What’s Up?

On a still misty morning our Japanese master naturalist and photo guide knew just where the group should be to create some great images. We had a ton of fun making images of the river in the golden marsh and lots of little detail images of frost covered leaves and bamboo leaves. After some late morning image sharing we enjoyed another great Akan Crane Center fish feeding session with the Black-eared Kites and the White-tailed Sea Eagles.

I began this blog post an hour ago. As I type now, it is 4:30am on Saturday February 20 here in Japan. That is 2:30 in the afternoon on Friday February 20 on the east coast. Today we are headed for more swans. At long last, snow is in the forecast for Saturday night…

The Streak

Today’s blog post marks 109 days in a row with a new educational blog post. As always–and folks have been doing a great job recently–please remember to use our B&H links for your major gear purchases. Your doing so is always greatly appreciated.

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 charged a minimum of 20% plus assorted fees! Yikes. Until they folded E-Bay fees are in the range of 13%. Business is booming here.

The minimum item price here is $500 (or less for a $25 fee). If you are interested please e-mail with the words Items for Sale Info Request cut and pasted into the Subject line :). Stuff that is priced fairly–I offer free pricing advice, usually sells in no time flat. In the past few months, we have sold just about everything in sight. Do know that prices on some items like the EOS-1D Mark IV, the old Canon 500mm, the EOS-7D, and the original 400mm IS DO lens have been dropping steadily. Even the prices on the new 600 II and the 200-400 with Internal Extender have been plummeting. You can see all current listings by clicking here or by clicking on the Used Photo Gear tab on the right side of the yellow-orange menu bar above.

This image was created at Lake Kussharo on the Japan in Winter IPT with the Induro GIT 304L/Mongoose M3.6-mounted Canon EF 600mm f/4L IS II USM lens, the Canon Extender EF 2X III, and the Canon EOS 5DS R. ISO 400: 1/1250 sec. at f/11 in Av mode. AWB. Center AF point (by necessity)/AI Servo Expand/Shutter Button AF as framed was active at the moment of exposure. Check out the tight crop below to see the incredible fine feather 5DS R detail. Image #1: Whooper Swan tight head portrait

16-1200: It’s All in the Eyes of the Beholder

The lead image in today’s blog post was created at a focal length of 1200mm in typical BIRDS AS ART style: tight, clean, graphic, right on sun angle, with a pretty much perfect head angle and a pure background. Compare this image with the one that closes this blog post.

Image #2: This is a massive crop of a tiny portion of the top of the base of the bill

More Amazing 5DS R Fine Detail…

The image above is an unsharpened crop of a tiny portion of the top of the bill. It shows the miniscule feathers that are growing out of the base of the bill. Before you comment that “the tiny feathers don’t look that sharp” please try a crop of this magnitude with one of your images. Many thanks.

This image was created at Lake Kussharo on the Japan in Winter IPT with the hand held Canon EF 16-35mm f/4L IS USM lens at 16mm and the mega mega-pixel Canon EOS 5DS R. ISO 800. Evaluative metering +2/3 stop: 1400 sec. at f/11. Center AF point/AI Servo Expand/Rear Focus AF on the swan on our right, re-compose, check the in-the-viewfinder, rotate as needed, and push the button. Click here to see the latest version of the Rear Focus Tutorial. Click on the image to see a larger version. With the Singh-Ray 77mm warming circular polarizer set to dark. To learn to set your polarizer to dark on a bright day click here. Image #3: Whooper Swans on frozen lake with big clouds

The Big Question

Which is the strongest image, Image # 1, the tight head portrait, or Image #2, the wide angle bird-scape? Be sure to let us know why you made your choice?

Singh-Ray Filters

Singh-Ray filters have been used by the world’s top photographers for many decades. Singh-Ray is and has been the name in quality filters. I often use the 77mm warming polarizer set to dark at Bosque to get to a slower shutter speed in too-bright conditions. 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 warming polarizer (for example), click on the logo link above, click on Polarizers/color enhancing on the menu bar, choose LB Warming Polarizer, choose the size and model, add to cart, and then checkout. At checkout, type artie10 into the “Have a coupon? Click the “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.

Please Remember to use our Affiliate Links 🙂

To show your appreciation for my continuing efforts here, we ask, as always, that you get in the habit of using my B&H affiliate links on the right side of the blog for all of your photo and electronics purchases. Please check the availability of all photographic accessories in the BIRDS AS ART Online Store, especially the Mongoose M3.6 tripod heads, Gitzo tripods, Wimberley heads and plates, LensCoats and accessories, and the like. 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, 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 visiting the BAA Online store as well.

Facebook

Be sure to like and follow BAA on Facebook by clicking on the logo link upper right. Tanks a stack!

Typos

In all blog posts and Bulletins, feel free to e-mail or to leave a comment regarding any typos or errors. Just be right 🙂

What’s Up?

We left the lodge way early and spent an entire day with the wonderful Whooper Swans. We did OK in the pre-dawn trying for the Paul Mckenzie overhanging branches stuff and then got lucky well after sunrise with backlit onsen (hot springs) steam images. Then another great lunch at the world’s best ramen noodle restaurant in Teshikaga. I have eaten so much on this trip that I skipped the ramen noodles with pork and went for pork dumplings with a side of diced pork and a spicy pork ball. It was much less to eat but superb. We were blessed with overcast skies for our afternoon sleeping swans on snow on frozen lake shoot. All but one of the clients headed back to the lodge early but the three leaders and Sam Hogue, a multiple IPT veteran, stuck it out to the bitter end and were rewarded with some nice sunset colors. I am starting this blog post in the car on the way back from Lake Kusharo and will finish it after a visit to the local onset and dinner. Then it will be early to bed and early to rise as we head to Rausu for an experimental one day sea eagle cruise…

The Streak

Today’s blog post marks 107 days in a row with a new educational blog post. As always–and folks have been doing a great job recently–please remember to use our B&H links for your major gear purchases. Your doing so is always greatly appreciated.

B&H

B&H contributed generously as the primary SDNHM exhibition sponsor. Thank them (and me for the blog) by clicking on the logo link above to shop.

This image was created at the Otowa River Bridge in Tsurui on the Japan in Winter IPT with the hand held Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM lens at 222mm and the mega mega-pixel Canon EOS 5DS R. ISO 800. Evaluative metering +1/3 stop: 1/800 sec. at f/6.3 in Av mode. Shade WB. Center AF point/AI Servo Expand/Rear Focus AF on the closest line of cranes in the center and recompose. Click here to see the latest version of the Rear Focus Tutorial. Click on the image to see a larger version. Image #1: Red-crowned Cranes in pre-dawn river mist

Otowa Bridge Cranes in the Mist

Though I made more than half of my images with the 600 II and a 5DS R, pretty much all of my favorites were made with the 1-4II. The image above was created just as the first rays of the sun struck the trees on the right hand bank.

This sharp/soft double exposure was also created at the Otowa River Bridge in Tsurui on the Japan in Winter IPT with the Induro GIT 304L/Mongoose M3.6-mounted Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM lens at 400mm and the mega mega-pixel Canon EOS 5DS R. ISO 400. Evaluative metering +1 1/3 stops: 1/640 sec. at f/6.3 in Av mode. WB: 10000K. Center AF point/AI Servo Expand/Rear Focus AF on the closest line of cranes in the center and recompose. Click here to see the latest version of the Rear Focus Tutorial. Click on the image to see a larger version. Image #2: Red-crowned Cranes in river mist well after sunrise

Sharp/Soft Multiple Exposure

This sharp/soft two-frame multiple exposure was created about thirty minutes after the sun first hit the river. Lucky for us that the mist actually increased. To create a sharp/soft blur set your camera up for a double exposure and create a sharp image. Then de-focus the lens and create the second image. You will either need to use rear button focus or use One-Shot AF for the first frame and then turn the AF switch to Manual thus turning off AF. As with all blurs, experiment with different techniques when defocusing; you can turn clockwise or counter-clockwise a lot or a little.

Your Favorite?

Which do you prefer the traditional image (#1) or the more creative version (#2)? Be sure to let us know why.

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: $13,999/double occupancy.

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 enables him to have us in the best location every day.

Amazing subjects. Beautiful settings. Nonstop action and unlimited opportunities. Join me.

The Logistics

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. Out stay includes three ten course Japanese dinners these sumptuous meals will astound you and delight your taste buds. There are many traditional hot 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. One 2-night trip to Rausu for Steller’s and White Tailed Sea Eagles on the tourists boats is 100% dependent weather, road, and sea ice conditions. Only our trip offers complete flexibility in this area. It has saved us on more than once occasion. An afternoon of duck photography in the harbor at Rausu is a strong possibility. The cost of 3 eagle-boat trips is included. If the group would like to do more than three boat trips and we all agree, there will be an additional charge for the extra trip or trips. Do understand that few if any tours offer at least one afternoon boat trip….

Lodging notes: bring your long johns for sleeping in the lodge. In Rausu and at the Snow Monkey Park, 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.

Please Remember to use our Affiliate Links 🙂

To show your appreciation for my continuing efforts here, we ask, as always, that you get in the habit of using my B&H affiliate links on the right side of the blog for all of your photo and electronics purchases. Please check the availability of all photographic accessories in the BIRDS AS ART Online Store, especially the Mongoose M3.6 tripod heads, Gitzo tripods, Wimberley heads and plates, LensCoats and accessories, and the like. 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, 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 visiting the BAA Online store as well.

Facebook

Be sure to like and follow BAA on Facebook by clicking on the logo link upper right. Tanks a stack!

Typos

In all blog posts and Bulletins, feel free to e-mail or to leave a comment regarding any typos or errors. Just be right 🙂

What’s Up?

We photographed at dawn at the Otowa Bridge in Tsurui Japan but it was not cold enough for mist and a low lying layer of clouds killed the yellow light we have been hoping for. It is just after dinner on Tuesday night here in Japan which is just before breakfast on Monday on the east coast.

