Arthur Morris/BIRDS AS ART

Stuff

Thursday morning was so foggy that I never headed down to the lake. And the sunset was pretty much a fizzle. And so it goes. I swam my slow 3/4 mile in a positively toasty pool in the late afternoon. Another cold front is supposed to be on its way. 🙂

Right now it is looking as if the 5D Mark IV User’s Guide will be in the BAA Online Store available for purchase on Tuesday, December 26, 2017. Merry Christmas.

I was glad to learn on Thursday that the sales of Mike Rust’s great Canon stuff in the blog post here are either completed or pending. All that is left are the two 2X III TCs. Most of the items were spoken for within a day of the listing. I learned also that Pradip Thachile’s old 400 DO sold on December 21st. See more on the Used Photo Gear page below.

Important Note

More than a few folks yesterday sent requests for their free copy of the 5D Mark IV Guide along with a B&H receipt. When I searched my account by their order number, there was no record of the transaction. When I asked them about it, it turned out that either they made a phone order and never mentioned BIRDS AS ART (please remember, web orders only), or that they simply had not used a BAA affiliate link. Please remember to make all of your B&H purchases by starting with the generic Photo Gear and More B&H logo link on the top right of each blog page, or to use a product-specific or to e-mail for one and then click on that. Using these links won’t cost you one penny more and are the best way to thank me for the work that I put into the blog and the time I spend answering your queries via e-mail. Using my Amazon links helps too. All of your efforts are appreciated.

Click on the logo-link above for great holiday savings!
$300 off on the Canon 100-400 II!

Facebook

If you have sent me a FB friends request that has gone unrequited, it is because I am up to the 5,000 limit on my personal FB page. You are invited to click here and then Like and Follow the identical content. 🙂

The Streak

Today makes one hundred forty-seven days in a row with a new educational blog post! With all the new used gear — how’s that for an oxymoron? — this blog post took about five hours to prepare. With all of my upcoming free time (or not …), the plan right now is to break the current record streak of 480 … Good health and good internet connections willing.

Click here for Amazing 5D Mark IV Bundles and Deals

Here is the best news: those who have used a BAA B&H affiliate link to purchase a 5D Mark IV (or other items totaling $3200 or more) are invited to send us a copy of their B&H receipt via e-mail and receive a free copy of the guide. If you would like to review the document before it is published, please send your receipt now. This offer is also valid for future purchases.

Booking.Com

Booking.Com came through for me twice again recently with both the DeSoto Fall IPT and next July’s UK Puffins, Gannets, and Bempton Pre-trip room reservations. And all the rates were great. If you’d like to give Booking.Com a shot, click here and you will earn a $25 reward. Thanks to the many who have already tried and used this great service.

Gear Questions and Advice

Too many folks attending BAA IPTs and dozens of folks whom I see in the field, and on BPN, are–out of ignorance–using the wrong gear especially when it comes to tripods and more especially, tripod heads… Please know that I am always glad to answer your gear questions via e-mail. Those questions might deal with systems, camera bodies, accessories, and/or lens choices and decisions.

Used Gear on Fire!

Sales of new stuff on the Used Gear page recently have been brisk. The sales of Mike Rust’s great Canon stuff in the blog post here are either completed or pending. All that is left are the two 2X III TCs. Most of the items were spoken for within a day of the listing.

From the past two months alone:

