or couples discount info, or for info on a 3-day option.
With only four folks signed up, learning situations will abound. The primary subject species on this IPT will be the nesting Common Terns and Black Skimmers. The trip is timed so that we will get to photograph tiny tern chicks as well as fledglings. There will be lots of flight photography including adults flying with baitfish. Creating great images of the chicks being fed will be a huge challenge. In addition to the terns we will get to photograph lots of Black Skimmers courting, setting up their nesting territories, and in flight (both singles and large pre-dawn flocks blasting off). Midair battles are guaranteed on sunny afternoons. And with luck, we might even see a few tiny skimmer chicks toward the end of the trip. We will also get to photograph the life cycle of American Oystercatcher. This will likely include nests with eggs and tiny chicks, young being fed, and possibly a few fledglings.
The Streak
Today’s blog post marks a totally insane, absurd, completely ridiculous, unfathomable, silly, incomprehensible, makes-no-sense, 240 days in a row with a new educational blog post. And I still have dozens of new topics to cover; there should be no end in sight until my big South America trip next fall. 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.
AF Micro-adjustment for the 400 DO II/2XIII TC/1DX II: -5
I selected the AF point two to the right of the center AF point/AI Servo Expand/Rear Focus AF as framed was active at the moment of exposure (as is always best when hand holding). The selected AF point fell just below the chick’s eye. Click here to see the latest version of the Rear Focus Tutorial. Click on the image to see a larger version.
Herring Gull chick
Heresy on Bass Rock?
Be one of the lucky few to make a Bass Rock landing and spend a good deal of your time photographing Herring Gull chicks; what’s wrong with you?
Nothing. I love gulls and their chicks are so, so cute. This was the smallest one on the Rock; most were large or huge. Several were already fledged. I photographed them too… but I did make some very nice gannet photos as well. Coming soon.
Image Design Question
Would you eliminate the dark tones in the upper right corner of this image? If no, why not? If yes, why? And how would you attempt to do it?
The Image Optimization
Converted in DPP 4. Dust spotted. A bit of feather and bill clean-up. NeatImage noise reduction. That’s it.
EOS-1D X Mark II Sensor Dust
I have spoken to at least one other photographer who agrees with me that the 1D X Mark II sensor is far more prone to collecting sensor dust than the last few generations of Canon camera bodies… After using my new camera only a few times the sensor was such a mess that I sent it back to Canon to have the sensor cleaned. I did not check the sensor when I got it back and used it only for six days in the UK. By the middle of the trip I was seeing more than a dozen serious dust spots at only f/8.
I would love to hear from other 1D X Mark II owners as to their opinion of sensor dust on the new flagship professional camera body…
Images and card design copyright: Arthur Morris/BIRDS AS ART. Click on the card to enjoy a spectacular larger version.
2017 UK Puffins and Gannets IPT
Monday July 3 through Monday July 10, 2017: $5999: Limit 10 photographers — Openings: 6). Two great leaders: Arthur Morris and BPN co-owner, BPN Photography Gear Forum Moderator, and long-time BAA Webmaster Peter Kes.
Here are the plans: take a red eye from the east coast of the US on July 2 and arrive in Edinburgh, Scotland on the morning of Monday July 3 no later than 10am (or simply meet us then at the Edinburgh Airport–EDI, or later in the day at our cottages if you are driving your own vehicle either from the UK or from somewhere in Europe). Stay 7 nights in one of three gorgeous modern country cottages.
There are five days of planned puffin/seabird trips and one morning of gannet photography, all weather permitting of course. In three years we have yet to miss an entire day because of weather… In addition, we will enjoy several sessions of photographing nesting Black-legged Kittiwakes at eye level.
Images and card design copyright: Arthur Morris/BIRDS AS ART. Click on the card to enjoy a spectacular larger version.
The Details
We will get to photograph Atlantic Puffin, Common Murre, Razorbill, Shag, and Northern Gannet; Arctic, Sandwich, and Common Terns, the former with chicks of all sizes; Black-headed, Lesser-Black-backed, and Herring Gulls, many chasing puffins with fish; Black-legged Kittiwake with chicks. We will be staying in upscale country-side lodging that are beyond lovely with large living areas and lots of open space for the informal image sharing and Photoshop sessions. The shared rooms are decent-sized, each with a private bathroom. See the limited single supplement info below.
All breakfasts, lunches and dinners are included. All 5 puffins boat lunches will need to be prepared by you in advance, taken with, and consumed at your leisure. I usually eat mine on the short boat trip from one island to the other. Also included is a restaurant lunch on the gannet boat day.
If you wish to fly home on the morning of Monday July 10 we will get you to the airport. Please, however, consider the following tentative plans: enjoy a second Gannet boat trip on the afternoon of Monday July 10 and book your hotel room in Dunbar. If all goes as planned, those who stay on for the two extra days will make a morning landing at Bass Rock, one of the world’s largest gannetries. We will get everyone to the airport on the morning of Wednesday July 12. (We may opt to stay in Edinburgh on the night of July 11.) Price and details should be finalized at least six months before the trip but you will need to be a bit patient. It would be ideal if I can get all the work done by the end of September so that folks can arrange their flights then.
Images and card design copyright: Arthur Morris/BIRDS AS ART. Click on the card to enjoy a spectacular larger version. Scroll down to join us in the UK in 2016.
Deposit Info
If you are good to go sharing a room–couples of course are more than welcome–please send your non-refundable $2,000/person deposit check now to save a spot. Please be sure to check your schedule carefully before committing to the trip and see the travel insurance info below. Your balance will be due on March 29, 2017. Please make your check out to “Arthur Morris” and send it to Arthur Morris/BIRDS AS ART, PO Box 7245, Indian Lake Estates, FL, 33855. If we do not receive your check for the balance on or before the due date we will try to fill your spot from the waiting list. If your spot is filled, you will lose your deposit. If not, you can secure your spot by paying your balance.
Please shoot me an e-mail if you are good to go or if you have any questions.
Single Supplement Deposit Info
Single supplement rooms are available on a limited basis. To ensure yours, please register early. The single supplement fee is $1575. If you would like your own room, please request it when making your deposit and include payment in full for the single supplement; your single supplement deposit check should be for $3,575. As we will need to commit to renting the extra space, single supplement deposits are non-refundable so please be sure that check your schedule carefully before committing to the trip and see the travel insurance info below.
Travel Insurance
Travel insurance for big international trips is highly recommended as we never know what life has in store for us. I strongly recommend that you purchase quality insurance. Travel Insurance Services offers a variety of plans and options. Included with the Elite Option or available as an upgrade to the Basic & Plus Options you can also purchase Cancel for Any Reason Coverage that expands the list of reasons for your canceling to include things such as sudden work or family obligation and even a simple change of mind. My family and I use and depend on the great policies offered by TIS whenever we travel. You can learn more here: Travel Insurance Services. Do note that many plans require that you purchase your travel insurance within 14 days of our cashing your deposit check of running your credit card. Whenever purchasing travel insurance be sure to read the fine print careful even when dealing with reputable firms like TSI.
This trip has sold out far in advance every year so do not tarry. I hope that you can join me.
Please Remember to use our 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 🙂
Meet and greet at 3pm on the afternoon of Monday, July 18.
Please e-mail for repeat customer or couples discount info, or for info on a 3-day option.
With only four folks signed up, learning situations will abound. The primary subject species on this IPT will be the nesting Common Terns and Black Skimmers. The trip is timed so that we will get to photograph tiny tern chicks as well as fledglings. There will be lots of flight photography including adults flying with baitfish. Creating great images of the chicks being fed will be a huge challenge. In addition to the terns we will get to photograph lots of Black Skimmers courting, setting up their nesting territories, and in flight (both singles and large pre-dawn flocks blasting off). Midair battles are guaranteed on sunny afternoons. And with luck, we might even see a few tiny skimmer chicks toward the end of the trip. We will also get to photograph the life cycle of American Oystercatcher. This will likely include nests with eggs and tiny chicks, young being fed, and possibly a few fledglings.
The Streak
Today’s blog post marks a totally insane, absurd, completely ridiculous, unfathomable, silly, incomprehensible, makes-no-sense, 240 days in a row with a new educational blog post. And I still have dozens of new topics to cover; there should be no end in sight until my big South America trip next fall. 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 Monday July 4 afternoon gannet boat add-on with the Canon EF 70-200mm f/4L IS USM lens (at 176mm) with the mega mega-pixel Canon EOS 5DS R. ISO 800. Evaluative metering +2 stops off the sky: 1/1600 sec. at f/6.3. AWB.
Center AF point/AI Servo/Shutter Button AF as originally framed was active at the moment of exposure (as is always best when hand holding). Click on the image to see a larger version.
Northern Gannet ready to dive
One afternoon, five photographers, more than 12,000 images in two hours…
I took just 2,100. I have only looked at a few. This one jumped out at me. I have about 4,000 images to edit from the past four days. Been busy.