We spent the afternoon at the Akan Crane Center for our first crack at the Red-crowned Cranes. We had lots of great flight chances with the cranes and the fish feeding offered a half hour of non-stop action with White-tailed Sea Eagles and Black-eared Kites. The wind came up in the late afternoon and it got really chilly so most of the group joined Paul and me for a trip to the local onsen. On the way there I was bundled up and chilly. On the way back I and everyone else was warm as toast. Every meal at our lodge has been great but tonight, our guide’s wife Shinobu, outdid herself; each course was better than the previous one. Tomato salad with sesame seeds and sesame oil dressing. Tempura chicken. Burdick rice. An amazing radish dish. Cold soba noodles to die for. Sweet tea tempura shrimp with snap beans. We all gave our chef a well deserved standing ovation!

The Streak

Today’s blog post marks 105 days in a row with a new educational blog post. As always–and folks have been doing a great job recently–please remember to use our B&H links for your major gear purchases. Your doing so is always greatly appreciated.

B&H

B&H contributed generously as the primary SDNHM exhibition sponsor. Thank them (and me for the blog) by clicking on the logo link above to shop.

Selling Your Used Gear Through BIRDS AS ART

Selling your used (or like-new) photo gear through the BAA Blog or via a BAA Online Bulletin is a great idea. We charge only a 5% commission. One of the more popular used gear for sale sites charges a minimum of 20%. Plus assorted fees! Yikes. The minimum item price here is $500 (or less for a $25 fee). If you are interested please e-mail with the words Items for Sale Info Request cut and pasted into the Subject line :). Stuff that is priced fairly–I offer free pricing advice, usually sells in no time flat. In the past few months, we have sold just about everything in sight. Do know that prices on some items like the EOS-1D Mark IV, the old Canon 500mm, the EOS-7D, and the original 400mm IS DO lens have been dropping steadily. Even the prices on the new 600 II and the 200-400 with Internal Extender have been plummeting. You can see all current listings by clicking here or by clicking on the Used Photo Gear tab on the right side of the yellow-orange menu bar above.

Canon EOS 5D Mark III

A New Record-Low BAA Price

Ted Krug is offering a used Canon EOS 5D Mark III DSLR Camera in excellent condition for the record low BAA price of $1599. The sale includes the camera, the strap, the battery, the front cover, 2 CDs and the manual, 2 connecting cables, the original shipping and product boxes, and insured ground shipping via major courier. Your item will not ship until your check clears unless other arrangements are made.

Please contact Ted by e-mail.

I have used the 5D III for birds on occasion with excellent results, even with the 2X III TC and the 600 II. It has long been my go-to dSLR for flowers, landscapes, and Urbex photography. In my experience, the quality of the image files is second only to those from the 5DS R. artie

This image was created at Lake Kusharo, Hokkaido, Japan with the Induro GIT 304L/Mongoose M3.6-mounted Canon EF 400mm f/4 DO IS II USM lens and the mega megapixel Canon EOS 5DS R. ISO 400. Evaluative metering +2 2/3 stops off the snow: 1/500 sec. at f/5.6. Shade WB. One AF point to the left and one row above the center AF point/AI Servo Expand/Shutter Button AF as originally framed was active at the moment of exposure (as is always best with moving subjects). The selected AF point was on the bend of lower neck. Click on the image to see a larger version. Whooper Swan walking on snow-covered frozen lake

Like White on Rice

On Sunday I stuck with my 400 DO II like white on rice all morning long. It was the only lens that I used. And I never even thought about adding a teleconverter. For today’s featured image I sat in the snow to get lower and effectively move the background farther from the bird.

Too Yellow

With the soft overcast light all of my swan images had a yellow color cast. When I was converting the image in DPP 4 I noticed something new for the 5DS R as I was working on the color balance: Auto: White priority. Wow! This setting brightened the WHITEs and left the snow a perfect white: R = 248, G = 248, B = 248. I am pretty sure that it is only available on the 5DS R (and almost surely on the 5D S as well).

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: $13,999/double occupancy.

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 enables him to have us in the best location every day.

Amazing subjects. Beautiful settings. Nonstop action and unlimited opportunities. Join me.

The Logistics

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. Out stay includes three ten course Japanese dinners these sumptuous meals will astound you and delight your taste buds. There are many traditional hot 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. One 2-night trip to Rausu for Steller’s and White Tailed Sea Eagles on the tourists boats is 100% dependent weather, road, and sea ice conditions. Only our trip offers complete flexibility in this area. It has saved us on more than once occasion. An afternoon of duck photography in the harbor at Rausu is a strong possibility. The cost of 3 eagle-boat trips is included. If the group would like to do more than three boat trips and we all agree, there will be an additional charge for the extra trip or trips. Do understand that few if any tours offer at least one afternoon boat trip….

Lodging notes: bring your long johns for sleeping in the lodge. In Rausu and at the Snow Monkey Park, 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.

Please Remember to use our Affiliate Links 🙂

To show your appreciation for my continuing efforts here, we ask, as always, that you get in the habit of using my B&H affiliate links on the right side of the blog for all of your photo and electronics purchases. Please check the availability of all photographic accessories in the BIRDS AS ART Online Store, especially the Mongoose M3.6 tripod heads, Gitzo tripods, Wimberley heads and plates, LensCoats and accessories, and the like. 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, 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 visiting the BAA Online store as well.

Facebook

Be sure to like and follow BAA on Facebook by clicking on the logo link upper right. Tanks a stack!

Typos

In all blog posts and Bulletins, feel free to e-mail or to leave a comment regarding any typos or errors. Just be right 🙂

What’s Up?

Our travel to Hokkaido was uneventful. After the 1 1/2 hour flight we arrived at our lodge and enjoyed a late dinner that included some amazing curry and some even more amazing mushrooms and snap peas. It is just before 8am on Sunday morning; we are all sitting around the breakfast table hoping that the rain will turn to snow…

The Streak

Today’s blog post marks 104 days in a row with a new educational blog post. As always–and folks have been doing a great job recently–please remember to use our B&H links for your major gear purchases. Your doing so is always greatly appreciated.

B&H

B&H contributed generously as the primary SDNHM exhibition sponsor. Thank them (and me for the blog) by clicking on the logo link above to shop.

Be Careful Out There—Two Recent Photographic Thefts…

Hill Street Blues fans will remember well Sgt. Phil Esterhaus (played by the late actor Michael Conrad) warning the crew at roll call at the beginning of each episode: “Hey, Let’s be careful out there. Today, all photographers, nature and otherwise, including me, need to be more careful out there.

Alan and Pat Lillich are good friends, multiple IPT veterans, and experienced photographers. Alan e-mailed me about two weeks ago and told me that Pat had put her 100-400 II with a 1D X on it on the ground at the cliffs at La Jolla so that she could work with her tripod-mounted 500 II with a 7D II. Five minutes later, her 1-4/1D X had been stolen in a grab and run. As there were very few folk around nobody saw a thing. At no time was Pat more than 100 feet from her gear.

I, and countless numbers of other bird photographers have done the exact same thing many dozens of time. I have often left ten to twenty thousand dollars worth of cameras and lenses in a pile on top of my Xtrahand vest on many occasions without ever being burned. My new strategy there will be to bring all of my stuff down towards the bottom of the cliff before storing it on the ground in a pile.

The next theft story is even more disturbing. A friend was traveling in Texas with her friend in a Roadtrek Motor Van. They parked in broad daylight in a metered lot next to a nice hotel so that they could visit the Alamo.

When they returned the van had been broken into. The following items were stolen: Canon EOS 7D Mark II; Canon 100-400II; Canon EOS 5D S; Canon 11-24mm; Canon 1.4X III teleconverter; Canon 16-35mm f/4 L IS; Canon 70-200mm f/2.8L IS; a pair of Quest headphones; iPad; iPod & connectors; a pair of glasses; a pair of binoculars; a laptop bag; a Think Tank Rolling camera bag; and a 15 inch MacBook Pro with Retina Display. Two Western Digital Passport External Hard Drives with her entire photographic collection were well hidden in the van. They too were stolen along with each of their Canadian passports.

The security camera showed that at 1:30 pm a car pulled up to the van, punched out the lock, entered the van, and completed the theft within minutes.

Police viewed the video but the car had stolen plates so it could not be tracked. The police stated that there are many robberies in the area…

While this theft could not have been prevented and the loss of material objects is surely not what anyone wants, losing more than a year’s worth of images is tough to deal with. We all need to remember this principle: back-ups must be kept to be in different physical locations; two different locations is better than one. While traveling and making new images, it would be best to keep one back-up external HD on your person when you leave your vehicle. In the same vein, when flying home I put my back-up HDs into my checked luggage rather than in my laptop bag.

Hey, let’s be careful out there.

If…

If you have been the victim of a photographic theft, please share the details with us here by leaving a comment.

Please Remember to use our Affiliate Links 🙂

To show your appreciation for my continuing efforts here, we ask, as always, that you get in the habit of using my B&H affiliate links on the right side of the blog for all of your photo and electronics purchases. Please check the availability of all photographic accessories in the BIRDS AS ART Online Store, especially the Mongoose M3.6 tripod heads, Gitzo tripods, Wimberley heads and plates, LensCoats and accessories, and the like. 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, 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 visiting the BAA Online store as well.

Facebook

Be sure to like and follow BAA on Facebook by clicking on the logo link upper right. Tanks a stack!

Typos

In all blog posts and Bulletins, feel free to e-mail or to leave a comment regarding any typos or errors. Just be right 🙂

What’s Up?

We enjoyed another great day at the Monkey Park. There were lots of tender moments, lots of interactions, and lots of fights; good luck photographing those! There is a new small restaurant at the bottom of the hill so we quit early and enjoyed the world’s greatest hot chocolate and some pretty good coffee. Our bus arrived just a bit early for the five minute ride back to the hotel. After a nice break with too much napping we enjoyed another amazing ten course traditional Japanese dinner. Then early to bed and much too early to rise. Today is our last at the Monkey Park. Tomorrow we head for Hokkaido.

eBay

I learned recently that eBay recently more than doubled its fees to sellers; they are now in the 13% range…

B&H

B&H contributed generously as the primary SDNHM exhibition sponsor. Thank them (and me for the blog) by clicking on the logo link above to shop.