• Mike Rust sold his Canon 600mm f/4L IS II ISM lens in near-mint condition for $9396.00 and his Canon EF 24-105mm f/4L IS II USM lens in like-new condition for $699.00. Both on the first day of listing.
• Pradip Thachile sold his Canon EF 400mm f/4 IS DO lens (the original version) in excellent condition for the BAA record low price of $2097.00 in late December.
• Joel Williams sold his Fujifilm XF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 R LM OIS WR lens in like-new condition for $1199 right after it was listed in mid-December.
• Mike Newman sold his Canon EF 100mm f2.8/L IS USM macro lens in like-new condition for only $599 in mid-December, right after it was listed.
• Joel Williams sold a Fujifilm XF 1.4x TC WR teleconverter in like-new condition for $299 in mid-December, 2017.
• IPT veteran Carolyn Peterson sold her Canon EOS 5D Mark III camera body in excellent condition for $1399 in mid-December.
• Mike Newman sold a Canon EF 600 F4/L USM IS II USA lens in like-new condition for the record-low BAA price of 9,398.00 within two days of listing it in early December.
• Steve Cashell sold his Canon EF 800mm f/5.6L IS USM lens in near-mint condition for a very low $7898 in mid-November.
• In late November Mansoor Assadi sold his Canon EOS-1DX Mark II professional digital camera body in like-new condition for a BAA record-low $3998 and his Canon EOS-1D Mark IV professional digital camera body in excellent condition for a very low and fair $999.
• Mansoor Assadi sold his Canon EOS 5D Mark III digital camera body in excellent condition for a very low $1299 in early November.
• Robert Blanke sold his Canon EOS-1DX Mark II professional digital camera body in like-new condition for the BAA record low/shock the world price of $3999 an hour after it was listed.
• IPT veteran Duncan Douglas sold his Canon EF 500mm f/4L IS USM Super Telephoto Lens (the “old five”) in early November for #3699.
• Chesley Swann sold a Canon EF 100-400 f/4.5-5.6L IS Zoom Lens (the original 1-4) in excellent condition for the very low price of $529 in mid-November.
• Mike Lawie sold his Canon EOS 7D Mark II body in near-mint condition for the BAA record-low price of $923 and his Canon EF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM zoom lens in excellent condition also for a BAA record low price: $448. Both in mid-November.
• Gary Wade sold his Canon EF 400mm f/2.8L IS II USM Lens in near-mint condition for the record-low BAA price of $7449 in mid-November.
• Multiple IPT veteran Shelly Goldstein sold his Canon EF 500mm f/4L IS USM Super Telephoto Lens (the “old five”) in excellent condition for the $3899 a week after it was listed.
• Peter Noyes sold his Nikon D-810 Digital SLR Camera Body in excellent condition for $1499 two hours after it was listed.
• Multiple IPT veteran Shelly Goldstein sold his Canon EF 600mm f/4L IS II USM Super Telephoto lens in like-new condition for $9,399 in early November before it was even listed …

Brand New Used Gear Listings!

Sony Alpha a7R Mirrorless Digital Camera

Top pro Jim Zuckerman is offering a Sony Alpha a7R Mirrorless Digital camera in excellent condition for $1399. The sale includes two batteries, the original box, the charger, a ProTama Lens Mount Adapter (for Canon EF/EF-S Lenses to Sony E-mount camera), and insured ground shipping via major courier to US addresses only. Your item will not ship until your check clears unless other arrangements are made.

Please contact Jim via e-mail or by phone at 1-615-414-7644 (Central time).

The Alpha a7R Mirrorless Digital Camera from Sony incorporates a full-frame Exmor CMOS sensor into an E-mount body thus providing the light gathering capability and detail-rich imaging of a full-frame sensor with a compact, lightweight and versatile mirrorless interchangeable lens camera system. Differing from the full-frame Sony Alpha a7, the Alpha a7R omits the low-pass filter from its 36.4MP sensor, thus optimizing its high resolution, detail-rich imaging capability. In addition, the sensor features a new gapless lens design to increase corner-to-corner light collecting efficiency.The standard ISO sensitivity range of 100-25600 provides rich saturation in bright light and clear, low-noise images in low-light situations. This camera sells new for $1898. B&H

PocketWizard MultiMax Transceiver

Top pro Jim Zuckerman is also offering the original PocketWizard MultiMax Transceiver in near-mint condition for $60. The sale includes insured ground shipping via major courier to US addresses only. Your item will not ship until your check clears unless other arrangements are made.

Please contact Jim via e-mail or by phone at 1-615-414-7644 (Central time).

Sometimes simple triggering just isn’t going to cut it, in those cases you can find salvation in the MultiMAX Transceiver from the always reliable PocketWizard. Operating on the FCC-approved 340-354 MHz frequency range, the MultiMAX II can easily be added to existing kits as it works with many existing PocketWizard radios. Also, this unit is exceptionally powerful with a range of 1600′ that can be boosted to 3200′ in a Long Range Mode. A key to the MultiMAX II’s success is its reliability, which is bolstered by the ability to select between 32 standard channels with four zones in Selective Quad-Triggering or 20 ControlTL channels with three zones. B&H

Canon EOS 5D Mark III

Hisham A. is offering a Canon EOS 5D Mark III in very good condition (in perfect working order) for the BAA record low price of $999. The sale includes an extra Watson battery, the front lens cap, and all the stuff that came in the box as well as insured ground shipping to US addresses via major courier. Your item will not ship until your check clears unless other arrangements are made. Photos are available upon request.