As I mentioned previously our first gannet boat session suffered from wind against sun. When we left the harbor it was raining. Pretty hard. I was confident that we would do well. We started photographing in the rain. In ten minutes, the rain stopped. We killed for nearly two hours. On the way back to the harbor, it poured.
I used the 1DX Mark II with the 70-200mm f/4 for about 70% of the images on Monday afternoon, and the 5DS R for the remaining 30%. When the smoke clears it will be interesting to compare the results and the images. AF seemed more than fine with the 5DS R.
On Tuesday morning, the persistent group of six including participants Rob and Kathy Stambaugh, Bill Hedges, and Carlotta Grenier, were lucky to make a Bass Rock landing. Fewer than four in ten Bass Rock trips are able to get on the island. More on that great morning plus images soon.
Images and card design copyright: Arthur Morris/BIRDS AS ART. Click on the card to enjoy a spectacular larger version.
2017 UK Puffins and Gannets IPT
Monday July 3 through Monday July 10, 2017: $5999: Limit 10 photographers — Openings: 6). Two great leaders: Arthur Morris and BPN co-owner, BPN Photography Gear Forum Moderator, and long-time BAA Webmaster Peter Kes.
Here are the plans: take a red eye from the east coast of the US on July 2 and arrive in Edinburgh, Scotland on the morning of Monday July 3 no later than 10am (or simply meet us then at the Edinburgh Airport–EDI, or later in the day at our cottages if you are driving your own vehicle either from the UK or from somewhere in Europe). Stay 7 nights in one of three gorgeous modern country cottages.
There are five days of planned puffin/seabird trips and one morning of gannet photography, all weather permitting of course. In three years we have yet to miss an entire day because of weather… In addition, we will enjoy several sessions of photographing nesting Black-legged Kittiwakes at eye level.
Images and card design copyright: Arthur Morris/BIRDS AS ART. Click on the card to enjoy a spectacular larger version.
The Details
We will get to photograph Atlantic Puffin, Common Murre, Razorbill, Shag, and Northern Gannet; Arctic, Sandwich, and Common Terns, the former with chicks of all sizes; Black-headed, Lesser-Black-backed, and Herring Gulls, many chasing puffins with fish; Black-legged Kittiwake with chicks. We will be staying in upscale country-side lodging that are beyond lovely with large living areas and lots of open space for the informal image sharing and Photoshop sessions. The shared rooms are decent-sized, each with a private bathroom. See the limited single supplement info below.
All breakfasts, lunches and dinners are included. All 5 puffins boat lunches will need to be prepared by you in advance, taken with, and consumed at your leisure. I usually eat mine on the short boat trip from one island to the other. Also included is a restaurant lunch on the gannet boat day.
If you wish to fly home on the morning of Monday July 10 we will get you to the airport. Please, however, consider the following tentative plans: enjoy a second Gannet boat trip on the afternoon of Monday July 10 and book your hotel room in Dunbar. If all goes as planned, those who stay on for the two extra days will make a morning landing at Bass Rock, one of the world’s largest gannetries. We will get everyone to the airport on the morning of Wednesday July 12. (We may opt to stay in Edinburgh on the night of July 11.) Price and details should be finalized at least six months before the trip but you will need to be a bit patient. It would be ideal if I can get all the work done by the end of September so that folks can arrange their flights then.
Images and card design copyright: Arthur Morris/BIRDS AS ART. Click on the card to enjoy a spectacular larger version. Scroll down to join us in the UK in 2016.
Deposit Info
If you are good to go sharing a room–couples of course are more than welcome–please send your non-refundable $2,000/person deposit check now to save a spot. Please be sure to check your schedule carefully before committing to the trip and see the travel insurance info below. Your balance will be due on March 29, 2017. Please make your check out to “Arthur Morris” and send it to Arthur Morris/BIRDS AS ART, PO Box 7245, Indian Lake Estates, FL, 33855. If we do not receive your check for the balance on or before the due date we will try to fill your spot from the waiting list. If your spot is filled, you will lose your deposit. If not, you can secure your spot by paying your balance.
Please shoot me an e-mail if you are good to go or if you have any questions.
Single Supplement Deposit Info
Single supplement rooms are available on a limited basis. To ensure yours, please register early. The single supplement fee is $1575. If you would like your own room, please request it when making your deposit and include payment in full for the single supplement; your single supplement deposit check should be for $3,575. As we will need to commit to renting the extra space, single supplement deposits are non-refundable so please be sure that check your schedule carefully before committing to the trip and see the travel insurance info below.
Travel Insurance
Travel insurance for big international trips is highly recommended as we never know what life has in store for us. I strongly recommend that you purchase quality insurance. Travel Insurance Services offers a variety of plans and options. Included with the Elite Option or available as an upgrade to the Basic & Plus Options you can also purchase Cancel for Any Reason Coverage that expands the list of reasons for your canceling to include things such as sudden work or family obligation and even a simple change of mind. My family and I use and depend on the great policies offered by TIS whenever we travel. You can learn more here: Travel Insurance Services. Do note that many plans require that you purchase your travel insurance within 14 days of our cashing your deposit check of running your credit card. Whenever purchasing travel insurance be sure to read the fine print careful even when dealing with reputable firms like TSI.
This trip has sold out far in advance every year so do not tarry. I hope that you can join me.
Please Remember to use our 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 🙂
Denise and I woke way early this morning–Monday, July 4, to see four of the participants off to EDI, the airport at Edinburgh, Scotland. Two more depart at 7am. Four of the participants are staying on with us to do another afternoon on the gannet boat today and a hoped-for Bass Rock landing on Tuesday. The latter requires relatively calm sea conditions. I fly back to Orlando on Wednesday, July 6.
I started work on this blog post at about 4am on Monday morning. I hope to take a short nap when I am done.
Meet and greet at 3pm on the afternoon of Monday, July 18.
Please e-mail for repeat customer or couples discount info, or for info on a 3-day option.
With only four folks signed up, learning situations will abound. The primary subject species on this IPT will be the nesting Common Terns and Black Skimmers. The trip is timed so that we will get to photograph tiny tern chicks as well as fledglings. There will be lots of flight photography including adults flying with baitfish. Creating great images of the chicks being fed will be a huge challenge. In addition to the terns we will get to photograph lots of Black Skimmers courting, setting up their nesting territories, and in flight (both singles and large pre-dawn flocks blasting off). Midair battles are guaranteed on sunny afternoons. And with luck, we might even see a few tiny skimmer chicks toward the end of the trip. We will also get to photograph the life cycle of American Oystercatcher. This will likely include nests with eggs and tiny chicks, young being fed, and possibly a few fledglings.
The Streak
Today’s blog post marks a totally insane, absurd, completely ridiculous, unfathomable, silly, incomprehensible, makes-no-sense, 239 days in a row with a new educational blog post. And I still have dozens of new topics to cover; there should be no end in sight until my big South America trip next fall. 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 the gannet boat on Day 4 of the 2016 Puffins and Gannets IPT by Bill Hedges with the hand held Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L II USM lens (at 70mm) and the still amazing Canon EOS 7D Mark II. ISO 500. Evaluative metering +1/3 stop: 1/2000 sec. at f/7.1 in Manual mode. AWB.
Image #1: Northern Gannet getting ready to dive.
Image courtesy of and copyright 2016: Bill Hedges
The #1 Reason Not to Join a BIRDS AS ART Instructional Photo-Tour (IPT)
The #1 reason not to join a BIRDS AS ART Instructional Photo-Tour (IPT): I would not learn much. There is not much about bird photography that artie could teach me. I am already a competent or even an excellent bird photographer. At least that is what most folks think…
Gannet Boat Thoughts…
When I woke early at Seahouses on Thursday morning I had hopes for a great day on the gannet boat: even though the wind was from the west, it was cloudy to the east. But as we drove up the A1 to Dunbar, the skies cleared and I knew instantly that unless we got some heavy cloud cover that it would be pretty much impossible to create the classic soft light images of kiting and diving gannets. Wind against sun is that bad if you understand why…
Both in the big van, and then again on the dock, and then again on the one hour boat ride to the gannets, I explained the difficulties of photographing the gannets in wind against sun conditions, and explained that the very best images would be of kiting gannets getting ready to dive with the light coming through their secondary feathers. Everyone listened. Once the action started, I found that working in Av mode at +1/3 stop (at ISO 400) when the sun was out provided a workable solution. When the sun went behind a cloud I would go to + 1 2/3 stops at ISO 800. Co-leader Denise Ippolito on the other hand worked in Manual mode as she almost always does and explained the fine points of her techniques to those who also opted to do the same. Our big problem was that the light was changing so quickly that most everyone got a few bad exposures.
Bill Hedges, apparently concerned about getting pooped on 🙂
Image copyright 2016: Arthur Morris/BIRDS AS ART
From various conversations with participant Bill Hedges, an IPT virgin
Bill Hedges, a Brit, is a retired self-employed IT consultant from Dorset, UK. After following the blog for three years he signed up for his first IPT because he wanted to learn, and because of the relative convenience of travel to a UK destination.