This image was created at the Snow Monkey Park in Nagano, Japan with the the hand held Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM lens at 220mm and the mega mega-pixel Canon EOS 5DS R. ISO 400. Evaluative metering +3 stops off the snow: 1/320 sec. at f/6.3. Two AF points above the center AF point/AI Servo Surround/Shutter Button AF as originally framed was active at the moment of exposure (as is always best when hand holding). Snow Monkey with young

5DS R/100-400II Combo

I photographed all day yesterday with the 5DS R and the 100-400 II hand held. It is lightweight and thus much easier to get into position than when working on a tripod. With the great 4-stop IS system I’ve been working at shutter speeds as slow as 1/100 sec. and getting sharp results. The versatility and close focus are amazing and yesterday I added the 1.4X III TC when I needed extra reach. One huge advantage of using the 5DS R with a zoom lens is that you can always frame a bit wider to avoid clipping anything and then have more than enough pixels for a quality cropped image. Today’s featured photo is a small crop from the right, the top, and the bottom. All in all, priceless.

Exposure Lesson

With too many images from the first afternoon a bit underexposed, I decided to shoot everything in Manual mode at +3 stops off the shaded snow. This leaves much of the snow blinking but yields a great exposure for the monkeys. Ninety-nine percent of the photography with the Snow Monkeys is done in the shade of the hillsides; the monkey onsen is always in the shade. A big plus that comes with working so light is that the zillions of monkey footprints in each frame pretty much disappear.

Shooting Strategy

Get yourself a good spot that offers the possibility of a clean background, and then be patient; wait for the shot or the action to come to you…

Selling Your Used Gear Through BIRDS AS ART

Selling your used (or like-new) photo gear through the BAA Blog or via a BAA Online Bulletin is a great idea. We charge only a 5% commission. One of the more popular used gear for sale sites charges a minimum of 20%. Plus assorted fees! Yikes. The minimum item price here is $500 (or less for a $25 fee). If you are interested please e-mail with the words Items for Sale Info Request cut and pasted into the Subject line :). Stuff that is priced fairly–I offer free pricing advice, usually sells in no time flat. In the past few months, we have sold just about everything in sight. Do know that prices on some items like the EOS-1D Mark IV, the old Canon 500mm, the EOS-7D, and the original 400mm IS DO lens have been dropping steadily. Even the prices on the new 600 II and the 200-400 with Internal Extender have been plummeting. You can see all current listings by clicking here or by clicking on the Used Photo Gear tab on the right side of the yellow-orange menu bar above.

To say that sales recently have been brisk would be a huge understatement:

• The sale of Phil Frigon’s Canon 200-400 f/4L IS with Internal Extender for $8995 is pending.
• Carl Zanoni’s three Series III TCs sold instantly for $279 each and I the sale of one of his 1D X bodies is pending.
• David Ramirez sold his Think Tank rolling bag.
• Multiple IPT veteran Steve Leimberg sold his used Canon EOS 7D Mark II.
• The sale of John Norris’s 1D X is also pending.
• Saul Pleeter sold his Nikon D600 DSLR camera body in near-new condition for $630 in early February, 2016.
• Douglas Bolt sold his Canon 400mm f/5.6L lens in excellent condition for $699 in mid-January 2016.
• I purchased Mark Hodgson’s 1.4X and 2X TCs in like-new condition in mid-January, 2016 for $279 each before they were even listed.
• Multiple IPT veteran Steve Leimberg sold his 1D-X in excellent plus condition for the full asking price, $2999, on the first day it was listed.
• Roberta Olenick sold her Canon 300mm f/2.8L IS USM lens in near-mint condition for $2950 USD in mid-January.
• Erik Hagstrom sold his Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L II USM lens in excellent condition for a ridiculously low $1275 in late January.
• Patrick Sparkman also sold his Canon EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6L IS USM lens (in excellent condition) on Feb 2k 2016 for $849 two days after it was listed.
• Multiple IPT veteran Patrick Sparkman sold his EOS 7D Mark II in like-new condition for the full asking price on day 1: $1149.
• Don Mullaney sold his Canon 600mm f/4L IS II lens in mint condition for $9499, the full asking price, on February 1, 2016.
• Gregg Hunt sold his 7D Mark II sold for $999, the full asking price, on January 31, 2016.
• Mark Hodgson sold his Canon 500mm f/4L IS II USM lens in mint condition $7499 within days of listing at the end of January, 2016.
• Mark Hodgson also sold his Canon 5D Mark III the Canon BG-E11 battery grip and two Canon batteries for $1899 in very late January, 2016.
• And his mint Series III TC set to me for $558 before it was even listed.
• Sash Dias sold his Nikon D4 body in excellent condition for $2399 the day after it was listed in late January, 2016.
• Bill Fraser sold his 1D Mark IV body in excellent condition for $1299 at the end of January, 2016.
• Multiple IPT veteran Brent Bridges sold his used Canon EF 300mm f/2.8L IS II USM lens in excellent condition for $4599 in late January, 2016.
• Saul Pleeter sold his Sony Alpha a7R Mirrorless Digital Camera in near-new condition for $799 on the first day it was listed in late January 2016.
• Mark Hodgson sold his Canon 70-200mm f/4L IS USM lens in very good plus condition for $599 within a day of listing in late January 2016.
• Bill Condon sold his Canon 500mm f/4L IS USM lens in near-mint condition for $4199 on the first day it was listed in late January 2016.
• Walt Thomas sold his used Canon 100mm f/2.8L IS USM Macro lens in mint condition for $749 in late January.

There are still lots of great items listed. Again, you can see all of these great buys by clicking here.

New Listings

Nikon D4 dSLR Professional Camera Body

Sash Dias is offering another used Nikon D4 body, this one in better condition than the last for $2549; this one is in mint condition. It is a barely used Nikon USA model that has less than 15k shutter actuations. The sale includes the front body cap, a Nikon MH-26 dual battery charger, the En-EL-18 battery, all the manuals, the USB cable for connecting the camera directly to your computer, a bonus Sony XQD card reader (no card is included), and insured shipping via US postal service Priority Mail. Photos are available upon request.

Please contact Sash by e-mail­­­ or by phone at 508-439-1097 (Eastern time).

Canon EOS 5D Mark III

Record-Low BAA Price: $1599.

Ted Krug is offering a used Canon EOS 5D Mark III DSLR Camera in excellent condition for the record low BAA price of $1599. The sale includes the camera, the strap, the battery, the front cover, 2 CDs and the manual, 2 connecting cables, the original shipping and product boxes, and insured ground shipping via major courier. Your item will not ship until your check clears unless other arrangements are made.

Please contact Ted by e-mail.

I have used the 5D III for birds on occasion with excellent results, even with the 2X III TC and the 600 II. It has long been my go-to dSLR for flowers, landscapes, and Urbex photography. In my experience, the quality of the image files is second only to those from the 5DS R. artie

Price Reductions

Canon 100–400mm f/4.5–5.6L IS Zoom Lens

Price reduced $30.
New Record-Low BAA Price: $599.

Doug Bolt is offering a used Canon 100–400mm f/4.5–5.6L IS zoom lens (the old 1-4) in excellent condition for the new record-low BAA price of $599 (was $629). The sale includes front and rear lens caps, the ET-83C hood, the tripod ring, and insured ground shipping via major courier. Your item will not ship until your check clears unless other arrangements are made.

Please contact Doug via e-mail or by phone at 301-937-3112 (Eastern time).

The old 100-400 was and is superb. I made hundreds of sale-able images with mine including the one used on the front cover of Scott Weidensaul’s “Return to Wild America”. Contrary to reports by the internet idiots the lens is–in competent hands–sharp at all focal lengths. It is extremely versatile and would make a great starter lens for those interested in bird, wildlife, and general nature photography. artie

Used Canon EF 400mm f/4 IS DO Lens

Yet Another Lowest-ever BAA Price!
Price Reduced an insane $825 on January 5, 2015.

IPT veteran Tom Blackman offering a used Used Canon EF 400mm f/4 IS DO lens in excellent condition for $2250. There is some paint wear near the lens hood. The sale includes the lens trunk, the front cover, the rear lens cap, a worn LensCoat, and insured shipping via Fed ex Ground. Your item will not ship until your check clears unless other arrangements are made. This lens was just cleaned and checked by Canon’s Irvine, CA Repair Center; documentation can be provided upon request.

Please contact Tom by e-mail or by phone at 619.807.5615 (Pacific time).

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

Canon 200-400mm f/4L IS II Zoom Lens with Internal 1.4X Extender

A New Lowest-ever BAA Price: $8799!
Price Reduced $651 on FEB 8, 2015.

Good friend and IPT veteran George Golumbeski is offering a used Canon 200-400mm f/4L IS zoom lens with Internal 1.4X Extender in excellent plus to near-mint condition with several extras, was $9450.00, now $8799. The sale includes all of the original items supplied by Canon including the lens trunk, the lens strap, the Canon E-145C Lens Cap (actually a lens hood made of tough synthetic fabric), the rear lens cap, the ET-120 Lens Hood, a 4th Generation Design CRX-5 replacement foot, the the original Canon foot and screws, a LensCoat (in digital camo), a Don Zeck front lens cover, and insured shipping via UPS Ground. Your item will not ship until your check clears unless other arrangements are made.

Please contact George via e-mail or by phone at 1-973 216 3832 (Eastern time zone).

The 200-400 is a killer lens when you are working with tame birds or large mammals; can you say the Galapagos, Africa, South Georgia and the rest of the great Southern Ocean locations, Florida, or La Jolla? I have owned and used this lens since its release. artie

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: $13,999/double occupancy.

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 enables him to have us in the best location every day.

Amazing subjects. Beautiful settings. Nonstop action and unlimited opportunities. Join me.

The Logistics

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. Out stay includes three ten course Japanese dinners these sumptuous meals will astound you and delight your taste buds. There are many traditional hot 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. One 2-night trip to Rausu for Steller’s and White Tailed Sea Eagles on the tourists boats is 100% dependent weather, road, and sea ice conditions. Only our trip offers complete flexibility in this area. It has saved us on more than once occasion. An afternoon of duck photography in the harbor at Rausu is a strong possibility. The cost of 3 eagle-boat trips is included. If the group would like to do more than three boat trips and we all agree, there will be an additional charge for the extra trip or trips. Do understand that few if any tours offer at least one afternoon boat trip….