Please contact Hisham via e-mail or by phone at 720 771 2693 (Eastern time).

I used my 5D Mark III to produce high quality image files for all of my landscape, flower, and Urbex photography. And I used it often for bird photography with my f/4 super-telephoto lenses with both the 1.4X and the 2X TCs. As long as you have firmware version 1.2.1 or higher you will have AF at f/8 with the center AF point (along with the four assist points). artie

Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS USM Lens

Hisham A. is also offering a Canon 70-200mm f/2.8L IS USM lens very good condition (with perfect glass and in perfect working order) for the BAA record low price of $999. The sale includes the rear lens cap, the lens hood, the tripod ring (collar), the original box and insured ground shipping to US addresses via major courier. Your item will not ship until your check clears unless other arrangements are made. Photos are available upon request.

Please contact Hisham via e-mail or by phone at 720 771 2693 (Eastern time).

The 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II lens is amazingly versatile. I still own one and have made zillions of great images with it. It works well with both the 1.4X III and the 2X III TCs, even with the 7D II! It is easily hand holdable. It is great for tame birds, landscapes, urbex, indoor stuff likes concerts and recitals, and just about anything you want to photograph. A new 70-200 II currently sells for $1,949 so you can save a cool $350 by buying Les’s mint copy asap. artie

Canon Extender EF 1.4X III (teleconverter)

Hisham A. is offering a Canon Extender EF 1.4X III (teleconverter)in like-new good condition for the $329. The sale includes the TC pouch, the front and rear lens caps, the original box, and insured ground shipping to US addresses via major courier. Your item will not ship until your check clears unless other arrangements are made. Photos are available upon request.

Please contact Hisham via e-mail or by phone at 720 771 2693 (Eastern time).

As regular readers know, I use my teleconverters more than any other photographer. They are so important to what I do that I on big trips I travel with two 2X III TCs and three 1.X III TCs. artie

Canon EF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM Lens

Hisham A. is also offering the original Canon 24-105mm f/4L IS USM lens like-new condition for a very low $449. The sale includes the rear lens cap, the lens hood, the original box and insured ground shipping to US addresses via major courier. Your item will not ship until your check clears unless other arrangements are made. Photos are available upon request.

Please contact Hisham via e-mail or by phone at 720 771 2693 (Eastern time).

I rarely make a trip or head out to the beach without my 24-105 with me. Whenever I leave this versatile B-roll lens behind, I wind up regretting it. I use it for bird-scapes, photographer-scapes, landscapes, mini macro scenes like bird feathers, dead birds, and nests with eggs — the latter only when and if the nest can be photographed without jeopardizing it, and just about anything else that catches my eye. While I am nowhere near as good as Denise Ippolito with this lens, I have made lots of good and saleable images with mine. artie

Canon EF 400mm f/5.6 L USM Lens

Hisham A. is also offering a Canon EF 400mm f/5.6 L USM lens in very good condition (with perfect glass and in perfect working order) for the BAA record low by far price of $549. The sale includes the rear lens cap, the original box and insured ground shipping to US addresses via major courier. Your item will not ship until your check clears unless other arrangements are made. Photos are available upon request.

Please contact Hisham via e-mail or by phone at 720 771 2693 (Eastern time).

I put my beloved Toy Lens” on the map before the turn of the century when I began using it with film and the Canon A2 camera body to photograph birds in flight. Today it remains a great flight lens and in addition, makes a great bird photography starter lens. It couples quite well with the 7D Mark II and will autofocus with a 1.4X TC with that camera and most of the newer Canon bodies as well. artie

This image was created at Indian Lake Estates on the evening of December 19, 2017 with the hand held Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM lens (at 214mm) and my favorite B-roll photography camera body, the Canon EOS 5D Mark IV. ISO 400. Evaluative metering at zero: 1/400 sec. at f/6.3 in Manual mode. AWB. 5:34pm right at sunset. LensAlign/FocusTune micro-adjustment: extrapolated to -3. Upper Large Zone AI/Servo/Shutter Button AF was active at the moment of exposure. Cabbage Palm sunset silhouette with Black Vulture fly-by

Dime a Dozen/Part III: I Saw It Coming So I Pushed the Shutter Button. Well, Almost …