On Thursday evening, he said, I can’t believe it; I feel that my bird photography has improved 100% in three days.
I asked him to expound. He said,
When I arrived, I had been working in Av mode 99% of the time when doing bird photography and of course, half of my exposures with birds in flight were not good. After a chat with Artie at breakfast that first morning, and some in-the-field instruction from Denise later that day, I got it and resolved to shoot in manual mode from then on. By the end of the first day, I was working comfortably in manual mode and making consistently good exposures. I was getting at least some data in the fifth box with no blinkies on the bird. So simple.
One thing that I really wanted to learn was to see the good situations. I did that in short order too. Background, background, background, and see the distant background. Watch the frame edges. Watch out for unusually light or dark areas in the frame. In short, attention to detail. I learned about isolating a subject either with focal length or by changing my position. I learned the importance of getting close. Before the IPT I used to just snap away and then crop out all the background junk.
One fine point that I learned is the importance of seeing the puffin’s feet. That first day, most every image that I created had the puffin’s feet cut off by a rock. Not any more. And I learned a lot about flight photography, about the relationship between wind direction and the direction and the quality of light. And about the importance of choosing a location for flight photography; both Denise and Artie consistently put us in the exact perfect spots to succeed with the incoming puffins. As a result, I got some great images. In a week I learnt what might have taken me a year on my own.
Or not…
Regular readers here–even those who have never been on an IPT–know that I am often aghast when I see folks with five or ten or even twenty thousand dollars worth of photo gear in the field who have absolutely no clue as to how to make a good image. The location does not matter. I see it at Fort DeSoto and at the gator rookeries in Florida, on the beaches of Long Island, on the cliffs of LaJolla, at Bosque, and most recently, on the seabird islands off of Seahouses, UK. It is easiest to tell on sunny days when folks are pointing their lenses in pretty much every direction and working down sun angle only on rare occasion, that almost always by accident. But even on cloudy days there are dozens of clues as to who has no clue. I see folks that do not know how to hand hold their lenses. I see folks obviously working from the wrong perspective. I often see folks working obviously hopeless situations. And whenever I get a peek at someone’s rear LCD when they are reviewing an image, I usually learn that either they are not looking at the correct view–one that shows the thumbnail and both histograms and also flashing highlights or that they have no clue as to how to get the right exposure…
Whether you are a green bird photography rookie or an experienced nature photographer, do understand that you can and will learn a ton by joining a BIRDS AS ART IPT.
Images and card design copyright: Arthur Morris/BIRDS AS ART. Click on the card to enjoy a spectacular larger version.
2017 UK Puffins and Gannets IPT
Monday July 3 through Monday July 10, 2017: $5999: Limit 10 photographers — Openings: 6). Two great leaders: Arthur Morris and BPN co-owner, BPN Photography Gear Forum Moderator, and long-time BAA Webmaster Peter Kes.
Here are the plans: take a red eye from the east coast of the US on July 2 and arrive in Edinburgh, Scotland on the morning of Monday July 3 no later than 10am (or simply meet us then at the Edinburgh Airport–EDI, or later in the day at our cottages if you are driving your own vehicle either from the UK or from somewhere in Europe). Stay 7 nights in one of three gorgeous modern country cottages.
There are five days of planned puffin/seabird trips and one morning of gannet photography, all weather permitting of course. In three years we have yet to miss an entire day because of weather… In addition, we will enjoy several sessions of photographing nesting Black-legged Kittiwakes at eye level.
Images and card design copyright: Arthur Morris/BIRDS AS ART. Click on the card to enjoy a spectacular larger version.
The Details
We will get to photograph Atlantic Puffin, Common Murre, Razorbill, Shag, and Northern Gannet; Arctic, Sandwich, and Common Terns, the former with chicks of all sizes; Black-headed, Lesser-Black-backed, and Herring Gulls, many chasing puffins with fish; Black-legged Kittiwake with chicks. We will be staying in upscale country-side lodging that are beyond lovely with large living areas and lots of open space for the informal image sharing and Photoshop sessions. The shared rooms are decent-sized, each with a private bathroom. See the limited single supplement info below.
All breakfasts, lunches and dinners are included. All 5 puffins boat lunches will need to be prepared by you in advance, taken with, and consumed at your leisure. I usually eat mine on the short boat trip from one island to the other. Also included is a restaurant lunch on the gannet boat day.
If you wish to fly home on the morning of Monday July 10 we will get you to the airport. Please, however, consider the following tentative plans: enjoy a second Gannet boat trip on the afternoon of Monday July 10 and book your hotel room in Dunbar. If all goes as planned, those who stay on for the two extra days will make a morning landing at Bass Rock, one of the world’s largest gannetries. We will get everyone to the airport on the morning of Wednesday July 12. (We may opt to stay in Edinburgh on the night of July 11.) Price and details should be finalized at least six months before the trip but you will need to be a bit patient. It would be ideal if I can get all the work done by the end of September so that folks can arrange their flights then.
Images and card design copyright: Arthur Morris/BIRDS AS ART. Click on the card to enjoy a spectacular larger version. Scroll down to join us in the UK in 2016.
Deposit Info
If you are good to go sharing a room–couples of course are more than welcome–please send your non-refundable $2,000/person deposit check now to save a spot. Please be sure to check your schedule carefully before committing to the trip and see the travel insurance info below. Your balance will be due on March 29, 2017. Please make your check out to “Arthur Morris” and send it to Arthur Morris/BIRDS AS ART, PO Box 7245, Indian Lake Estates, FL, 33855. If we do not receive your check for the balance on or before the due date we will try to fill your spot from the waiting list. If your spot is filled, you will lose your deposit. If not, you can secure your spot by paying your balance.
Please shoot me an e-mail if you are good to go or if you have any questions.
Single Supplement Deposit Info
Single supplement rooms are available on a limited basis. To ensure yours, please register early. The single supplement fee is $1575. If you would like your own room, please request it when making your deposit and include payment in full for the single supplement; your single supplement deposit check should be for $3,575. As we will need to commit to renting the extra space, single supplement deposits are non-refundable so please be sure that check your schedule carefully before committing to the trip and see the travel insurance info below.
Travel Insurance
Travel insurance for big international trips is highly recommended as we never know what life has in store for us. I strongly recommend that you purchase quality insurance. Travel Insurance Services offers a variety of plans and options. Included with the Elite Option or available as an upgrade to the Basic & Plus Options you can also purchase Cancel for Any Reason Coverage that expands the list of reasons for your canceling to include things such as sudden work or family obligation and even a simple change of mind. My family and I use and depend on the great policies offered by TIS whenever we travel. You can learn more here: Travel Insurance Services. Do note that many plans require that you purchase your travel insurance within 14 days of our cashing your deposit check of running your credit card. Whenever purchasing travel insurance be sure to read the fine print careful even when dealing with reputable firms like TSI.
This trip has sold out far in advance every year so do not tarry. I hope that you can join me.
Please Remember to use our 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 🙂
Sunday, our last IPT morning, started as the last few have, with a west wind and too much sun despite lots of clouds. But the afternoon was superb with the sun catching up to the wind direction and lots of clouds. We enjoyed cloudy-bright and gorgeous light in equal helpings.
Most of the group heads home early on Monday morning but six of us are doing another afternoon on the gannet boat and a hoped for Bass Rock landing. The latter requires relatively calm sea conditions.
Meet and greet at 3pm on the afternoon of Monday, July 18.
Please e-mail for repeat customer or couples discount info, or for info on a 3-day option.
With only four folks signed up, learning situations will abound. The primary subject species on this IPT will be the nesting Common Terns and Black Skimmers. The trip is timed so that we will get to photograph tiny tern chicks as well as fledglings. There will be lots of flight photography including adults flying with baitfish. Creating great images of the chicks being fed will be a huge challenge. In addition to the terns we will get to photograph lots of Black Skimmers courting, setting up their nesting territories, and in flight (both singles and large pre-dawn flocks blasting off). Midair battles are guaranteed on sunny afternoons. And with luck, we might even see a few tiny skimmer chicks toward the end of the trip. We will also get to photograph the life cycle of American Oystercatcher. This will likely include nests with eggs and tiny chicks, young being fed, and possibly a few fledglings.
The Streak
Today’s blog post marks a totally insane, absurd, completely ridiculous, unfathomable, silly, incomprehensible, makes-no-sense, 239 days in a row with a new educational blog post. And I still have dozens of new topics to cover; there should be no end in sight until my big South America trip next fall. 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. Please remember that if you are shopping for items that we carry in the BAA Online Store (as noted in red at the close of this post below) we would appreciate your business.
Center AF point (by necessity)/AI Servo Expand/Shutter Button AF as framed was active at the moment of exposure. The active AF point was on the left edge of the feather being preened (as we view the image). This was a small crop from the left and from above. Click on the image to see a larger version.
LensAlign FocusTune micro-adjustment: -5.