Lodging notes: bring your long johns for sleeping in the lodge. In Rausu and at the Snow Monkey Park, 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.

Please Remember to use our Affiliate Links 🙂

To show your appreciation for my continuing efforts here, we ask, as always, that you get in the habit of using my B&H affiliate links on the right side of the blog for all of your photo and electronics purchases. Please check the availability of all photographic accessories in the BIRDS AS ART Online Store, especially the Mongoose M3.6 tripod heads, Gitzo tripods, Wimberley heads and plates, LensCoats and accessories, and the like. 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 just learned that my account was suspended during my absence; it should be up and running by Monday at the latest.

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, 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 visiting the BAA 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 🙂

Tuna Market image courtesy of and copyright 2016: Donna Bourdon

What’s Up?

I slept for a few of the 11 1/2 hours long flight from LAX to Haneda. Donna Bourdon, Beverly Still, and I got to the hotel just before midnight Tokyo time on Monday evening. I was in bed by 12:30 and up at 2:30am. They were planning on going to the fish market for the big tuna auction at 3:30am so I e-mailed Donna at about 3am to tell her that I was up. As she never e-mailed me back I assumed that they were sleeping. But Donna called at 3:40am from the lobby. I passed on the invite and wound up sleeping a blessed few solid hours more. I suffered no jet lag on Tuesday. This is usual for me whether fly west or east; day one is a piece of cake. When I get home it is usually the opposite for me as I stumble around like a zombie for a week. Bev and Donna you ask? They called late on Tuesday afternoon to tell me that they were skipping dinner and hitting the sack.

The Tale of the Vaporized Diabetic Testing Kit

I ate much too much junk food in the Delta Club at LAX on my 7-hour layover on Sunday past so I delayed dinner on the plane for a few hours. But I checked my blood sugar level and saw that I needed some extra insulin to get back down to normal. Such a practice is not recommended… When I injected for dinner a few hours later, my blood sugar was still a bit high. In any case, about eight hours into the flight I woke from a nice after-dinner sleep and wanted to take my blood sugar. The only problem was that my diabetic testing kit–the meter, the test strips, the lancet (ouch! at times), a fine point pen, and my record sheet–all kept in a 6 X 4 X 1 inch black case, was not on the console where I had left it. I looked around without success.

A flight attendant loaned me her cell phone with the flashlight app activated. I searched and searched. I got on the floor and looked under the seat. I searched in my vest, I searched in my Think Tank Urban Disguise laptop bag, and I searched in the two overheads that I had my stuff in. I took the seat cushion off and searched with the cell phone flashlight app. Over the next four hours I repeated everything above about ten times.

Then I gave up. I did have a back-up kit in my laptop bag but was less than thrilled about losing it…

After we got to the gate, I looked around once more without success. I figured that either my testing kit had been vaporized or that it had accidentally wound up in the trash. All of the flight attendants had had their eyes peeled for the kit for several hours; about an hour before we landed I saw two of them going through all trash bags!

When my last search came up empty I gave up again and deplaned.

As I exited the oldest, littlest flight attendant (who coincidentally was one of the nicest) I have ever run across said to me, “Wait. Go back. One of the pilots will look for your kit and he will find it. They always find the stuff.” She was so full of energy. Somewhat reluctantly I got back on the plane swimming against a tide of humans and figured that Donna and Bev would be through customs and on their way to the hotel without me by the time everyone had gotten off the 767.

I described the kit to the pilot. He removed the seat cushion just as I did. He shined his flash light on the inner workings of the seat and said instantly, “There it is.” I still did not see it. “There” he said pointing. And then I saw it; the kit had slipped onto a tiny flat shelf in the upper right part of the under-seat compartment.

I thanked and shook hands with the pilot and hugged my new favorite flight attendant. And best of all, Donna and Bev were waiting for me at the end of the jetway. We were in the hotel in no time at all.

All’s well that ends well. As always in situations like this, I looked up to heaven to thank my late wife Elaine for getting me successfully through yet another challenging adventure.

B&H

B&H contributed generously as the primary SDNHM exhibition sponsor. Thank them (and me for the blog) by clicking on the logo link above to shop.

Selling Your Used Gear Through BIRDS AS ART

Selling your used (or like-new) photo gear through the BAA Blog or via a BAA Online Bulletin is a great idea. We charge only a 5% commission. One of the more popular used gear for sale sites charges a minimum of 20%. Plus assorted fees! Yikes. The minimum item price here is $500 (or less for a $25 fee). If you are interested please e-mail with the words Items for Sale Info Request cut and pasted into the Subject line :). Stuff that is priced fairly–I offer free pricing advice, usually sells in no time flat. In the past few months, we have sold just about everything in sight. Do know that prices on some items like the EOS-1D Mark IV, the old Canon 500mm, the EOS-7D, and the original 400mm IS DO lens have been dropping steadily. Even the prices on the new 600 II and the 200-400 with Internal Extender have been plummeting. You can see all current listings by clicking here or by clicking on the Used Photo Gear tab on the right side of the yellow-orange menu bar above.

Stuff has literally been flying off the shelves for the past few weeks.

New Listing

Canon EOS-1Ds Mark III Professional dSLR

Multiple IPT veteran Steve Leimberg is offering a used EOS 1Ds Mark III Professional dSLR in excellent condition an the insane, record-low BAA price of $999. The sale includes only camera, the battery, the battery charger, and insured ground shipping via major courier. Your item will not ship until your check clears unless other arrangements are made.

Please contact Steve by e-mail.

The 1Ds Mark III produces superb 21.1 mp files and Autofocus is superb as well. The 1Ds III suffered none of the AF system problems that some encountered with the EOS-1D Mark III. I owned and use one for about three years. If you have been looking at pro bodies and you let this one go you will have only yourself to blame. artie

Price Drop!

Canon EOS 1D-X Professional dSLR

A New Lowest-ever BAA Price: $2999 for like-new!
Price Reduced $200 on FEB 8, 2015.

John Norris is offering a used EOS 1D-X Professional dSLR in like-new condition for $2999 (was $3199). The sale includes an extra battery, the battery charger, the front cap, everything that was in the original box, and insured shipping via UPS Ground. Your item will not ship until your check clears unless other arrangements are made.

Please contact John by e-mail or by phone at 214-957-3535 (Central time zone).

Two 1D X bodies served me well as my workhorse dSLRs since their introduction in March 2012. I always appreciated their ruggedness, the great AF system, and the powerful battery that drove AF even with the 2X III TC quickly. artie

Please Remember to use our Affiliate Links 🙂

To show your appreciation for my continuing efforts here, we ask, as always, that you get in the habit of using my B&H affiliate links on the right side of the blog for all of your photo and electronics purchases. Please check the availability of all photographic accessories in the BIRDS AS ART Online Store, especially the Mongoose M3.6 tripod heads, Gitzo tripods, Wimberley heads and plates, LensCoats and accessories, and the like. 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 just learned that my account was suspended during my absence; it should be up and running by Monday at the latest.

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, 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 visiting the BAA Online store as well.

Facebook

Be sure to like and follow BAA on Facebook by clicking on the logo link upper right. Tanks a stack!

Typos

In all blog posts and Bulletins, feel free to e-mail or to leave a comment regarding any typos or errors. Just be right 🙂

What’s Up?

I began this blog post on Thursday past and am finishing it on my MCO to LAX flight on the way to my connecting flight to Tokyo. It is an amazing world that we live in: I am online on a jetliner at 30,000 feet via free GoGoInFlight passes from my Platinum AMEX card. Man, you gotta love it.

My last-ever Japan in Winter Tour is announced below. Please e-mail with questions and for couple and IPT repeat customer discount information. This trip has sold out well in advance in three of the past four years. The missing year? I did not go. This will be my last Japan in Winter IPT. I do hope that you can join me.

Used Photo Gear News

The sale of Phil Frigon’s Canon 200-400 f/4L IS with Internal Extender for $8995 is pending. Carl Zanoni’s three Series III TCs sold instantly for $279 each and I learned on Monday that the sale of one of his 1D X bodies is pending. Man, the place is hopping!

Canon 200-400mm f/4L IS II Zoom Lens with Internal 1.4X Extender

A New Lowest-ever BAA Price: $8799!
Price Reduced $651 on FEB 8, 2015.

Good friend and IPT veteran George Golumbeski is offering a used Canon 200-400mm f/4L IS zoom lens with Internal 1.4X Extender in excellent plus to near-mint condition with several extras, was $9450.00, now $8799. The sale includes all of the original items supplied by Canon including the lens trunk, the lens strap, the Canon E-145C Lens Cap (actually a lens hood made of tough synthetic fabric), the rear lens cap, the ET-120 Lens Hood, a 4th Generation Design CRX-5 replacement foot, the the original Canon foot and screws, a LensCoat (in digital camo), a Don Zeck front lens cover, and insured shipping via UPS Ground. Your item will not ship until your check clears unless other arrangements are made.

Please contact George via e-mail or by phone at 1-973 216 3832 (Eastern time zone).

The 200-400 is a killer lens when you are working with tame birds or large mammals; can you say the Galapagos, Africa, South Georgia and the rest of the great Southern Ocean locations, Florida, or La Jolla? I have owned and used this lens since its release. artie

My Japan Gear Bag

I knew all along that the big decision for this trip would be whether to bring the lighter, smaller 500mm f/4L IS II or the bulkier, heavier, and longer 600 II. By the narrowest of margins I surprised myself by opting for the 600 II. Keep reading to learn why and more.

Canon EF 600mm f/4L IS II USM Lens. I went with the 600 II for several reasons (and very much despite my right shoulder). Perhaps the great ART treatment I got from chiropractor/friend TJ McKeon on Thursday afternoon made me do it. In any case, we do not walk any great distances on the Japan IPT, at least in the spots were I will need the 600 for reach. That will be the case at the two crane sanctuaries, primarily Tsurui-Itoh where the extra reach really helps in the morning when the Red-crowned Cranes are flying in. I will also bring it onto the eagle boat along with my Induro tripod topped by a Mongoose M3.6. There is not much walking there either. 🙂 And I will likely use it for the Whooper Swans at times and for the ducks in the harbor at Rausu.

Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM lens. This lens will be on my shoulder for most of the trip either with a 5DS R OR A 1D X via a Black Rapid strap. The 100-400 focal length fits beautifully with the 600 II. I will be using it as I always do for just about everything. That will include catch-as-catch-can flight and action, portraits, and as my main lens on a tripod for the Snow Monkeys. The close-focus there will be amazingly valuable… It was a pretty easy decision to leave the Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II USM lens at home as I can cover the missing 70-100 with the 24-105.

I am also bringing the Canon EF 400mm f/4 DO IS II USM lens. Many would think that it counterfeits the 100-400 II to some degree and it obviously does but there are lots of advantages that come along with its lighter weight (as compared to the 600 II) and its wider f/4 aperture (as compared to the 100-400II). I will use it for hand held flight for the two species of sea-eagles that we will likely get to photograph, for the Whooper Swans in flight, and for the Red-Crowned Cranes when they are landing close to us. I will likely bring up the hill for the Snow Monkeys so that I can enjoy 800mm of full frame reach if I need it. It’s light weight will be greatly appreciated on that hike. In addition, the 400 DO II offers a good measure of insurance should fate claim my 600 II.

Canon EF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM lens. This all-purpose B-roll lens will be in my Vested Interest Xtrahand vest where it can be grabbed whenever it is needed or used on a tripod for scenic photography.

I am bringing the Canon EF 16-35mm f/4L IS USM lens for scenic photography even though I am not very good with this lens…

Camera Bodies

I brought two of the mega-high megapixel Canon EOS 5DS R DSLR bodies and will be using them often with all of the lenses above including on the 600 II either alone or with either TC.

EOS-1D X. I will use my rugged pro body in very low light as it offers better high ISO control of noise and may use it for photographing action with the 600 II and the 2X III TC as the more powerful 1D X battery makes it better choice when I am working at 1200mm and need the fastest possible AF.

Teleconverters

I am making this trip with the usual complement of TCs: three Canon 1.4X III TCs and two 2X III TCs. With my style of bird photography–tight, clean, and graphic–I cannot afford to be without both TCs in the event of an accident or malfunction–or loss. 🙂 Most common in the malfunction category would be that the locking pin sticks; when that happens, there is a risk of having your camera body hit the ground.

Questions Welcome

If you have a question about any of my gear choices above please feel free to leave a comment. Do you disagree with any of my choices? What would you be brining to Japan. And why?

Think Tank Rolling Bags

I will be using the larger of my two Think Tank rolling bags, the Airport Security™ V 2.0 Rolling Camera Bag. Everything above fit easily into my Airport Security™ V 2.0 Rolling Camera Bag on Saturday afternoon. It tipped the scales at 45 1/2 pounds for this trip; the legal limit for US flights is 40 pounds. Nearly all countries in the world give you slack as far as the 40 pounds goes on the way back to the US. As far as the extra 5 1/2 pounds, I have only been hassled for weight once in more than three decades of flying around the world. And never in Japan. I hope that I do not give myself a kine-ahora.

Please click on my Think Tank affiliate link here or on the Think Tank logo-link in the right column of each blog post page to earn a free gift when you purchase any Think Tank product.

Think Tank Urban Disguise Laptop Shoulder Bag

Both Denise Ippolito and I use and love this amazing bag as it has tons of room and enables us to bring tons of extra stuff. If you are forced to gate check your roller you can get more than a few items in this bag, especially if you are not a diabetic.

Please click on my Think Tank affiliate link here or on the Think Tank logo-link in the right column of each blog post page to earn a free gift when you purchase any Think Tank product.

Delkin Flash Cards

As always, I will have a 64gb Delkin e-Film Pro Flash Card in each camera body so that I never have to change cards in the field thus reducing the risk of losing a card…. Please note the new lower prices here. I do have a few extra 32 and 64gb cards in a Delkin CF Memory Card Tote, mostly to protect against operator error.

Vested Interest Xtrahand Vest

I use a custom-designed Vested Interest Xtrahand Magnum vest that John Storrie knows as the BIRDS AS ART Big Lens Vest. It is based on their Magnum vest and then customized to best fit my needs. In addition to carrying a ton of stuff comfortably in the field, it gives you a measure of protection should your roll aboard be gate-checked on puddle jumper or other flights.

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 information. See especially here and here.

Click here to learn more about Xtrahand Vests. You can always call John at 940 484 2222 to discuss customizing your vest. If you think that you might order, be sure to have a tape measure in hand. Please let him know that we sent you.

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: $13,999/double occupancy.

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 enables him to have us in the best location every day.

Amazing subjects. Beautiful settings. Nonstop action and unlimited opportunities. Join me.

The Logistics

Arrive Tokyo: 9 FEB 2016 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.

Travel to Monkey Park Hotel: 10 FEB: Short 1/2 DAY of monkey photography is remotely possible depending on our travel time….

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. 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, and the traditional and sumptuous Japanese-style meals at the Snow Monkey Park will astound you and delight your taste buds. 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. One 2-night trip to Rausu for Steller’s and White Tailed Sea Eagles on the tourists boats is 100% dependent weather, road, and sea ice conditions. Only our trip offers complete flexibility in this area. It has saved us on more than once occasion. An afternoon of duck photography in the harbor at Rausu is a strong possibility. The cost of 3 eagle-boat trips is included. If the group would like to do more than three boat trips and we all agree, there will be an additional charge for the extra trip or trips. Do understand that few if any tours offer at least one afternoon boat trip….

Lodging notes: bring your long johns for sleeping in the lodge. In Rausu and at the Snow Monkey Park, 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.

What’s Up?

Friday was a two-zillion e-mail day, a little bit busier in that regard than is usual. The air was quite chilly for my swim but the pool was only down one degree to 77 so I was fine until I got out.

I was pleased to learn that Steve Leimberg’s 1D X sold as predicted on Day 1 to Alan and Pat Lillich. The two couples had met on a back to back IPT to Holland, Tulips and birds in Texel.

I did not do any packing today… I leave for the airport hotel late on Saturday afternoon and begin the long journey to Japan on Sunday morning.

B&H

B&H contributed generously as the primary SDNHM exhibition sponsor. Thank them (and me for the blog) by clicking on the logo link above to shop.

This image was created at La Jolla, CA on the 2016 San Diego IPT with the Induro GIT 304L/Mongoose M3.6-mounted Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II USM lens (at 98mm) and the Canon EOS 5DS R. ISO 100. Evaluative metering +1/3 stop: 1/8 sec. at f/13 in Tv mode. Color temperature 8,000K. I should have been about two stops brighter here as the RAW file was well under-exposed. I moved the Brightness slider to +1.66 and added a bit of extra noise reduction during the RAW conversion in DPP 4. See our DPP 4 RAW Conversion Guide here to learn more. Center AF point/AI Servo Expand/Rear Focus AF as framed on the center of the bright red triangle at the bottom, re-compose, and pan. Click here to see the latest version of the Rear Focus Tutorial. Click on the image to see a larger version. Image #1: Beach at Sunset full frame

The Full Frame Image

The JPEG above was created from the full frame 144mb 8-bit file. As above, the RAW file was significantly under-exposed. To my eye, noise in the optimized 5DS R file was and is pretty much non-existent. I was experimenting with in-camera HDR pan blurs panning slowly from side to side for this frame. The frame above was one of the source images.

Exposure Question

So exactly how did Mr. Famous Bird Photographer wind up with an image that was nearly two stops underexposed?

Image #2: Beach at Sunset panoramic crop

The Panoramic Crop

This image was created from the optimized TIFF. I cropped away 40% of the image, I was left with a quite respectable 86.5mb 8-bit file of extremely high quality.

The Big Question

Which is the more powerful image, the full frame or the pano? Be sure to let us know why.

San Diego offers a wealth of very attractive natural history subjects. With annual visits spanning more than three decades I have lot of experience there….

2017 San Diego 4 1/2-DAY BIRDS AS ART Instructional Photo-Tour (IPT) JAN 11 thru and including the morning session on JAN 15: 4 1/2 days: $1999.

(Limit: 10/openings 8)

Meet and Greet at 7:00pm on the evening before the IPT begins; Tuesday 1/10/17.

Join me in San Diego to photograph the spectacular breeding plumage Brown Pelicans with their fire-engine red and olive green bill pouches; Brandt’s and Double-crested Cormorants; breeding plumage Wood and Ring-necked Duck; other duck species possible including Lesser Scaup, Redhead, and Surf Scoter; a variety of gulls including Western, California, and the gorgeous Heerman’s, all in full breeding plumage; shorebirds including Marbled Godwit, Willet, Sanderling and Black-bellied Plover; many others possible including Least, Western, and Spotted Sandpiper, Whimbrel, Black and Ruddy Turnstone, Semipalmated Plover, and Surfbird; Harbor Seals (depending on the current regulations) and California Sea Lions; and Bird of Paradise flowers. And as you can see by studying the two IPT cards there are some nice bird-scape and landscape opportunities as well.

With gorgeous subjects just sitting there waiting to have their pictures taken, photographing the pelicans on the cliffs is about as easy as nature photography gets. With the winds from the east almost every morning there is usually some excellent flight photography. And the pelicans are almost always doing something interesting: preening, scratching, bill pouch cleaning, or squabbling. And then there are those crazy head throws that are thought to be a form of intra-flock communication.

Did I mention that there are wealth of great birds and natural history subjects in San Diego in winter?

Though the pelicans will be the stars of the show on this IPT there will be many other handsome and captivating subjects in wonderful settings.

The San Diego Details

This IPT will include five 3 1/2 hour morning photo sessions, four 2 1/2 hour afternoon photo sessions, four lunches, and after-lunch image review and Photoshop sessions. To ensure early starts, breakfasts will be your responsibility.

A $599 non-refundable deposit is required to hold your slot for this IPT. You can send a check (made out to “Arthur Morris) to us at BIRDS AS ART, PO Box 7245, Indian Lake Estates, FL, 33855. Or call Jim or Jennifer at the office with a credit card at 863-692-0906. Your balance, payable only by check, will be due on 9/11//2016. If we do not receive your check for the balance on or before the due date we will try to fill your spot from the waiting list. Please print, complete, and sign the form that is linked to here and shoot it to us along with your deposit check. If you register by phone, please print, complete and sign the form as noted above and either mail it to us or e-mail the scan. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me via e-mail.