There was not a lot going on late in the day on Tuesday and I was about to head home when I remembered a single isolated cabbage palm at the end of the peninsula to the left of the pier so I drove south to check it out. It looked nice so I made a few images at zero EC. The sun was toasted (well over-exposed) so I waited an extra minute knowing that zero EC would be perfect when the sun was just a sliver on the horizon. As I raised the lens to re-frame the shot, I noticed a Black Vulture flying to roost just over the water, coming from the north. As soon as it entered the frame I pushed and held the shutter button down for two quick frames. As expected, I was too late for the first frame; the bird was hidden behind the tree. In the second frame the bird was to our left of the tree heading out of the frame …

After converting the image straight up in DPP 4 I brought it into Photoshop and leveled it. I filled in the four skinny triangles using John Heado Content Aware Fill. The I cropped it back to 2X3. Since the bird was heading out of the frame rather than into it and because the sun and the bird were to our left of the tree, I decided to move the vulture to the right side of the tree to improve the flow of the image and the compositional balance. I painted a Quick Mask of the bird and a bit of sky, put that on its own layer, moved the bird to the other side of the frame, and refined the layer with a Curves adjustment and a Regular Layer mask. Now I had two birds. The one to the left of the tree was removed quickly and easily with Content Aware Fill (after selecting it with the Patch Tool).

The BIRDS AS ART Current Workflow e-Guide (Digital Basics II) will teach you an efficient Mac or PC/Photo Mechanic/Photoshop workflow that will make it easy for you to make your images better in Photoshop (rather than worse). That true whether you convert your images in DPP 4 or ACR. See the blog post here to learn lots more and to read a free excerpt. You can order your copy from the BAA Online Store here, by sending a Paypal for $40 here, or by calling Jim or Jennifer weekdays at 863-692-0906 with your credit card in hand.

The BIRDS AS ART Current Workflow e-Guide (Digital Basics II)

Your guessed it, everything mentioned above (and tons more) are covered in detail in the BIRDS AS ART Current Workflow e-Guide (Digital Basics II), an instructional PDF that is sent via e-mail. Learn more and check out the free excerpt in the blog post here. The new e-Guide reflects my Macbook Pro/Photo Mechanic/DPP 4/Photoshop workflow. Do note that you will find the RGB Curves Adjustment Color Balancing tutorial only in the new e-guide. Note: folks working on a PC and/or those who do not want to miss anything Photoshop may wish to purchase the original Digital Basics along with DB II while saving $15 by clicking here to buy the DB Bundle.

The two most recent and many of the older MP4 Photoshop Tutorial videos releases go hand and hand with the information in DB II):

• The Wingtip Repairs MP4 Video here.
• The MP4 Crow Cleanup Video here.

Folks who learn well by following along rather than by reading can check out the complete collection of MP 4 Photoshop Tutorial Videos by clicking here.

You can learn how and why I and other discerning Canon shooters convert nearly all of their Canon digital RAW files in DPP 4 using Canon Digital Photo Professional in the DPP 4 RAW conversion Guide here. And you can learn advanced Quick Masking and advanced Layer Masking techniques in APTATS I & II. You can save $15 by purchasing the pair. Folks can learn sophisticated sharpening and (NeatImage) Noise Reduction techniques in the The Professional Post Processing Guide by Arash Hazeghi and yours truly.

Support the Blog

Please help support my (stupendous) efforts here on the blog by remembering to click on the logo link above each time that you shop Amazon. That would be greatly appreciated. with love, artie

If In Doubt …

If in doubt about using the BAA B&H affiliate link correctly, you can always start your search by clicking here. Please note that the tracking is invisible. Web orders only. Please, however, remember to shoot me your receipt via e-mail.

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

To show your appreciation for my continuing efforts here, we ask, as always, that you get in the habit of using my B&H affiliate links on the right side of the blog for all of your photo and electronics purchases. Please check the availability of all photographic accessories in the New BIRDS AS ART Online Store, especially the Mongoose M3.6 tripod head, Wimberley lens plates, Delkin flash cards and accessories, and LensCoat stuff.

As always, we sell only what I have used, have tested, and can depend on. We will not sell you junk. We know what you need to make creating great images easy and fun. And please remember that I am always glad to answer your gear questions via e-mail.

I would of course appreciate your using our B&H affiliate links for all of your major gear, video, and electronic purchases. For the photographic stuff mentioned in the paragraph above, and for everything else in the new store, we, meaning BAA, would of course greatly appreciate your business. Here is a huge thank you to the many who have been using our links on a regular basis and those who will be visiting the New BIRDS AS ART Online Store as well.

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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 :).