March 6th, 2014
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This trio of sea eagles, two Steller’s and one White-tailed, was photographed on the very early morning of February 21, 2014 at 6:36am on the Japan in Winter IPT with the Gitzo 3532 LS carbon fiber tripod, the Mongoose M3.6 head, the Canon EF 200-400mm f/4L IS USM Lens with Internal 1.4x Extender (at 388mm with the Internal TC in place) and the Canon EOS-1D X. ISO 1600 was somewhat of an error for this static image…. Evaluative metering +1 1/3 stops off the ice: 1/1000 sec. at f/5.6 in Manual mode. Color temperature: AWB.
Two sensors to the right of the central Sensor/AI Servo-Surround/Rear Focus AF on the upper breast of the right-hand bird active at the moment of exposure. Click here to see the latest version of the Rear Focus Tutorial. Click on the image to see a larger version.
Being able to quickly and accurately move the AF sensors around the array is a skill that all need to master. Learn how in one of our camera User’s Guides.
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Jet Lag with a Vengeance…
Getting to distant lands rife with great birds in great settings like the sea eagle trio above is one of the big benefits of being a professional nature photographer. In addition to the airfare,however, there is often a big price to pay that comes with long international flights. Jet lag. Yesterday, I thought that I would be fine. I woke at 6:30am, took a short nap in the afternoon, and had lots of energy throughout the day. It was rather strange. Things got even stranger as the evening grew deeper. I turned off the laptop at about 11:30pm but still was feeling strong. So I watched some more of the Winter Olympics on TIVO and followed that up with a complete episode of a PBA (Professional Bowler’s Association) league event. I bowled a lot when I was a young teen. Don’t ask me what got into me….
I finally got into bed at 1:30am confident that I would sleep a good 7 hours at least. Wrong. I woke at 4:00am feeling wide awake. I tried to get back to sleep by concentrating on my breath as I usually do. That failed. So I flipped on the light and grabbed the book that I have been loving, Kazuo Ishiguro’s When We Were Orphans I read. And I read. And I read some more. Never once did the book hit me in the head.
140 pages later, at 6:00am, I finished the book. The type was small. I got up, had breakfast–it’s good to be eating properly again, answered various e-mails, and began work on this blog post at about 8:00am. It is now 9:35; with only 2 1/2 hours sleep, I am yawning and exhausted. When I finish this post at about ten I will take what I hope will be the day’s only short nap and then take a swim.
The Image Optimization
After converting the image in DPP the first thing that I did in Photoshop was a rather elaborate (for me) Curves Adjustment, pinning the curve in several spots, darkening the dark and darkening the blue sky while maintaining the tonality of the WHITEs. I further blackened the BLACKs (+2) and the MIDTONEs (+2) with my Selective Color Action. Then I duplicated the whole image, ran a 100% Linear Burn on that layer, and painted it in at 15% on the highlights as needed. I ran a 15/65/0 contrast mask on the bird’s heads and bills to sharpen them and then ran a second contrast mask using a Quick Mask on the head of the white-tailed as that bird was slightly beyond the depth-of-field. I cleaned up a few dust spots and ran Filter/Blur/Surface Blur at 2/4 on the whole image to clean up the noise. The whole thing took well less than 10 minutes.
Digital Basics
Are you tired of making your images look worse in Photoshop? Everything above plus tons more is detailed in my Digital Basics, an instructional PDF that is sent via e-mail. It includes my complete digital workflow, dozens of great Photoshop tips, the use of Contrast Masks, several different ways of expanding canvas, all of my time-saving Keyboard Shortcuts, Quick Masking, Layer Masking, and NIK Color Efex Pro basics, my killer image clean-up techniques, Digital Eye Doctor, creating time-saving actions, and lots more.
APTATS I & II
Learn the details of advanced Quick Masking techniques in APTATS I. Mention this blog post and apply a $5 discount with phone orders only. Learn advanced Layer Masking Techniques in APTATS II. Mention this blog post and apply a $5 discount with phone orders only. by the pair, APTATS I and APTATS II and we will be glad to apply at $15 discount with phone orders only.
The DPP RAW Conversion Guide
After seeing the accurate colors that I get from my DPP RAW conversions, Japan in Winter co-leader Paul McKenzie is switching to DPP conversions and Denise Ippolito is considering doing the same. Now that is amazing…. To learn why I use Canon’s Digital Photo Professional (DPP) to convert every image that I work on, click here.
The Streak
This post marks 97 straight days with a new blog post, a record by far that should be extended for at least another day or so, or not. Or more…. To show your appreciation for my efforts here, we ask that use our B&H and Amazon affiliate links for all of your B&H and Amazon purchases. Please check the availability of all photographic accessories in the BIRDS AS ART Online Store. We sell only what I use and 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.
You can find the following items in the store: Gitzo tripods, Mongoose M3.6 and Wimberley heads, plates, low feet, and accessories, flash brackets, , Delkin e-film Pro Compact Flash Cards, LensCoat products, and our unique line-up of educational materials including ABP I & II, Digital Basics, Site and Set-up e-Guides, Canon and Nikon Camera Users and AF e-Guides, and MP-4 Photoshop video tutorials among others.
We would of course appreciate you using our B&H and Amazon affiliate links for all of your B&H and Amazon major gear, video, electronic, household, and personal purchases. For the photographic stuff mentioned in the paragraph above we 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.
This blog post took about 2 hours to prepare. Enjoy.
IPT Info
Many of our great trips are filling up. With 5 Canadians signing up for our 4-DAY Bosque IPT, that workshop is filling up quickly. See especially info on the South Florida, Holland, and Nickerson Beach IPTs. Two great leaders on most trips ensure that you will receive individual attention, have all of your questions answered, and learn a ton including how to think like a pro, see the situation, and get the right exposure every time. In addition you will have fun, and make lots of great images. Click here for IPT details and general information.
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Images copyright 2012: Denise Ippolito & Arthur Morris. Card design by Denise Ippolito. Click on the image to enjoy a spectacular larger version.
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Holland 2014 7 1/2-Day/8-Night: A Creative Adventure/BIRDS AS ART/Tulips & A Touch of Holland IPT. April 17-April 24, 2014: $4995 Limit: 12/Openings: 5
We still have room for 5 more flower photographers on this great trip.
Join Denise Ippolito, Flower Queen and the author of “Bloomin’ Ideas,” and Arthur Morris, Canon Explorer of Light Emeritus and one of the planet’s premier photographic educators for a great trip to Holland in mid-April 2014. Day 1 of the IPT will be April 17, 2014. We will have a short afternoon get-together and then our first photographic session at the justly-famed Keukenhof. Most days we will return to the hotel for lunch, image sharing and a break. On Day 8, April 24, we will enjoy both morning and afternoon photography sessions.
The primary subjects will be tulips and orchids at Keukenhof and the spectacularly amazing tulip, hyacinth, and daffodil bulb fields around Lisse. In addition we will spend one full day in Amsterdam. There will be optional visits the Van Gogh Museum in the morning and the Anne Frank House in the afternoon; there will be plenty of time for street photography as well. And some great food. On another day we will have a wonderful early dinner at Kinderdijk and then head out with our gear to photograph the windmills and possibly some birds for those who bring their longs lenses. We will spend an afternoon in the lovely Dutch town of Edam where we will do some street photography and enjoy a superb dinner. All lodging, ground transportation, entry fees, and meals (from dinner on Day 1 through dinner on Day 7) are included. For those who will be bringing a big lens we will likely have an optional bird photography afternoon or two.
Click here for additional info or to register.
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Join me for the 2014 Tanzania Summer Safari!
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2014 Tanzania Summer Safari, 14-day African Adventure/leave the US on August 9. Fly home on August 24: $12,999.
Co-leaders Todd Gustafson & Arthur Morris. The limit is 12. Three photographers/van; you get your own row of seats. Our trip is a bit more expensive than the average safari for good reason. It is the best. We have the best driver guides with a total of decades of experience. They have been trained over the years by Todd and by me to drive with photography in mind. We have the best and most knowledgeable leaders. We stay in the best lodges and camps. We hope that you will join us for what will be Todd’s 35th African safari, and my 8th.
If you are seriously interested please e-mail me; I will be glad to send you the illustrated PDF with the complete itinerary and deposit info.
What else makes this expedition unique?
•Pre-trip consultation and camera equipment advice
•Award-winning photographers as your guides
•A seamless itinerary visiting the right locations at the best time of year
•Hands-on photography instruction in the field
•Specially designed three roof-hatch photo safari vehicles
•Proprietary materials for preparation, including free copy of “A Photographer’s Guide to Photographing in East Africa.”
•Post-safari image critiques
All-inclusive (double-occupancy) except for your flights to and from Kilamajaro Airport, bar drinks, soda & water (except at the Intimate Tented Camp where everything is free for our entire stay), tips for drivers and camp staff, personal items, and trip insurance.
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Breathe deeply, bite the bullet, and live life to its fullest; we all get only one ride on the merry-go-round… Join me on this great trip.
Click on the image to enjoy a larger version.
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The Southern Ocean…
If you would like to explore the possibility of joining me on the Cheesemans’ Ecology Safaris Antarctica/The Extended Expedition Voyage< trip: Antarctic Peninsula, South Georgia and Falkland Islands: December 13, 2014 to January 10, 2015, click here for additional information and then shoot me an e-mail.
The DPP RAW Conversion Guide
To learn why I use Canon’s Digital Photo Professional (DPP) to convert every image that I work on, click here.
Support the BAA Blog. Support the BAA Bulletins: Shop B&H here!
We want and need to keep providing you with the latest free information, photography and Photoshop lessons, and all manner of related information. Show your appreciation by making your purchases immediately after clicking on any of our B&H or Amazon Affiliate links in this blog post. Remember, B&H ain’t just photography!
 
Amazon
Everyone buys something from Amazon, be it a big lens or deodorant. Support the blog by starting your search by clicking on the logo-link below. No purchase is too small to be appreciated; they all add up. Why make it a habit? Because I make it a habit of bringing you new images and information on an almost daily basis.
Typos
In all blog posts and Bulletins, feel free to e-mail or to leave a comment regarding any typos, wrong words, misspellings, omissions, or grammatical errors. Just be right. 🙂
March 5th, 2014 Home Safely
After a stop at Junior’s Fish Market and the vegetable stand in Lake Wales I made it home safely to Indian Lake Estates at 6:00pm on Tuesday evening after flying out of Tokyo at noon the same day, connecting in Dallas (DFW). and arriving at the gate in Orlando (MCO) at 2:00pm.
Jet Lag Update
I hardly slept at all on my flights, maybe 2 hours in all at most, that in drips and drabs. When I got home I was exhausted but did not want to go right to bed. Or take a nap. I figured that if I could stay up for a while that I might get right back on schedule…. So I answered some e-mails and spent some time on BPN issues. I climbed into bed at 9:30pm, read for a bit, and soon it was lights out for me. I awoke at 12:15am. I was wide awake. Very wide awake. I thought that I was toast. After all, my body thought that it was 2:15pm in Japan. I almost got up to work on this blog post but decided to try reading again for a while. After I dropped the book a few times I turned out the light and slept till 6:30am. Right now I am feeling great. Swim at 11.
Kazuo Ishiguro
I was lucky to find a used copy of Kazuo Ishiguro’s When We Were Orphans to read on the flight home. Only 1530 yen; that 14.9435 US dollars. From NY Times Books: A search for identity masquerading as a detective novel. I had never heard of the author until I picked up the book at the book shop in Narita Airort. Kazuo Ishiguro was born in Nagasaki in 1954 and moved to Great Britain at age 5. He is the author of 6 novels including including the international bestsellers The Remains of the Day (winner of the Booker Prize) and Never Let Me Go I need to read those two because this guy can write; even though I watched 3 movies on the plane I am already up to page 198….
Click here for more books by this fine author.
The Streak
This post marks 96 straight days with a new blog post, a record by far that should be extended for at least another day or so, or not. Or more…. To show your appreciation for my efforts here, we ask that use our B&H and Amazon affiliate links for all of your B&H and Amazon purchases. Please check the availability of all photographic accessories in the BIRDS AS ART Online Store. We sell only what I use and 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.
You can find the following items in the store: Gitzo tripods, Mongoose M3.6 and Wimberley heads, plates, low feet, and accessories, flash brackets, , Delkin e-film Pro Compact Flash Cards, LensCoat products, and our unique line-up of educational materials including ABP I & II, Digital Basics, Site and Set-up e-Guides, Canon and Nikon Camera Users and AF e-Guides, and MP-4 Photoshop video tutorials among others.
We would of course appreciate you using our B&H and Amazon affiliate links for all of your B&H and Amazon major gear, video, electronic, household, and personal purchases. For the photographic stuff mentioned in the paragraph above we 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.
This blog post took roughly 3 1/2 hours to prepare. Enjoy and comment 🙂
Thanks a Huge Stack!
Thanks a stack to all who visit the blog regularly. February was a record month for the BAA B&H affiliate program. And dozens of folks are getting in the habit of using Amazon for both their minor household and entertainment purchases as well as for major purchases. Their kindness is greatly appreciated and it is great to see that the streak is paying dividends. Love you all. artie
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This image was created with the Gitzo 3532 LS carbon fiber tripod, the Mongoose M3.6 head, the Canon EF 600mm f/4L IS II USM lens, the Canon 2x EF Extender III (Teleconverter), and the Canon EOS-1D X Digital SLR camera. ISO 400. Evaluative metering +2 1/3 stops off the snow in very in soft sunlight: 1/320 sec. at f/13 in Manual mode. Color Temperature: 6,000K.
Central sensor (by necessity) Expand/AI Servo/Rear Focus on the center of the upper mandible as framed active at the moment of exposure. Click here if you missed the Rear Focus Tutorial. Be absolutely sure to click on the image to see a larger version.
Image #1: Immature With Bill Open
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More From Our Great Swan Morning
We enjoyed three great sessions with the Whooper Swans. See Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L II USM Lens: Early Impressions for images from our sublime afternoon and 600 f/4 L IS II with 1.4X II TC and the 200-400 f/4L IS with Internal TC at Swan Lake for details of our wonderful morning at Lake Kussharo *say koo-SOR-row) on the way to Rausu (ROU-soo) for the sea eagles.
After the early morning flight and behavior action most of the huge swans laid down on the ice, tucked their heads into their back feathers, and went to sleep. At times, as shown in the image above, some of the birds would pick their heads up to talk to their neighbors. I followed my own advice from ABP II and elsewhere: when unexpected action occurs press the shutter button. I had been stopped down while photographing the sleeping birds (see the post here) and thought about trying to switch to a faster shutter speed for the image above but got lucky with the relatively slow shutter speed.
Contagious Yakking
With many groups of swans scattered about on the ice it was common that whenever one bird began to call and display that several of its neighbors would immediately chime in in similar fashion. Thus, when I made the image above the head of a second adult swan appeared in the frame.
Image Question
In the image above, do you like the 2nd bird in the frame? Would you remove it?
The Image Repair
To create the image above from Image #2 I followed the steps in an APTATS II tutorial to eliminate the 2nd bird. For this technique to work effectively, the background needs to be uniform as was the case here. The repair took about 40 seconds. If I would take the time to set up an action as described in the text I could easily cut that time in half; please don’t ask my why I have failed to do so for the past 3 years….
Questions on Your Preferences
Which do you like better, the image with the 2 birds in the frame or the image with the 2nd bird removed? Be sure to let us know why you made your choice.
Of the 3 images here, which is your favorite. Why?
Yakety Yak
Click here to listen to the Coaster’s original 1958 version of Yakety Yak (don’t talk back).
Digital Basics
Do you like the look of my posted images? Learn everything that I know about using Photoshop in Digital Basics, an instructional PDF that is sent via e-mail. It includes my complete digital workflow, dozens of great Photoshop tips, the use of Contrast Masks, several different ways of expanding canvas, all of my time-saving Keyboard Shortcuts, Quick Masking, Layer Masking, and NIK Color Efex Pro basics, my killer image clean-up techniques, Digital Eye Doctor, and lots more.
APTATS I & II
Learn the details of advanced Quick Masking techniques in APTATS I. Mention this blog post and apply a $5 discount with phone orders only. Learn advanced Layer Masking Techniques in APTATS II. Mention this blog post and apply a $5 discount with phone orders only. by the pair, APTATS I and APTATS II and we will be glad to apply at $15 discount with phone orders only.
The DPP RAW Conversion Guide
After seeing the accurate colors that I get from my DPP RAW conversions, Japan in Winter co-leader Paul McKenzie is switching to DPP conversions and Denise Ippolito is considering doing the same. Now that is amazing…. To learn why I use Canon’s Digital Photo Professional (DPP) to convert every image that I work on, click here.
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If you’d like to learn from the two folks who created the images in the composite above do consider one of the trips below. Denise Ippolito’s images: Japanese leaf painting, skimmer in flight, curved Keukenhof paths with tulips, copulating terns, & pink dahlia. Artie’s images: Snow Geese snowstorm blur, crane landing silhouettes, Leopard with prey in tree, King Penguin, & vertical tulip.
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A Creative Adventure/BIRDS AS ART Instructional Photo-Tours (IPTs)/Two great leaders: Arthur Morris & Denise Ippolito.
Arthur Morris/BIRDS AS ART www.BIRDSASART-blog.com for the latest images, info, & education
Denise Ippolito/A Creative Adventure www.deniseippolito.com: get yourself out of the box!
Denise’s e-books: Bloomin’ Ideas, A Guide to Filters & Effects, The Softer Side of Macro, & more. Free Monthly Creative MiniMag: www.deniseippolito.com/magazine
Nickerson Baby Beach-nesting Birds IPT, Long Island, NY: 3-Full Days/July 22-24, 2014: $1199.
Black Skimmers, Common Terns with chicks, American Oystercatcher & Piping Plover families; breeding behaviors including courtship feeding, display flight and combat, and copulations. Gulls and shorebirds.
UK Puffins IPT. Early July, 2014.
Details TBA. Please e-mail to be placed on the interested list.
Tanzania Serengeti Summer Safari: Leave US: August 9—return: August 24, 2014: $12,999.
Co-leaders: Arthur Morris & Todd Gustafson. Wildebeest/The Great Migration, cats, elephant, giraffe, zebra, birds & more. Please e-mail for brochure.
Swan Island Dahlia Farm IPT, Canby, OR, September 8-12, 2014: 5 FULL DAYS: $1699.
Leader: Denise Ippolito. 40 acres with 350+dazzling varieties of dahlias in a plethora of colors, shapes and sizes. Sharpen your technical skills and boost your creative juices. Daily assignments, image sharing, and Photoshop sessions.
Bosque del Apache 2014 A Creative Adventure/BIRDS AS ART “Creative Photography Instructional Photo-Tour.” (IPT). NOV 24-25, 2014. 2-FULL DAYS: $729.
Leaders: Denise Ippolito & Arthur Morris. Introductory Slide program: 7:00pm on Sunday 11/23. This IPT is perfect for folks who want to learn to think outside the box, to create new and different images. Learn to unleash your creative juices at the wondrous Bosque del Apache, NWR in San Antonio, NM.
Bosque del Apache 2014 BIRDS AS ART/A Creative Adventure Instructional Photo-Tour (IPT). NOV 29-DEC 3, 2014. Totaling 4 FULL-DAYS: $1449
Leaders: Arthur Morris and Denise Ippolito. Introductory Slide program: 7:00pm on Sunday 11/29. Tens of thousand of Snow Geese, 10,000 Sandhill Cranes, ducks, amazing sunrises, sunsets, and blast-offs. Live, eat, and breathe photography with two of the world’s premier photographic educators at one of their very favorite photography locations on the planet.
Antarctica/The Extended Expedition Voyage: Antarctic Peninsula, South Georgia and Falkland Islands: December 13, 2014 to January 10, 2015.
Please e-mail for details.
BAA offers a wide range of books, e-Guides, and educational materials and photographic accessories at the lowest prices around—25+ years of experience, and the best advice you can get. We will not sell you junk. Access the BAA Store here or call us at 1-863-692-0906.
Questions? Please e-mail us at birdsasart@verizon.net or photographybydenise221@gmail.com.
Support the BAA Blog. Support the BAA Bulletins: Shop B&H here!
We want and need to keep providing you with the latest free information, photography and Photoshop lessons, and all manner of related information. Show your appreciation by making your purchases immediately after clicking on any of our B&H or Amazon Affiliate links in this blog post. Remember, B&H ain’t just photography!
Amazon
Everyone buys something from Amazon, be it a big lens or deodorant. Support the blog by starting your search by clicking on the logo-link below. No purchase is too small to be appreciated; they all add up. Why make it a habit? Because I make it a habit of bringing you new images and information on an almost daily basis.
Typos
In all blog posts and Bulletins, feel free to e-mail or to leave a comment regarding any typos, wrong words, misspellings, omissions, or grammatical errors. Just be right. 🙂
IPT Info
Many of our great trips are filling up. See especially info on the Holland, Nickerson Beach, and Bosque IPTs. Two great leaders on most trips ensure that you will receive individual attention, have all of your questions answered, and learn a ton including how to think like a pro, see the situation, and get the right exposure every time. In addition you will have fun, and make lots of great images. Click here for IPT details and general information.
March 4th, 2014 The Streak Goes on Despite International Travel Day
I worked on this blog post on the train to Tokyo and again last night. I am putting the finishing touches on it just after 5am Japan time on Tuesday, March 4th. It is 3pm on Monday in Florida and New York. We head to Narita Airport via the hotel shuttle bus at 8:30 and make the long journey (DFW, MCO) home. My flight is at noon and I am scheduled to arrive in Orlando at 2:35pm the same day, roughly 2 1/2 hours after I left Japan! I am usually fine flying to distant locations whether going east or west but when I fly back home I usually spend several days at least in a jet-lag coma….
This post marks 95 straight days with a new blog post, a record by far that should be extended for at least another day or so, or not. Or more…. To show your appreciation for my efforts here, we ask that use our B&H and Amazon affiliate links for all of your B&H and Amazon purchases. Please check the availability of all photographic accessories in the BIRDS AS ART Online Store. We sell only what I use and 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.
You can find the following items in the store: Gitzo tripods, Mongoose M3.6 and Wimberley heads, plates, low feet, and accessories, flash brackets, , Delkin e-film Pro Compact Flash Cards, LensCoat products, and our unique line-up of educational materials including ABP I & II, Digital Basics, Site and Set-up e-Guides, Canon and Nikon Camera Users and AF e-Guides, and MP-4 Photoshop video tutorials among others.
We would of course appreciate you using our B&H and Amazon affiliate links for all of your B&H and Amazon major gear, video, electronic, household, and personal purchases. For the photographic stuff mentioned in the paragraph above we 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.
Thanks a Huge Stack!
Thanks a stack to all who visit the blog regularly. February was a record month for the BAA B&H affiliate program. And dozens of folks are getting in the habit of using Amazon for both their minor household and entertainment purchases as well as for major purchases. Their kindness is greatly appreciated and it is great to see that the streak is paying dividends. Love you all. artie
The Faces of ???