Atlantic Puffin preening
One of My Two Favorite Backgrounds…
In the original The Art of Bird Photography, I wrote something to this effect: My two favorite backgrounds for bird photography are distant still blue water or distant green vegetation. Here, with the help of the 2X III TC, I was able to come up with a gorgeous if somewhat unusual background for a UK puffin image.
The Image Optimization
The image optimization was straightforward. I converted the image in DPP 4, brought it into Photoshop, and did some Eye Doctor work. Next I did a bit of perch clean-up, ran NeatImage on the whole photo, and then used a regular Layer Mask to paint away 50% of the NR on the bird.
Images and card design copyright: Arthur Morris/BIRDS AS ART. Click on the card to enjoy a spectacular larger version.
2017 UK Puffins and Gannets IPT
Monday July 3 through Monday July 10, 2017: $5999: Limit 10 photographers — Openings: 6). Two great leaders: Arthur Morris and BPN co-owner, BPN Photography Gear Forum Moderator, and long-time BAA Webmaster Peter Kes.
Here are the plans: take a red eye from the east coast of the US on July 2 and arrive in Edinburgh, Scotland on the morning of Monday July 3 no later than 10am (or simply meet us then at the Edinburgh Airport–EDI, or later in the day at our cottages if you are driving your own vehicle either from the UK or from somewhere in Europe). Stay 7 nights in one of three gorgeous modern country cottages.
There are five days of planned puffin/seabird trips and one morning of gannet photography, all weather permitting of course. In three years we have yet to miss an entire day because of weather… In addition, we will enjoy several sessions of photographing nesting Black-legged Kittiwakes at eye level.
Images and card design copyright: Arthur Morris/BIRDS AS ART. Click on the card to enjoy a spectacular larger version.
The Details
We will get to photograph Atlantic Puffin, Common Murre, Razorbill, Shag, and Northern Gannet; Arctic, Sandwich, and Common Terns, the former with chicks of all sizes; Black-headed, Lesser-Black-backed, and Herring Gulls, many chasing puffins with fish; Black-legged Kittiwake with chicks. We will be staying in upscale country-side lodging that are beyond lovely with large living areas and lots of open space for the informal image sharing and Photoshop sessions. The shared rooms are decent-sized, each with a private bathroom. See the limited single supplement info below.
All breakfasts, lunches and dinners are included. All 5 puffins boat lunches will need to be prepared by you in advance, taken with, and consumed at your leisure. I usually eat mine on the short boat trip from one island to the other. Also included is a restaurant lunch on the gannet boat day.
If you wish to fly home on the morning of Monday July 10 we will get you to the airport. Please, however, consider the following tentative plans: enjoy a second Gannet boat trip on the afternoon of Monday July 10 and book your hotel room in Dunbar. If all goes as planned, those who stay on for the two extra days will make a morning landing at Bass Rock, one of the world’s largest gannetries. We will get everyone to the airport on the morning of Wednesday July 12. (We may opt to stay in Edinburgh on the night of July 11.) Price and details should be finalized at least six months before the trip but you will need to be a bit patient. It would be ideal if I can get all the work done by the end of September so that folks can arrange their flights then.
Images and card design copyright: Arthur Morris/BIRDS AS ART. Click on the card to enjoy a spectacular larger version. Scroll down to join us in the UK in 2016.
Deposit Info
If you are good to go sharing a room–couples of course are more than welcome–please send your non-refundable $2,000/person deposit check now to save a spot. Please be sure to check your schedule carefully before committing to the trip and see the travel insurance info below. Your balance will be due on March 29, 2017. Please make your check out to “Arthur Morris” and send it to Arthur Morris/BIRDS AS ART, PO Box 7245, Indian Lake Estates, FL, 33855. If we do not receive your check for the balance on or before the due date we will try to fill your spot from the waiting list. If your spot is filled, you will lose your deposit. If not, you can secure your spot by paying your balance.
Please shoot me an e-mail if you are good to go or if you have any questions.
Single Supplement Deposit Info
Single supplement rooms are available on a limited basis. To ensure yours, please register early. The single supplement fee is $1575. If you would like your own room, please request it when making your deposit and include payment in full for the single supplement; your single supplement deposit check should be for $3,575. As we will need to commit to renting the extra space, single supplement deposits are non-refundable so please be sure that check your schedule carefully before committing to the trip and see the travel insurance info below.
Travel Insurance
Travel insurance for big international trips is highly recommended as we never know what life has in store for us. I strongly recommend that you purchase quality insurance. Travel Insurance Services offers a variety of plans and options. Included with the Elite Option or available as an upgrade to the Basic & Plus Options you can also purchase Cancel for Any Reason Coverage that expands the list of reasons for your canceling to include things such as sudden work or family obligation and even a simple change of mind. My family and I use and depend on the great policies offered by TIS whenever we travel. You can learn more here: Travel Insurance Services. Do note that many plans require that you purchase your travel insurance within 14 days of our cashing your deposit check of running your credit card. Whenever purchasing travel insurance be sure to read the fine print careful even when dealing with reputable firms like TSI.
This trip has sold out far in advance every year so do not tarry. I hope that you can join me.
Please Remember to use our 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 🙂
Saturday morning on the puffin boat landing was difficult with wind against sun conditions and much too much sun Though there was about 80% cloud cover the sun managed to be out about 80% of the time. Bummer.
Saturday afternoon was downright spectacular. I figured that the sun would be coming around to meet the wind late in the afternoon so I asked the captain if we could get a late boat back to Seahouses. That plan worked out perfectly so there were only a very few of us on the island until 5:25pm. We dodged two thunderstorms with just a few drops of rain and enjoyed both cloudy bright and gorgeous light. I did lots of flight with sunlit birds set against dark grey storm clouds. I photographed lots of puffins with fish, kittiwake chicks, ton and tons of Arctic Tern chicks, and both adult and young Black-headed Gulls bathing. And lots more.
If you are interested in joining Peter Kes and me for the puffins and gannets in 2017 please scroll down.
Meet and greet at 3pm on the afternoon of Monday, July 18.
Please e-mail for repeat customer or couples discount info, or for info on a 3-day option.
With only four folks signed up, learning situations will abound. The primary subject species on this IPT will be the nesting Common Terns and Black Skimmers. The trip is timed so that we will get to photograph tiny tern chicks as well as fledglings. There will be lots of flight photography including adults flying with baitfish. Creating great images of the chicks being fed will be a huge challenge. In addition to the terns we will get to photograph lots of Black Skimmers courting, setting up their nesting territories, and in flight (both singles and large pre-dawn flocks blasting off). Midair battles are guaranteed on sunny afternoons. And with luck, we might even see a few tiny skimmer chicks toward the end of the trip. We will also get to photograph the life cycle of American Oystercatcher. This will likely include nests with eggs and tiny chicks, young being fed, and possibly a few fledglings.
The Streak
Today’s blog post marks a totally insane, absurd, completely ridiculous, unfathomable, silly, incomprehensible, makes-no-sense, 238 days in a row with a new educational blog post. And I still have dozens of new topics to cover; there should be no end in sight until my big South America trip next fall. 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. Please remember that if you are shopping for items that we carry in the BAA Online Store (as noted in red at the close of this post below) we would appreciate your business.
Image #1: I preferred the right wing position (our left) in this image to the right wing position in Image #3 (below)
The Exif for Images #1-4 are the same as for Image #5.
Was The Puffin Real or Was It Photoshopped?
In the Is This Puffin Real or is it Photoshopped? blog post here, I wrote:
Is This Puffin Real or is it Photoshopped?
Today’s featured image is another killer landing puffin with fish. Here is the question of the day: is this image real or is it a Photoshop creation? If the latter, please state your evidentiary case clearly. Was the head replaced? Was one wing replaced? Anything else or more than one?
Image #2: the problem with Image #1 was that the face was unsharp
Was It Real? Nope…
As you can see above, the image with the best wing position was not close to being sharp on the bird’s face. The feet, however, were pretty sharp…
Why not sharp? Operator error.
Image #3: the face and the fish here, as seen in Image #4 below, were razor sharp
But…
But the next frame in the sequence was sharp on the head, very sharp in fact.
Image #4: this is a tight crop of the puffin’s face from Image #3
If Only…
If only all of my flight images could be this sharp on the face. Once I saw that I loved the wing position in Image #1 and that the face in Image #3 was very sharp, the obvious answer was to drop in the head from #3 onto the rest of the puffin in #1. I did the work as a Photoshop demo for the group. Easy peasy. I painted a Quick Mask of the sharp head with lots of extra stuff around it. I used the Move Tool to place in roughly in position. Then I reduced the Opacity of the sharp head layer to about 50% so that I could position the eye perfectly. Then I hit Command + T to open a Transform box. I rotated that to better match the head position of the original. Next I hit Control + right click and selected Warp from the drop down menu. After that I added a Regular Layer Mask and erased pretty much all of the extraneous stuff, leaving only the sharp head, bill, and fish. As I said, easy peasy.