Please Remember to use our Affiliate Links 🙂

To show your appreciation for my continuing efforts here, we ask, as always, that you get in the habit of using my B&H affiliate links on the right side of the blog for all of your photo and electronics purchases. Please check the availability of all photographic accessories in the BIRDS AS ART Online Store, especially the Mongoose M3.6 tripod heads, Gitzo tripods, Wimberley heads and plates, LensCoats and accessories, and the like. 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 just learned that my account was suspended during my absence; it should be up and running by Monday at the latest.

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, 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 visiting the BAA Online store as well.

Facebook

Be sure to like and follow BAA on Facebook by clicking on the logo link upper right. Tanks a stack!

Typos

In all blog posts and Bulletins, feel free to e-mail or to leave a comment regarding any typos or errors. Just be right 🙂

What’s Up?

Jim and I left Melbourne before 8am on Wednesday morning and were back in the home/office by ten. After a nice swim in the 78 degree pool I spent the rest of the day working on this blog post and answering too many e-mails, most dealing with Used Photo Gear stuff. Another cold front is on the way.

Today I learned that Jim Robbelard was the first to sign up for the Fort DeSoto IPT and that Kim Sherman called and left a wonderfully generous Blog Thank You gift. Many thanks Kim. Shy folks might consider a gift by clicking here.

The NHL’s Chicago Blackhawks have done it again with a new “What’s Your Goal” video feature. If you are soured on pro sports with the high salaries, click here for some heartfelt relief. Viewing tip: bring tissues.

Thanks to older daughter Jennifer for sharing the above with her Dad.

Good Job!

Lot’s of folks chimed in with excellent critiques of Adhika Lie’s La Jolla image in yesterday’s blog post here. And opinions varied widely. I will be sharing my thoughts in a few days so you still have some time to visit, leave a comment, and hopefully learn a bit about doing formal image critiques like those done dozens of times every day in the various forums on BirdPhotographer’s.Net.

Real World Camera System Conversations

I ask often that folks e-mail me when they have gear questions. Though answering such e-mails takes a good amount of time, doing so is good for business overall and better yet, most folks, at least those in the US, wind up using my B&H affiliate link. In addition, I just hate when I meet folks, either on an IPT or in the field, using really wrong stuff, stuff that is inefficient, stuff that makes it harder for them to make great images…

I received a phone call the other night that wound up leading to a series of e-mail conversations with a nice guy from the San Francisco area. Those conversations have been adapted below.

Please…

As you read, and before you get pissed off, please understand that good photographers make good images with whatever gear that they have in their hands. And that one very good friend who is a superb bird photographer uses Nikon gear. And that many, many excellent photographers around the world choose and use Nikon (and other brand) gear and make great images every day. That said, I firmly believe that right now Canon is the far better system choice for folks looking to get into bird, wildlife, and nature photography, especially those considering the longer focal lengths.

Conversation I

To quote UFC announcer Mike Goldberg, “HERE WE GO!”

AM: Howdy, I am glad that you found the best e-mail address. 🙂

RP: It was a pleasure talking to you today. Please pencil me in for Galapagos 2017.

AM: Ditto and done.

RP: I’ve been a hobbyist photographer for some 30 years. Mostly landscapes, portraits and street photography. I am new to wildlife & birds. I have a Sony A7R-II that I use with Zeiss, Leica-R and Leica-M lenses. I also own a Leica S that I use strictly for landscape; it is not exactly a versatile camera.

AM: We may need to have a conference so that you can teach me to use the Sony A7R-II. I will be trying one out soon.

RP: As of right now, I don’t have either Nikon or Canon. I’ve been doing some traveling and I’d like to take some wildlife shots on my trips. I am planning a safari trip to Kenya this August so I’d like to decide on some kind of a wildlife solution.

AM: Good plan. First off, I would suggest that when you call Jim to order the two-book combo (ABP & ABP II) that you add a copy of A Photographer’s Guide to the Safari Experience.

RP: I have been thinking of two possible setups:

One: For mostly hand-held shooting, short to intermediate distances with reasonably good lighting, very quick AF, no TCs. Strategy: Olympus E-M2 with an Olympus 300mm f/4 and/or a Panasonic 100-400mm f/4.5-6.3. Alternative: a Nikon D500 + 80-400 F4.5-5.6 VR II or a Canon 7DMK2 + 100-400 L IS II.

Two: For mostly beanbag/tripod use, a long to super-long focal length, plus TCs. And a camera able to deliver accurate focus in challenging or poor lighting, with good VR or IS and high ISO performance. Strategy: either Nikon D5 (and D500) + Nikon 800mm f/5.6 or Canon 1DX-II (and 7DMK3) and the Canon 800mm f/5.6 L IS.

Alternatively, instead of an 800mm prime, go with a 500mm or 600 prime + all the TCs. This would be lighter, more flexible and cheaper. And occasionally, hand holdable.

Another alternative would be one of the 200-400mm f/4 zoom lenses. Here, the Canon with its 1.4x built in TC is far more attractive than the Nikon, although at a much higher price. LenScore rates the Canon much higher.

AM: Well, I am obviously biased toward Canon as I have been using their gear for bird photography for 32+ years and been an Explorer of Light for about 20 years. First some general comments:

The camera bodies from both Canon and Nikon are great, wonderful, and amazing. Canon has long been killing Nikon as far as the intermediate telephoto lens and the zoom telephoto lenses are concerned. In both of these categories Canon has offered better, more versatile lenses and far more choices. And for more than a decade Canon killed the Nikon super-telephotos on weight, and that became a slaughter when the Canon Series II lenses came out. To be fair, I must point out that Nikon recently and finally released a relatively light 600mm f/4 that is actually a bit lighter than the Canon 600 II.

Whatever you decide you will be far better sticking to one camera system…

RP: I’m not super-sensitive to the prices, but I don’t like to buy something that simply sits idle for the most part. So I’d like to put my gear to work.

AM: That is always a good plan.

RP: I’m 60.5 years old.

AM: 69.5 for me 🙂

RP: The next 4-5 years is probably my window for heavy equipment. I don’t see myself lugging around 10+ pound lenses when I’m 70. But maybe I will, who knows?!

AM: I still get out with the 600 II on occasion but as you begin to study the blogs posts from new to old you will see that weight has become a concern for me and for other Baby Boomers as well in recent years 🙂

RP: Any advice and/or input would be greatly appreciated. I fully understand what you mean when you say the gear doesn’t matter, but since I’m not invested in either Canon or Nikon at this time, I have the opportunity to decide.

AM: For me it is a no-brainer choice to go with Canon. And I did not even mention the new love of my life, the 5DS R. And now we need to factor in the 1D X Mark II.

RP: In general, I’m lens-centric. I regard the cameras as electronic gadgets that come and go, while the lens are the real keepers. That’s how I’ve ended up with a bunch of Leica R and M and Zeiss lenses.

AM: Right now I own and use practically all of the current Canon dSLRs…

RP: So if I think lens first, I really like many of the Canon lenses. But the Nikon 500/5.6 looks to be a superb lens. And the new Nikon cameras also look good. Which is why I was leaning towards a D5, D500 and Nikon 500/5.6 combo. Maybe even pick up a used D810 or its successor. I also have a Nikon 70-200 f/2.8 and some Zeiss lenses in Nikon F mount, so that’s another reason why Nikon might make sense.

AM: From where I sit it makes much more sense to go Canon now and avoid the pain of realizing that it is the far better system for nature photography. If for no other reason than the 100-400 II. It is the most amazing lens that I have ever owned.

You mentioned a Nikon 500mm f/5.6 lens. I will assume that you were referring to the Nikon AF-S NIKKOR 200-500mm f/5.6E ED VR lens as Nikon does not make a 500 f/5.6 as far as I know. And while I am sure that it is a decent lens, you always get what you pay for. That one costs about $1400 while the Nikon AF-S NIKKOR 500mm f/4G ED VR lens runs about $8000. So you tell me 🙂 As one who appreciates the value of fine glass the 2-5 does not seem like a good fit for you. In addition, the 2-5 is too slow. And you already mentioned that the Canon 200-400 kills anything that Nikon makes. There are two Canon 200-400s currently for sale on the Used Photo Gear page here. This is the world’s best lens for a trip to Africa. It will almost surely bring it to Namibia. It kills also in the Galapagos and in the Southern Ocean. Even though it is focal length counterfeited by the 100-400 II, I still use mine a lot at Bosque and other dusty places where the built-in TC helps to keep your sensor clean.

RP: I really hope to make the Galapagos trip next year, and if possible, to meet you somewhere before then.

AM: That is a good plan. See the Nickerson Beach or Fort DeSoto IPTs coming up soon, or San Diego IPT next January. You can find all of the current listings here.

Once you decide on a system, let me know, and if you are amenable to using my B&H affiliate links for your new gear, we can talk either by phone or on Skype/Hang Time about your lens choices.

RP: I live in the San Francisco Bay area. If you ever visit, please let me know.

AM: I don’t get up that way much…

Best and later and love and do keep in touch. a

Conversation II

RP: I just spoke to Jim and ordered the safari book in addition to the two on bird photography.

AM: Many thanks; now it’s time to hit the books 🙂

RP: With regards to your comment on the Canon 1DX-II, “The only reason that I will get one is this: continuous shooting 14 frames per second.” Yeah, that is very appealing, as well as the built in 4K video. I’m not big into video, but it helps to have the same equipment be able to shoot short video clips when I need them.

AM: Same here though I do have a very few good clips. I have a great one on a pair of displaying Waved Albatross from my last Galapagos voyage that I will share ton the blog as soon as I figure out how to do some minor editing…

RP: Would you know the timing of the 1DX-II?! My Kenya trip starts Aug. 1.

AM: I just learned that the first shipment is due in April 2017 so you should have an excellent chance of getting yours well before the trip if you order now. The sooner that you order the better your chances.