As with humans, the faces of Snow Monkeys are extraordinarily expressive, perhaps more so…. It was great to spend two full days with them after a two-year hiatus. I took hundreds of images of their faces that first morning, most with the 200-400 with the internal TC engaged and an external 1.4X added to the mix. Many suffered from an extreme lack of depth-of-field. The two that I share here with that were made with that rig were among the best made that day. (On Day 2 at the monkey park I quit using the external 1.4X III TC.)
For one or two or all of the three images presented here (your pick) I ask the following:
a-what do you think the monkey was thinking and feeling at the moment the image was created?
b-what do you think it was doing at the time the image was made?
c-can you think of a great title for the image?
Again, feel free to comment on a single image, on two of the three photos, or on all of the images. Please be sure to specify the image you are referring to by number.
Exposure Questions
Why was the EC (exposure compensation) for the first image +1 2/3 stops while the EC for the second image was only +1 stop?
Why do you think that the third image was created at an exposure 1 2/3 stops darker than the first two images?
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This image was created on the same day of the Japan in Winter IPT with the Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II USM lens, the Canon Extender EF 1.4X III (hand held at 265mm), and the Canon EOS 5D Mark III DSLR. ISO 400. Evaluative metering +2/3 stop as framed: 1/400 sec. at f/11 in Av mode. Color Temperature: AWB.
One sensor up from the central Sensor/AI Servo-Expand/Rear Focus AF just below the monkey’s right eye active at the moment of exposure. Click here to see the latest version of the Rear Focus Tutorial. Click on the image to see a larger version.
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Images copyright 2012: Denise Ippolito & Arthur Morris. Card design by Denise Ippolito. Click on the image to enjoy a spectacular larger version.
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Holland 2014 7 1/2-Day/8-Night: A Creative Adventure/BIRDS AS ART/Tulips & A Touch of Holland IPT. April 17-April 24, 2014: $4995 Limit: 12/Openings: 5
We still have room for 5 more flower photographers on this great trip.
Join Denise Ippolito, Flower Queen and the author of “Bloomin’ Ideas,” and Arthur Morris, Canon Explorer of Light Emeritus and one of the planet’s premier photographic educators for a great trip to Holland in mid-April 2014. Day 1 of the IPT will be April 17, 2014. We will have a short afternoon get-together and then our first photographic session at the justly-famed Keukenhof. Most days we will return to the hotel for lunch, image sharing and a break. On Day 8, April 24, we will enjoy both morning and afternoon photography sessions.
The primary subjects will be tulips and orchids at Keukenhof and the spectacularly amazing tulip, hyacinth, and daffodil bulb fields around Lisse. In addition we will spend one full day in Amsterdam. There will be optional visits the Van Gogh Museum in the morning and the Anne Frank House in the afternoon; there will be plenty of time for street photography as well. And some great food. On another day we will have a wonderful early dinner at Kinderdijk and then head out with our gear to photograph the windmills and possibly some birds for those who bring their longs lenses. We will spend an afternoon in the lovely Dutch town of Edam where we will do some street photography and enjoy a superb dinner. All lodging, ground transportation, entry fees, and meals (from dinner on Day 1 through dinner on Day 7) are included. For those who will be bringing a big lens we will likely have an optional bird photography afternoon or two.
Click here for additional info or to register.
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Join me for the 2014 Tanzania Summer Safari!
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2014 Tanzania Summer Safari, 14-day African Adventure/leave the US on August 9. Fly home on August 24: $12,999.
Co-leaders Todd Gustafson & Arthur Morris. The limit is 12. Three photographers/van; you get your own row of seats. Our trip is a bit more expensive than the average safari for good reason. It is the best. We have the best driver guides with a total of decades of experience. They have been trained over the years by Todd and by me to drive with photography in mind. We have the best and most knowledgeable leaders. We stay in the best lodges and camps. We hope that you will join us for what will be Todd’s 35th African safari, and my 8th.
If you are seriously interested please e-mail me; I will be glad to send you the illustrated PDF with the complete itinerary and deposit info.
What else makes this expedition unique?
•Pre-trip consultation and camera equipment advice
•Award-winning photographers as your guides
•A seamless itinerary visiting the right locations at the best time of year
•Hands-on photography instruction in the field
•Specially designed three roof-hatch photo safari vehicles
•Proprietary materials for preparation, including free copy of “A Photographer’s Guide to Photographing in East Africa.”
•Post-safari image critiques
All-inclusive (double-occupancy) except for your flights to and from Kilamajaro Airport, bar drinks, soda & water (except at the Intimate Tented Camp where everything is free for our entire stay), tips for drivers and camp staff, personal items, and trip insurance.
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Breathe deeply, bite the bullet, and live life to its fullest; we all get only one ride on the merry-go-round… Join me on this great trip.
Click on the image to enjoy a larger version.
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The Southern Ocean…
If you would like to explore the possibility of joining me on the Cheesemans’ Ecology Safaris Antarctica/The Extended Expedition Voyage< trip: Antarctic Peninsula, South Georgia and Falkland Islands: December 13, 2014 to January 10, 2015, click here for additional information and then shoot me an e-mail.
The DPP RAW Conversion Guide
To learn why I use Canon’s Digital Photo Professional (DPP) to convert every image that I work on, click here.
Support the BAA Blog. Support the BAA Bulletins: Shop B&H here!
We want and need to keep providing you with the latest free information, photography and Photoshop lessons, and all manner of related information. Show your appreciation by making your purchases immediately after clicking on any of our B&H or Amazon Affiliate links in this blog post. Remember, B&H ain’t just photography!
Amazon
Everyone buys something from Amazon, be it a big lens or deodorant. Support the blog by starting your search by clicking on the logo-link below. No purchase is too small to be appreciated; they all add up. Why make it a habit? Because I make it a habit of bringing you new images and information on an almost daily basis.
Typos
In all blog posts and Bulletins, feel free to e-mail or to leave a comment regarding any typos, wrong words, misspellings, omissions, or grammatical errors. Just be right. 🙂
IPT Info
Many of our great trips are filling up. See especially info on the South Florida, Holland, and Nickerson Beach IPTs. Two great leaders on most trips ensure that you will receive individual attention, have all of your questions answered, and learn a ton including how to think like a pro, see the situation, and get the right exposure every time. In addition you will have fun, and make lots of great images. Click here for IPT details and general information.
March 3rd, 2014 The Streak Continues
As we will be spending much of tomorrow in transit on various buses, taxis, trains, and subways, I prepared this blog post after the dinner described below on Saturday, March 2, 2014. I am trying to prepare another post or two so that the streak is not jeopardized on my big travel day, Tuesday, March 4, 2014 when I fly out of Tokyo’s Narita airport around noon and get into Orlando two hours later on the same day. I should easily be home in time for a swim before having dinner with Jim.
March 3 Update!
Miracle of miracles, on our own, Denise and I made it from our hotel in Kyoto to Kyoto Station and got tickets for and boarded the Express Super Train to Tokyo Station. After 1 1/2 hours wandering around Tokyo Station we got some lunch and made our way to the platform for the Narita (say NAH-ree-TAH) Express only to find out that I needed to leave Denise with all the bags, head back up two huge elevators, find the ticket office, and find Denise. We boarded the 3:05 train and arrived at the Terminal 1 Narita Airport Station before 4pm. It was much easier getting around Narita Station than getting around the huge complex that is Tokyo Station. Having just missed the shuttle bus the kindly old taxi dispatcher called us a larger cab because our huge collection of bags could not fit in a normal taxi. By 5pm we were in our hotel room getting ready for our flight home tomorrow.
This post marks 94 straight days with a new blog post, a record by far that should be extended for at least another day or so, or not. Or more…. To show your appreciation for my efforts here, we ask that use our B&H and Amazon affiliate links for all of your B&H and Amazon purchases. Please check the availability of all photographic accessories in the BIRDS AS ART Online Store. We sell only what I use and 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.
You can find the following items in the store: Gitzo tripods, Mongoose M3.6 and Wimberley heads, plates, low feet, and accessories, flash brackets, , Delkin e-film Pro Compact Flash Cards, LensCoat products, and our unique line-up of educational materials including ABP I & II, Digital Basics, Site and Set-up e-Guides, Canon and Nikon Camera Users and AF e-Guides, and MP-4 Photoshop video tutorials among others.
We would of course appreciate you using our B&H and Amazon affiliate links for all of your B&H and Amazon major gear, video, electronic, household, and personal purchases. For the photographic stuff mentioned in the paragraph above we 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.
Thanks a Huge Stack!
Thanks a stack to all who visit the blog regularly. February was a record month for the BAA B&H affiliate program. And dozens of folks are getting in the habit of using Amazon for both the minor household and entertainment purchases as well as for major purchases. Their kindness is greatly appreciated and it is great to see that the streak is paying dividends. Love you all. artie
The Creative MiniMag
The March Edition of Denise Ippolito’s Creative MiniMag is online and can be viewed here. How Denise ever managed to get it published with our rigorous schedule here in Japan is beyond me. All will enjoy Denise’s Bamboo Blur article and the great images in Nancy Bell’s More Fun Than a Barrel of Monkeys here. The monkeys are Bonnett Macaques from southern India. All will benefit by reading Dennis Bishop’s Color Harmony. I need to go back and study it when I have more time. There are additional fine pieces by Mary Stamper, Andrew McLachlan, Steve Ellis, and yours truly: Geese, Cranes, and Creativity at Bosque del Apache.
Bird Photographer’s.Net
If you have never visited Bird Photographer’s.Net, or if it has been a while since you dropped by, click here and you will be impressed with the new look of the front page. Peter Kes did a fabulous job with the re-design. BPN (honest critiques done gently) is a great place to improve your skills as a nature photographer — and, it ain’t just birds: next to the Avian forum, Wildlife, Landscapes, Macro and Flora and Out-of-the-Box are very popular forums. Do also check out the Eager-To-Learn forum, where wintered photographers will help you improve your photography skills. Click here to check out the various topic forums and find those that would be ideal for you. We will be featuring links to some great images and articles of interest in future blog posts. If you just visit the frontpage regularly, you will see the ‘Image of the week’ displayed on the left. One (best) image is selected each week out of each of the critique forums. On the right you will find a selection of threads that drew our attention in some way: a striking image or an interesting topic.
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Ellora Indian Restaurant, Kyoto, Japan. Cell phone image courtesy of and copyright 2014: Patricia Lillich
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Go Figure…
We enjoyed the food at our lodge in Hokkaido tremendously. Our guide’s wife, Shinobu, was a tremendous cook. She prepared a great variety of Japanese dishes for us each night for dinner. There was always fish or shrimp for Denise and lots of protein for me. We all relished the food. Dining out in Rausu was a bit challenging but we did fine. In our hotel near the Monkey Park in Jigokudani, Nagano we were served a sumptuous Japanese-style dinner each evening with many, many courses to choose from.
Once we got to Kyoto, however, things were a bit different. We found dining out to be a struggle. Especially at dinner. We found a variety of great looking restaurants on our cultural walks. When we tried to enter pretty much each of them we were told, “No reservation, no room.” When we’d finally find a place with real tables and chairs–the Japanese often eat at very low tables while seated on the floor, we found it difficult to get the menus translated and found much of the food to be lacking. Not too great either on the portion size or the taste. Denise suffered the most often choosing a seafood dish that seemed just right for her that would turn out to be borderline inedible.
On our last evening in Kyoto we decided to eat at the Italian Restaurant next to our hotel only to learn that it was closed for a wedding. After much debate the five of us–Pat and Alan Lillich and their younger daughter Meagan, we decided to try the Indian restaurant on the Teramachi Mall: the Ellora Indian Restaurant, 548-5 B1F Nakanocho, Shijoagaur, Terimachidori, Nakogyo,-KU, Kyoto. Denise was a bit iffy on the choice….
We started off by sharing an order of vegetable samosas that Denise had ordered. They are fried pastries with a savory filling, in this case potatoes and peas plus tons of great Indian spices. Everyone was blown away by the taste. I had a mutton meatball appetizer that was so good that I shared it with no one. Dish after dish came out of the kitchen: saffron chicken masala, malai kabobs, palak paneer (a spicy creamed spinach), chicken masala kabobs, and vegetable curry and Tandoori prawns for Denise. The Liliichs got two orders of garlic naan, a tender moist Indian bread. Each piece was giant so we all volunteered to help make it disappear. It was a very quiet meal….
Who’da thunk that you could find great Indian food in Kyoto, Japan?
Our saving grace after each meal including our last one in Kyoto, was a visit to Handelsvagen, a killer ice cream shop with lots of way- out flavors. Denise had Macadamia Caramel Coconut every night. I started with Maple Syrup Nut on the first two nights, strawberry on the third, and Sea Salt on the last two. Please do not ask me what a well-controlled diabetic is doing eating ice cream every night. All that I can say is that I cannot wait to get home, to get back in the pool, and back to eating healthy, balanced, low carb meals. Soon.
If…
If you’ve ever had a great ethnic meal in a totally unexpected location, please feel free to share your story with us by leaving a comment below.
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If you’d like to learn from the two folks who created the images in the composite above do consider one of the trips below. Denise Ippolito’s images: Japanese leaf painting, skimmer in flight, curved Keukenhof paths with tulips, copulating terns, & pink dahlia. Artie’s images: Snow Geese snowstorm blur, crane landing silhouettes, Leopard with prey in tree, King Penguin, & vertical tulip.
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A Creative Adventure/BIRDS AS ART Instructional Photo-Tours (IPTs)/Two great leaders: Arthur Morris & Denise Ippolito.
Arthur Morris/BIRDS AS ART www.BIRDSASART-blog.com for the latest images, info, & education
Denise Ippolito/A Creative Adventure www.deniseippolito.com: get yourself out of the box!
Denise’s e-books: Bloomin’ Ideas, A Guide to Filters & Effects, The Softer Side of Macro, & more. Free Monthly Creative MiniMag: www.deniseippolito.com/magazine
Nickerson Baby Beach-nesting Birds IPT, Long Island, NY: 3-Full Days/July 22-24, 2014: $1199.
Black Skimmers, Common Terns with chicks, American Oystercatcher & Piping Plover families; breeding behaviors including courtship feeding, display flight and combat, and copulations. Gulls and shorebirds.
UK Puffins IPT. Early July, 2014.
Details TBA. Please e-mail to be placed on the interested list.
Tanzania Serengeti Summer Safari: Leave US: August 9—return: August 24, 2014: $12,999.
Co-leaders: Arthur Morris & Todd Gustafson. Wildebeest/The Great Migration, cats, elephant, giraffe, zebra, birds & more. Please e-mail for brochure.
Swan Island Dahlia Farm IPT, Canby, OR, September 8-12, 2014: 5 FULL DAYS: $1699.
Leader: Denise Ippolito. 40 acres with 350+dazzling varieties of dahlias in a plethora of colors, shapes and sizes. Sharpen your technical skills and boost your creative juices. Daily assignments, image sharing, and Photoshop sessions.
Bosque del Apache 2014 A Creative Adventure/BIRDS AS ART “Creative Photography Instructional Photo-Tour.” (IPT). NOV 24-25, 2014. 2-FULL DAYS: $729.
Leaders: Denise Ippolito & Arthur Morris. Introductory Slide program: 7:00pm on Sunday 11/23. This IPT is perfect for folks who want to learn to think outside the box, to create new and different images. Learn to unleash your creative juices at the wondrous Bosque del Apache, NWR in San Antonio, NM.
Bosque del Apache 2014 BIRDS AS ART/A Creative Adventure Instructional Photo-Tour (IPT). NOV 29-DEC 3, 2014. Totaling 4 FULL-DAYS: $1449
Leaders: Arthur Morris and Denise Ippolito. Introductory Slide program: 7:00pm on Sunday 11/29. Tens of thousand of Snow Geese, 10,000 Sandhill Cranes, ducks, amazing sunrises, sunsets, and blast-offs. Live, eat, and breathe photography with two of the world’s premier photographic educators at one of their very favorite photography locations on the planet.
Antarctica/The Extended Expedition Voyage: Antarctic Peninsula, South Georgia and Falkland Islands: December 13, 2014 to January 10, 2015.
Please e-mail for details.
BAA offers a wide range of books, e-Guides, and educational materials and photographic accessories at the lowest prices around—25+ years of experience, and the best advice you can get. We will not sell you junk. Access the BAA Store here or call us at 1-863-692-0906.
Questions? Please e-mail us at birdsasart@verizon.net or photographybydenise221@gmail.com.
Support the BAA Blog. Support the BAA Bulletins: Shop B&H here!
We want and need to keep providing you with the latest free information, photography and Photoshop lessons, and all manner of related information. Show your appreciation by making your purchases immediately after clicking on any of our B&H or Amazon Affiliate links in this blog post. Remember, B&H ain’t just photography!
Amazon
Everyone buys something from Amazon, be it a big lens or deodorant. Support the blog by starting your search by clicking on the logo-link below. No purchase is too small to be appreciated; they all add up. Why make it a habit? Because I make it a habit of bringing you new images and information on an almost daily basis.
Typos
In all blog posts and Bulletins, feel free to e-mail or to leave a comment regarding any typos, wrong words, misspellings, omissions, or grammatical errors. Just be right. 🙂
IPT Info
Many of our great trips are filling up. See especially info on the Holland, Nickerson Beach, and Bosque IPTs. Two great leaders on most trips ensure that you will receive individual attention, have all of your questions answered, and learn a ton including how to think like a pro, see the situation, and get the right exposure every time. In addition you will have fun, and make lots of great images. Click here for IPT details and general information.
March 2nd, 2014 The Streak Continues
Today was a relaxing final one in Kyoto. We strolled the Nishiki Market before lunch–heck, we wound up skipping lunch–absorbing a final dose of Japanese culture. I am finishing up this post–it took about 6 hours in all with the image processing–at about 6:00pm Japan time on Saturday, March 2, 2014. That is 4:00am on the same day in Florida and in New York. Tomorrow Denise and I take the high speed train to Tokyo Station, the Narita Express to the Airport, and a shuttle bus to the hotel where we overnight for our Tuesday flights to our respective homes.
This post marks 93 straight days with a new blog post, a record by far that should be extended for at least another day or so, or not. Or more…. To show your appreciation for my efforts here, we ask that use our B&H and Amazon affiliate links for all of your B&H and Amazon purchases. Please check the availability of all photographic accessories in the BIRDS AS ART Online Store. We sell only what I use and 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.
You can find the following items in the store: Gitzo tripods, Mongoose M3.6 and Wimberley heads, plates, low feet, and accessories, flash brackets, , Delkin e-film Pro Compact Flash Cards, LensCoat products, and our unique line-up of educational materials including ABP I & II, Digital Basics, Site and Set-up e-Guides, Canon and Nikon Camera Users and AF e-Guides, and MP-4 Photoshop video tutorials among others.
We would of course appreciate you using our B&H and Amazon affiliate links for all of your B&H and Amazon major gear, video, electronic, household, and personal purchases. For the photographic stuff mentioned in the paragraph above we 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.
Thanks a Huge Stack!
Thanks a stack to all who visit the blog regularly. February was a record month for the BAA B&H affiliate program. And dozens of folks are getting in the habit of using Amazon for both the minor household and entertainment purchases as well as for major purchases. Their kindness is greatly appreciated and it is great to see that the streak is paying dividends. Love you all. artie
The BIRDS AS ART 2nd International Bird Photography Competition
Thanks a stack to the many who entered. We have a ton of great images to get through. Judging should begin on or about March 10th. The process will be a lengthy one; we appreciate your patience.
Bamboo-zled
Denise and I and several of those who continued on to Kyoto with us spent our first three mornings at one of two bamboo forests. We were led to the traditional bamboo forest by Paul McKenzie who had photographed there before. We found the smaller tract of bamboo on the hillside above the Fushimi Inari Taisha Shrine on our own. The first two mornings Denise photographed exclusively with her trusty Canon EF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM .ens. I went with the tripod-mounted Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II USM lens and the hand held Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L II USM lens. We used the same gear to photograph at the shrine; if you missed my images from there you can click on Tunnel Visions. On the last morning Denise brought along the old Canon 15mm fish eye now replaced by the Canon EF 8-15mm f/4L Fisheye USM lens. You can see some of Denise’s tunnel and bamboo images in her killer “Japan–Odds and Ends” blog post here.
I spent the better part of the first morning creating similar images at small apertures. I hated the leaf detail that showed through in the areas where the were no bamboo trunks. I used a variation of a technique taught to me by the aforementioned Denise ippolito: I ran a relatively large (vertical) Motion Blur on its own layer, added a Hide-All Mask, painted away the leaf detail, and lowered the opacity of the layer to about 75% to achieve the desired result that you see above. Thanks Lady D.
Digital Basics
Learn everything that I know about using Photoshop in Digital Basics, an instructional PDF that is sent via e-mail. It includes my complete digital workflow, dozens of great Photoshop tips, the use of Contrast Masks, several different ways of expanding canvas, all of my time-saving Keyboard Shortcuts, Quick Masking, Layer Masking, and NIK Color Efex Pro basics, my killer image clean-up techniques, Digital Eye Doctor, and lots more.
Learn the details of advanced Quick Masking techniques in APTATS I. Mention this blog post and apply a $5 discount with phone orders only. Learn advanced Layer Masking Techniques in APTATS II. Mention this blog post and apply a $5 discount with phone orders only. by the pair, APTATS I and APTATS II and we will be glad to apply at $15 discount with phone orders only.
The DPP RAW Conversion Guide
After seeing the accurate colors that I get from my DPP RAW conversions, Japan in Winter co-leader Paul McKenzie is switching to DPP conversions and Denise Ippolito is considering doing the same. Now that is amazing…. To learn why I use Canon’s Digital Photo Professional (DPP) to convert every image that I work on, click here.
Vertical Pan Blurs
With such strong and beautiful patterns and a variety of colors creating some vertical pan blurs was a great option. We urge folks to create dozens of similar blurs once they see a decent motfi; in most cases, one or two will leap off the monitor and scream, “This is the one!” Please understand that creating pleasing blurs is not luck. Almost all need to be carefully planned and executed and be accurately focused. Learn to create your own pleasing blurs of all types in A Guide to Pleasing Blurs by Denise Ippolito and yours truly.
I added just a small bit of angled vertical motion blur to this image to enhance it.
Wide Apertures the Answer…
After spending the better part of two mornings working at f/22 or so, I finally went to f/4 to blur the background bamboos rather than attempt to make everything sharp. That experiment was a great success and led to the creation of the images above and below.
Long, Slow, Exposures, Small Apertures, and Image Sharpness
To guarantee sharp images with the extremely slow shutter speeds used to create the images here I used a technique that I developed on the Holland Tulip trip last spring: 2-second self-timer with Live View for Mirror Lock. I was aware that I might need to turn off IS but with relatively short focal lengths (as compared to 600 and 840mm) that step was not necessary. It is a great technique that produces sharp images as long as you focus accurately and do not accidentally whack your tripod during the exposure. 🙂
Art Vivid In-Camera HD Tricks
1-You need to frame a bit wider than what you see in the viewfinder as the resulting 61-mb jpegs are cropped about 3-4%.