Center AF point/AI Servo Expand/Shutter Button AF as originally framed was active at the moment of exposure (as is always best when hand holding). Click on the image to see a larger version. Micro-adjustment: +4.
Image #5: Incoming Atlantic Puffin with fish
The Finished Product
Above is the composited image with the head from Image #3 replacing the unsharp head in Image #1. All the tools that you need to be able to do your own similar repairs are detailed in Digital Basics.
So Whaddya Think?
Was what I did criminal or acceptable?
Images and card design copyright: Arthur Morris/BIRDS AS ART. Click on the card to enjoy a spectacular larger version.
2017 UK Puffins and Gannets IPT
Monday July 3 through Monday July 10, 2017: $5999: Limit 10 photographers — Openings: 6). Two great leaders: Arthur Morris and BPN co-owner, BPN Photography Gear Forum Moderator, and long-time BAA Webmaster Peter Kes.
Here are the plans: take a red eye from the east coast of the US on July 2 and arrive in Edinburgh, Scotland on the morning of Monday July 3 no later than 10am (or simply meet us then at the Edinburgh Airport–EDI, or later in the day at our cottages if you are driving your own vehicle either from the UK or from somewhere in Europe). Stay 7 nights in one of three gorgeous modern country cottages.
There are five days of planned puffin/seabird trips and one morning of gannet photography, all weather permitting of course. In three years we have yet to miss an entire day because of weather… In addition, we will enjoy several sessions of photographing nesting Black-legged Kittiwakes at eye level.
Images and card design copyright: Arthur Morris/BIRDS AS ART. Click on the card to enjoy a spectacular larger version.
The Details
We will get to photograph Atlantic Puffin, Common Murre, Razorbill, Shag, and Northern Gannet; Arctic, Sandwich, and Common Terns, the former with chicks of all sizes; Black-headed, Lesser-Black-backed, and Herring Gulls, many chasing puffins with fish; Black-legged Kittiwake with chicks. We will be staying in upscale country-side lodging that are beyond lovely with large living areas and lots of open space for the informal image sharing and Photoshop sessions. The shared rooms are decent-sized, each with a private bathroom. See the limited single supplement info below.
All breakfasts, lunches and dinners are included. All 5 puffins boat lunches will need to be prepared by you in advance, taken with, and consumed at your leisure. I usually eat mine on the short boat trip from one island to the other. Also included is a restaurant lunch on the gannet boat day.
If you wish to fly home on the morning of Monday July 10 we will get you to the airport. Please, however, consider the following tentative plans: enjoy a second Gannet boat trip on the afternoon of Monday July 10 and book your hotel room in Dunbar. If all goes as planned, those who stay on for the two extra days will make a morning landing at Bass Rock, one of the world’s largest gannetries. We will get everyone to the airport on the morning of Wednesday July 12. (We may opt to stay in Edinburgh on the night of July 11.) Price and details should be finalized at least six months before the trip but you will need to be a bit patient. It would be ideal if I can get all the work done by the end of September so that folks can arrange their flights then.
Images and card design copyright: Arthur Morris/BIRDS AS ART. Click on the card to enjoy a spectacular larger version. Scroll down to join us in the UK in 2016.
Deposit Info
If you are good to go sharing a room–couples of course are more than welcome–please send your non-refundable $2,000/person deposit check now to save a spot. Please be sure to check your schedule carefully before committing to the trip and see the travel insurance info below. Your balance will be due on March 29, 2017. Please make your check out to “Arthur Morris” and send it to Arthur Morris/BIRDS AS ART, PO Box 7245, Indian Lake Estates, FL, 33855. If we do not receive your check for the balance on or before the due date we will try to fill your spot from the waiting list. If your spot is filled, you will lose your deposit. If not, you can secure your spot by paying your balance.
Please shoot me an e-mail if you are good to go or if you have any questions.
Single Supplement Deposit Info
Single supplement rooms are available on a limited basis. To ensure yours, please register early. The single supplement fee is $1575. If you would like your own room, please request it when making your deposit and include payment in full for the single supplement; your single supplement deposit check should be for $3,575. As we will need to commit to renting the extra space, single supplement deposits are non-refundable so please be sure that check your schedule carefully before committing to the trip and see the travel insurance info below.
Travel Insurance
Travel insurance for big international trips is highly recommended as we never know what life has in store for us. I strongly recommend that you purchase quality insurance. Travel Insurance Services offers a variety of plans and options. Included with the Elite Option or available as an upgrade to the Basic & Plus Options you can also purchase Cancel for Any Reason Coverage that expands the list of reasons for your canceling to include things such as sudden work or family obligation and even a simple change of mind. My family and I use and depend on the great policies offered by TIS whenever we travel. You can learn more here: Travel Insurance Services. Do note that many plans require that you purchase your travel insurance within 14 days of our cashing your deposit check of running your credit card. Whenever purchasing travel insurance be sure to read the fine print careful even when dealing with reputable firms like TSI.
This trip has sold out far in advance every year so do not tarry. I hope that you can join me.
Please Remember to use our 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, after two great puffin boat sessions, we ended the day with another great dinner at Insieme in Seahouses.
Time has really flown by. It is after 6pm here in the UK on the afternoon of Friday, July 1, Day 4 of the 2016 Puffins and Gannets IPT. We had a rough morning on the gannet boat with a pretty stiff wind, wind against sun conditions, and dramatically changing light. We prayed for the clouds to move in but they did so only sporadically; by the time you adjusted your settings for cloudy conditions the sun was back out again. Nonetheless, everyone was awed by the hundreds of gannets that dove within meters of our boat. Denise and I instructed the group on the fine points of creating pleasing backlit images with the light coming through the bird’s primaries. For the last 15 minutes, we had just enough cloud cover to allow for everyone to make a few spectacular images of ready-to-dive and diving Northern Gannets.
If you are interested in joining Peter Kes and me for the puffins and gannets in 2017 please scroll down.
Meet and greet at 3pm on the afternoon of Monday, July 18.
Please e-mail for repeat customer or couples discount info, or for info on a 3-day option.
With only four folks signed up, learning situations will abound. The primary subject species on this IPT will be the nesting Common Terns and Black Skimmers. The trip is timed so that we will get to photograph tiny tern chicks as well as fledglings. There will be lots of flight photography including adults flying with baitfish. Creating great images of the chicks being fed will be a huge challenge. In addition to the terns we will get to photograph lots of Black Skimmers courting, setting up their nesting territories, and in flight (both singles and large pre-dawn flocks blasting off). Midair battles are guaranteed on sunny afternoons. And with luck, we might even see a few tiny skimmer chicks toward the end of the trip. We will also get to photograph the life cycle of American Oystercatcher. This will likely include nests with eggs and tiny chicks, young being fed, and possibly a few fledglings.
The Streak
Today’s blog post marks a totally insane, absurd, completely ridiculous, unfathomable, silly, incomprehensible, makes-no-sense, 237 days in a row with a new educational blog post. And I still have dozens of new topics to cover; there should be no end in sight until my big South America trip next fall. 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. Please remember that if you are shopping for items that we carry in the BAA Online Store (as noted in red at the close of this post below) we would appreciate your business.
I selected the AF point that was two rows down and three to the right of the center AF point/AI Servo Expand/Shutter Button AF as framed was active at the moment of exposure (as is always best when hand holding). The selected AF point was on the chick’s forehead. Click on the image to see a larger version. Micro-adjustment: +4.
Razorbill chick peeking out from under adult’s scapulars
A First…
I’d never seen a Razorbill chick until Thusday afternoon. What fun. I was with old friend and multiple IPT veteran Mark Hardymon. Most of the rest of the group had been disappointed with the flight photography opportunities after the wind shifted and moved on to another location. Mark, and another IPT old-timer Mike Goldhamer of San Diego, decided to hang out a bit longer at the windblown point and see if we could turn up anything interesting. We did. In addition to the Razorbill chick we had some great fluffy black, white, and silver Black-legged Kittiwake chicks at point blank range.
I sat to get a bit lower, but more importantly, for added stability and to avoid being buffeted by the wind. The key here was to zoom in enough so that the chick was fairly prominent and to zoom out enough so that I did not clip the primary feathers. I had just finished saying to Mark, “Momma needs to raise her head a bit so that the tip of the bill is not hidden behind the cliff edge. A moment later she raised her head and held that pose for a minute; ask and ye shall receive.
Images and card design copyright: Arthur Morris/BIRDS AS ART. Click on the card to enjoy a spectacular larger version.
2017 UK Puffins and Gannets IPT
Monday July 3 through Monday July 10, 2017: $5999: Limit 10 photographers — Openings: 6). Two great leaders: Arthur Morris and BPN co-owner, BPN Photography Gear Forum Moderator, and long-time BAA Webmaster Peter Kes.
Here are the plans: take a red eye from the east coast of the US on July 2 and arrive in Edinburgh, Scotland on the morning of Monday July 3 no later than 10am (or simply meet us then at the Edinburgh Airport–EDI, or later in the day at our cottages if you are driving your own vehicle either from the UK or from somewhere in Europe). Stay 7 nights in one of three gorgeous modern country cottages.