RP: I also saw your comment on your blog that you plan to sell all your cameras and go with just the 5DS R. It has a frame rate of only 5 fps. Is that sufficient for birds in flight and safari? Or would you pick up a 1DX-II and gain make the tradeoff between higher frame rate + better noise vs. higher resolution?

AM: Ah, you did not read the next sentence. 🙂 As I wrote somewhere on the blog, I have always planned on getting a 1D X II for the speed and for what promises to be far better high ISO noise performance. This is from a great interview that Arash Hazeghi did with Canon’s Chuck Westfall:

CW: In addition to the first implementation of Dual Pixel CMOS AF in a full frame image sensor, the EOS-1D X Mark II showcases the latest Canon image sensor technologies such as new photodiode construction, new color filters, and greater photo-electric conversion efficiency. In plain English, the new image sensor delivers higher image quality at all ISO speeds for both RAW image data and JPEG files.

AM: And then I learned that we will have all the AF points active at f/8. Wow! I and many others have been praying for that for a long time. What that means is that folks working at f/8 with an f/4 super-telephoto lens (like the 500 II or the 600 II) and the 2X III TC or with an f/5.6 lens (like the 100-400L iS II or the my old toy lens, the 400mm f/5.6L) and a 1.4X TC, will no longer be restricted to the center AF point only (plus the four assist points when they are in Expand). This will offer tremendous compositional latitude in these situations…

Right now my plans are to travel with two 5DS Rs and one 1D X II but I might wind up flip flopping on that or having two of each…

RP: Does it make sense to also have a crop-size sensor camera like the 7D Mark II (or the rumored 7D Mark III) as well?

AM: Not for me right now. I visit so many places with tame birds and animals that I am pretty much committed to full frame all the time. That said, I will be brining two 5DS R bodies to Japan and one other. I need to decide quickly whether I will be bringing my 1D X or my remaining 7D II–I sold one of the latter to a friend recently.

RP: I am thinking of two two lenses, the 100-400 II and one of the super-telephotos. And two bodies, one full frame and one 1.6X crop sensor.

AM: As immediately above, that is a personal decision.

RP: I saw your comment on the blog that you really like the 200-400 with the built in 1.4x for Africa. Makes a lot of sense. But I’m trying to reconcile that with the 100-400 II, which looks like a keeper from everything I see. Is there much utility for the 200-400 outside of African safari? Especially if I might also get a super tele prime?!

AM: This might shock a lot of folks but not really IMO. When I first fell in love with the 200-400 the 100-400 was still on the drawing board… The 100-400 II is the reason that the 2-4s have gone down in price; everybody love the 100-400 II. And if you have halfway decent light, the 1-4 kill. In low light, and in dusty or wet conditions, it is nice to have the 2-4 along…

RP: You asked a profound question: how do I envision my images being used. The answer is, I don’t know. I have a lot of images that I could print. Especially, high res images from Leica S, Nikon D800E, D810, and Sony A7R, A7-II and A7R-II. But I don’t know what to do with the prints. I suppose I could try selling images or prints, but I have never sold anything, and I don’t have a brand name. Besides I have no idea if anyone other than my family and friends might like any of my images.

AM: Selling prints is difficult at best.

RP: Your question is one that I’ve been pondering for some time, with no good answer. Of course, my family and I can enjoy the images on a 4K monitor or an iMac 5K. But apart from that, I don’t have a good answer. I’m open to any advice.

AM: If there is no great need to print super large then there is no great need for a 5DS R. I own them just because I like the incredible detail and IQ even though I rarely make any prints…

Later and love, artie

More Soon…

Follow-up conversations with RP shall follow.

Selling Your Used Gear Through BIRDS AS ART

Selling your used (or like-new) photo gear through the BAA Blog or via a BAA Online Bulletin is a great idea. We charge only a 5% commission. One of the more popular used gear for sale sites charges a minimum of 20%. Plus assorted fees! Yikes. The minimum item price here is $500 (or less for a $25 fee). If you are interested please e-mail with the words Items for Sale Info Request cut and pasted into the Subject line :). Stuff that is priced fairly–I offer free pricing advice, usually sells in no time flat. In the past few months, we have sold just about everything in sight. Do know that prices on some items like the EOS-1D Mark IV, the old Canon 500mm, the EOS-7D, and the original 400mm IS DO lens have been dropping steadily. Even the prices on the new 600 II and the 200-400 with Internal Extender have been plummeting. You can see all current listings by clicking here or by clicking on the Used Photo Gear tab on the right side of the yellow-orange menu bar above.

To say that sales during the last two weeks of January have been brisk, would be a big understatement:

• Patrick Sparkman also sold his Canon EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6L IS USM lens (in excellent condition) on Feb 2k 2016 for $849 two days after it was listed.
• Multiple IPT veteran Patrick Sparkman sold his EOS 7D Mark II in like-new condition for the full asking price on day 1: $1149.
• Don Mullaney sold his Canon 600mm f/4L IS II lens in mint condition for $9499, the full asking price, on February 1, 2016.
• Gregg Hunt sold his 7D Mark II sold for $999, the full asking price, on January 31, 2016.
• Mark Hodgson sold his Canon 500mm f/4L IS II USM lens in mint condition $7499 within days of listing at the end of January, 2016.
• Mark Hodgson also sold his Canon 5D Mark III the Canon BG-E11 battery grip and two Canon batteries for $1899 in very January, 2016.
• And his mint Series III TC set to me for $558 before it was even listed.
• Sash Dias sold his Nikon D4 body in excellent condition for $2399 the day after it was listed in late January, 2016.
• Bill Fraser sold his 1D Mark IV body in excellent condition for $1299 at the end of January, 2016.
• Multiple IPT veteran Brent Bridges sold his used Canon EF 300mm f/2.8L IS II USM lens in excellent condition for $4599 in late January, 2016.
• Saul Pleeter sold his Sony Alpha a7R Mirrorless Digital Camera in near-new condition for $799 on the first day it was listed in late January 2016.
• Mark Hodgson sold his Canon 70-200mm f/4L IS USM lens in very good plus condition for $599 within a day of listing in late January 2016.
• Bill Condon sold his Canon 500mm f/4L IS USM lens in near-mint condition for $4199 on the first day it was listed in late January 2016.
• Walt Thomas sold his used Canon 100mm f/2.8L IS USM Macro lens in mint condition for $749 in late January.

There are still lots of great items listed currently… Again, you can see all of these great buys by clicking here.

New Listings

Canon EOS 1D-X Professional dSLR

John Norris is offering a used EOS 1D-X Professional dSLR in like-new condition for $3199. The sale includes an extra battery, the battery charger, the front cap, everything that was in the original box, and insured shipping via UPS Ground. Your item will not ship until your check clears unless other arrangements are made.

Please contact John by e-mail or by phone at 214-957-3535 (Central time zone).

Two 1D X bodies served me well as my workhorse dSLRs since their introduction in March 2012. I always appreciated their ruggedness, the great AF system, and the powerful battery that drove AF even with the 2X III TC quickly. artie

Canon EOS 7D Mark II DSLR

Jim Keener is offering a used Canon EOS 7D Mark II dSLR in excellent plus condition for $999. The sale includes the body, the charger, the original box, the front cap, and everything that came in the box with the camera. And, insured shipping via UPS or Fed Ex Ground. Your item will not ship until your check clears unless other arrangements are made.

Please contact Jim by e-mail or by phone at 310-741-7435 (9am till 9pm Mountain time).

Simply put, the 7D II with its fine image quality, fast frame rate, and superb AF system is the greatest value ever in a dSLR. artie

Please Remember to use our Affiliate Links 🙂

To show your appreciation for my continuing efforts here, we ask, as always, that you get in the habit of using my B&H affiliate links on the right side of the blog for all of your photo and electronics purchases. Please check the availability of all photographic accessories in the BIRDS AS ART Online Store, especially the Mongoose M3.6 tripod heads, Gitzo tripods, Wimberley heads and plates, LensCoats and accessories, and the like. 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 just learned that my account was suspended during my absence; it should be up and running by Monday at the latest.

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, 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 visiting the BAA Online store as well.

Facebook

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Typos

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What’s Up?

Me. Early. With thoughts of the new camera racing through my head, I couldn’t sleep. I started this blog post at 3:02 am and published it at 4:18am.

Canon EOS 1D X Mark II

The much rumored Canon EOS-1D X Mark II as announced last night at 12:01am Eastern time. So what’s the big deal for bird photographers? The frame rate is 14 frames/second (with the ability to record up to 170 raw files in a single burst if using a CFast 2.0 memory card and up to 73 raw frames in a burst with a fast compact flash card) The High Density Reticular AF II and Dual Pixel CMOS AF systems benefit accurate focusing and fast AF tracking performance. A 61-point High Density Reticular AF II system is employed; this incorporates 41 cross-type points for increased precision as well as a center point that is sensitive to -3 EV. All 61 phase-detection points support metering at effective apertures of f/8 or larger, which benefits the use of teleconverters and telephoto lenses.

It’s the latter that is most impressive for me: my understanding is that we will no longer be restricted to the center AF point plus the four assist points (when Expand is set). We will be able to select any of the 61 AF points on the grid.

Notate Bene

While the above is clearly stated in the description of the new camera, I need to make sure that it is 100% accurate; I will get back to ya’ll either way. In addition, I will research the CFast 2.0 memory cards and let you know what I find out.

That Was Quick

Via e-mail this morning from Chuck Westfall

Good Morning, Artie! We’re glad to see you were right on top of the 1D X Mark II announcement. This camera looks like it’s going to be tailor-made for bird photography at the highest level of performance to date. It will be exciting to see what you come up with once you get a chance to use it!

Available for Pre-order

The new camera is currently available for pre-order here. B&H will receive more units with each shipment than any other dealer in the world so it only makes sense to order the camera now. The sooner you order, the sooner you will have your very own.

Though the 1D X and even the 1D IV batteries are backwards compatible with the new 1D X II, I would advise purchasing a single extra LP-E19 Battery Pack because you lose your 14 fps with the older batteries.

So What Will the Naysayers Be Naysaying?