2-You need to use a lot more plus EC (exposure compensation) when creating Art Vivid HDR images than when creating Natural HDR images.
3-My latest, greatest Art Vivid tip: when working in low light, shade, and heavy cloud resist the urge to work at any White Balance other than AWB. By working in AWB the images will be less YELLOW and less funky than when working at the higher Kelvin temperatues.
Learn how to set your 5D III up for both in-camera HDRs and in-camera Multiple Exposures in my EOS-5D Mark III User’s Guide. Learn everything that I know about this great camera including coverage of its all-new AF system and all the Menu Items and Custom Functions that I use. You will not only learn what to set but will learn why I made my choices as they pertain to nature and wildlife photography.
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This vertical pan blur was created the hand held Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L II USM lens (at 61mm) and the Canon EOS 5D Mark III DSLR. ISO 800 (should have been a much lower ISO). Evaluative metering +1/3 stop as originally framed: 1/2 sec. at f/14 in Tv mode. Color temperature: 10,000K.
Central Sensor/AI Servo-Surround/Rear Focus AF on the middle of the bamboo in the middle, recompose, and then pan from down to up during the exposure. Click here to see the latest version of the Rear Focus Tutorial. Click on the image to see a larger version.
Image #5: Skewed Vertical Pan Blur
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The Influence of Perspective Choice
While creating the image above I was standing on a relatively high shelf of land that left me about 15 feet above my subjects, a pleasing stand of bamboo. Having to point my wide angle lens down before zooming up during the slow exposure left the trees on each side of the frame pleasingly skewed outwards. Compare the results here with Image #2 where I was pretty much even with my subjects throughout the range of my panning motion.
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This in-camera Art VIvid HDR image was created in Kyoto, Japan with the Gitzo 3532 LS carbon fiber tripod, the Mongoose M3.6 head, and my Giottos MH 1302-655 Ballhead with a Wimberley P-5 plate attached to the bottom of my Canon EOS 5D Mark III DSLR. (I keep the Giotto’s tiny ballhead in my vest; it takes less than two minutes to mount the plate on the camera body, spin off the Mongoose M3.6, and replace it with the tiny head.) The lens was the old Canon 15mm fish eye now replaced by the Canon EF 8-15mm f/4L Fisheye USM lens. ISO 400. Evaluative metering +2/3 stop yielded a base exposure of 1/40 sec. at f/5.6 in Av mode (+/- 2 stops). Color temperature: AWB.
I focused one-third of the way up one of the bamboo trunks via contrast off the sensor using Live Mode AF in Live View (with Rear Focus/AI Servo AF).
Image #6: Fish Eye Straight Up
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The Fish Eye Lens on a Tripod
I had never worked with the fish eye lens on a tripod before while pointing the lens straight up at the sky so I had a bit of finagling to do. I mounted the tiny ballhead, put the P-5 camera body plate on my 5D III, shortened the two two rear legs of the tripod and lengthened the forward-pointing leg a bit, I pulled the stem of the ballhead into the slot for vertical, got down on the ground flat on my back, positioned the tripod directly above me, and adjusted the tripod legs with the leg tabs pulled out so that the round tripod base or platform was relatively square to the world, that is, roughly parallel to the ground. Then I went to work creating images. I am not sure why but the image above was my favorite fish eye shot by a wide margin.
Your Favorite?
Please take a moment and let us know which of the six images above you like the best. Be sure to let us know why you made your choice.
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Images copyright 2012: Denise Ippolito & Arthur Morris. Card design by Denise Ippolito. Click on the image to enjoy a spectacular larger version.
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Holland 2014 7 1/2-Day/8-Night: A Creative Adventure/BIRDS AS ART/Tulips & A Touch of Holland IPT. April 17-April 24, 2014: $4995 Limit: 12/Openings: 5
We still have room for 5 more flower photographers on this great trip.
Join Denise Ippolito, Flower Queen and the author of “Bloomin’ Ideas,” and Arthur Morris, Canon Explorer of Light Emeritus and one of the planet’s premier photographic educators for a great trip to Holland in mid-April 2014. Day 1 of the IPT will be April 17, 2014. We will have a short afternoon get-together and then our first photographic session at the justly-famed Keukenhof. Most days we will return to the hotel for lunch, image sharing and a break. On Day 8, April 24, we will enjoy both morning and afternoon photography sessions.
The primary subjects will be tulips and orchids at Keukenhof and the spectacularly amazing tulip, hyacinth, and daffodil bulb fields around Lisse. In addition we will spend one full day in Amsterdam. There will be optional visits the Van Gogh Museum in the morning and the Anne Frank House in the afternoon; there will be plenty of time for street photography as well. And some great food. On another day we will have a wonderful early dinner at Kinderdijk and then head out with our gear to photograph the windmills and possibly some birds for those who bring their longs lenses. We will spend an afternoon in the lovely Dutch town of Edam where we will do some street photography and enjoy a superb dinner. All lodging, ground transportation, entry fees, and meals (from dinner on Day 1 through dinner on Day 7) are included. For those who will be bringing a big lens we will likely have an optional bird photography afternoon or two.
Click here for additional info or to register.
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Join me for the 2014 Tanzania Summer Safari!
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2014 Tanzania Summer Safari, 14-day African Adventure/leave the US on August 9. Fly home on August 24: $12,999.
Co-leaders Todd Gustafson & Arthur Morris. The limit is 12. Three photographers/van; you get your own row of seats. Our trip is a bit more expensive than the average safari for good reason. It is the best. We have the best driver guides with a total of decades of experience. They have been trained over the years by Todd and by me to drive with photography in mind. We have the best and most knowledgeable leaders. We stay in the best lodges and camps. We hope that you will join us for what will be Todd’s 35th African safari, and my 8th.
If you are seriously interested please e-mail me; I will be glad to send you the illustrated PDF with the complete itinerary and deposit info.
What else makes this expedition unique?
•Pre-trip consultation and camera equipment advice
•Award-winning photographers as your guides
•A seamless itinerary visiting the right locations at the best time of year
•Hands-on photography instruction in the field
•Specially designed three roof-hatch photo safari vehicles
•Proprietary materials for preparation, including free copy of “A Photographer’s Guide to Photographing in East Africa.”
•Post-safari image critiques
All-inclusive (double-occupancy) except for your flights to and from Kilamajaro Airport, bar drinks, soda & water (except at the Intimate Tented Camp where everything is free for our entire stay), tips for drivers and camp staff, personal items, and trip insurance.
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Breathe deeply, bite the bullet, and live life to its fullest; we all get only one ride on the merry-go-round… Join me on this great trip.
Click on the image to enjoy a larger version.
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The Southern Ocean…
If you would like to explore the possibility of joining me on the Cheesemans’ Ecology Safaris Antarctica/The Extended Expedition Voyage< trip: Antarctic Peninsula, South Georgia and Falkland Islands: December 13, 2014 to January 10, 2015, click here for additional information and then shoot me an e-mail.
The DPP RAW Conversion Guide
To learn why I use Canon’s Digital Photo Professional (DPP) to convert every image that I work on, click here.
Support the BAA Blog. Support the BAA Bulletins: Shop B&H here!
We want and need to keep providing you with the latest free information, photography and Photoshop lessons, and all manner of related information. Show your appreciation by making your purchases immediately after clicking on any of our B&H or Amazon Affiliate links in this blog post. Remember, B&H ain’t just photography!
Amazon
Everyone buys something from Amazon, be it a big lens or deodorant. Support the blog by starting your search by clicking on the logo-link below. No purchase is too small to be appreciated; they all add up. Why make it a habit? Because I make it a habit of bringing you new images and information on an almost daily basis.
Typos
In all blog posts and Bulletins, feel free to e-mail or to leave a comment regarding any typos, wrong words, misspellings, omissions, or grammatical errors. Just be right. 🙂
IPT Info
Many of our great trips are filling up. See especially info on the South Florida, Holland, and Nickerson Beach IPTs. Two great leaders on most trips ensure that you will receive individual attention, have all of your questions answered, and learn a ton including how to think like a pro, see the situation, and get the right exposure every time. In addition you will have fun, and make lots of great images. Click here for IPT details and general information.
March 1st, 2014 The Streak Continues
Things are winding down here in Japan. Five of us again spent the early morning at the at the Bamboo Forest in Kyoto, Japan and then grabbed a cab to Kitano Tenman-gū, a Shinto shrine in Kamigyō-ku, Kyoto, Surprisingly, the plum blossom trees, though not yet in full bloom, were sporting lots of flowers. Paul McKenzie who was with us this morning flies back to Hong Kong tonight from Osaka. And Zorica and Srdjan head home tomorrow. Denise and I head to Tokyo on Monday and catch our flights back to the states on Tuesday (here in Japan). And Alan and Pat head home the following day.
I am finishing up this post at 6:00pm Japan time on Saturday, March 1 (OMG, it’s March already!), 2014. That is 4:00am on the same day in Florida and in New York. If you missed the Jumping Monkeys” blog post the other day, be sure to click here to see the many thoughtful comments on the state of nature photography today.
This post marks 92 straight days with a new educational blog post, a record by far that should be extended for at least another day or so, or not. Or more…. To show your appreciation for my efforts here, we ask that use our B&H and Amazon affiliate links for all of your B&H and Amazon purchases. Please check the availability of all photographic accessories in the BIRDS AS ART Online Store. We sell only what I use and 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.
You can find the following items in the store: Gitzo tripods, Mongoose M3.6 and Wimberley heads, plates, low feet, and accessories, flash brackets, , Delkin e-film Pro Compact Flash Cards, LensCoat products, and our unique line-up of educational materials including ABP I & II, Digital Basics, Site and Set-up e-Guides, Canon and Nikon Camera Users and AF e-Guides, and MP-4 Photoshop video tutorials among others.
We would of course appreciate you using our B&H and Amazon affiliate links for all of your B&H and Amazon major gear, video, electronic, household, and personal purchases. For the photographic stuff mentioned in the paragraph above we 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.
Thanks a Huge Stack!
Thanks a stack to all who visit the blog regularly. February was a record month for the BAA B&H affiliate program. And dozens of folks are getting in the habit of using Amazon for both the minor household and entertainment purchases as well as for major purchases. Their kindness is greatly appreciated and it is great to see that the streak is paying dividends. Love you all. artie
The General Premise
The general premise in bird and wildlife photography is that a good look at the eye or the eyes of the subject is pretty much a necessity. This premise always guides me. I have written “When we view an image, we always start by making eye contact.” And I have always advised: “Focus on the eye; get the eye sharp and the heck with the rest.”
Your Call
With the aforementioned general premise in mind, which–after being sure to view both images at the larger size–do you think is the stronger image? Be sure to let us know the reasons for your choice.
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If you’d like to learn from the two folks who created the images in the composite above do consider one of the trips below. Denise Ippolito’s images: Japanese leaf painting, skimmer in flight, curved Keukenhof paths with tulips, copulating terns, & pink dahlia. Artie’s images: Snow Geese snowstorm blur, crane landing silhouettes, Leopard with prey in tree, King Penguin, & vertical tulip.
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A Creative Adventure/BIRDS AS ART Instructional Photo-Tours (IPTs)/Two great leaders: Arthur Morris & Denise Ippolito.
Arthur Morris/BIRDS AS ART www.BIRDSASART-blog.com for the latest images, info, & education
Denise Ippolito/A Creative Adventure www.deniseippolito.com: get yourself out of the box!
Denise’s e-books: Bloomin’ Ideas, A Guide to Filters & Effects, The Softer Side of Macro, & more. Free Monthly Creative MiniMag: www.deniseippolito.com/magazine
Nickerson Baby Beach-nesting Birds IPT, Long Island, NY: 3-Full Days/July 22-24, 2014: $1199.
Black Skimmers, Common Terns with chicks, American Oystercatcher & Piping Plover families; breeding behaviors including courtship feeding, display flight and combat, and copulations. Gulls and shorebirds.
UK Puffins IPT. Early July, 2014.
Details TBA. Please e-mail to be placed on the interested list.
Tanzania Serengeti Summer Safari: Leave US: August 9—return: August 24, 2014: $12,999.
Co-leaders: Arthur Morris & Todd Gustafson. Wildebeest/The Great Migration, cats, elephant, giraffe, zebra, birds & more. Please e-mail for brochure.
Swan Island Dahlia Farm IPT, Canby, OR, September 8-12, 2014: 5 FULL DAYS: $1699.
Leader: Denise Ippolito. 40 acres with 350+dazzling varieties of dahlias in a plethora of colors, shapes and sizes. Sharpen your technical skills and boost your creative juices. Daily assignments, image sharing, and Photoshop sessions.
Bosque del Apache 2014 A Creative Adventure/BIRDS AS ART “Creative Photography Instructional Photo-Tour.” (IPT). NOV 24-25, 2014. 2-FULL DAYS: $729.
Leaders: Denise Ippolito & Arthur Morris. Introductory Slide program: 7:00pm on Sunday 11/23. This IPT is perfect for folks who want to learn to think outside the box, to create new and different images. Learn to unleash your creative juices at the wondrous Bosque del Apache, NWR in San Antonio, NM.
Bosque del Apache 2014 BIRDS AS ART/A Creative Adventure Instructional Photo-Tour (IPT). NOV 29-DEC 3, 2014. Totaling 4 FULL-DAYS: $1449
Leaders: Arthur Morris and Denise Ippolito. Introductory Slide program: 7:00pm on Sunday 11/29. Tens of thousand of Snow Geese, 10,000 Sandhill Cranes, ducks, amazing sunrises, sunsets, and blast-offs. Live, eat, and breathe photography with two of the world’s premier photographic educators at one of their very favorite photography locations on the planet.
Antarctica/The Extended Expedition Voyage: Antarctic Peninsula, South Georgia and Falkland Islands: December 13, 2014 to January 10, 2015.
Please e-mail for details.
BAA offers a wide range of books, e-Guides, and educational materials and photographic accessories at the lowest prices around—25+ years of experience, and the best advice you can get. We will not sell you junk. Access the BAA Store here or call us at 1-863-692-0906.
Questions? Please e-mail us at birdsasart@verizon.net or photographybydenise221@gmail.com.
Support the BAA Blog. Support the BAA Bulletins: Shop B&H here!
We want and need to keep providing you with the latest free information, photography and Photoshop lessons, and all manner of related information. Show your appreciation by making your purchases immediately after clicking on any of our B&H or Amazon Affiliate links in this blog post. Remember, B&H ain’t just photography!
Amazon
Everyone buys something from Amazon, be it a big lens or deodorant. Support the blog by starting your search by clicking on the logo-link below. No purchase is too small to be appreciated; they all add up. Why make it a habit? Because I make it a habit of bringing you new images and information on an almost daily basis.
Typos
In all blog posts and Bulletins, feel free to e-mail or to leave a comment regarding any typos, wrong words, misspellings, omissions, or grammatical errors. Just be right. 🙂
IPT Info
Many of our great trips are filling up. See especially info on the Holland, Nickerson Beach, and Bosque IPTs. Two great leaders on most trips ensure that you will receive individual attention, have all of your questions answered, and learn a ton including how to think like a pro, see the situation, and get the right exposure every time. In addition you will have fun, and make lots of great images. Click here for IPT details and general information.
February 28th, 2014 The Streak Continues
Five of us spent a great morning at the Bamboo Forest in Kyoto, Japan testing our creative abilities. I will be sharing some of my images soon. I am finishing up this post at 6:00pm Japan time on Friday, February 28, 2014. That is 4:00am on the same day in Florida and in New York. If you missed the Jumping Monkeys” blog post the other day, be sure to click here to see the many thoughtful comments on the state of nature photography today.
This post marks 91 straight days with a new blog post, a record by far that should be extended for at least another day or so, or not. Or more…. To show your appreciation for my efforts here, we ask that use our B&H and Amazon affiliate links for all of your B&H and Amazon purchases. Please check the availability of all photographic accessories in the BIRDS AS ART Online Store. We sell only what I use and 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.
You can find the following items in the store: Gitzo tripods, Mongoose M3.6 and Wimberley heads, plates, low feet, and accessories, flash brackets, , Delkin e-film Pro Compact Flash Cards, LensCoat products, and our unique line-up of educational materials including ABP I & II, Digital Basics, Site and Set-up e-Guides, Canon and Nikon Camera Users and AF e-Guides, and MP-4 Photoshop video tutorials among others.
We would of course appreciate you using our B&H and Amazon affiliate links for all of your B&H and Amazon major gear, video, electronic, household, and personal purchases. For the photographic stuff mentioned in the paragraph above we 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.
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See my pal Todd Gustafson on Nat Geo Wild on TV this Friday evening. See the details below.
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Todd Gustafson on Nat Geo Wild
See Todd on Nat Geo TV this Friday at 9pm Eastern (8pm Central); he’ll be featured as an on-screen and in-the-field expert on National Geographic Television for the second time in Nat Geo Wild’s “World’s Weirdest: Animal Apocalypse.” The show airs on February 28th. The episode will have footage of Todd in the field and natural history action footage and stills from the Gustafson Photo Safari archives. International documentary maker Ross Zuchowski did the interview footage with Todd where they talk about the Great Migration and the Mara River Crossings. It will be an informative and entertaining segment so be sure not to miss it or to set your VCRs or Tivos.
I am co-leading the 2014 Tanzania Summer Safari with Todd. Scroll down to see details on this great expedition.
Tunnel Visions
Yesterday in Japan, on Thursday, February 28, five of us visited the Fushimi Inari Taisha Shrine in Kyoto, Japan with an assortment of lenses and other photo gear. Paul McKenzie briefed us with some expert advice and then we all went to work. The big photographic attractions were the two tunnels constructed of orange poles about 5-6 inches in diameter with a wooden roof made of planks of the same colors. In all, there were more than a zillion good pictures to be made; no worries, we counted.
The Color Work
Getting the color of the image files to match what I thought was correct was a bear. I used everything in my arsenal including Color Temperature adjustments during the RAW conversion in DPP, Selective Color, Hue Saturation, Levels, Color Balance, and various color balancing techniques (including Average Blur Color Balancing) in CS-6.
For the original captures, it was necessary to clip the RED channel fairly significantly in order to prevent the images from being overall too dark. This is a common occurrence when photographing sunrises and sunsets.
Digital Basics
Learn everything that I know about balancing the colors in an image and correcting color casts in my Digital Basics File. Digital Basics is an instructional PDF that is sent via e-mail. It includes my complete digital workflow, dozens of great Photoshop tips, the use of Contrast Masks, several different ways of expanding canvas, all of my time-saving Keyboard Shortcuts, Quick Masking, Layer Masking, and NIK Color Efex Pro basics, my killer image clean-up techniques, Digital Eye Doctor, and lots more.
Learn the details of advanced Quick Masking techniques in APTATS I. Mention this blog post and apply a $5 discount with phone orders only. Learn advanced Layer Masking Techniques in APTATS II. Mention this blog post and apply a $5 discount with phone orders only. by the pair, APTATS I and APTATS II and we will be glad to apply at $15 discount with phone orders only.
The DPP RAW Conversion Guide
After seeing the accurate colors that I get from my DPP RAW conversions, Japan in Winter co-leader Paul McKenzie is switching to DPP conversions and Denise Ippolito is considering doing the same. Now that is amazing…. To learn why I use Canon’s Digital Photo Professional (DPP) to convert every image that I work on, click here.
f/2.8
Note that for the image above I chose the widest available aperture after carefully choosing my perspective and my focal length so that the text on the 2nd piling would pop while the rest would go soft.
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This zoom blur was created at the Fushimi Inari Taisha Shrine, Kyoto, Japan with the hand held Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L II USM Lens and the Canon EOS 5D Mark III DSLR. ISO 400. Evaluative metering +1 stop as originally framed: 1/2 sec. at f/8 in Tv mode. Color temperature: 10,000K.
Central Sensor/AI Servo-Surround/Rear Focus AF on the lantern, recompose, and zoom from tight to wide during the exposure. Click here to see the latest version of the Rear Focus Tutorial. Click on the image to see a larger version.
Image #4
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Zoom Blurs
I love to create zoom blurs in the field by going to Tv mode, setting the correct EC (Exposure Compensation), choosing a slow shutter speed, usually from 1/5 to 1 full second, and then zooming from long to short. You can create zoom blurs either hand held as this one was or while working on a tripod. I tried a few zoom blurs after seeing some on the back of Denise Ippolito’s EOS-5D Mark III.
Pleasing blurs are not lucky accidents. All need to be accurately focused. Learn to create your own pleasing blurs of all types in A Guide to Pleasing Blurs by Denise Ippolito and yours truly.
The Glow
From the very first image I was captivated by the glow of the light coming through the roof slats. I made many dozens of images; most suffered from a lack of d-o-f….
Long, Slow, Exposures, Small Apertures, and Image Sharpness
To guarantee sharp images with the extremely slow shutter speeds I used a technique that I developed on the Holland Tulip trip: 2-second self-timer with Live View for Mirror Lock. I was aware that I might need to turn off IS but with relatively short focal lengths (as compared to 600 and 840mm) that step was not necessary.
Your Favorite?
Please take a moment and let us know which of the five images above is the best. And do let us know why you made your choice.
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Images copyright 2012: Denise Ippolito & Arthur Morris. Card design by Denise Ippolito. Click on the image to enjoy a spectacular larger version.
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Holland 2014 7 1/2-Day/8-Night: A Creative Adventure/BIRDS AS ART/Tulips & A Touch of Holland IPT. April 17-April 24, 2014: $4995 Limit: 12/Openings: 5
We still have room for 5 more flower photographers on this great trip.
Join Denise Ippolito, Flower Queen and the author of “Bloomin’ Ideas,” and Arthur Morris, Canon Explorer of Light Emeritus and one of the planet’s premier photographic educators for a great trip to Holland in mid-April 2014. Day 1 of the IPT will be April 17, 2014. We will have a short afternoon get-together and then our first photographic session at the justly-famed Keukenhof. Most days we will return to the hotel for lunch, image sharing and a break. On Day 8, April 24, we will enjoy both morning and afternoon photography sessions.
The primary subjects will be tulips and orchids at Keukenhof and the spectacularly amazing tulip, hyacinth, and daffodil bulb fields around Lisse. In addition we will spend one full day in Amsterdam. There will be optional visits the Van Gogh Museum in the morning and the Anne Frank House in the afternoon; there will be plenty of time for street photography as well. And some great food. On another day we will have a wonderful early dinner at Kinderdijk and then head out with our gear to photograph the windmills and possibly some birds for those who bring their longs lenses. We will spend an afternoon in the lovely Dutch town of Edam where we will do some street photography and enjoy a superb dinner. All lodging, ground transportation, entry fees, and meals (from dinner on Day 1 through dinner on Day 7) are included. For those who will be bringing a big lens we will likely have an optional bird photography afternoon or two.
Click here for additional info or to register.
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Join me for the 2014 Tanzania Summer Safari!
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2014 Tanzania Summer Safari, 14-day African Adventure/leave the US on August 9. Fly home on August 24: $12,999.