There are five days of planned puffin/seabird trips and one morning of gannet photography, all weather permitting of course. In three years we have yet to miss an entire day because of weather… In addition, we will enjoy several sessions of photographing nesting Black-legged Kittiwakes at eye level.
Images and card design copyright: Arthur Morris/BIRDS AS ART. Click on the card to enjoy a spectacular larger version.
The Details
We will get to photograph Atlantic Puffin, Common Murre, Razorbill, Shag, and Northern Gannet; Arctic, Sandwich, and Common Terns, the former with chicks of all sizes; Black-headed, Lesser-Black-backed, and Herring Gulls, many chasing puffins with fish; Black-legged Kittiwake with chicks. We will be staying in upscale country-side lodging that are beyond lovely with large living areas and lots of open space for the informal image sharing and Photoshop sessions. The shared rooms are decent-sized, each with a private bathroom. See the limited single supplement info below.
All breakfasts, lunches and dinners are included. All 5 puffins boat lunches will need to be prepared by you in advance, taken with, and consumed at your leisure. I usually eat mine on the short boat trip from one island to the other. Also included is a restaurant lunch on the gannet boat day.
If you wish to fly home on the morning of Monday July 10 we will get you to the airport. Please, however, consider the following tentative plans: enjoy a second Gannet boat trip on the afternoon of Monday July 10 and book your hotel room in Dunbar. If all goes as planned, those who stay on for the two extra days will make a morning landing at Bass Rock, one of the world’s largest gannetries. We will get everyone to the airport on the morning of Wednesday July 12. (We may opt to stay in Edinburgh on the night of July 11.) Price and details should be finalized at least six months before the trip but you will need to be a bit patient. It would be ideal if I can get all the work done by the end of September so that folks can arrange their flights then.
Images and card design copyright: Arthur Morris/BIRDS AS ART. Click on the card to enjoy a spectacular larger version. Scroll down to join us in the UK in 2016.
Deposit Info
If you are good to go sharing a room–couples of course are more than welcome–please send your non-refundable $2,000/person deposit check now to save a spot. Please be sure to check your schedule carefully before committing to the trip and see the travel insurance info below. Your balance will be due on March 29, 2017. Please make your check out to “Arthur Morris” and send it to Arthur Morris/BIRDS AS ART, PO Box 7245, Indian Lake Estates, FL, 33855. If we do not receive your check for the balance on or before the due date we will try to fill your spot from the waiting list. If your spot is filled, you will lose your deposit. If not, you can secure your spot by paying your balance.
Please shoot me an e-mail if you are good to go or if you have any questions.
Single Supplement Deposit Info
Single supplement rooms are available on a limited basis. To ensure yours, please register early. The single supplement fee is $1575. If you would like your own room, please request it when making your deposit and include payment in full for the single supplement; your single supplement deposit check should be for $3,575. As we will need to commit to renting the extra space, single supplement deposits are non-refundable so please be sure that check your schedule carefully before committing to the trip and see the travel insurance info below.
Travel Insurance
Travel insurance for big international trips is highly recommended as we never know what life has in store for us. I strongly recommend that you purchase quality insurance. Travel Insurance Services offers a variety of plans and options. Included with the Elite Option or available as an upgrade to the Basic & Plus Options you can also purchase Cancel for Any Reason Coverage that expands the list of reasons for your canceling to include things such as sudden work or family obligation and even a simple change of mind. My family and I use and depend on the great policies offered by TIS whenever we travel. You can learn more here: Travel Insurance Services. Do note that many plans require that you purchase your travel insurance within 14 days of our cashing your deposit check of running your credit card. Whenever purchasing travel insurance be sure to read the fine print careful even when dealing with reputable firms like TSI.
This trip has sold out far in advance every year so do not tarry. I hope that you can join me.
Please Remember to use our 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 🙂
We killed all day on Day 3. Included were some 4-day old oystercatcher chicks. Again we ended the day with some great Italian food at Insieme in Seahouses. Everyone is looking forward to our morning on the gannet boat tomorrow. Except for the getting up early part…
If you are interested in joining Peter Kes and me for the puffins and gannets in 2017 please scroll down.
Meet and greet at 3pm on the afternoon of Monday, July 18.
Please e-mail for repeat customer or couples discount info, or for info on a 3-day option.
With only four folks signed up, learning situations will abound. The primary subject species on this IPT will be the nesting Common Terns and Black Skimmers. The trip is timed so that we will get to photograph tiny tern chicks as well as fledglings. There will be lots of flight photography including adults flying with baitfish. Creating great images of the chicks being fed will be a huge challenge. In addition to the terns we will get to photograph lots of Black Skimmers courting, setting up their nesting territories, and in flight (both singles and large pre-dawn flocks blasting off). Midair battles are guaranteed on sunny afternoons. And with luck, we might even see a few tiny skimmer chicks toward the end of the trip. We will also get to photograph the life cycle of American Oystercatcher. This will likely include nests with eggs and tiny chicks, young being fed, and possibly a few fledglings.
From Tom Pfeifer via e-mail
Hey buddy,
Got to Nickerson yesterday evening. It is rocking with Common Tern chicks close to ropes. Some are still on eggs. Lots of oystercatcher chicks also. The skimmers for now are set back in the colony. At work so I gotta run… Looking forward to seeing you soon! Tom
The Streak
Today’s blog post marks a totally insane, absurd, completely ridiculous, unfathomable, silly, incomprehensible, makes-no-sense, 236 days in a row with a new educational blog post. And I still have dozens of new topics to cover; there should be no end in sight until my big South America trip next fall. 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. Please remember that if you are shopping for items that we carry in the BAA Online Store (as noted in red at the close of this post below) we would appreciate your business.
Center AF point (by necessity)/AI Servo Expand/Rear Focus AF as framed was active at the moment of exposure (as is always best when hand holding). The active AF point was on the eye of a fish in the the center of the bill. Click here to see the latest version of the Rear Focus Tutorial. Click on the image to see a larger version.
LensAlign FocusTune micro-adjustment: -5.
Atlantic Puffin with sand eels
Old Dog Re-learns a Long Lens Depth -of-Field Trick
In the Catching Up on Learning: Too much depth of field… blog post here, K.G.Wuensch suggested that by focusing on a bird’s eye when making head portraits that I was wasting the depth-of-field beyond the plane of focus. I knew that but had gotten away from practicing it. To check his theory, I made lots of similar images, some with the active AF point on the eye, some with it on the base of the bill, and others with it on the fish. K.G. was very correct. For this image, I focused on the fish at about the midway point of the bill while working at f/13. Though the total depth-of-field at 1200mm here is small, roughly about .6 inch, it was enough to cover all the fish including those on the right that were in front of the plane of focus and the puffin’s eye.
Please Don’t Scoff…
Many folks scoff when I say that I often learn from folks who post comments on the blog. Please don’t. We have seen two really important lessons that I–after 33 years of doing this–have learned from two great recent comments… If you think that you have nothing to learn, you are very sadly mistaken.
100% crop of bill and fish detail…
More 5DS R Incredible Detail, This Time at 1200mm…
If you think that your Canon camera body can produce detail like this, you are mistaken; unless you own a 5DS R. And let’s not forget that according to many, you simply cannot make a sharp image with a 2X teleconverter…
Images and card design copyright: Arthur Morris/BIRDS AS ART. Click on the card to enjoy a spectacular larger version.
2017 UK Puffins and Gannets IPT
Monday July 3 through Monday July 10, 2017: $5999: Limit 10 photographers — Openings: 6). Two great leaders: Arthur Morris and BPN co-owner, BPN Photography Gear Forum Moderator, and long-time BAA Webmaster Peter Kes.
Here are the plans: take a red eye from the east coast of the US on July 2 and arrive in Edinburgh, Scotland on the morning of Monday July 3 no later than 10am (or simply meet us then at the Edinburgh Airport–EDI, or later in the day at our cottages if you are driving your own vehicle either from the UK or from somewhere in Europe). Stay 7 nights in one of three gorgeous modern country cottages.
There are five days of planned puffin/seabird trips and one morning of gannet photography, all weather permitting of course. In three years we have yet to miss an entire day because of weather… In addition, we will enjoy several sessions of photographing nesting Black-legged Kittiwakes at eye level.
Images and card design copyright: Arthur Morris/BIRDS AS ART. Click on the card to enjoy a spectacular larger version.
The Details
We will get to photograph Atlantic Puffin, Common Murre, Razorbill, Shag, and Northern Gannet; Arctic, Sandwich, and Common Terns, the former with chicks of all sizes; Black-headed, Lesser-Black-backed, and Herring Gulls, many chasing puffins with fish; Black-legged Kittiwake with chicks. We will be staying in upscale country-side lodging that are beyond lovely with large living areas and lots of open space for the informal image sharing and Photoshop sessions. The shared rooms are decent-sized, each with a private bathroom. See the limited single supplement info below.