“Artie is just a Canon shill. With him, “Every new Canon camera is automatically the greatest. In January it was the Canon EOS 5DS R, and last year, it was the Canon EOS 7D Mark II.”

The facts remain: the 7D II is the greatest-ever value in a dSLR; the files from the 5DS R are the sharpest that I have ever seen and contain more fine detail than any dSLR that I am aware of. And the 1D X II will offer improved AF and 14 fps as well as the ability to select any of the 61 AF points when working at f/8. The latter will include the times when you are using the 2X III with an f/4 super-telephoto lens like the Canon EF 500mm f/4L IS II or, when you are using the 1.4X III TC with the 100-400mm L IS II.

As for my promoting every Canon camera ever released, I have never mentioned the 70D or the 6D, never have used either one.

Once I get my 1D X II from B&H I will travel with two Canon EOS 5DS R bodies and a single Canon EOS-1D X Mark II for flight and action and use with teleconverters. Who knows, that might flip flop in time…

The Full-on Hype

Bringing the shooting speed and video capabilities required by professional multimedia image-makers, the EOS-1D X Mark II is the flagship model within Canon’s DSLR lineup, and is characterized by its robust processing capabilities and ability to enable a high-end multimedia workflow. At the heart of the imaging system is a full-frame 20.2MP CMOS sensor and dual DIGIC 6+ image processors, which contribute to fast continuous shooting rates up to 16 fps in live view, 14 fps with full-time AF and AE, and an expanded sensitivity range from ISO 50-409600. The sensor and processor combination also avails DCI 4K video recording at 60 fps and Full HD 1080p recording at 120 fps, along with the ability to record on-board to a CFast 2.0 memory card or via HDMI to an optional external recorder. Benefitting stills shooting is an apt 61-point High Density Reticular AF II system, which includes 41 cross-type points for a high degree of precision in varying light conditions, and video shooting is enhanced by Dual Pixel CMOS AF, which makes its first appearance in a full-frame sensor for smooth, quick, and controllable AF in live view. With a versatile set of imaging traits, the Canon EOS-1D X Mark II takes its place as a high-performance tool for professional photographers and videographers alike.

Complementing the robust set of imaging specs is an equally robust physical design based on a magnesium alloy body construction that is both dust- and weather-sealed for use in harsh environments. Integrated within the body is a large 3.2″ 1.62m-dot touchscreen LCD for bright, high-resolution live view monitoring and image review, and a large 0.76x Intelligent Viewfinder II is offered for clear eye-level shooting. For versatility in file handling, both CFast and CompactFlash memory card slots are available, and the 1D X Mark II also supports sharing imagery over Wi-Fi, as well as wireless remote camera control, via the optional WFT-E8A Wireless File Transmitter. Additionally, a built-in GPS module permits in-camera geotagging of photos and videos, and also allows for auto time syncing with the Universal Time Code for more efficient file sharing and organization.

20.2MP Full-Frame CMOS Sensor and Dual DIGIC 6+ Image Processors

A redeveloped full-frame 20.2MP CMOS sensor pairs with dual DIGIC 6+ image processors to avail notable image quality and accuracy, as well as fast performance throughout the camera system. The sensor itself integrates a gapless structure with micro lenses to provide enhanced low-light performance and reduced noise levels, and when coupled with the processors an expanded sensitivity range of ISO 50-409600 is available.

The sensor and processors also work together to avail quick shooting performance, with continuous rates up to 16 fps when working in live view. When working with the viewfinder, shooting up to 14 fps is possible along with the ability to record up to 170 raw files in a single burst if using a CFast 2.0 memory card. If shooting JPEG files, an unlimited number of frames can be recorded in a burst, even at full-resolution. If working with a CompactFlash card, the buffer is rated at up to 73 raw frames in a burst, or infinite JPEGs.

In addition to the stills attributes afforded by the sensor, it is also used for recording DCI 4K video at up to 60 fps, and it is the first full-frame sensor to incorporate Dual Pixel CMOS AF technology for precise, controllable, and fast live view focusing performance.

High Density Reticular AF II and Dual Pixel CMOS AF Systems

Benefitting accurate focusing and fast tracking performance, a 61-point High Density Reticular AF II system is employed, which incorporates 41 cross-type points for increased precision as well as a center point that is sensitive to -3 EV. All 61 phase-detection points support metering at effective apertures of f/8 or larger, which benefits the use of teleconverters and telephoto lenses. Additionally, a separate, dedicated DIGIC 6 processor is used for the AF and metering systems in order to maintain quick performance while recording 4K video or shooting at fast continuous speeds. As a whole, the AF system has gained approximately 8.6% in coverage in the center, and 24% in the periphery, for enhanced subject tracking across the image frame, and an AI Servo AF III+ algorithm is used to intelligently and precisely acquire focus in single-point, Large Zone AF, or any other focusing mode.

When working with live view during stills shooting or video recording, a Dual Pixel CMOS AF system is employed that provides incredibly quick and accurate focusing performance in a similar manner to how a camcorder acquires focus. This system integrates two separate photodiodes within each pixel to provide a broad and dense network of phase-detection gathering elements across a majority of the image sensor to reduce focus hunting for faster, more direct control of focus placement. When working with still imagery, this focusing system works to acquire focus quickly and accurately, making it ideally suited to shooting and tracking moving subjects so that critical focus is attained with each shot. When shooting video, a Movie Servo AF mode offers smooth and natural focusing when changing from different subjects or different distances within the scene, as well as the ability to specify tracking sensitivity, AF speed, and Face Tracking priority. Benefited by the Touch AF system, rack focus is possible simply by touching elements within the scene on the touchscreen in order to change focus in an intuitive manner. Subject tracking in movies is also heightened due to the Dual Pixel CMOS AF system’s ability to recognize subjects and maintain focus when working within changing or cluttered scenery.

DCI 4K Video Recording

Designed for both professional stills shooting and video recording, the 1D X Mark II supports DCI 4K (4096 x 2160) resolution recording at up to 60 fps at 800 Mbps, along with Full HD 1080p shooting at 120 fps at 360 Mbps for slow motion playback. When recording in-camera, or to an optional external recorder via HDMI for saving uncompressed footage, 4K video has 4:2:2 sampling and 8-bit color depth, while Full HD 1080p footage has 4:2:0 sampling. 4K video is recorded using a central 4096 x 2160 area of the sensor, while Full HD recording makes use of the entire full frame, and a top sensitivity of ISO 12800 is available with 4K or ISO 25600 with Full HD.

Audio can be recorded using the on-board stereo microphone or an optional external mic can also be used via the 3.5mm mic jack. Real time audio monitoring is possible, too, via the 3.5mm headphone jack. The 4K video recording also avails the ability to take 8.8MP still frame grabs during playback and save them as single images.

Body Design

A large 3.2″ 1.62m-dot Clear View II LCD monitor is available and features an anti-reflective design for bright, vivid image playback and live view shooting, and its touchscreen interface can be used for intuitive touch-to-focus control.
Dual CFast and CompactFlash memory card slots allow you to extend your file saving capabilities by permitting overflow recording or in-camera file type separation while shooting. The CFast card slot is compatible with CFast 2.0 memory cards.
An Intelligent Viewfinder II uses a pentaprism design and offers a bright means for viewing, along with a 0.76x magnification and 100% frame coverage. When using the viewfinder, AF points are highlighted in red for greater visibility in low-light conditions, and the finder can also be configured to display a range of other shooting aids, such as an electronic level, grid, flicker detection, white balance, metering mode, AF information, and other settings.

A robust magnesium alloy body design is both dust- and weather-sealed to permit working in harsh environments.An integrated vertical grip allows for comfortable, intuitive, and efficient handling when working in either vertical or horizontal shooting orientations. The included LP-E19 rechargeable lithium-ion battery is rated to provide up to 1210 shots per charge when shooting with the optical viewfinder. The 1D X Mark II is also compatible with LP-E4N and LP-E4 rechargeable lithium-ion batteries, however the top continuous shooting rate will be slightly reduced to 14 fps in live view and 12 fps with AE and AF. A redesigned mirror mechanism helps to minimize mechanical vibrations in order to better ensure sharpness during long exposures or fast continuous shooting bursts.

The high-performance shutter utilizes lightweight carbon fiber blades for quick shooting speeds and is tested for up to 400,000 cycles.
Extensive connectivity ports allow for the attachment of various accessories, including the optional WFT-E8A Wireless File Transmitter for remotely controlling the camera from a smartphone or sharing files over Wi-Fi with support for the 5 GHz 802.11ac standard.

EOS Intelligent Tracking and Recognition AF

An advanced 360,000-pixel RGB+IR metering sensor works in tandem with the EOS Intelligent Tracking and Recognition AF system in order to maintain accurate and consistent metering results from subject to subject. High resolution, infrared sensitivity, and a refined detection algorithm all contribute to precise color and shape recognition, using the iSA (Intelligent Scene Analysis) system that quickens both exposure metering and autofocus performance. iTR (Intelligent Tracking and Recognition) AF also uses this exposure and subject recognition technology for improved moving subject tracking.

Other Camera Features

A built-in GPS module allows you to geotag imagery in-camera as well as auto time sync with the Universal Time Code via satellites. This module is compatible with American GPS, Russian GLONASS, and Japanese quasi-zenith Michibiki satellites for a wide coverage of support.
Digital Lens Optimizer technology compensates for a range of optical defects from various lenses, including chromatic aberration, distortion, peripheral brightness, and diffraction, and the camera can store lens data in order to avoid having to re-register lenses prior to each use.
In addition to full-resolution recording, files can also be recorded at reduced resolutions, including M-RAW and S-RAW sizes to save file size and memory card capacity.

Picture Style settings: Auto, Standard, Portrait, Landscape, Fine Detail, Neutral, Faithful, Monochrome, and User Defined 1-3.
Language support: English, German, French, Dutch, Danish, Portuguese, Finnish, Italian, Norwegian, Swedish, Spanish, Greek, Russian, Polish, Czech, Hungarian, Romanian, Ukraine, Turkish, Arabic, Thai, Simplified/Traditional Chinese, Korean, and Japanese.

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Typos

In all blog posts and Bulletins, feel free to e-mail or to leave a comment regarding any typos or errors. Just be right 🙂