Co-leaders Todd Gustafson & Arthur Morris. The limit is 12. Three photographers/van; you get your own row of seats. Our trip is a bit more expensive than the average safari for good reason. It is the best. We have the best driver guides with a total of decades of experience. They have been trained over the years by Todd and by me to drive with photography in mind. We have the best and most knowledgeable leaders. We stay in the best lodges and camps. We hope that you will join us for what will be Todd’s 35th African safari, and my 8th.
If you are seriously interested please e-mail me; I will be glad to send you the illustrated PDF with the complete itinerary and deposit info.
What else makes this expedition unique?
•Pre-trip consultation and camera equipment advice
•Award-winning photographers as your guides
•A seamless itinerary visiting the right locations at the best time of year
•Hands-on photography instruction in the field
•Specially designed three roof-hatch photo safari vehicles
•Proprietary materials for preparation, including free copy of “A Photographer’s Guide to Photographing in East Africa.”
•Post-safari image critiques
All-inclusive (double-occupancy) except for your flights to and from Kilamajaro Airport, bar drinks, soda & water (except at the Intimate Tented Camp where everything is free for our entire stay), tips for drivers and camp staff, personal items, and trip insurance.
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Breathe deeply, bite the bullet, and live life to its fullest; we all get only one ride on the merry-go-round… Join me on this great trip.
Click on the image to enjoy a larger version.
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The Southern Ocean…
If you would like to explore the possibility of joining me on the Cheesemans’ Ecology Safaris Antarctica/The Extended Expedition Voyage< trip: Antarctic Peninsula, South Georgia and Falkland Islands: December 13, 2014 to January 10, 2015, click here for additional information and then shoot me an e-mail.
The DPP RAW Conversion Guide
To learn why I use Canon’s Digital Photo Professional (DPP) to convert every image that I work on, click here.
Support the BAA Blog. Support the BAA Bulletins: Shop B&H here!
We want and need to keep providing you with the latest free information, photography and Photoshop lessons, and all manner of related information. Show your appreciation by making your purchases immediately after clicking on any of our B&H or Amazon Affiliate links in this blog post. Remember, B&H ain’t just photography!
Amazon
Everyone buys something from Amazon, be it a big lens or deodorant. Support the blog by starting your search by clicking on the logo-link below. No purchase is too small to be appreciated; they all add up. Why make it a habit? Because I make it a habit of bringing you new images and information on an almost daily basis.
Typos
In all blog posts and Bulletins, feel free to e-mail or to leave a comment regarding any typos, wrong words, misspellings, omissions, or grammatical errors. Just be right. 🙂
IPT Info
Many of our great trips are filling up. See especially info on the South Florida, Holland, and Nickerson Beach IPTs. Two great leaders on most trips ensure that you will receive individual attention, have all of your questions answered, and learn a ton including how to think like a pro, see the situation, and get the right exposure every time. In addition you will have fun, and make lots of great images. Click here for IPT details and general information.
February 27th, 2014 The Streak Continues
Five of us spent a great morning at the Fushimi Inari Taisha Shrine in Kyoto, Japan photographing the patterns of the orange posts in the tunnels. I will be sharing some of those images soon. Tomorrow we head for the bamboo forest. I began working on this post at 5:00pm Japan time on Thursday, February 27, 2014. That is 3:00am on the same day in Florida or in New York.
If you missed yesterday’s blog post, be sure to click here to see the many thoughtful comments on the state of nature photography today.
This post marks 90 straight days with a new blog post, a record by far that should be extended for at least another day or so, or not. Or more…. To show your appreciation for my efforts here, we ask that use our B&H and Amazon affiliate links for all of your B&H and Amazon purchases. Please check the availability of all photographic accessories in the BIRDS AS ART Online Store. We sell only what I use and 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.
You can find the following items in the store: Gitzo tripods, Mongoose M3.6 and Wimberley heads, plates, low feet, and accessories, flash brackets, , Delkin e-film Pro Compact Flash Cards, LensCoat products, and our unique line-up of educational materials including ABP I & II, Digital Basics, Site and Set-up e-Guides, Canon and Nikon Camera Users and AF e-Guides, and MP-4 Photoshop video tutorials among others.
We would of course appreciate you using our B&H and Amazon affiliate links for all of your B&H and Amazon major gear, video, electronic, household, and personal purchases. For the photographic stuff mentioned in the paragraph above we 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.
A Barrel Full of Monkey Photos
Denise Ippolito’s last blog post featured ten of her very favorite Snow Monkey images. If you click here to see them you will likely be amazed.
The Last of Its Kind?
An e-mail from Ted Cheeseman
Dear Friends,
I said in a previous e-mail that our 2014-2015 Falklands/South Georgia/Antarctic Peninsula voyage may be the last of it’s kind. It is true that some will read this and say we’re crying wolf again, as we were in the habit of believing we would not have gone on this long. But it’s a mighty good question: what is the future of our great Falklands/South Georgia/Antarctica expedition that we’ve been so fortunate to share with so many of you? We will go this December-January, 2014/2015. We will not go in 2015-2016. Beyond that:
(1) The forthcoming ‘Mandatory Polar Code’ will be adopted by the International Maritime Organization – IMO has been working on this for a *long* time, a direct outgrowth of the sinking of the Explorer in 2007, and strengthened by the Costa Concordia sinking in the Mediterranean. We don’t know what it will do but it may remove some ships and may limit how independently we can operate. Potential outcome: less freedom, higher costs.
(2) Cost and time: 26 days on the ship is expensive. You all know how wonderfully full value our expeditions are, and I *love* that you appreciate it. But it’s getting harder for us to fill this voyage. If we successfully fill it this year, we’ll *want* to do our great in-depth expedition in future years. If we don’t sail full, well, it’s kind of a killer to work so hard for years, take on that much risk, and lose money to boot!
(3) Other commitments. I am intending to step away and complete a PHD on Humpback Whales. We’ve been working to build the capacity of Cheesemans’ Ecology Safaris to carry on with the same passion and dedication – to wit Hugh Rose’s magnificently adept job as Expedition Leader this January, but we’re a small company yet. This is just part of the equation, adding to the balance of decisions if the expedition becomes harder and riskier to mount (and let me tell you, signing that ship contract sure does make one think seriously about the future!)
So share the love and join us now!!!
Warm regards to all, Ted
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Breathe deeply, bite the bullet, and live life to its fullest; we all get only one ride on the merry-go-round… Join me on this great trip.
Click on the image to enjoy a larger version.
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The Southern Ocean…
I’ve been blessed. I’ve made three trips to the Southern Ocean, two extended trips that visited the Falklands, South Georgia, and the Antarctic Peninsula, and one to the Falklands and South Georgia. Each was a truly amazing experience. With three trips under my belt, I have a pretty good idea about how to make great images at each of the iconic landings. And I would love the chance to share my knowledge with you.
And I know from personal experience that if you are a photographer who is going to invest in Southern Ocean voyage that you will want to put your money on Cheesemans’. No other tour company goes so far out of their way to ensure making every possible safe landing. And no other tour company will have you spending more time on land. Here, from the” Way to Go CES! (Cheeseman’s Ecology Safaris)” blog post here, is one of my favorite Cheesemans’ stories:
The landing at Bailey Head, Antarctica, was especially rewarding to me as I had been sitting in a zodiac 100 yards off shore on my 2007 trip when the zodiac in front of mine swamped and the captain of the ship called off the landing…. Early that day it looked as if my weather Karma might not be working. Ted’s “Good morning shipmates” was followed by the news that we would not be able to land at Bailey Head that morning as the swell was too big. The beach there is sloped tremendously and the sea strives to pull the zodiacs back into the ocean before folks have gotten off with their gear. Tom Murphy had said to me several days before, “We will get you on the beach at Bailey Head.” Ted concluded his morning greetings by saying, “We are sending out a scout team to see if landing is possible.”
After breakfast I was thrilled to hear Ted’s voice again on the PA, “We will be landing at 8am.” Afterwards folks noted that it was the calmest landing ever at this amazingly beautiful spot. My good weather Karma (courtesy of late-wife Elaine) had come through one last time. Along with St. Andrews Bay, it was one of my two favorite super-great once-in-a-lifetime days of the trip. And we even got to enjoy three additional hours at Hannah Point, Antarctica before calling it a wrap and heading for the feared Drake Passage. All thanks to Cheesemans’ Ecology Safaris.
Why Sign Up Through BIRDS AS ART?
If you have been thinking and dreaming of finally visiting South Georgia and Antarctica, this is the trip for you. Quit dreaming and act now. Though I will not be an official leader on this trip, those who have traveled with me know that I cannot help but teach. I will make pre-trip gear recommendations. I will hold informal pre-landing briefings. In the same vein, everyone will receive a free copy of our Antarctica Site Guide once they are paid in full (August 15, 2014). I will be available on the ship to review your images,, answer questions, and conduct informal over-the shoulder Photoshop sessions. And best of all everyone who signs up under the auspices of BAA are invited to tag along with me on the landings where I will be glad to offer invaluable in-the-field advice. And the same goes for the ship-board birds in flight and marine mammal photography opportunities.
Do join us. To learn how to be part of the BAA group please e-mail me with the words Antarctica/Extended Expedition BAA Info Please cut and pasted into the Subject line.
The Cheesemans’ Ecology Safaris Antarctica/The Extended Expedition Voyage
Antarctic Peninsula, South Georgia and Falkland Islands: December 13, 2014 to January 10, 2015
From the CES website:
Join us on a voyage of discovery to an awe-inspiring world devoted to nature, wildlife, science, and peace. This expedition will have you completely captivated, from the stunning vistas of Tierra del Fuego to the busy penguin rookeries of the Falklands, from the dramatic landscapes of South Georgia to the ice-covered terrain of the Antarctic. Board the comfortable, safe and newly upgraded Ortelius for an expedition offering an unparalleled 17 landing days in the Southern Ocean. Our voyage includes three days in the Falklands with a huge diversity of species, six days at South Georgia Island, the all but undiscovered rugged land of towering mountains and thriving colonies of penguins, seals, and albatross, one day at the South Orkneys with nesting Snow Petrels, and seven days along the Antarctic Peninsula, the wonderland of ice and inconceivably vibrant polar wildlife. During days at sea, our naturalists on the ship’s bridge and stern share sightings of whales and seabirds, including many of the world’s species of albatross. Maximum time both on shore and Zodiac cruising will be available for photography, wildlife experiences, and exploring the landscapes of the great Southern Ocean. Our priority is assuring the most in-depth wildlife experience in the Antarctic, an experience made possible by our excellent itinerary and committed expedition staff.
I can personally attest to the accuracy of everything above. 🙂
Additional Links
Learn about the global ocean here.
Antarctic Inspiration from Paul Mckenzie here.
Way to Go CES! (Cheeseman’s Ecology Safaris) here.
Or simply type any of the following words or phrases in the little white search box on the top right of this page, hit Search, and follow the links: penguin; Antarctica; South Georgia; Falklands. Have fun.
The Pull is Too Strong…
The pull is too strong. I need to go back. And I am. Do join me for an unparalleled wildlife and scenic photography experience. Please e-mail for additional information.
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If you’d like to learn from the two folks who created the images in the composite above do consider one of the trips below. Denise Ippolito’s images: Japanese leaf painting, skimmer in flight, curved Keukenhof paths with tulips, copulating terns, & pink dahlia. Artie’s images: Snow Geese snowstorm blur, crane landing silhouettes, Leopard with prey in tree, King Penguin, & vertical tulip.
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A Creative Adventure/BIRDS AS ART Instructional Photo-Tours (IPTs)/Two great leaders: Arthur Morris & Denise Ippolito.
Arthur Morris/BIRDS AS ART www.BIRDSASART-blog.com for the latest images, info, & education
Denise Ippolito/A Creative Adventure www.deniseippolito.com: get yourself out of the box!
Denise’s e-books: Bloomin’ Ideas, A Guide to Filters & Effects, The Softer Side of Macro, & more. Free Monthly Creative MiniMag: www.deniseippolito.com/magazine
Nickerson Baby Beach-nesting Birds IPT, Long Island, NY: 3-Full Days/July 22-24, 2014: $1199.
Black Skimmers, Common Terns with chicks, American Oystercatcher & Piping Plover families; breeding behaviors including courtship feeding, display flight and combat, and copulations. Gulls and shorebirds.
UK Puffins IPT. Early July, 2014.
Details TBA. Please e-mail to be placed on the interested list.
Tanzania Serengeti Summer Safari: Leave US: August 9—return: August 24, 2014: $12,999.
Co-leaders: Arthur Morris & Todd Gustafson. Wildebeest/The Great Migration, cats, elephant, giraffe, zebra, birds & more. Please e-mail for brochure.
Swan Island Dahlia Farm IPT, Canby, OR, September 8-12, 2014: 5 FULL DAYS: $1699.
Leader: Denise Ippolito. 40 acres with 350+dazzling varieties of dahlias in a plethora of colors, shapes and sizes. Sharpen your technical skills and boost your creative juices. Daily assignments, image sharing, and Photoshop sessions.
Bosque del Apache 2014 A Creative Adventure/BIRDS AS ART “Creative Photography Instructional Photo-Tour.” (IPT). NOV 24-25, 2014. 2-FULL DAYS: $729.
Leaders: Denise Ippolito & Arthur Morris. Introductory Slide program: 7:00pm on Sunday 11/23. This IPT is perfect for folks who want to learn to think outside the box, to create new and different images. Learn to unleash your creative juices at the wondrous Bosque del Apache, NWR in San Antonio, NM.
Bosque del Apache 2014 BIRDS AS ART/A Creative Adventure Instructional Photo-Tour (IPT). NOV 29-DEC 3, 2014. Totaling 4 FULL-DAYS: $1449
Leaders: Arthur Morris and Denise Ippolito. Introductory Slide program: 7:00pm on Sunday 11/29. Tens of thousand of Snow Geese, 10,000 Sandhill Cranes, ducks, amazing sunrises, sunsets, and blast-offs. Live, eat, and breathe photography with two of the world’s premier photographic educators at one of their very favorite photography locations on the planet.
Antarctica/The Extended Expedition Voyage: Antarctic Peninsula, South Georgia and Falkland Islands: December 13, 2014 to January 10, 2015.
Please e-mail for details.
BAA offers a wide range of books, e-Guides, and educational materials and photographic accessories at the lowest prices around—25+ years of experience, and the best advice you can get. We will not sell you junk. Access the BAA Store here or call us at 1-863-692-0906.
Questions? Please e-mail us at birdsasart@verizon.net or photographybydenise221@gmail.com.
Support the BAA Blog. Support the BAA Bulletins: Shop B&H here!
We want and need to keep providing you with the latest free information, photography and Photoshop lessons, and all manner of related information. Show your appreciation by making your purchases immediately after clicking on any of our B&H or Amazon Affiliate links in this blog post. Remember, B&H ain’t just photography!
Amazon
Everyone buys something from Amazon, be it a big lens or deodorant. Support the blog by starting your search by clicking on the logo-link below. No purchase is too small to be appreciated; they all add up. Why make it a habit? Because I make it a habit of bringing you new images and information on an almost daily basis.
Typos
In all blog posts and Bulletins, feel free to e-mail or to leave a comment regarding any typos, wrong words, misspellings, omissions, or grammatical errors. Just be right. 🙂
IPT Info
Many of our great trips are filling up. See especially info on the Holland, Nickerson Beach, and Bosque IPTs. Two great leaders on most trips ensure that you will receive individual attention, have all of your questions answered, and learn a ton including how to think like a pro, see the situation, and get the right exposure every time. In addition you will have fun, and make lots of great images. Click here for IPT details and general information.
February 26th, 2014 The Streak Goes On…
Seven of the IPT leaders and participants (along with Pat and Alan Lillich’s daughter Meagan) are on the train to Kyoto for a few days of travel and nature photography and for the seven of us, some much needed rest. I am finishing this post at 6:45pm Japan time on Wednesday, February 26, 2014. That is 4:45am on the same day in Florida or in New York. We will likely get to the Best Western Kyoto at about 9pm tonight.
This post marks 89 straight days with a new educational blog post, a record by far that should be extended for at least another day or so, or not. Or more…. To show your appreciation for my efforts here, we ask that use our B&H and Amazon affiliate links for all of your B&H and Amazon purchases. Please check the availability of all photographic accessories in the BIRDS AS ART Online Store. We sell only what I use and 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.
You can find the following items in the store: Gitzo tripods, Mongoose M3.6 and Wimberley heads, plates, low feet, and accessories, flash brackets, , Delkin e-film Pro Compact Flash Cards, LensCoat products, and our unique line-up of educational materials including ABP I & II, Digital Basics, Site and Set-up e-Guides, Canon and Nikon Camera Users and AF e-Guides, and MP-4 Photoshop video tutorials among others.
We would of course appreciate you using our B&H and Amazon affiliate links for all of your B&H and Amazon major gear, video, electronic, household, and personal purchases. For the photographic stuff mentioned in the paragraph above we 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.
Enjoy.
Jumping Monkeys; There’s More to it Than Meets the Eye…
We pretty much wrapped things up on February 25, with our second full day at the Snow Monkey Park. Both Denise and I enjoyed meeting fellow professionals Ben Cranke and Wim van den Heever of South Africa who were also co-leading a photography safari. They kindly invited our group to join their group for an afternoon jumping monkeys photography session.
After they had their group positioned up front with short lenses we chose our spots. Folks with longer lenses like Zorica, Denise, and me stayed well back while the others took peripheral positions. The regular monkey feeder began his rounds with large numbers of Snow Monkeys following him up the hill. Then he walked down the hill towards us on the other side of the river and continued feeding. The idea was to concentrate the monkeys on the far side of the small stream and then feed them on our side of the stream and have them jump across the rocks. At about 3:40pm the final phase of the operation began while Wim and Ben’s Japanese guide sat on the board that the animals usually use to cross to prevent them from doing so.
Results were sporadic at first. A few monkeys jumped across to the desired spot where a bit of food had been placed. It was difficult to get in tune with the rhythm of the jumping monkeys and framing the images was even more difficult. Then they simply quit for ten minutes. Then along came what looked like the head maintenance guy in his green coveralls. He shooed most of the monkeys to the opposite side of the stream and then began to toss small bits of special food to the perfect spot on our side of the river. The monkeys responded quite well. When he quit tossing the special tidbits, the action slowed to less than a trickle. After ten minutes without a single jump I decided to fold up my tripod and pack my gear. Immediately four monkeys took flight and shutters fired. I headed back to a much worse spot than I had had.
After five more minutes with no action, I decided once again to leave. I walked up to the spot where Ben and Wim were seated and asked each for a business card. Within seconds a stream of about 10 monkeys came jumping across the stream. Totally defeated I stood by with no camera and no lens as everyone fired away nonstop. Talk about bad timing….
I was, however, happy with the image above.
Truth in Nature Photography
Thirty-five years ago when I first began noticing great nature photography images, it was only natural to assume that each and every image was in fact an image that was created in a totally natural situation. Today, those boundaries are tremendously blurred. Songbirds are fed and enticed to perch on branches selected for their character and beauty. In many areas the taped calls of songbirds are often used to attract a variety or species into photographic range. Cabella’s Owls are mounted atop Radio Shack antenna poles to draw in migrating raptors. Herons, egrets, pelicans and eagles are baited with fish. Snowy and Great Grey Owls and other raptors are routinely baited with live pet store mice. Prey items are killed with a shot gun and hung in a tree to attract raptors. In Finland and other locations, carcasses are placed in front of photography blinds to attract bears, Golden Eagles, and other raptors.
And let’s not forget outdoor studio lighting, camera traps, and remote triggers.
Don’t get me wrong; I am simply playing Devil’s Advocate here. Heck, at the Jigokudani Yaenkoen Snow Monkey Park the animals are called in with a whistle, fed several times a day, bathe in a man-made onsen (naturally heated pool), and can even be coaxed into jumping across a small river…
Feel free to let us know your thoughts on the current state of nature photography.
Note: as many of you know, I have used several of the techniques described above to help me make better images. I always make sure to let folks know the situation.
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Images copyright 2012: Denise Ippolito & Arthur Morris. Card design by Denise Ippolito. Click on the image to enjoy a spectacular larger version.
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Holland 2014 7 1/2-Day/8-Night: A Creative Adventure/BIRDS AS ART/Tulips & A Touch of Holland IPT. April 17-April 24, 2014: $4995 Limit: 12/Openings: 5
We still have room for 5 more flower photographers on this great trip.
Join Denise Ippolito, Flower Queen and the author of “Bloomin’ Ideas,” and Arthur Morris, Canon Explorer of Light Emeritus and one of the planet’s premier photographic educators for a great trip to Holland in mid-April 2014. Day 1 of the IPT will be April 17, 2014. We will have a short afternoon get-together and then our first photographic session at the justly-famed Keukenhof. Most days we will return to the hotel for lunch, image sharing and a break. On Day 8, April 24, we will enjoy both morning and afternoon photography sessions.
The primary subjects will be tulips and orchids at Keukenhof and the spectacularly amazing tulip, hyacinth, and daffodil bulb fields around Lisse. In addition we will spend one full day in Amsterdam. There will be optional visits the Van Gogh Museum in the morning and the Anne Frank House in the afternoon; there will be plenty of time for street photography as well. And some great food. On another day we will have a wonderful early dinner at Kinderdijk and then head out with our gear to photograph the windmills and possibly some birds for those who bring their longs lenses. We will spend an afternoon in the lovely Dutch town of Edam where we will do some street photography and enjoy a superb dinner. All lodging, ground transportation, entry fees, and meals (from dinner on Day 1 through dinner on Day 7) are included. For those who will be bringing a big lens we will likely have an optional bird photography afternoon or two.
Click here for additional info or to register.
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Join me for the 2014 Tanzania Summer Safari!
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2014 Tanzania Summer Safari, 14-day African Adventure/leave the US on August 9. Fly home on August 24: $12,999.
Co-leaders Todd Gustafson & Arthur Morris. The limit is 12. Three photographers/van; you get your own row of seats. Our trip is a bit more expensive than the average safari for good reason. It is the best. We have the best driver guides with a total of decades of experience. They have been trained over the years by Todd and by me to drive with photography in mind. We have the best and most knowledgeable leaders. We stay in the best lodges and camps. We hope that you will join us for what will be Todd’s 35th African safari, and my 8th.
If you are seriously interested please e-mail me; I will be glad to send you the illustrated PDF with the complete itinerary and deposit info.
What else makes this expedition unique?
•Pre-trip consultation and camera equipment advice
•Award-winning photographers as your guides
•A seamless itinerary visiting the right locations at the best time of year
•Hands-on photography instruction in the field
•Specially designed three roof-hatch photo safari vehicles
•Proprietary materials for preparation, including free copy of “A Photographer’s Guide to Photographing in East Africa.”
•Post-safari image critiques
All-inclusive (double-occupancy) except for your flights to and from Kilamajaro Airport, bar drinks, soda & water (except at the Intimate Tented Camp where everything is free for our entire stay), tips for drivers and camp staff, personal items, and trip insurance.
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Breathe deeply, bite the bullet, and live life to its fullest; we all get only one ride on the merry-go-round… Join me on this great trip.