All breakfasts, lunches and dinners are included. All 5 puffins boat lunches will need to be prepared by you in advance, taken with, and consumed at your leisure. I usually eat mine on the short boat trip from one island to the other. Also included is a restaurant lunch on the gannet boat day.
If you wish to fly home on the morning of Monday July 10 we will get you to the airport. Please, however, consider the following tentative plans: enjoy a second Gannet boat trip on the afternoon of Monday July 10 and book your hotel room in Dunbar. If all goes as planned, those who stay on for the two extra days will make a morning landing at Bass Rock, one of the world’s largest gannetries. We will get everyone to the airport on the morning of Wednesday July 12. (We may opt to stay in Edinburgh on the night of July 11.) Price and details should be finalized at least six months before the trip but you will need to be a bit patient. It would be ideal if I can get all the work done by the end of September so that folks can arrange their flights then.
Images and card design copyright: Arthur Morris/BIRDS AS ART. Click on the card to enjoy a spectacular larger version. Scroll down to join us in the UK in 2016.
Deposit Info
If you are good to go sharing a room–couples of course are more than welcome–please send your non-refundable $2,000/person deposit check now to save a spot. Please be sure to check your schedule carefully before committing to the trip and see the travel insurance info below. Your balance will be due on March 29, 2017. Please make your check out to “Arthur Morris” and send it to Arthur Morris/BIRDS AS ART, PO Box 7245, Indian Lake Estates, FL, 33855. If we do not receive your check for the balance on or before the due date we will try to fill your spot from the waiting list. If your spot is filled, you will lose your deposit. If not, you can secure your spot by paying your balance.
Please shoot me an e-mail if you are good to go or if you have any questions.
Single Supplement Deposit Info
Single supplement rooms are available on a limited basis. To ensure yours, please register early. The single supplement fee is $1575. If you would like your own room, please request it when making your deposit and include payment in full for the single supplement; your single supplement deposit check should be for $3,575. As we will need to commit to renting the extra space, single supplement deposits are non-refundable so please be sure that check your schedule carefully before committing to the trip and see the travel insurance info below.
Travel Insurance
Travel insurance for big international trips is highly recommended as we never know what life has in store for us. I strongly recommend that you purchase quality insurance. Travel Insurance Services offers a variety of plans and options. Included with the Elite Option or available as an upgrade to the Basic & Plus Options you can also purchase Cancel for Any Reason Coverage that expands the list of reasons for your canceling to include things such as sudden work or family obligation and even a simple change of mind. My family and I use and depend on the great policies offered by TIS whenever we travel. You can learn more here: Travel Insurance Services. Do note that many plans require that you purchase your travel insurance within 14 days of our cashing your deposit check of running your credit card. Whenever purchasing travel insurance be sure to read the fine print careful even when dealing with reputable firms like TSI.
This trip has sold out far in advance every year so do not tarry. I hope that you can join me.
Please Remember to use our 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 🙂
After another great morning on Day 2 we got drizzled out on the afternoon landing. The island was closed to protect a record crop of Arctic Tern chicks from the dangers of exposure. We took a nice break and then enjoyed a great image review session; both Denise and I were wowed by the quality over everyone’s photographs. We ended the day with some great Italian food at Insieme in Seahouses. Everyone is looking forward to Day 3.
If you are interested in joining Peter Kes and me for the puffins and gannets in 2017 please scroll down.
Meet and greet at 3pm on the afternoon of Monday, July 18.
Please e-mail for repeat customer or couples discount info, or for info on a 3-day option.
With only four folks signed up, learning situations will abound. The primary subject species on this IPT will be the nesting Common Terns and Black Skimmers. The trip is timed so that we will get to photograph tiny tern chicks as well as fledglings. There will be lots of flight photography including adults flying with baitfish. Creating great images of the chicks being fed will be a huge challenge. In addition to the terns we will get to photograph lots of Black Skimmers courting, setting up their nesting territories, and in flight (both singles and large pre-dawn flocks blasting off). Midair battles are guaranteed on sunny afternoons. And with luck, we might even see a few tiny skimmer chicks toward the end of the trip. We will also get to photograph the life cycle of American Oystercatcher. This will likely include nests with eggs and tiny chicks, young being fed, and possibly a few fledglings.
From Tom Pfeifer via e-mail
Hey buddy,
Got to Nickerson yesterday evening. It is rocking with Common Tern chicks close to ropes. Some are still on eggs. Lots of oystercatcher chicks also. The skimmers for now are set back in the colony. At work so I gotta run… Looking forward to seeing you soon! Tom
The Streak
Today’s blog post marks a totally insane, absurd, completely ridiculous, unfathomable, silly, incomprehensible, makes-no-sense, 235 days in a row with a new educational blog post. And I still have dozens of new topics to cover; there should be no end in sight until my big South America trip next fall. 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. Please remember that if you are shopping for items that we carry in the BAA Online Store (as noted in red at the close of this post below) we would appreciate your business.
Center AF point/AI Servo Expand/Shutter Button AF as originally framed was active at the moment of exposure (as is always best when hand holding). The selected AF point was just left of center on the bird’s belly. Click on the image to see a larger version. Micro-adjustment: +4.
Incoming Atlantic Puffin landing with fish
Is This Puffin Real or is it Photoshopped?
Today’s featured image is another killer landing puffin with fish. Here is the question of the day: is this image real or is it a Photoshop creation? If the latter, please state your evidentiary case clearly. Was the head replaced? Was one wing replaced? Anything else or more than one?
100-400 II/1.4X III/1D X Mark II ISO 3200 Winner…
AF with this relatively slow combination was superb when operator error did not intrude. ISO 2000 noise was visible even though I used Arash’s new numbers for chrominance and luminance. As expected, NeatImage cleaned it up beautifully without destroying the fine feather detail. All as detailed in the Professional Photographers Guide to Post Processing by Arash Hazeghi and yours truly. NeatImage really is amazing.
Images and card design copyright: Arthur Morris/BIRDS AS ART. Click on the card to enjoy a spectacular larger version.
2017 UK Puffins and Gannets IPT
Monday July 3 through Monday July 10, 2017: $5999: Limit 10 photographers — Openings: 6). Two great leaders: Arthur Morris and BPN co-owner, BPN Photography Gear Forum Moderator, and long-time BAA Webmaster Peter Kes.
Here are the plans: take a red eye from the east coast of the US on July 2 and arrive in Edinburgh, Scotland on the morning of Monday July 3 no later than 10am (or simply meet us then at the Edinburgh Airport–EDI, or later in the day at our cottages if you are driving your own vehicle either from the UK or from somewhere in Europe). Stay 7 nights in one of three gorgeous modern country cottages.
There are five days of planned puffin/seabird trips and one morning of gannet photography, all weather permitting of course. In three years we have yet to miss an entire day because of weather… In addition, we will enjoy several sessions of photographing nesting Black-legged Kittiwakes at eye level.
Images and card design copyright: Arthur Morris/BIRDS AS ART. Click on the card to enjoy a spectacular larger version.
The Details
We will get to photograph Atlantic Puffin, Common Murre, Razorbill, Shag, and Northern Gannet; Arctic, Sandwich, and Common Terns, the former with chicks of all sizes; Black-headed, Lesser-Black-backed, and Herring Gulls, many chasing puffins with fish; Black-legged Kittiwake with chicks. We will be staying in upscale country-side lodging that are beyond lovely with large living areas and lots of open space for the informal image sharing and Photoshop sessions. The shared rooms are decent-sized, each with a private bathroom. See the limited single supplement info below.
All breakfasts, lunches and dinners are included. All 5 puffins boat lunches will need to be prepared by you in advance, taken with, and consumed at your leisure. I usually eat mine on the short boat trip from one island to the other. Also included is a restaurant lunch on the gannet boat day.
If you wish to fly home on the morning of Monday July 10 we will get you to the airport. Please, however, consider the following tentative plans: enjoy a second Gannet boat trip on the afternoon of Monday July 10 and book your hotel room in Dunbar. If all goes as planned, those who stay on for the two extra days will make a morning landing at Bass Rock, one of the world’s largest gannetries. We will get everyone to the airport on the morning of Wednesday July 12. (We may opt to stay in Edinburgh on the night of July 11.) Price and details should be finalized at least six months before the trip but you will need to be a bit patient. It would be ideal if I can get all the work done by the end of September so that folks can arrange their flights then.
Images and card design copyright: Arthur Morris/BIRDS AS ART. Click on the card to enjoy a spectacular larger version. Scroll down to join us in the UK in 2016.
Deposit Info
If you are good to go sharing a room–couples of course are more than welcome–please send your non-refundable $2,000/person deposit check now to save a spot. Please be sure to check your schedule carefully before committing to the trip and see the travel insurance info below. Your balance will be due on March 29, 2017. Please make your check out to “Arthur Morris” and send it to Arthur Morris/BIRDS AS ART, PO Box 7245, Indian Lake Estates, FL, 33855. If we do not receive your check for the balance on or before the due date we will try to fill your spot from the waiting list. If your spot is filled, you will lose your deposit. If not, you can secure your spot by paying your balance.