Click on the image to enjoy a larger version.
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The Southern Ocean…
If you would like to explore the possibility of joining me on the Cheesemans’ Ecology Safaris Antarctica/The Extended Expedition Voyage< trip: Antarctic Peninsula, South Georgia and Falkland Islands: December 13, 2014 to January 10, 2015, click here for additional information and then shoot me an e-mail.
The DPP RAW Conversion Guide
To learn why I use Canon’s Digital Photo Professional (DPP) to convert every image that I work on, click here.
Support the BAA Blog. Support the BAA Bulletins: Shop B&H here!
We want and need to keep providing you with the latest free information, photography and Photoshop lessons, and all manner of related information. Show your appreciation by making your purchases immediately after clicking on any of our B&H or Amazon Affiliate links in this blog post. Remember, B&H ain’t just photography!
Amazon
Everyone buys something from Amazon, be it a big lens or deodorant. Support the blog by starting your search by clicking on the logo-link below. No purchase is too small to be appreciated; they all add up. Why make it a habit? Because I make it a habit of bringing you new images and information on an almost daily basis.
Typos
In all blog posts and Bulletins, feel free to e-mail or to leave a comment regarding any typos, wrong words, misspellings, omissions, or grammatical errors. Just be right. 🙂
IPT Info
Many of our great trips are filling up. See especially info on the South Florida, Holland, and Nickerson Beach IPTs. Two great leaders on most trips ensure that you will receive individual attention, have all of your questions answered, and learn a ton including how to think like a pro, see the situation, and get the right exposure every time. In addition you will have fun, and make lots of great images. Click here for IPT details and general information.
February 25th, 2014 The Streak Goes On…
We killed again today at the Snow Monkey Park…. I am finishing this post at 8:45pm Japan time on Monday February 25, 2104. That is 6:45am on the same day in Florida or in New York. I will be asleep well before 9pm :).
This post marks 88 straight days with a new educational blog post, a record by far that should be extended for at least another day or so, or not. Or more…. To show your appreciation for my efforts here, we ask that use our B&H and Amazon affiliate links for all of your B&H and Amazon purchases. Please check the availability of all photographic accessories in the BIRDS AS ART Online Store. We sell only what I use and 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.
You can find the following items in the store: Gitzo tripods, Mongoose M3.6 and Wimberley heads, plates, low feet, and accessories, flash brackets, , Delkin e-film Pro Compact Flash Cards, LensCoat products, and our unique line-up of educational materials including ABP I & II, Digital Basics, Site and Set-up e-Guides, Canon and Nikon Camera Users and AF e-Guides, and MP-4 Photoshop video tutorials among others.
We would of course appreciate you using our B&H and Amazon affiliate links for all of your B&H and Amazon major gear, video, electronic, household, and personal purchases. For the photographic stuff mentioned in the paragraph above we 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.
Enjoy.
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This image of a Snow Monkey family huddled together was created on the February 25, 2014 at 12:26pm on the Japan in Winter IPT with the tripod-mounted Canon EF 200-400mm f/4L IS USM Lens with Internal 1.4x Extender (with the internal extender in place at 345mm) and the Canon EOS-1D X. ISO 800. Evaluative metering +3 1/3 stops off the snow: 1/125 sec. at f/14 in Manual mode. Color temperature 7,000K.
Central Sensor/AI Servo-Surround/Rear Focus AF on the lowest monkey’s eyes and re-compose. Click here to see the latest version of the Rear Focus Tutorial. Click on the image to see a larger version.
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One Better?
Two years ago I created the image below. I liked it from the moment I saw it on the back of the camera. It made it to the final round of BBC Wildlife Photographer of the Year Competition judging.
On our first day at the Snow Monkey Park folks were asking, “When do we get that big pile of monkeys?
Just before lunch today there were three monkeys huddled together on the edge of the onsen (hot springs pool). They were facing into the pool. The problem was that there were about 8 photographers behind them piled in tight. So there was no shot from the other side of the pool. The three monkeys posed and posed. The gathered photographers were taking images of their backs with wide angle lenses. The three monkeys posed and posed and posed. Finally I could not take it any longer. I called out, “The shot is from this side of the pool. All that you are getting are the same close-up face images that you have been getting all morning. If you folks would move over here we could all do well.” Nobody listened at first. Then a tall gent from South Africa backed me up. One by one everyone joined us on the side of the pool with the monkeys facing the photographers. But by this time two or three of them were sleeping.
I was patient. I know that the potential for a great image was there. I waited and waited. Some folks gave up and moved on. Then a fourth monkey joined the pile. And they all slept. Then, two monkeys got into a fight on the hill behind us. The four monkeys woke up and posed perfectly. Everyone who stayed wound up thanking me 🙂
Please let me know which image you think is the stronger one, the new image above or the older image below? And to let me know why.
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The original Snow Monkey Family Trio. Click on the image to see a larger version.
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The DPP RAW Conversion Guide
To learn why I use Canon’s Digital Photo Professional (DPP) to convert every image that I work on, click here.
Support the BAA Blog. Support the BAA Bulletins: Shop B&H here!
We want and need to keep providing you with the latest free information, photography and Photoshop lessons, and all manner of related information. Show your appreciation by making your purchases immediately after clicking on any of our B&H or Amazon Affiliate links in this blog post. Remember, B&H ain’t just photography!
Amazon
Everyone buys something from Amazon, be it a big lens or deodorant. Support the blog by starting your search by clicking on the logo-link below. No purchase is too small to be appreciated; they all add up. Why make it a habit? Because I make it a habit of bringing you new images and information on an almost daily basis.
Typos
In all blog posts and Bulletins, feel free to e-mail or to leave a comment regarding any typos, wrong words, misspellings, omissions, or grammatical errors. Just be right. 🙂
IPT Info
Many of our great trips are filling up. See especially info on the South Florida, Holland, and Nickerson Beach IPTs. Two great leaders on most trips ensure that you will receive individual attention, have all of your questions answered, and learn a ton including how to think like a pro, see the situation, and get the right exposure every time. In addition you will have fun, and make lots of great images. Click here for IPT details and general information.
February 24th, 2014 The Streak Goes On…
At the risk of sounding like a broken record we killed today at the Snow Monkey Park…. I am finishing this post at 7:26pm Japan time on Monday February 24, 2104. That is 5:26am on the same day in Florida or in New York. I will be asleep well before 8pm :).
This post marks 87 straight days with a new educational blog post, a record by far that should be extended for at least another day or so, or not. Or more…. To show your appreciation for my efforts here, we ask that use our B&H and Amazon affiliate links for all of your B&H and Amazon purchases. Please check the availability of all photographic accessories in the BIRDS AS ART Online Store. We sell only what I use and 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.
You can find the following items in the store: Gitzo tripods, Mongoose M3.6 and Wimberley heads, plates, low feet, and accessories, flash brackets, , Delkin e-film Pro Compact Flash Cards, LensCoat products, and our unique line-up of educational materials including ABP I & II, Digital Basics, Site and Set-up e-Guides, Canon and Nikon Camera Users and AF e-Guides, and MP-4 Photoshop video tutorials among others.
We would of course appreciate you using our B&H and Amazon affiliate links for all of your B&H and Amazon major gear, video, electronic, household, and personal purchases. For the photographic stuff mentioned in the paragraph above we 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.
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This Steller’s Sea Eagle blur was created on the morning of February 22, 2014 at 6:04:02am on the Japan in Winter IPT with the Gitzo 3532 LS carbon fiber tripod, the Mongoose M3.6 head, the Canon EF 200-400mm f/4L IS USM Lens with Internal 1.4x Extender (tripod-mounted at 350mm) and the Canon EOS-1D X. ISO Safety Shift yielded ISO 1600. Evaluative metering +2 1/3 stops as framed in Tv mode: 1/30 sec. at f/6.3. Color temperature 10,000K.
Central Sensor/AI Servo-Surround/Rear Focus AF just caught the top of the bird’s head and was active at the moment of exposure. Click here to see the latest version of the Rear Focus Tutorial. Click on the image to see a larger version.
Image #1: Landing Steller’s Sea Eagle Blur
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Pre-Dawn Blurs in the Dark
I teach this technique at Bosque and use it often as well: Set Auto ISO or ISO Safety Shift. Set Tv mode. Choose a slow shutter speed somewhere between 1/8 and 1/60 sec. For the image above I went with 1/30 sec. Set the needed Exposure Compensation (EC). Frame the image and pan with the bird while acquiring focus and push the button to make an image or three. Flapping is way better then gliding when you are trying to create pleasing blurs.
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This sharp image of a Steller’s Sea Eagle on an icy perch was created on the morning of February 22, 2014 at 6:04:47am on the Japan in Winter IPT with the Gitzo 3532 LS carbon fiber tripod, the Mongoose M3.6 head, the Canon EF 200-400mm f/4L IS USM Lens with Internal 1.4x Extender (with the internal TC in place at 560mm) and the Canon EOS-1D X. ISO Safety Shift yielded ISO 2500. Evaluative metering +2 stops as framed in Tv mode: 1/60 sec. at f/6.3. Color temperature 10,000K.
Three sensors to the left of the Central Sensor/AI Servo-Surround/Rear Focus AF on the bird’s breast was active at the moment of exposure. Click here to see the latest version of the Rear Focus Tutorial. Click on the image to see a larger version.
Image #2: Steller’s Sea on Icy Perch
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Want Sharp?
If you want to try to create sharp images of perched birds in the low light of pre-dawn simply raise the shutter speed to something that you are comfortable with, focus, and fire away. To create the image above I engaged the internal TC, raised the shutter speed from 1/30 to 1/60 sec., and was good to go. Note that the second image was created exactly 45 seconds after the first image.
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This image of a Steller’s Sea Eagle braking in flight was created on the morning of February 22, 2014 at 6:05:01am on the Japan in Winter IPT with the Gitzo 3532 LS carbon fiber tripod, the Mongoose M3.6 head, the Canon EF 200-400mm f/4L IS USM Lens with Internal 1.4x Extender (with the internal TC in place at 560mm) and the Canon EOS-1D X. ISO Safety Shift yielded ISO 1600. Evaluative metering +2 stops as framed in Tv mode: 1/60 sec. at f/5.6. Color temperature 10,000K.
Central Sensor/AI Servo-Surround/Rear Focus AF just caught the top of the bird’s head and was active at the moment of exposure. Click here to see the latest version of the Rear Focus Tutorial. Click on the image to see a larger version.
Image #3: Steller’s Sea Braking in Flight Blur
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1/60 sec. Works Both Ways
With perched birds folks with good sharpness techniques should be able to make sharp images at 1/60 sec. With birds in flight at fairly close range the same shutter speed can be used to create pleasing blurs. It’s a best of both worlds situation.
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This Steller’s Sea Eagle image was created on the morning of February 21, 2014 at 6:33am on the Japan in Winter IPT with the Canon EF 200-400mm f/4L IS USM Lens with Internal 1.4x Extender (hand held with the internal extender in place at 473mm) and the Canon EOS-1D X. ISO 1600. Evaluative metering +2 stops off the ice: 1/500 sec. at f/5.6 in Manual mode. Color Temperature: 9,000K.
Central Sensor/AI Servo-Surround/Rear Focus AF just caught the top of the bird’s head and was active at the moment of exposure. Click here to see the latest version of the Rear Focus Tutorial. Click on the image to see a larger version.
Image #4: Striking Steller’s Sea Eagle
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Getting the Blue Out
Even at 10,000 Kelvin all of the pre-dawn images had strong blue casts. I came up with a great way to lose the blue cast and get perfect whites with a single click. When converting in Canon’s Digital Photo Professional I simple clicked on Click White Balance and then clicked on the snow. Voila. Nothing could be simpler. With the four images here no other color corrections were necessary.
Your Favorite?
Please take a moment to leave a comment and let us know which of the 4 images above is your favorite, and do let us know why.
The DPP RAW Conversion Guide
To learn why I use Canon’s Digital Photo Professional (DPP) to convert every image that I work on, click here.
Support the BAA Blog. Support the BAA Bulletins: Shop B&H here!
We want and need to keep providing you with the latest free information, photography and Photoshop lessons, and all manner of related information. Show your appreciation by making your purchases immediately after clicking on any of our B&H or Amazon Affiliate links in this blog post. Remember, B&H ain’t just photography!
Amazon
Everyone buys something from Amazon, be it a big lens or deodorant. Support the blog by starting your search by clicking on the logo-link below. No purchase is too small to be appreciated; they all add up. Why make it a habit? Because I make it a habit of bringing you new images and information on an almost daily basis.
Typos
In all blog posts and Bulletins, feel free to e-mail or to leave a comment regarding any typos, wrong words, misspellings, omissions, or grammatical errors. Just be right. 🙂
IPT Info
Many of our great trips are filling up. See especially info on the South Florida, Holland, and Nickerson Beach IPTs. Two great leaders on most trips ensure that you will receive individual attention, have all of your questions answered, and learn a ton including how to think like a pro, see the situation, and get the right exposure every time. In addition you will have fun, and make lots of great images. Click here for IPT details and general information.
February 23rd, 2014 The Streak Goes On…
I am nearly finished with this post as we sit in the Hokkaido Airport on Sunday morning getting ready for our flight to Tokyo and the bus ride to our Nagano hotel near the snow monkey park. Our Hokkaido stay was beyond wonderful. Our guide, Makoto, was masterful, his staff, amazingly helpful. And the food at the lodge was delicious, plentiful, and Japanese.
This post marks 86 straight days with a new educational blog post, a record by far that should be extended for at least another day or so, or not. Or more…. To show your appreciation for my efforts here, we ask that use our B&H and Amazon affiliate links for all of your B&H and Amazon purchases. Please check the availability of all photographic accessories in the BIRDS AS ART Online Store. We sell only what I use and 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.
You can find the following items in the store: Gitzo tripods, Mongoose M3.6 and Wimberley heads, plates, low feet, and accessories, flash brackets, , Delkin e-film Pro Compact Flash Cards, LensCoat products, and our unique line-up of educational materials including ABP I & II, Digital Basics, Site and Set-up e-Guides, Canon and Nikon Camera Users and AF e-Guides, and MP-4 Photoshop video tutorials among others.
We would of course appreciate you using our B&H and Amazon affiliate links for all of your B&H and Amazon major gear, video, electronic, household, and personal purchases. For the photographic stuff mentioned in the paragraph above we 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.
I am finishing up this blog post at 9:18pm on Sunday February 23, 2014 (in Japan) thanks to the kindness of Denise Ippolito. The AC adapter for my workhorse laptop died this afternoon and Denise bravely allowed me to try her brick to charge my machine even though the voltages were slightly different. I shall remain indebted to her 🙂
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This displaying Whooper Swan was photographed at 9:04am on February 20, 2014 on our great swan morning at Lake Kussharo on the Japan in Winter IPT with the Gitzo 3532 LS carbon fiber tripod, the Mongoose M3.6 head, the Canon EF 600mm f/4L IS II USM lens, the Canon 1.4x EF Extender III (Teleconverter), and the Canon EOS-1D X. ISO 400. Evaluative metering +1 2/3 stops off the snow: 1/1000 sec. at f/5.6 in Manual mode. Color temperature: 6000K.
61-Point/AI Servo Rear Focus AF chose three sensors that fell on the front of the bird’s neck nicely on the plane of the bird’s face and was of course active at the moment of exposure. Click here to see the latest version of the Rear Focus Tutorial. Click on the image to see a larger version.
Image #1: Displaying Whooper Swan Vertical
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Isolation at 840mm
The 600mm f/4L IS with the 1.4X III TC on a full frame body allows the photographer to isolate the subject. By choosing the right perspective the 840mm focal length (approximately 16.8X magnification) enables the photographer to come up with clean backgrounds free of distracting elements that often would include other birds.
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This incoming Whooper Swan image was created at 8:11am on February 20, 2014 on our great swan morning at Lake Kussharo on the Japan in Winter IPT with the Gitzo 3532 LS carbon fiber tripod, the Mongoose M3.6 head, the Canon EF 600mm f/4L IS II USM lens, the Canon 1.4x EF Extender III (Teleconverter), and the Canon EOS-1D X. ISO 800. Evaluative metering +1 2/3 stops off the snow: 1/2000 sec. at f/5.6 in Manual mode. Color temperature: 7000K.
Central sensor/AI Servo/Surround Rear Focus AF on the bird’s left breast was active at the moment of exposure. Note that the point of focus was nicely on the same plane as the bird’s face. Click here to see the latest version of the Rear Focus Tutorial. Click on the image to see a larger version.
Image #2: Incoming Whooper Swan
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Flight at 840mm
A comment on the blog the other day asked “Is it true that AI Servo AF flight sequences made with a super-telephoto lens and a 1.4X TC would always include several out-of-focus images?” I replied that such assertions were ridiculous. With all of my big lenses and the 1.4X III TC virtually all images in a flight sequence are sharp on the bird’s eye. When many folks get one or more unsharp images in a flight sequence they are quick to blame the camera, the lens, the teleconverter, or all three. I look in the mirror and assume operator error. Most times I can put my finger on the reason that an image is not sharp. The most common one (often overlooked) is that the active AF sensor was on an area with little or no contrast. AF needs contrast to be able to see and to be able to track the moving subject. The next most common reason is pure operator error; the photographer was late in framing the image and acquiring focus; the shutter button was depressed before the AF system began to track the subject.
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These Whooper Swans were photographed on the morning of February 20, 2014 at 7:55am on the Japan in Winter IPT with the Canon EF 200-400mm f/4L IS USM Lens with Internal 1.4x Extender (hand held at 200mm) and the Canon EOS-1D X. ISO 800. Evaluative metering +2 stops off the snow worked out to +1/3 stop as framed: 1/1250 sec. at f/5.6 in Manual mode. Color temperature: 7000K.
Central Sensor/AI Servo-Surround/Rear Focus AF on the head of the bird in the middle and re-compose slightly while panning slowly. Click here to see the latest version of the Rear Focus Tutorial. Click on the image to see a larger version.
Image #3: Whooper Swans on Frozen Lake
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The Good and the Bad
What are the pleasing elements in the image above? What do you like about it? What is the biggest negative?
Note again the great versatility of the 200-400; dis-engaging the internal TC and zooming out allowed me to quickly get to 200mm and create the image that I wanted that included the swans and the distant woods. Learn more about the versatility of the 200-400 here.
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This pair of Whooper Swans was photographed on the morning of February 20, 2014 at 8:21am on the Japan in Winter IPT with the Canon EF 200-400mm f/4L IS USM Lens with Internal 1.4x Extender (hand held at 400mm) and the Canon EOS-1D X. ISO 800. Evaluative metering +1 2/3 stops off the ice: 1/800 sec. at f/6.3 in Manual mode. Color temperature: 7000K.
Central Sensor/AI Servo-Surround/Rear Focus AF on the eye of the right hand bird and re-compose slightly. Click here to see the latest version of the Rear Focus Tutorial. Click on the image to see a larger version.
Image #4: Pair of Whooper Swans/Male Calling
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Action City
On our first morning at Lake Kussharo we enjoyed swans and mist and steam. On our follow-up visit we enjoyed virtually non-stop action for three hours with incoming flight and displaying birds. After that many of the birds went to sleep and I went to work with the 600 and the 2X III TC. I will share those images with you here at some point.
Your Favorite?
Please take a moment to leave a comment and let us know which of the 4 images above is your favorite, and do let us know why.
Advanced Composition and Image Design
Learn to create more pleasing images by studying the section on Advanced Composition and Image Design in The Art of Bird Photography II (ABP II: 916 pages/900+ images on CD only.)
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Images copyright 2012: Denise Ippolito & Arthur Morris. Card design by Denise Ippolito. Click on the image to enjoy a spectacular larger version.
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Holland 2014 7 1/2-Day/8-Night: A Creative Adventure/BIRDS AS ART/Tulips & A Touch of Holland IPT. April 17-April 24, 2014: $4995 Limit: 12/Openings: 5
We still have room for 5 more flower photographers on this great trip.
Join Denise Ippolito, Flower Queen and the author of “Bloomin’ Ideas,” and Arthur Morris, Canon Explorer of Light Emeritus and one of the planet’s premier photographic educators for a great trip to Holland in mid-April 2014. Day 1 of the IPT will be April 17, 2014. We will have a short afternoon get-together and then our first photographic session at the justly-famed Keukenhof. Most days we will return to the hotel for lunch, image sharing and a break. On Day 8, April 24, we will enjoy both morning and afternoon photography sessions.
The primary subjects will be tulips and orchids at Keukenhof and the spectacularly amazing tulip, hyacinth, and daffodil bulb fields around Lisse. In addition we will spend one full day in Amsterdam. There will be optional visits the Van Gogh Museum in the morning and the Anne Frank House in the afternoon; there will be plenty of time for street photography as well. And some great food. On another day we will have a wonderful early dinner at Kinderdijk and then head out with our gear to photograph the windmills and possibly some birds for those who bring their longs lenses. We will spend an afternoon in the lovely Dutch town of Edam where we will do some street photography and enjoy a superb dinner. All lodging, ground transportation, entry fees, and meals (from dinner on Day 1 through dinner on Day 7) are included. For those who will be bringing a big lens we will likely have an optional bird photography afternoon or two.
Click here for additional info or to register.
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Join me for the 2014 Tanzania Summer Safari!
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2014 Tanzania Summer Safari, 14-day African Adventure/leave the US on August 9. Fly home on August 24: $12,999.
Co-leaders Todd Gustafson & Arthur Morris. The limit is 12. Three photographers/van; you get your own row of seats. Our trip is a bit more expensive than the average safari for good reason. It is the best. We have the best driver guides with a total of decades of experience. They have been trained over the years by Todd and by me to drive with photography in mind. We have the best and most knowledgeable leaders. We stay in the best lodges and camps. We hope that you will join us for what will be Todd’s 35th African safari, and my 8th.
If you are seriously interested please e-mail me; I will be glad to send you the illustrated PDF with the complete itinerary and deposit info.
What else makes this expedition unique?
•Pre-trip consultation and camera equipment advice
•Award-winning photographers as your guides
•A seamless itinerary visiting the right locations at the best time of year
•Hands-on photography instruction in the field
•Specially designed three roof-hatch photo safari vehicles
•Proprietary materials for preparation, including free copy of “A Photographer’s Guide to Photographing in East Africa.”
•Post-safari image critiques
All-inclusive (double-occupancy) except for your flights to and from Kilamajaro Airport, bar drinks, soda & water (except at the Intimate Tented Camp where everything is free for our entire stay), tips for drivers and camp staff, personal items, and trip insurance.
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Breathe deeply, bite the bullet, and live life to its fullest; we all get only one ride on the merry-go-round… Join me on this great trip.
Click on the image to enjoy a larger version.
|
The Southern Ocean…
If you would like to explore the possibility of joining me on the Cheesemans’ Ecology Safaris Antarctica/The Extended Expedition Voyage< trip: Antarctic Peninsula, South Georgia and Falkland Islands: December 13, 2014 to January 10, 2015, click here for additional information and then shoot me an e-mail.
The DPP RAW Conversion Guide
To learn why I use Canon’s Digital Photo Professional (DPP) to convert every image that I work on, click here.
Support the BAA Blog. Support the BAA Bulletins: Shop B&H here!
We want and need to keep providing you with the latest free information, photography and Photoshop lessons, and all manner of related information. Show your appreciation by making your purchases immediately after clicking on any of our B&H or Amazon Affiliate links in this blog post. Remember, B&H ain’t just photography!
Amazon
Everyone buys something from Amazon, be it a big lens or deodorant. Support the blog by starting your search by clicking on the logo-link below. No purchase is too small to be appreciated; they all add up. Why make it a habit? Because I make it a habit of bringing you new images and information on an almost daily basis.
Typos
In all blog posts and Bulletins, feel free to e-mail or to leave a comment regarding any typos, wrong words, misspellings, omissions, or grammatical errors. Just be right. 🙂
IPT Info
Many of our great trips are filling up. See especially info on the South Florida, Holland, and Nickerson Beach IPTs. Two great leaders on most trips ensure that you will receive individual attention, have all of your questions answered, and learn a ton including how to think like a pro, see the situation, and get the right exposure every time. In addition you will have fun, and make lots of great images. Click here for IPT details and general information.
February 22nd, 2014 The Streak Goes On…
I am working on this blog post again at 5:05am on Saturday February 22 here in Japan. It is 3:05pm in Florida on February 21.
This post marks 85 straight days with a new educational blog post, a record by far that should be extended for at least another day or so, or not. Or more…. It appears that our lodge has great internet. To show your appreciation for my efforts here, we ask that use our B&H and Amazon affiliate links for all of your B&H and Amazon purchases. Please check the availability of all photographic accessories in the BIRDS AS ART Online Store. We sell only what I use and 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.
You can find the following items in the store: Gitzo tripods, Mongoose M3.6 and Wimberley heads, plates, low feet, and accessories, flash brackets, , Delkin e-film Pro Compact Flash Cards, LensCoat products, and our unique line-up of educational materials including ABP I & II, Digital Basics, Site and Set-up e-Guides, Canon and Nikon Camera Users and AF e-Guides, and MP-4 Photoshop video tutorials among others.
We would of course appreciate you using our B&H and Amazon affiliate links for all of your B&H and Amazon major gear, video, electronic, household, and personal purchases. For the photographic stuff mentioned in the paragraph above we 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.
I am finishing up this blog post at 4:22pm Japan time on Saturday February 22–2:22am on the same day in Florida. We enjoyed a 3rd great eagle boat trip this morning and then drove back to our lodge. Tomorrow we fly back to Tokyo for the Snow Monkey segment of this great trip. Today’s blog post took more than 3 hours to prepare.
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This image of a landing Steller’s Sea Eagle was created on the morning of February 21, 2014 at 6:35am on the Japan in Winter IPT with the Canon EF 200-400mm f/4L IS USM Lens with Internal 1.4x Extender (hand held with the internal extender in place at 325mm) and the Canon EOS-1D X. ISO 1600. Evaluative metering +2 stops off the ice: 1/800 sec. at f/5.6 in Manual mode. AWB.
Central Sensor/AI Servo-Surround/Rear Focus AF on the bird’s breast right below the head was active at the moment of exposure. Click here to see the latest version of the Rear Focus Tutorial. Click on the image to see a larger version.
Image #1: Landing Stellar’s Sea Eagle
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Malcolm Mackenzie Can Die a Happy Man
Things were not looking good for our Rausu sea eagle trips…. First, there was no sea ice. No ice equals no eagles. Next, we were delayed for 1 1/2 days due to a huge snow storm up north with 15 foot drifts; all roads to Rausu were closed. Finally we made it to Rausu on the late afternoon of February 20, but the sea ice reports were sketchy at best.
Malcolm Mackenzie was worried. His main reason for making the Japan trip was to see and photograph the Steller’s Sea Eagles. I was anything but confident but had a sneaking suspicion that we might luck out. The group was on the boat and we were underway at 6am on the 21st. By 6:30am the mate was feeding the birds and the skies were filled with Steller’s and White-tailed Sea Eagles, Slaty-backed, Glaucous-winged, and Glaucous Gulls of all ages, and Large-billed Crows. The light was gorgeous and the wind was perfect.
My 11th sea eagle trip turned out to be the best ever. Everyone was thrilled and Malcolm–who filled a 128gb card–was ecstatic.
Image Question
Considering that the image above was created at 325mm why did I have the internal 1.4X TC in place?
The Astounding Versatility of the Canon EF 200-400 with Internal 1.4X Extender on the Sea Eagle Boat
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This wide image of two Steller’s Sea Eagles on the pack ice was also created on the morning of February 21, 2014 at 7:27am on the Japan in Winter IPT with the Canon EF 200-400mm f/4L IS USM Lens with Internal 1.4x Extender (hand held at 239mm) and the Canon EOS-1D X. ISO 1600. Evaluative metering +1 1/3 stops as framed: 1/2000 sec. at f/7.1 in Manual mode was a bit dark. AWB.
Central Sensor/AI Servo-Surround/Rear Focus AF on the right hand bird and re-compose. Click here to see the latest version of the Rear Focus Tutorial. Click on the image to see a larger version.
Image #2: Sea eagles and Rausu
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The Astounding Versatility of the Canon EF 200-400 with Internal 1.4X Extender on the Sea Eagle Boat
It is hard to believe that the three images here were created with the same lens. As noted here previously the versatility of the Canon 200-400 is both incredible and–if image quality is considered, unmatched. And with the addition of an external 1.4X III TC–s the image immediately below–the focal length range can be extended to 784mm with both TCs in place.
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This vertical front-end portrait of a Steller’s Sea Eagle was created on the morning of February 21, 2014 at 7:22am on the Japan in Winter IPT with the Canon EF 200-400mm f/4L IS USM Lens with Internal 1.4x Extender, an external Canon Extender EF 1.4X III (hand held at the maximum 784mm) and the Canon EOS-1D X. ISO 1600. Evaluative metering +1/3 stop as framed: 1/800 sec. at f/8 in Manual. AWB.
Central Sensor/AI Servo-Surround/Rear Focus AF on the bird’s neck was active at the moment of exposure. Click here to see the latest version of the Rear Focus Tutorial. Click on the image to see a larger version.
Image #3: Steller’s Sea Eagle Vertical Front End Portrait
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Your Favorite?
Please take a moment to leave a comment and let us know which of the 3 images above is your favorite, and do let us know why.
Age?
Can anyone age the bird in the image above based on plumage?
Advanced Composition and Image Design
Learn to create more pleasing images by studying the section on Advanced Composition and Image Design in The Art of Bird Photography II (ABP II: 916 pages/900+ images on CD only.)
|
|
|
Images copyright 2012: Denise Ippolito & Arthur Morris. Card design by Denise Ippolito. Click on the image to enjoy a spectacular larger version.
|
Holland 2014 7 1/2-Day/8-Night: A Creative Adventure/BIRDS AS ART/Tulips & A Touch of Holland IPT. April 17-April 24, 2014: $4995 Limit: 12/Openings: 5
We still have room for 5 more flower photographers on this great trip.
Join Denise Ippolito, Flower Queen and the author of “Bloomin’ Ideas,” and Arthur Morris, Canon Explorer of Light Emeritus and one of the planet’s premier photographic educators for a great trip to Holland in mid-April 2014. Day 1 of the IPT will be April 17, 2014. We will have a short afternoon get-together and then our first photographic session at the justly-famed Keukenhof. Most days we will return to the hotel for lunch, image sharing and a break. On Day 8, April 24, we will enjoy both morning and afternoon photography sessions.
The primary subjects will be tulips and orchids at Keukenhof and the spectacularly amazing tulip, hyacinth, and daffodil bulb fields around Lisse. In addition we will spend one full day in Amsterdam. There will be optional visits the Van Gogh Museum in the morning and the Anne Frank House in the afternoon; there will be plenty of time for street photography as well. And some great food. On another day we will have a wonderful early dinner at Kinderdijk and then head out with our gear to photograph the windmills and possibly some birds for those who bring their longs lenses. We will spend an afternoon in the lovely Dutch town of Edam where we will do some street photography and enjoy a superb dinner. All lodging, ground transportation, entry fees, and meals (from dinner on Day 1 through dinner on Day 7) are included. For those who will be bringing a big lens we will likely have an optional bird photography afternoon or two.
Click here for additional info or to register.
|
|
Join me for the 2014 Tanzania Summer Safari!
|
2014 Tanzania Summer Safari, 14-day African Adventure/leave the US on August 9. Fly home on August 24: $12,999.
Co-leaders Todd Gustafson & Arthur Morris. The limit is 12. Three photographers/van; you get your own row of seats. Our trip is a bit more expensive than the average safari for good reason. It is the best. We have the best driver guides with a total of decades of experience. They have been trained over the years by Todd and by me to drive with photography in mind. We have the best and most knowledgeable leaders. We stay in the best lodges and camps. We hope that you will join us for what will be Todd’s 35th African safari, and my 8th.
If you are seriously interested please e-mail me; I will be glad to send you the illustrated PDF with the complete itinerary and deposit info.
What else makes this expedition unique?
•Pre-trip consultation and camera equipment advice
•Award-winning photographers as your guides
•A seamless itinerary visiting the right locations at the best time of year
•Hands-on photography instruction in the field
•Specially designed three roof-hatch photo safari vehicles
•Proprietary materials for preparation, including free copy of “A Photographer’s Guide to Photographing in East Africa.”
•Post-safari image critiques
All-inclusive (double-occupancy) except for your flights to and from Kilamajaro Airport, bar drinks, soda & water (except at the Intimate Tented Camp where everything is free for our entire stay), tips for drivers and camp staff, personal items, and trip insurance.
|
|
Breathe deeply, bite the bullet, and live life to its fullest; we all get only one ride on the merry-go-round… Join me on this great trip.
Click on the image to enjoy a larger version.
|
The Southern Ocean…
If you would like to explore the possibility of joining me on the Cheesemans’ Ecology Safaris Antarctica/The Extended Expedition Voyage< trip: Antarctic Peninsula, South Georgia and Falkland Islands: December 13, 2014 to January 10, 2015, click here for additional information and then shoot me an e-mail.
The DPP RAW Conversion Guide
To learn why I use Canon’s Digital Photo Professional (DPP) to convert every image that I work on, click here.
Support the BAA Blog. Support the BAA Bulletins: Shop B&H here!
We want and need to keep providing you with the latest free information, photography and Photoshop lessons, and all manner of related information. Show your appreciation by making your purchases immediately after clicking on any of our B&H or Amazon Affiliate links in this blog post. Remember, B&H ain’t just photography!
Amazon
Everyone buys something from Amazon, be it a big lens or deodorant. Support the blog by starting your search by clicking on the logo-link below. No purchase is too small to be appreciated; they all add up. Why make it a habit? Because I make it a habit of bringing you new images and information on an almost daily basis.
Typos
In all blog posts and Bulletins, feel free to e-mail or to leave a comment regarding any typos, wrong words, misspellings, omissions, or grammatical errors. Just be right. 🙂
IPT Info
Many of our great trips are filling up. See especially info on the South Florida, Holland, and Nickerson Beach IPTs. Two great leaders on most trips ensure that you will receive individual attention, have all of your questions answered, and learn a ton including how to think like a pro, see the situation, and get the right exposure every time. In addition you will have fun, and make lots of great images. Click here for IPT details and general information.
February 21st, 2014 And The Insane Streak Goes On
I wrote this post midday on Thursday in Japan on the way from Lake Kussharo to Rausu where we–especially Malcolm MacKenzie–are hoping to get out on the boat to photograph the Steller’s and White-tailed Sea Eagles… The road to Rausu opened this morning. Now we just need some sea ice within range…. We had an absolutely amazing morning with the swans with tons of flight and displaying action and wide angle & 1200mm chances as well. Oh, and I forgot fish eye opps. And every focal length in between.
This post marks 84 straight days with a new educational blog post, a record by far that should be extended for at least another day or so, or not. Or more…. It appears that our lodge has great internet. To show your appreciation for my efforts here, we ask that use our B&H and Amazon affiliate links for all of your B&H and Amazon purchases. Please check the availability of all photographic accessories in the BIRDS AS ART Online Store. We sell only what I use and 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.
You can find the following items in the store: Gitzo tripods, Mongoose M3.6 and Wimberley heads, plates, low feet, and accessories, flash brackets, , Delkin e-film Pro Compact Flash Cards, LensCoat products, and our unique line-up of educational materials including ABP I & II, Digital Basics, Site and Set-up e-Guides, Canon and Nikon Camera Users and AF e-Guides, and MP-4 Photoshop video tutorials among others.
We would of course appreciate you using our B&H and Amazon affiliate links for all of your B&H and Amazon major gear, video, electronic, household, and personal purchases. For the photographic stuff mentioned in the paragraph above we 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.
Today’s blog post took 2 hours to prepare. Enjoy. Update from 6pm Japan time on February 21: after much trepidation we absolutely killed, killed, killed on our morning and afternoon eagle boat trips. More tomorrow.
Lying Down on the Job
We were all hot to photograph a crane lying down on the snow resting. We had a few near misses where a bird would lie down only to be surrounded by other cranes or stand back up almost immediately. On our last afternoon at the Itoh sanctuary I made a few frames of the bird above but was less than thrilled that the crane did not give me a decent head angle and that there were a pair of out-of-focus crane legs in the upper right corner. Then I decided to get low.
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This, the same resting Red-crowned Crane, was photographed with the hand held Canon EF 600mm f/4L IS II USM lens, the Canon 1.4x EF Extender III (Teleconverter), and the Canon EOS-1D X. The rig was supported by the lowest fence rail. ISO 800. Evaluative metering +1 2/3 stops off the snow: 1/1000 sec. at f/5.6 in Manual mode. Color temperature: 7000K.
Central sensor/AI Servo/Surround Rear Focus AF on the bird’s eye and re-compose. Click here to see the latest version of the Rear Focus Tutorial. Click on the image to see a larger version.
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Getting Low
I took the 600 off the tripod, got down in the snow, and supported the lens on the lowest fence rail. I created the image above and quickly thereafter, the image below, and felt immediately that I had gotten too low as there was not quite enough snow between the top of the bird’s head and the distant woods.
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This, again the same resting Red-crowned Crane, was photographed with the hand held Canon EF 600mm f/4L IS II USM lens, the Canon 1.4x EF Extender III (Teleconverter), and the Canon EOS-1D X. The rig was supported by the lowest fence rail. ISO 800. Evaluative metering +1 2/3 stops off the snow: 1/1000 sec. at f/5.6 in Manual mode. Color temperature: 7000K.
Central sensor/AI Servo/Surround Rear Focus AF on the bird’s eye and re-compose. Click here to see the latest version of the Rear Focus Tutorial. Click on the image to see a larger version.
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When Supporting the Lens
In situations like the one above where you are supporting a big lens–in this case on a fence rail, it is important not to rest the focusing ring on the support else focus will likely be thrown off when you re-compose. The same goes when working on a bean bag. And that is true whether you are using Rear Focus or One-Shot AF. If you can work in AI Servo AF and keep AF active at the moment of exposure your images will likely be sharp.
Soon after I made the image above the resting crane was surrounded by other cranes. Nature called so I headed to the rest room.
The Blue Color Casts
As I knew that the image below would be my favorite, I did not do any final color corrections to the three images above. Folks with a discerning eye for color will note the small but definite BLUE cast in each of the images above. With the image above I ran an Average Blur Color Balance adjustment layer at 80% and followed that up by reducing the BLUE saturation 100%. The brightest WHITEs on the snow came in at R= 209m G=210, B=210, just about perfect.
You can learn do do an Average Blur Color Balance (and to create a matching action as well) in my Digital Basics File. as detailed in my Digital Basics File, an instructional PDF that is sent via e-mail. Digital Basics includes my complete digital workflow, dozens of great Photoshop tips, the use of Contrast Masks, several different ways of expanding canvas, all of my time-saving Keyboard Shortcuts, Quick Masking, Layer Masking, and NIK Color Efex Pro basics, my killer image clean-up techniques, Digital Eye Doctor, and lots more.
Learn the details of advanced Quick Masking techniques in APTATS I. Mention this blog post and apply a $5 discount with phone orders only. Learn advanced Layer Masking Techniques in APTATS II. Mention this blog post and apply a $5 discount with phone orders only. by the pair, APTATS I and APTATS II and we will be glad to apply at $15 discount with phone orders only.
The DPP RAW Conversion Guide
Big News
After seeing the accurate colors that I get from my DPP RAW conversions Japan in Winter co-leader Paul McKenzie is switching to DPP conversions and Denise Ippolito is considering doing the same. Now that is amazing…. To learn why I use Canon’s Digital Photo Professional (DPP) to convert every image that I work on, click here.
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This, again the same resting Red-crowned Crane, was photographed with the hand held Canon EF 600mm f/4L IS II USM lens, the Canon 1.4x EF Extender III (Teleconverter), and the Canon EOS-1D X. The rig was supported by the middle fence rail. ISO 800. Evaluative metering +1 2/3 stops off the snow: 1/1250 sec. at f/5.6 in Manual mode. Color temperature: 7000K.
Central sensor/AI Servo/Surround Rear Focus AF on the bird’s eye and re-compose. Click here to see the latest version of the Rear Focus Tutorial. Click on the image to see a larger version.
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The Middle Rail
When I returned from the john I was surprised to see the crane still lying on the ground and was thrilled to see that it was now in the clear and giving up a nice parallel head angle. Instead of resting the lens on the bottom rail I went off the middle rail. This yielded the desired all snow background. After just a few images the crane stood, walked up the gentle slope to the crane departure area, and took flight.
In Retrospect
In retrospect I decided that while I loved the final image, that the photo with the woods in the background held a different appeal. As noted above, I needed to get a bit higher to put some space between the top of the crane’s head and the tree-line. Live and learn.
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Images copyright 2012: Denise Ippolito & Arthur Morris. Card design by Denise Ippolito. Click on the image to enjoy a spectacular larger version.
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Holland 2014 7 1/2-Day/8-Night: A Creative Adventure/BIRDS AS ART/Tulips & A Touch of Holland IPT. April 17-April 24, 2014: $4995 Limit: 12/Openings: 5
We still have room for 5 more flower photographers on this great trip.
Join Denise Ippolito, Flower Queen and the author of “Bloomin’ Ideas,” and Arthur Morris, Canon Explorer of Light Emeritus and one of the planet’s premier photographic educators for a great trip to Holland in mid-April 2014. Day 1 of the IPT will be April 17, 2014. We will have a short afternoon get-together and then our first photographic session at the justly-famed Keukenhof. Most days we will return to the hotel for lunch, image sharing and a break. On Day 8, April 24, we will enjoy both morning and afternoon photography sessions.
The primary subjects will be tulips and orchids at Keukenhof and the spectacularly amazing tulip, hyacinth, and daffodil bulb fields around Lisse. In addition we will spend one full day in Amsterdam. There will be optional visits the Van Gogh Museum in the morning and the Anne Frank House in the afternoon; there will be plenty of time for street photography as well. And some great food. On another day we will have a wonderful early dinner at Kinderdijk and then head out with our gear to photograph the windmills and possibly some birds for those who bring their longs lenses. We will spend an afternoon in the lovely Dutch town of Edam where we will do some street photography and enjoy a superb dinner. All lodging, ground transportation, entry fees, and meals (from dinner on Day 1 through dinner on Day 7) are included. For those who will be bringing a big lens we will likely have an optional bird photography afternoon or two.
Click here for additional info or to register.
|
|
Join me for the 2014 Tanzania Summer Safari!
|
2014 Tanzania Summer Safari, 14-day African Adventure/leave the US on August 9. Fly home on August 24: $12,999.
Co-leaders Todd Gustafson & Arthur Morris. The limit is 12. Three photographers/van; you get your own row of seats. Our trip is a bit more expensive than the average safari for good reason. It is the best. We have the best driver guides with a total of decades of experience. They have been trained over the years by Todd and by me to drive with photography in mind. We have the best and most knowledgeable leaders. We stay in the best lodges and camps. We hope that you will join us for what will be Todd’s 35th African safari, and my 8th.
If you are seriously interested please e-mail me; I will be glad to send you the illustrated PDF with the complete itinerary and deposit info.
What else makes this expedition unique?
•Pre-trip consultation and camera equipment advice
•Award-winning photographers as your guides
•A seamless itinerary visiting the right locations at the best time of year
•Hands-on photography instruction in the field
•Specially designed three roof-hatch photo safari vehicles
•Proprietary materials for preparation, including free copy of “A Photographer’s Guide to Photographing in East Africa.”
•Post-safari image critiques
All-inclusive (double-occupancy) except for your flights to and from Kilamajaro Airport, bar drinks, soda & water (except at the Intimate Tented Camp where everything is free for our entire stay), tips for drivers and camp staff, personal items, and trip insurance.
|
|
Breathe deeply, bite the bullet, and live life to its fullest; we all get only one ride on the merry-go-round… Join me on this great trip.
Click on the image to enjoy a larger version.
|
The Southern Ocean…
If you would like to explore the possibility of joining me on the Cheesemans’ Ecology Safaris Antarctica/The Extended Expedition Voyage< trip: Antarctic Peninsula, South Georgia and Falkland Islands: December 13, 2014 to January 10, 2015, click here for additional information and then shoot me an e-mail.
The DPP RAW Conversion Guide
To learn why I use Canon’s Digital Photo Professional (DPP) to convert every image that I work on, click here.
Support the BAA Blog. Support the BAA Bulletins: Shop B&H here!
We want and need to keep providing you with the latest free information, photography and Photoshop lessons, and all manner of related information. Show your appreciation by making your purchases immediately after clicking on any of our B&H or Amazon Affiliate links in this blog post. Remember, B&H ain’t just photography!
Amazon
Everyone buys something from Amazon, be it a big lens or deodorant. Support the blog by starting your search by clicking on the logo-link below. No purchase is too small to be appreciated; they all add up. Why make it a habit? Because I make it a habit of bringing you new images and information on an almost daily basis.
Typos
In all blog posts and Bulletins, feel free to e-mail or to leave a comment regarding any typos, wrong words, misspellings, omissions, or grammatical errors. Just be right. 🙂
IPT Info
Many of our great trips are filling up. See especially info on the South Florida, Holland, and Nickerson Beach IPTs. Two great leaders on most trips ensure that you will receive individual attention, have all of your questions answered, and learn a ton including how to think like a pro, see the situation, and get the right exposure every time. In addition you will have fun, and make lots of great images. Click here for IPT details and general information.
February 20th, 2014 And The Streak Continues…
I began working on this post at about 6:30am Japan time on Wednesday after I finished yesterday’s blog post. That works out to 4:30pm on Tuesday in Florida and New York. We will be having breakfast at 8:00am.
This post marks 83 straight days with a new educational blog post, a record by far that should be extended for at least another day or so, or not. Or more…. It appears that our lodge has great internet. To show your appreciation for my efforts here, we ask that use our B&H and Amazon affiliate links for all of your B&H and Amazon purchases. Please check the availability of all photographic accessories in the BIRDS AS ART Online Store. We sell only what I use and 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.