Please shoot me an e-mail if you are good to go or if you have any questions.
Single Supplement Deposit Info
Single supplement rooms are available on a limited basis. To ensure yours, please register early. The single supplement fee is $1575. If you would like your own room, please request it when making your deposit and include payment in full for the single supplement; your single supplement deposit check should be for $3,575. As we will need to commit to renting the extra space, single supplement deposits are non-refundable so please be sure that check your schedule carefully before committing to the trip and see the travel insurance info below.
Travel Insurance
Travel insurance for big international trips is highly recommended as we never know what life has in store for us. I strongly recommend that you purchase quality insurance. Travel Insurance Services offers a variety of plans and options. Included with the Elite Option or available as an upgrade to the Basic & Plus Options you can also purchase Cancel for Any Reason Coverage that expands the list of reasons for your canceling to include things such as sudden work or family obligation and even a simple change of mind. My family and I use and depend on the great policies offered by TIS whenever we travel. You can learn more here: Travel Insurance Services. Do note that many plans require that you purchase your travel insurance within 14 days of our cashing your deposit check of running your credit card. Whenever purchasing travel insurance be sure to read the fine print careful even when dealing with reputable firms like TSI.
This trip has sold out far in advance every year so do not tarry. I hope that you can join me.
Please Remember to use our 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 🙂
Our flight to Edinburg, Scotland was non-eventful. The group is great. Father and son Richard and Jonathon Lethbridge flew from Toronto but their checked bags did not 🙁 We had a totally amazing first day. More on that below.
If you are interested in joining me for the puffins and gannets in 2017 please scroll down.
Meet and greet at 3pm on the afternoon of Monday, July 18.
Please e-mail for repeat customer or couples discount info, or for info on a 3-day option.
With only four folks signed up, learning situations will abound. The primary subject species on this IPT will be the nesting Common Terns and Black Skimmers. The trip is timed so that we will get to photograph tiny tern chicks as well as fledglings. There will be lots of flight photography including adults flying with baitfish. Creating great images of the chicks being fed will be a huge challenge. In addition to the terns we will get to photograph lots of Black Skimmers courting, setting up their nesting territories, and in flight (both singles and large pre-dawn flocks blasting off). Midair battles are guaranteed on sunny afternoons. And with luck, we might even see a few tiny skimmer chicks toward the end of the trip. We will also get to photograph the life cycle of American Oystercatcher. This will likely include nests with eggs and tiny chicks, young being fed, and possibly a few fledglings.
The Streak
Today’s blog post marks a totally insane, absurd, completely ridiculous, unfathomable, silly, incomprehensible, makes-no-sense, 234 days in a row with a new educational blog post. And I still have dozens of new topics to cover; there should be no end in sight until my big South America trip next fall. 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. Please remember that if you are shopping for items that we carry in the BAA Online Store (as noted in red at the close of this post below) we would appreciate your business.
Center AF point/AI Servo Expand/Shutter Button AF as framed was active at the moment of exposure (as is always best when hand holding). The selected AF point was on the middle of the leading edge of the bird’s right wing (yet the image was sharp on the eye.) Click on the image to see a larger version.
Atlantic Puffin landing with fish near burrow
Wow, What a Start!
What began as a bluebird sky day soon turned blessedly cloudy. The wind was perfect. In the morning we had perched puffins. Tons of puffin flight photography. We had a Lesser Black-backed Gull eating a baby puffin. Until it was challenged by a slightly larger Herring Gull. Big fight. When each of the birds had the carcass, they tried in vain to swallow it… No luck.
Both sessions offered Black-legged Kittiwakes with chicks and Shags with chicks and Common Murres with chicks. In the afternoon it was more puffins and murres and Razorbills. And more nesting Arctic Terns than I have ever seen before at the location before, with young of various ages. We are having a great dinner at the Links Hotel Restaurant as I type. It is well after 8pm and I need to get to sleep soon.
100-400 II/1.4X III/1D X Mark II ISO 3200 Winner…
AF with the relatively slow combination was superb when operator error did not intrude. ISO 3200 noise was quite visible even though I used Arash’s new numbers for chrominance and luminance noise. As expected, NeatImage cleaned it up beautifully without destroying the fine feather detail. All as detailed in the Professional Photographers Guide to Post Processing by Arash Hazeghi and yours truly. NeatImage really is amazing.
Images and card design copyright: Arthur Morris/BIRDS AS ART. Click on the card to enjoy a spectacular larger version.
2017 UK Puffins and Gannets IPT
Monday July 3 through Monday July 10, 2017: $5999: Limit 10 photographers — Openings: 6). Two great leaders: Arthur Morris and BPN co-owner, BPN Photography Gear Forum Moderator, and long-time BAA Webmaster Peter Kes.
Here are the plans: take a red eye from the east coast of the US on July 2 and arrive in Edinburgh, Scotland on the morning of Monday July 3 no later than 10am (or simply meet us then at the Edinburgh Airport–EDI, or later in the day at our cottages if you are driving your own vehicle either from the UK or from somewhere in Europe). Stay 7 nights in one of three gorgeous modern country cottages.
There are five days of planned puffin/seabird trips and one morning of gannet photography, all weather permitting of course. In three years we have yet to miss an entire day because of weather… In addition, we will enjoy several sessions of photographing nesting Black-legged Kittiwakes at eye level.
Images and card design copyright: Arthur Morris/BIRDS AS ART. Click on the card to enjoy a spectacular larger version.
The Details
We will get to photograph Atlantic Puffin, Common Murre, Razorbill, Shag, and Northern Gannet; Arctic, Sandwich, and Common Terns, the former with chicks of all sizes; Black-headed, Lesser-Black-backed, and Herring Gulls, many chasing puffins with fish; Black-legged Kittiwake with chicks. We will be staying in upscale country-side lodging that are beyond lovely with large living areas and lots of open space for the informal image sharing and Photoshop sessions. The shared rooms are decent-sized, each with a private bathroom. See the limited single supplement info below.
All breakfasts, lunches and dinners are included. All 5 puffins boat lunches will need to be prepared by you in advance, taken with, and consumed at your leisure. I usually eat mine on the short boat trip from one island to the other. Also included is a restaurant lunch on the gannet boat day.
If you wish to fly home on the morning of Monday July 10 we will get you to the airport. Please, however, consider the following tentative plans: enjoy a second Gannet boat trip on the afternoon of Monday July 10 and book your hotel room in Dunbar. If all goes as planned, those who stay on for the two extra days will make a morning landing at Bass Rock, one of the world’s largest gannetries. We will get everyone to the airport on the morning of Wednesday July 12. (We may opt to stay in Edinburgh on the night of July 11.) Price and details should be finalized at least six months before the trip but you will need to be a bit patient. It would be ideal if I can get all the work done by the end of September so that folks can arrange their flights then.
Images and card design copyright: Arthur Morris/BIRDS AS ART. Click on the card to enjoy a spectacular larger version. Scroll down to join us in the UK in 2016.
Deposit Info
If you are good to go sharing a room–couples of course are more than welcome–please send your non-refundable $2,000/person deposit check now to save a spot. Please be sure to check your schedule carefully before committing to the trip and see the travel insurance info below. Your balance will be due on March 29, 2017. Please make your check out to “Arthur Morris” and send it to Arthur Morris/BIRDS AS ART, PO Box 7245, Indian Lake Estates, FL, 33855. If we do not receive your check for the balance on or before the due date we will try to fill your spot from the waiting list. If your spot is filled, you will lose your deposit. If not, you can secure your spot by paying your balance.
Please shoot me an e-mail if you are good to go or if you have any questions.
Single Supplement Deposit Info
Single supplement rooms are available on a limited basis. To ensure yours, please register early. The single supplement fee is $1575. If you would like your own room, please request it when making your deposit and include payment in full for the single supplement; your single supplement deposit check should be for $3,575. As we will need to commit to renting the extra space, single supplement deposits are non-refundable so please be sure that check your schedule carefully before committing to the trip and see the travel insurance info below.
Travel Insurance
Travel insurance for big international trips is highly recommended as we never know what life has in store for us. I strongly recommend that you purchase quality insurance. Travel Insurance Services offers a variety of plans and options. Included with the Elite Option or available as an upgrade to the Basic & Plus Options you can also purchase Cancel for Any Reason Coverage that expands the list of reasons for your canceling to include things such as sudden work or family obligation and even a simple change of mind. My family and I use and depend on the great policies offered by TIS whenever we travel. You can learn more here: Travel Insurance Services. Do note that many plans require that you purchase your travel insurance within 14 days of our cashing your deposit check of running your credit card. Whenever purchasing travel insurance be sure to read the fine print careful even when dealing with reputable firms like TSI.
This trip has sold out far in advance every year so do not tarry. I hope that you can join me.
Please Remember to use our 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 🙂