You can find the following items in the store: Gitzo tripods, Mongoose M3.6 and Wimberley heads, plates, low feet, and accessories, flash brackets, , Delkin e-film Pro Compact Flash Cards, LensCoat products, and our unique line-up of educational materials including ABP I & II, Digital Basics, Site and Set-up e-Guides, Canon and Nikon Camera Users and AF e-Guides, and MP-4 Photoshop video tutorials among others.
We would of course appreciate you using our B&H and Amazon affiliate links for all of your B&H and Amazon major gear, video, electronic, household, and personal purchases. For the photographic stuff mentioned in the paragraph above we 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.
Today’s blog post took 2 hours to prepare. Enjoy.
Keep It…
Yesterday I posted the image above and asked, “Keep or delete?”
My answer: “Keep it!” See below for the image optimization and the final result.
Related Questions
Is the image above over-exposed?
No, not at all; it is properly exposed. The histogram is well to the right with the bulk of the data in the 5th or rightmost histogram box. There are no blinkies and there were no RGB values above 235 when I brought the image into Photoshop. In fact, I actually lightened the image a bit during the RAW conversion in DPP. Yes, lightened.
Can you age the bird in the photo?
I learned from our guide, Makoto, that birds with red crowns and the primaries outlined in black are 2-year old birds.
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This is the “Before” screen capture with the Levels dialogue box open.
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Levels
The key to bringing both snow and fog images that are properly exposed back to life is to set the white and black points using a Levels adjustment. Most folks simply do not realize that properly exposed digital files made in the aforementioned conditions hold such great potential–do see the optimized image below.
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This is the “After” screen capture with the Levels dialogue box open.
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The Levels Technique
Grab the Highlight slider, the tiny white triangle on the right, with your cursor. Hold down the ALT key. Move the slider to the left until the first blinkies appear. Then back off slowly until they disappear. Next grab the Shadow slider, the small black triangle on the left, hold down the ALT key, and move the slider to the right until the first splotches appear and then back off slowly until they disappear. You have now set the white and black points. Lastly, you might opt to move the middle tone slider, the grey triangle, a bit to the right to taste to deepen the middle and black tones a bit.
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This is the optimized image.
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The Optimized Image
Once I set the white and blacks points as described above, I used an Average Blur color correction, upped the Vibrance about 50 points to bring the leaves to life, and ran a contrast mask on the face to sharpen it. All including the Levels adjustments are as described in my Digital Basics File. as detailed in my Digital Basics File, an instructional PDF that is sent via e-mail. Digital Basics includes my complete digital workflow, dozens of great Photoshop tips, the use of Contrast Masks, several different ways of expanding canvas, all of my time-saving Keyboard Shortcuts, Quick Masking, Layer Masking, and NIK Color Efex Pro basics, my killer image clean-up techniques, Digital Eye Doctor, and lots more.
Learn the details of advanced Quick Masking techniques in APTATS I. Mention this blog post and apply a $5 discount with phone orders only. Learn advanced Layer Masking Techniques in APTATS II. Mention this blog post and apply a $5 discount with phone orders only. by the pair, APTATS I and APTATS II and we will be glad to apply at $15 discount with phone orders only.
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If you’d like to learn from the two folks who created the images in the composite above do consider one of the trips below. Denise Ippolito’s images: Japanese leaf painting, skimmer in flight, curved Keukenhof paths with tulips, copulating terns, & pink dahlia. Artie’s images: Snow Geese snowstorm blur, crane landing silhouettes, Leopard with prey in tree, King Penguin, & vertical tulip.
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A Creative Adventure/BIRDS AS ART Instructional Photo-Tours (IPTs)/Two great leaders: Arthur Morris & Denise Ippolito.
Arthur Morris/BIRDS AS ART www.BIRDSASART-blog.com for the latest images, info, & education
Denise Ippolito/A Creative Adventure www.deniseippolito.com: get yourself out of the box!
Denise’s e-books: Bloomin’ Ideas, A Guide to Filters & Effects, The Softer Side of Macro, & more. Free Monthly Creative MiniMag: www.deniseippolito.com/magazine
Nickerson Baby Beach-nesting Birds IPT, Long Island, NY: 3-Full Days/July 22-24, 2014: $1199.
Black Skimmers, Common Terns with chicks, American Oystercatcher & Piping Plover families; breeding behaviors including courtship feeding, display flight and combat, and copulations. Gulls and shorebirds.
UK Puffins IPT. Early July, 2014.
Details TBA. Please e-mail to be placed on the interested list.
Tanzania Serengeti Summer Safari: Leave US: August 9—return: August 24, 2014: $12,999.
Co-leaders: Arthur Morris & Todd Gustafson. Wildebeest/The Great Migration, cats, elephant, giraffe, zebra, birds & more. Please e-mail for brochure.
Swan Island Dahlia Farm IPT, Canby, OR, September 8-12, 2014: 5 FULL DAYS: $1699.
Leader: Denise Ippolito. 40 acres with 350+dazzling varieties of dahlias in a plethora of colors, shapes and sizes. Sharpen your technical skills and boost your creative juices. Daily assignments, image sharing, and Photoshop sessions.
Bosque del Apache 2014 A Creative Adventure/BIRDS AS ART “Creative Photography Instructional Photo-Tour.” (IPT). NOV 24-25, 2014. 2-FULL DAYS: $729.
Leaders: Denise Ippolito & Arthur Morris. Introductory Slide program: 7:00pm on Sunday 11/23. This IPT is perfect for folks who want to learn to think outside the box, to create new and different images. Learn to unleash your creative juices at the wondrous Bosque del Apache, NWR in San Antonio, NM.
Bosque del Apache 2014 BIRDS AS ART/A Creative Adventure Instructional Photo-Tour (IPT). NOV 29-DEC 3, 2014. Totaling 4 FULL-DAYS: $1449
Leaders: Arthur Morris and Denise Ippolito. Introductory Slide program: 7:00pm on Sunday 11/29. Tens of thousand of Snow Geese, 10,000 Sandhill Cranes, ducks, amazing sunrises, sunsets, and blast-offs. Live, eat, and breathe photography with two of the world’s premier photographic educators at one of their very favorite photography locations on the planet.
Antarctica/The Extended Expedition Voyage: Antarctic Peninsula, South Georgia and Falkland Islands: December 13, 2014 to January 10, 2015.
Please e-mail for details.
BAA offers a wide range of books, e-Guides, and educational materials and photographic accessories at the lowest prices around—25+ years of experience, and the best advice you can get. We will not sell you junk. Access the BAA Store here or call us at 1-863-692-0906.
Questions? Please e-mail us at birdsasart@verizon.net or photographybydenise221@gmail.com.
Support the BAA Blog. Support the BAA Bulletins: Shop B&H here!
We want and need to keep providing you with the latest free information, photography and Photoshop lessons, and all manner of related information. Show your appreciation by making your purchases immediately after clicking on any of our B&H or Amazon Affiliate links in this blog post. Remember, B&H ain’t just photography!
Amazon
Everyone buys something from Amazon, be it a big lens or deodorant. Support the blog by starting your search by clicking on the logo-link below. No purchase is too small to be appreciated; they all add up. Why make it a habit? Because I make it a habit of bringing you new images and information on an almost daily basis.
Typos
In all blog posts and Bulletins, feel free to e-mail or to leave a comment regarding any typos, wrong words, misspellings, omissions, or grammatical errors. Just be right. 🙂
IPT Info
Many of our great trips are filling up. See especially info on the Holland, Nickerson Beach, and Bosque IPTs. Two great leaders on most trips ensure that you will receive individual attention, have all of your questions answered, and learn a ton including how to think like a pro, see the situation, and get the right exposure every time. In addition you will have fun, and make lots of great images. Click here for IPT details and general information.
February 19th, 2014 And The Streak Continues…
I began working on this and the next post at about 4:30am Japan time on Wednesday. That works out to 2:30pm on Tuesday in Florida and New York. Why up so early with nothing to do? We were supposed to leave at 5:30am this morning to photograph the swans and then continue on to Rausu to do the sea eagles. But the roads to both Kussharo and Rausu are closed because of the wonderful snow storm. 🙂
This post marks 82 straight days with a new educational blog post, a record by far that should be extended for at least another day or so, or not. Or more…. It appears that our lodge has great internet. To show your appreciation for my efforts here, we ask that use our B&H and Amazon affiliate links for all of your B&H and Amazon purchases. Please check the availability of all photographic accessories in the BIRDS AS ART Online Store. We sell only what I use and 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.
You can find the following items in the store: Gitzo tripods, Mongoose M3.6 and Wimberley heads, plates, low feet, and accessories, flash brackets, , Delkin e-film Pro Compact Flash Cards, LensCoat products, and our unique line-up of educational materials including ABP I & II, Digital Basics, Site and Set-up e-Guides, Canon and Nikon Camera Users and AF e-Guides, and MP-4 Photoshop video tutorials among others.
We would of course appreciate you using our B&H and Amazon affiliate links for all of your B&H and Amazon major gear, video, electronic, household, and personal purchases. For the photographic stuff mentioned in the paragraph above we 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.
Today’s blog post took 1 1/2 hours to prepare. Enjoy.
Keep or Delete?
It’s a simple question: keep or delete? It was one that is made at least hundreds, sometimes thousands of times each day as we sort through our images. Would you keep or delete the image above? Be sure to let us know why. If the former, how would you go about optimizing it?
Related Questions
Is the image above over-exposed?
Can you age the bird in the photo?
The Answers
I will be back tomorrow with all the answers.
Holland 2014 7 1/2-Day/8-Night: A Creative Adventure/BIRDS AS ART/Tulips & A Touch of Holland IPT. April 17-April 24, 2014: $4995 Limit: 12/Openings: 5
Act soon: this trip is a go and is filling quickly.
Join Denise Ippolito, Flower Queen and the author of “Bloomin’ Ideas,” and Arthur Morris, Canon Explorer of Light Emeritus and one of the planet’s premier photographic educators for a great trip to Holland in mid-April 2014. Day 1 of the IPT will be April 17, 2014. We will have a short afternoon get-together and then our first photographic session at the justly-famed Keukenhof. Most days we will return to the hotel for lunch, image sharing and a break. On Day 8, April 24, we will enjoy both morning and afternoon photography sessions.
The primary subjects will be tulips and orchids at Keukenhof and the spectacularly amazing tulip, hyacinth, and daffodil bulb fields around Lisse. In addition we will spend one full day in Amsterdam. There will be optional visits the Van Gogh Museum in the morning and the Anne Frank House in the afternoon; there will be plenty of time for street photography as well. And some great food. On another day we will have a wonderful early dinner at Kinderdijk and then head out with our gear to photograph the windmills and possibly some birds for those who bring their longs lenses. We will spend an afternoon in the lovely Dutch town of Edam where we will do some street photography and enjoy a superb dinner. All lodging, ground transportation, entry fees, and meals (from dinner on Day 1 through dinner on Day 7) are included. For those who will be bringing a big lens we will likely have an optional bird photography afternoon or two.
Click here for additional info or to register.
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Join me for the 2014 Tanzania Summer Safari!
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2014 Tanzania Summer Safari, 14-day African Adventure/leave the US on August 9. Fly home on August 24: $12,999.
Co-leaders Todd Gustafson & Arthur Morris. The limit is 12. Three photographers/van; you get your own row of seats. Our trip is a bit more expensive than the average safari for good reason. It is the best. We have the best driver guides with a total of decades of experience. They have been trained over the years by Todd and by me to drive with photography in mind. We have the best and most knowledgeable leaders. We stay in the best lodges and camps. We hope that you will join us for what will be Todd’s 35th African safari, and my 8th.
If you are seriously interested please e-mail me; I will be glad to send you the illustrated PDF with the complete itinerary and deposit info.
What else makes this expedition unique?
•Pre-trip consultation and camera equipment advice
•Award-winning photographers as your guides
•A seamless itinerary visiting the right locations at the best time of year
•Hands-on photography instruction in the field
•Specially designed three roof-hatch photo safari vehicles
•Proprietary materials for preparation, including free copy of “A Photographer’s Guide to Photographing in East Africa.”
•Post-safari image critiques
All-inclusive (double-occupancy) except for your flights to and from Kilamajaro Airport, bar drinks, soda & water (except at the Intimate Tented Camp where everything is free for our entire stay), tips for drivers and camp staff, personal items, and trip insurance.
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Breathe deeply, bite the bullet, and live life to its fullest; we all get only one ride on the merry-go-round… Join me on this great trip.
Click on the image to enjoy a larger version.
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The Southern Ocean…
If you would like to explore the possibility of joining me on the Cheesemans’ Ecology Safaris Antarctica/The Extended Expedition Voyage< trip: Antarctic Peninsula, South Georgia and Falkland Islands: December 13, 2014 to January 10, 2015, click here for additional information and then shoot me an e-mail.
The DPP RAW Conversion Guide
To learn why I use Canon’s Digital Photo Professional (DPP) to convert every image that I work on, click here.
Support the BAA Blog. Support the BAA Bulletins: Shop B&H here!
We want and need to keep providing you with the latest free information, photography and Photoshop lessons, and all manner of related information. Show your appreciation by making your purchases immediately after clicking on any of our B&H or Amazon Affiliate links in this blog post. Remember, B&H ain’t just photography!
Amazon
Everyone buys something from Amazon, be it a big lens or deodorant. Support the blog by starting your search by clicking on the logo-link below. No purchase is too small to be appreciated; they all add up. Why make it a habit? Because I make it a habit of bringing you new images and information on an almost daily basis.
Typos
In all blog posts and Bulletins, feel free to e-mail or to leave a comment regarding any typos, wrong words, misspellings, omissions, or grammatical errors. Just be right. 🙂
IPT Info
Many of our great trips are filling up. See especially info on the South Florida, Holland, and Nickerson Beach IPTs. Two great leaders on most trips ensure that you will receive individual attention, have all of your questions answered, and learn a ton including how to think like a pro, see the situation, and get the right exposure every time. In addition you will have fun, and make lots of great images. Click here for IPT details and general information.
February 18th, 2014 And The Streak Continues…
Today was our toughest day photography-wise with bright sun and northwest winds. We photographed the raptors in flight at the Akan Crane center fish feeding and did fairly well at the Itoh sanctuary in the late afternoon.
This post marks 81 straight days with a new educational blog post, a record by far that should be extended for at least another day or so, or not. Or more…. It appears that our lodge has great internet. To show your appreciation for my efforts here, we ask that use our B&H and Amazon affiliate links for all of your B&H and Amazon purchases. Please check the availability of all photographic accessories in the BIRDS AS ART Online Store. We sell only what I use and 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.
You can find the following items in the store: Gitzo tripods, Mongoose M3.6 and Wimberley heads, plates, low feet, and accessories, flash brackets, , Delkin e-film Pro Compact Flash Cards, LensCoat products, and our unique line-up of educational materials including ABP I & II, Digital Basics, Site and Set-up e-Guides, Canon and Nikon Camera Users and AF e-Guides, and MP-4 Photoshop video tutorials among others.
We would of course appreciate you using our B&H and Amazon affiliate links for all of your B&H and Amazon major gear, video, electronic, household, and personal purchases. For the photographic stuff mentioned in the paragraph above we 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.
Today’s blog post took 2 1/2 hours to prepare. Enjoy. As I am unsure of our travel and lodging plans for the next few days the streak is in dire jeopardy.
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This Red-crowned Crane flight image was created at 1:42pm during the Day 4 blizzard on the Japan in Winter IPT with the Gitzo 3532 LS carbon fiber tripod, the Mongoose M3.6 head, the Canon EF 600mm f/4L IS II USM lens, the Canon 1.4x EF Extender III (Teleconverter), and the Canon EOS-1D X. ISO 400. Evaluative metering +2 1/3 stops off the white sky: 1/640 sec. at f/5.6 in Manual mode. Color temperature: Custom Pre-set.
The sensor above the Central sensor/AI Servo/Surround Rear Focus AF just caught the black secondaries of the bird’s right wing as framed was active at the moment of exposure. Click here to see the latest version of the Rear Focus Tutorial. Click on the image to see a larger version.
Image #1: Angel Flight
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More Cold Wet Blizzard Images
Despite the white out conditions and the difficulty of autofocusing accurately through the heavy snow I kept 104 images on the first edit. My rules are as follows: on the first edit, if you are not sure, keep it; on the second edit, if you are not sure, delete it; on the third go through, if you do not love it, delete it. These are four of my favorites.
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These tussling Red-crowned Cranes were photographed at 1:56pm during the Day 4 blizzard on the Japan in Winter IPT with the Gitzo 3532 LS carbon fiber tripod, the Mongoose M3.6 head, the Canon EF 600mm f/4L IS II USM lens and the Canon EOS-1D X. ISO 400. Evaluative metering +2 stops off the white sky: 1/1000 sec. at f/4 in Manual mode. Color temperature: 7000K.
Central sensor/AI Servo/Surround Rear Focus AF just caught the black secondaries of the left hand bird’s left wing as framed was active at the moment of exposure. Click here to see the latest version of the Rear Focus Tutorial. Click on the image to see a larger version.
Image #2: Tussling Cranes
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On a Scale of Zero to Ten
On a scale of zero to ten, with zero being not bothersome at all and ten being terribly bothersome–an instant delete, what are your thoughts on the fact that I cut off the feet of the right hand crane? Please refer to the Tussling Cranes image.
Juxtapositions
I am always on the lookout for interesting juxtapositions, way to include two pleasingly arranged subjects in the same frame. What are your thoughts on this image and the arrangement of the Whooper Swan and the crane?
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This displaying Red-crowned Crane image was created at 2:56pm during the Day 4 blizzard on the Japan in Winter IPT with the Gitzo 3532 LS carbon fiber tripod, the Mongoose M3.6 head, the Canon EF 600mm f/4L IS II USM lens and the Canon EOS-1D X. ISO 400. Evaluative metering +2 stops off the white sky: 1/1000 sec. at f/4 in Manual mode. Color temperature: 7000K.
Central sensor/AI Servo/Surround Rear Focus AF just caught the black at the rear base of the neck active at the moment of exposure. Click here to see the latest version of the Rear Focus Tutorial. Click on the image to see a larger version.
Image #4: Displaying Crane
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On a Scale of Zero to Ten
On a scale of zero to ten, with zero being not bothersome at all and ten being terribly bothersome, i.e., an image wrecker, what are your thoughts on the tree coming out of the cranes head? Please refer to the Displaying Crane image.
You Favorite
Take a moment to leave a comment and let us know which of the four images above is your favorite, and be sure to let us know why.
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If you’d like to learn from the two folks who created the images in the composite above do consider one of the trips below. Denise Ippolito’s images: Japanese leaf painting, skimmer in flight, curved Keukenhof paths with tulips, copulating terns, & pink dahlia. Artie’s images: Snow Geese snowstorm blur, crane landing silhouettes, Leopard with prey in tree, King Penguin, & vertical tulip. Note: Denise alone will be leading the Torres del Paine workshop.
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A Creative Adventure/BIRDS AS ART Instructional Photo-Tours (IPTs)/Two great leaders: Arthur Morris & Denise Ippolito.
Arthur Morris/BIRDS AS ART www.BIRDSASART-blog.com for the latest images, info, & education
Denise Ippolito/A Creative Adventure www.deniseippolito.com: get yourself out of the box!
Denise’s e-books: Bloomin’ Ideas, A Guide to Filters & Effects, The Softer Side of Macro, & more. Free Monthly Creative MiniMag: www.deniseippolito.com/magazine
Nickerson Baby Beach-nesting Birds IPT, Long Island, NY: 3-Full Days/July 22-24, 2014: $1199.
Black Skimmers, Common Terns with chicks, American Oystercatcher & Piping Plover families; breeding behaviors including courtship feeding, display flight and combat, and copulations. Gulls and shorebirds.
UK Puffins IPT. Early July, 2014.
Details TBA. Please e-mail to be placed on the interested list.
Tanzania Serengeti Summer Safari: Leave US: August 9—return: August 24, 2014: $12,999.
Co-leaders: Arthur Morris & Todd Gustafson. Wildebeest/The Great Migration, cats, elephant, giraffe, zebra, birds & more. Please e-mail for brochure.
Swan Island Dahlia Farm IPT, Canby, OR, September 8-12, 2014: 5 FULL DAYS: $1699.
Leader: Denise Ippolito. 40 acres with 350+dazzling varieties of dahlias in a plethora of colors, shapes and sizes. Sharpen your technical skills and boost your creative juices. Daily assignments, image sharing, and Photoshop sessions.
Bosque del Apache 2014 A Creative Adventure/BIRDS AS ART “Creative Photography Instructional Photo-Tour.” (IPT). NOV 24-25, 2014. 2-FULL DAYS: $729.
Leaders: Denise Ippolito & Arthur Morris. Introductory Slide program: 7:00pm on Sunday 11/23. This IPT is perfect for folks who want to learn to think outside the box, to create new and different images. Learn to unleash your creative juices at the wondrous Bosque del Apache, NWR in San Antonio, NM.
Bosque del Apache 2014 BIRDS AS ART/A Creative Adventure Instructional Photo-Tour (IPT). NOV 29-DEC 3, 2014. Totaling 4 FULL-DAYS: $1449
Leaders: Arthur Morris and Denise Ippolito. Introductory Slide program: 7:00pm on Sunday 11/29. Tens of thousand of Snow Geese, 10,000 Sandhill Cranes, ducks, amazing sunrises, sunsets, and blast-offs. Live, eat, and breathe photography with two of the world’s premier photographic educators at one of their very favorite photography locations on the planet.
Antarctica/The Extended Expedition Voyage: Antarctic Peninsula, South Georgia and Falkland Islands: December 13, 2014 to January 10, 2015.
Please e-mail for details.
BAA offers a wide range of books, e-Guides, and educational materials and photographic accessories at the lowest prices around—25+ years of experience, and the best advice you can get. We will not sell you junk. Access the BAA Store here or call us at 1-863-692-0906.
Questions? Please e-mail us at birdsasart@verizon.net or photographybydenise221@gmail.com.
Support the BAA Blog. Support the BAA Bulletins: Shop B&H here!
We want and need to keep providing you with the latest free information, photography and Photoshop lessons, and all manner of related information. Show your appreciation by making your purchases immediately after clicking on any of our B&H or Amazon Affiliate links in this blog post. Remember, B&H ain’t just photography!
Amazon
Everyone buys something from Amazon, be it a big lens or deodorant. Support the blog by starting your search by clicking on the logo-link below. No purchase is too small to be appreciated; they all add up. Why make it a habit? Because I make it a habit of bringing you new images and information on an almost daily basis.
Typos
In all blog posts and Bulletins, feel free to e-mail or to leave a comment regarding any typos, wrong words, misspellings, omissions, or grammatical errors. Just be right. 🙂
IPT Info
Many of our great trips are filling up. See especially info on the Holland, Nickerson Beach, and Bosque IPTs. Two great leaders on most trips ensure that you will receive individual attention, have all of your questions answered, and learn a ton including how to think like a pro, see the situation, and get the right exposure every time. In addition you will have fun, and make lots of great images. Click here for IPT details and general information.
February 17th, 2014 And The Streak Continues…
After a morning of tree and scenic photography with too much sun, we returned to Tsurui-Ito Tancho Sanctuary in hopes of clouds as the wind direction was perfect. We got off to another slow start but the action developed quickly and stayed hot for several hours. How good was it? Denise Ippolito created 2,345 images in five hours.
This post marks 80 straight days with a new educational blog post, a record by far that should be extended for at least another day or so, or not. Or more…. It appears that our lodge has great internet. To show your appreciation for my efforts here, we ask that use our B&H and Amazon affiliate links for all of your B&H and Amazon purchases. Please check the availability of all photographic accessories in the BIRDS AS ART Online Store. We sell only what I use and 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.
You can find the following items in the store: Gitzo tripods, Mongoose M3.6 and Wimberley heads, plates, low feet, and accessories, flash brackets, , Delkin e-film Pro Compact Flash Cards, LensCoat products, and our unique line-up of educational materials including ABP I & II, Digital Basics, Site and Set-up e-Guides, Canon and Nikon Camera Users and AF e-Guides, and MP-4 Photoshop video tutorials among others.
We would of course appreciate you using our B&H and Amazon affiliate links for all of your B&H and Amazon major gear, video, electronic, household, and personal purchases. For the photographic stuff mentioned in the paragraph above we 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.
Today’s blog post took 2 1/2 hours to prepare. Enjoy. With more snow tomorrow we are sleeping in with breakfast at 8am,
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The group and the leaders in the early morning remnants of the blizzard. From back left to right clockwise: Lex Franks, Malcolm MacKenzie, Srdjan Mitrovic, Debbie Franks, Paul McKenzie, Pat & Alan Lillich, Zorica Kovacevic, Denise Ippolito, and yours truly.
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The Blizzard
Be careful what you wish for; you just may get it. We awoke on February 16 to ten inches of soft snow with a stiff northwest wind blowing the stuff sideways. We were all dressed and ready to leave when our guide announced that all roads were closed. We enjoyed a leisurely breakfast and then got dressed again to leave at 8:30 only to learn that our guide had gone scouting and “would be back in a while.” In the meantime the snow continued to pile up.
Finally at about 10:30am we got dressed for a third time and drove the 5 minutes to the Tsurui-Ito Tancho Sanctuary. There were three very distant cranes that were visible at times through the white out. The cameras could not focus. We hung around for several hours and the storm subsided just a bit. Red-crowned Cranes began to arrive in numbers. With the continued heavy snow getting autofocus to lock on was difficult. Properly exposed, the images on the rear LCDs looked just like the whiteout. But fun we had.
For hours. By about 3:30 most of us quit soaking wet and shivering cold. Paul and Alan & Pat stayed on and enjoyed another great hour.
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This image was created on Day 4 of the Japan in Winter IPT with the Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L II USM lens (hand held at 45mm) and the Canon EOS 5D Mark III. ISO 800. Evaluative metering +2 1/3 stops at 1:03pm: 1/500 sec. at f/8 in Manual mode. AWB.
Central sensor/AI Servo/Surround Rear Focus AF on the nearest crane and re-compose. Click here to see the latest version of the Rear Focus Tutorial. Be sure to click on the image to enjoy the larger version.
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The Pano
For the image above I created the lazy man’s pano, using a wide angle lens and then cropping. Absolutely perfect technique would have called for using the tripod-mounted 70-200 f/2.8L IS II, creating six or seven verticals, and stitching them together in Photoshop.
White on White
Again, the properly exposed RAW file for the image above looked completely washed out. Many in the group could not believe that creating a work of art from the RAW file would be quick and easy. I will share the image optimization technique with you here soon.
Was it Worth It?
In your opinion, was it worth it staying out in the blizzard?
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Images copyright 2012: Denise Ippoltio & Arthur Morris. Card design by Denise Ippolito. Click on the image to enjoy a spectacular larger version.
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Holland 2014 7 1/2-Day/8-Night: A Creative Adventure/BIRDS AS ART/Tulips & A Touch of Holland IPT. April 17-April 24, 2014: $4995 Limit: 12/Openings: 5
Act soon: this trip is a go and is filling quickly.
Join Denise Ippolito, Flower Queen and the author of “Bloomin’ Ideas,” and Arthur Morris, Canon Explorer of Light Emeritus and one of the planet’s premier photographic educators for a great trip to Holland in mid-April 2014. Day 1 of the IPT will be April 17, 2014. We will have a short afternoon get-together and then our first photographic session at the justly-famed Keukenhof. Most days we will return to the hotel for lunch, image sharing and a break. On Day 8, April 24, we will enjoy both morning and afternoon photography sessions.
The primary subjects will be tulips and orchids at Keukenhof and the spectacularly amazing tulip, hyacinth, and daffodil bulb fields around Lisse. In addition we will spend one full day in Amsterdam. There will be optional visits the Van Gogh Museum in the morning and the Anne Frank House in the afternoon; there will be plenty of time for street photography as well. And some great food. On another day we will have a wonderful early dinner at Kinderdijk and then head out with our gear to photograph the windmills and possibly some birds for those who bring their longs lenses. We will spend an afternoon in the lovely Dutch town of Edam where we will do some street photography and enjoy a superb dinner. All lodging, ground transportation, entry fees, and meals (from dinner on Day 1 through dinner on Day 7) are included. For those who will be bringing a big lens we will likely have an optional bird photography afternoon or two.
Click here for additional info or to register.
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Join me for the 2014 Tanzania Summer Safari!
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2014 Tanzania Summer Safari, 14-day African Adventure/leave the US on August 9. Fly home on August 24: $12,999.
Co-leaders Todd Gustafson & Arthur Morris. The limit is 12. Three photographers/van; you get your own row of seats. Our trip is a bit more expensive than the average safari for good reason. It is the best. We have the best driver guides with a total of decades of experience. They have been trained over the years by Todd and by me to drive with photography in mind. We have the best and most knowledgeable leaders. We stay in the best lodges and camps. We hope that you will join us for what will be Todd’s 35th African safari, and my 8th.
If you are seriously interested please e-mail me; I will be glad to send you the illustrated PDF with the complete itinerary and deposit info.
What else makes this expedition unique?
•Pre-trip consultation and camera equipment advice
•Award-winning photographers as your guides
•A seamless itinerary visiting the right locations at the best time of year
•Hands-on photography instruction in the field
•Specially designed three roof-hatch photo safari vehicles
•Proprietary materials for preparation, including free copy of “A Photographer’s Guide to Photographing in East Africa.”
•Post-safari image critiques
All-inclusive (double-occupancy) except for your flights to and from Kilamajaro Airport, bar drinks, soda & water (except at the Intimate Tented Camp where everything is free for our entire stay), tips for drivers and camp staff, personal items, and trip insurance.
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Breathe deeply, bite the bullet, and live life to its fullest; we all get only one ride on the merry-go-round… Join me on this great trip.
Click on the image to enjoy a larger version.
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The Southern Ocean…
If you would like to explore the possibility of joining me on the Cheesemans’ Ecology Safaris Antarctica/The Extended Expedition Voyage< trip: Antarctic Peninsula, South Georgia and Falkland Islands: December 13, 2014 to January 10, 2015, click here for additional information and then shoot me an e-mail.
The DPP RAW Conversion Guide
To learn why I use Canon’s Digital Photo Professional (DPP) to convert every image that I work on, click here.
Support the BAA Blog. Support the BAA Bulletins: Shop B&H here!
We want and need to keep providing you with the latest free information, photography and Photoshop lessons, and all manner of related information. Show your appreciation by making your purchases immediately after clicking on any of our B&H or Amazon Affiliate links in this blog post. Remember, B&H ain’t just photography!
Amazon
Everyone buys something from Amazon, be it a big lens or deodorant. Support the blog by starting your search by clicking on the logo-link below. No purchase is too small to be appreciated; they all add up. Why make it a habit? Because I make it a habit of bringing you new images and information on an almost daily basis.
Typos
In all blog posts and Bulletins, feel free to e-mail or to leave a comment regarding any typos, wrong words, misspellings, omissions, or grammatical errors. Just be right. 🙂
IPT Info
Many of our great trips are filling up. See especially info on the South Florida, Holland, and Nickerson Beach IPTs. Two great leaders on most trips ensure that you will receive individual attention, have all of your questions answered, and learn a ton including how to think like a pro, see the situation, and get the right exposure every time. In addition you will have fun, and make lots of great images. Click here for IPT details and general information.
February 16th, 2014 And The Streak Continues…
After a slow start with a 10-inch white-out blizzard we enjoyed a fabulous afternoon of Red-crowned Crane photography with the snow still falling. We photographed at the sanctuary just minutes from the lodge where we are staying. Despite the fact that I took a nap after most of us quit early, wet and cold, I am beat. It is time for bed: 8:01 pm here in Japan as I am about to hit “Publish”.
This post marks 79 straight days with a new educational blog post, a record by far that should be extended for at least another day or so, or not. Or more…. It appears that our lodge has great internet. To show your appreciation for my efforts here, we ask that use our B&H and Amazon affiliate links for all of your B&H and Amazon purchases. Please check the availability of all photographic accessories in the BIRDS AS ART Online Store. We sell only what I use and 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.
You can find the following items in the store: Gitzo tripods, Mongoose M3.6 and Wimberley heads, plates, low feet, and accessories, flash brackets, , Delkin e-film Pro Compact Flash Cards, LensCoat products, and our unique line-up of educational materials including ABP I & II, Digital Basics, Site and Set-up e-Guides, Canon and Nikon Camera Users and AF e-Guides, and MP-4 Photoshop video tutorials among others.
We would of course appreciate you using our B&H and Amazon affiliate links for all of your B&H and Amazon major gear, video, electronic, household, and personal purchases. For the photographic stuff mentioned in the paragraph above we 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.
Today’s blog post took 2 1/2 hours to prepare. It’s late, and I gotta get up soon. No rest for the weary.
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This image was created on Day 3 of the Japan in Winter IPT with the Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L II USM lens (hand held at 70mm) and the Canon EOS 5D Mark III. ISO 400. Evaluative metering +1/3 stop at 7:46am: 1/640 sec. at f/11 in Av mode. Color temperature: AWB.
Central sensor/AI Servo/Surround Rear Focus AF on the nearest swan in the lower right and re-compose. Click here to see the latest version of the Rear Focus Tutorial. Click on the image to see a larger version.
Image #1: Whooper Swans in Morning Mist
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Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L II USM Lens: Early Impressions
While I am anything but a sharpness fanatic and often claim the inability to see differences in fine detail I can say that the new 24-70 is noticeably sharper than the Canon EF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM lens that it replaced. Edge to edge sharpness especially is improved, that without the benefit of IS. As the two lenses weigh about the same and are roughly the same size, keeping the new lens in one of the large pockets of my Xtrahand Vest (as I always did with the 24-105mm) is a snap.
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This image was also created on Day 3 of the Japan in Winter IPT with the Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L II USM lens (hand held at 39mm) and the Canon EOS 5D Mark III. ISO 800. Evaluative metering +1 stop at 4:48pm: 1/80 sec. at f/6.3 in Av mode. Color temperature: 10,000K.
One sensor down and one sensor to the left of the Central sensor/AI Servo/Surround Rear Focus AF on the face of the nearest swan active at the moment of exposure. Click here to see the latest version of the Rear Focus Tutorial. Click on the image to see a larger version.
Image #2: A Half-dozen Whooper Swans
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Whooper Swan Images
Visiting Lake Kusharo with its tame wintering Whooper Swans gave me a chance to put the new short zoom lens to the test. Thanks to our guide, Makota Ando and co-leader Paul Mckenzie for sharing two of their favorite off-the-beaten path swan spots with the group. For the image above Paul coached the group: “Look for pleasing arrangements of the swans and make to avoid all merges.” I listened.
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This image was also created on Day 3 of the Japan in Winter IPT with the Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L II USM lens (hand held at 39mm) and the Canon EOS 5D Mark III. ISO 400. Evaluative metering +1 stop at 4:26pm: 1/100 sec. at f/9 in Av mode. Color temperature: 10,000K.
Five sensors down from the central sensor/AI Servo/Surround Rear Focus AF on the face of the nearest swan and re-compose slightly. Click here to see the latest version of the Rear Focus Tutorial. Click on the image to see a larger version.
Image #3: A Hint of Color
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You Favorite
Take a moment to leave a comment and let us know which of the three images above was your favorite, and be sure to let us know why you made your choice.
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If you’d like to learn from the two folks who created the images in the composite above do consider one of the trips below. Denise Ippolito’s images: Japanese leaf painting, skimmer in flight, curved Keukenhof paths with tulips, copulating terns, & pink dahlia. Artie’s images: Snow Geese snowstorm blur, crane landing silhouettes, Leopard with prey in tree, King Penguin, & vertical tulip. Note: Denise alone will be leading the Torres del Paine workshop.
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A Creative Adventure/BIRDS AS ART Instructional Photo-Tours (IPTs)/Two great leaders: Arthur Morris & Denise Ippolito.
Arthur Morris/BIRDS AS ART www.BIRDSASART-blog.com for the latest images, info, & education
Denise Ippolito/A Creative Adventure www.deniseippolito.com: get yourself out of the box!
Denise’s e-books: Bloomin’ Ideas, A Guide to Filters & Effects, The Softer Side of Macro, & more. Free Monthly Creative MiniMag: www.deniseippolito.com/magazine
Nickerson Baby Beach-nesting Birds IPT, Long Island, NY: 3-Full Days/July 22-24, 2014: $1199.
Black Skimmers, Common Terns with chicks, American Oystercatcher & Piping Plover families; breeding behaviors including courtship feeding, display flight and combat, and copulations. Gulls and shorebirds.
UK Puffins IPT. Early July, 2014.
Details TBA. Please e-mail to be placed on the interested list.
Tanzania Serengeti Summer Safari: Leave US: August 9—return: August 24, 2014: $12,999.
Co-leaders: Arthur Morris & Todd Gustafson. Wildebeest/The Great Migration, cats, elephant, giraffe, zebra, birds & more. Please e-mail for brochure.
Swan Island Dahlia Farm IPT, Canby, OR, September 8-12, 2014: 5 FULL DAYS: $1699.
Leader: Denise Ippolito. 40 acres with 350+dazzling varieties of dahlias in a plethora of colors, shapes and sizes. Sharpen your technical skills and boost your creative juices. Daily assignments, image sharing, and Photoshop sessions.
Bosque del Apache 2014 A Creative Adventure/BIRDS AS ART “Creative Photography Instructional Photo-Tour.” (IPT). NOV 24-25, 2014. 2-FULL DAYS: $729.
Leaders: Denise Ippolito & Arthur Morris. Introductory Slide program: 7:00pm on Sunday 11/23. This IPT is perfect for folks who want to learn to think outside the box, to create new and different images. Learn to unleash your creative juices at the wondrous Bosque del Apache, NWR in San Antonio, NM.
Bosque del Apache 2014 BIRDS AS ART/A Creative Adventure Instructional Photo-Tour (IPT). NOV 29-DEC 3, 2014. Totaling 4 FULL-DAYS: $1449
Leaders: Arthur Morris and Denise Ippolito. Introductory Slide program: 7:00pm on Sunday 11/29. Tens of thousand of Snow Geese, 10,000 Sandhill Cranes, ducks, amazing sunrises, sunsets, and blast-offs. Live, eat, and breathe photography with two of the world’s premier photographic educators at one of their very favorite photography locations on the planet.
Antarctica/The Extended Expedition Voyage: Antarctic Peninsula, South Georgia and Falkland Islands: December 13, 2014 to January 10, 2015.
Please e-mail for details.
BAA offers a wide range of books, e-Guides, and educational materials and photographic accessories at the lowest prices around—25+ years of experience, and the best advice you can get. We will not sell you junk. Access the BAA Store here or call us at 1-863-692-0906.
Questions? Please e-mail us at birdsasart@verizon.net or photographybydenise221@gmail.com.
Support the BAA Blog. Support the BAA Bulletins: Shop B&H here!
We want and need to keep providing you with the latest free information, photography and Photoshop lessons, and all manner of related information. Show your appreciation by making your purchases immediately after clicking on any of our B&H or Amazon Affiliate links in this blog post. Remember, B&H ain’t just photography!
Amazon
Everyone buys something from Amazon, be it a big lens or deodorant. Support the blog by starting your search by clicking on the logo-link below. No purchase is too small to be appreciated; they all add up. Why make it a habit? Because I make it a habit of bringing you new images and information on an almost daily basis.
Typos
In all blog posts and Bulletins, feel free to e-mail or to leave a comment regarding any typos, wrong words, misspellings, omissions, or grammatical errors. Just be right. 🙂
IPT Info
Many of our great trips are filling up. See especially info on the Holland, Nickerson Beach, and Bosque IPTs. Two great leaders on most trips ensure that you will receive individual attention, have all of your questions answered, and learn a ton including how to think like a pro, see the situation, and get the right exposure every time. In addition you will have fun, and make lots of great images. Click here for IPT details and general information.
February 15th, 2014 And The Streak Continues…
We had a great day today with the Red-crowned Cranes and the raptors. Our days are so jam-packed with photography that I have not even looked at a single image from today. And it is time for bed: almost 8:30pm. We are all excited as the forecast is for 10 inches of snow tonight!
This post marks 78 straight days with a new educational blog post, a record by far that should be extended for at least another day or so, or not. Or more…. It appears that our lodge has great internet. To show your appreciation for my efforts here, we ask that use our B&H and Amazon affiliate links for all of your B&H and Amazon purchases. Please check the availability of all photographic accessories in the BIRDS AS ART Online Store. We sell only what I use and 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.
You can find the following items in the store: Gitzo tripods, Mongoose M3.6 and Wimberley heads, plates, low feet, and accessories, flash brackets, , Delkin e-film Pro Compact Flash Cards, LensCoat products, and our unique line-up of educational materials including ABP I & II, Digital Basics, Site and Set-up e-Guides, Canon and Nikon Camera Users and AF e-Guides, and MP-4 Photoshop video tutorials among others.
We would of course appreciate you using our B&H and Amazon affiliate links for all of your B&H and Amazon major gear, video, electronic, household, and personal purchases. For the photographic stuff mentioned in the paragraph above we 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.
Today’s blog post took 1 1/2 hours to prepare. It’s late, and I gotta get up soon. Again!
Tobu Tori Answers
At times on the blog folks ask such insightful questions that the original lesson may pale by comparison to the answers. Such was the case with yesterday’s blog post. As the lessons were so important and relevant to flight photography I did not want to risk folks missing the material.
Quazi Ahmed Hussain
February 14, 2014 at 1:08 pm
Some stunning images. Thanks for posting. Could you please explain ‘at f/6.3 in Manual mode was an underexposure?
Thanks in advance. Quazi
Arthur Morris/BIRDS AS ART
February 14, 2014 at 3:47 pm
It was an underexposure because I noticed–after the fact, that the histogram was much too far to the left. It was a difficult situation and the action was fast paced. Different settings were required for the various species as they were all of different tonalities…. With their bright whites sunlit the cranes and the Steller’s Sea-Eagles required the least light, the white-tailed needed a bit more light as the white tail is not as bright at the whites on the two previous birds, and the black-eared needed a third stop more light.
I began by over-estimating the amount of light and compounded my errors from there until I finally got it right for the flying crane.
As always, learn everything that you need to know about exposure for nature photography in the two-book bundle: ABP and ABP II.
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This Black-eared Kite flight image was also created on the Japan in Winter IPT with the Canon EF 200-400mm f/4L IS USM Lens with Internal 1.4x Extender (hand held with the internal extender in place at 506mm) and the Canon EOS-1D X. ISO 400: 1/1250 sec. at f/6.3 in Manual mode was more than 1/2 stop too dark. AWB.
Central Sensor/AI Servo-Surround/Rear Focus AF on the bird’s right wing as originally framed was active at the moment of exposure. Click here to see the latest version of the Rear Focus Tutorial. Click on the image to see a larger version.
Image #2: Black-eared Kite
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Chris Houston
February 14, 2014 at 2:30 pm
Really nice photos. I can’t choose between the three raptor shots for my favorite. Since I’ve been trying recently to improve my flight photography I’m even more impressed than usual. It’s not nearly as easy as you make it look to get the light and positioning and composition and sharp focus right!
Either that or maybe you’re a bird whisperer and when they see you the birds all just fly right at you to give you perfect shots. 🙂
Arthur Morris/BIRDS AS ART
February 14, 2014 at 4:01 pm
Actually it is just a matter of understanding the direction of the wind, the light, and bird behavior. As I think I mentioned above, we had pretty much the worst possible flight conditions: fairly bright sun with the wind pretty much in our face though a bit from north. I instructed the group to watch for birds turning and circling to get in on the action and for birds flying the wrong way for whatever reason. After that it is just a matter or pressing the shutter button when the bird is in the zone: coming towards you (and the light)or at least not flying away and filling a suitable amount of the frame. Strength–which I do not have much of, and hand-eye coordination are also major factors but they are trumped by understanding the situation and knowing bird behavior and understanding how the direction of the wind and the direction of the light affect the photography of tobu tori….
Best way to learn all of this stuff: join us on an IPT that features lots of flight photography like this one:
Bosque del Apache 2014 BIRDS AS ART/A Creative Adventure Instructional Photo-Tour (IPT). NOV 29-DEC 3, 2014. Totaling 4 FULL-DAYS: $1449. Leaders: Arthur Morris and Denise Ippolito. Introductory Slide program: 7:00pm on Sunday 11/29.
Tens of thousand of Snow Geese, 10,000 Sandhill Cranes, ducks, amazing sunrises, sunsets, and blast-offs. Live, eat, and breathe photography with two of the world’s premier photographic educators at one of their very favorite photography locations on the planet. Top-notch in-the-field and Photoshop instruction. This will make 21 consecutive Novembers at Bosque for artie. This will be denise’s 6th workshop at the refuge. Nobody knows the place better than artie does. Join us to learn to think like a pro, to recognize situations and to anticipate them based on the weather, especially the sky conditions, the light, and the wind direction. Every time we make a move we will let you know why. When you head home being able to apply what you’ve learned on your home turf will prove to be invaluable.
Learn more by scrolling down here.
APTATS II
I used techniques from APTATS II to move the birds in each of the images above into a more pleasing position in the frame. The crane image took about 20 seconds, the kite image about 90 seconds as I needed to move the bird with four separate operations and four Layer Masks.
Mention this blog post and Jim will be glad to apply a $10 discount on your APTATS II purchase with phone orders only. Throw in APTATS I to hone your Photoshop image clean-up skills and Jim will be glad to enter a $15 discount for the pair, again, on phone orders only.
The DPP RAW Conversion Guide
To learn why I use Canon’s Digital Photo Professional (DPP) to convert every image that I work on, click here.
Your Favorite?
Please take a moment to leave a comment and let us know which of the two images above you feel is stronger. And be sure to let us know why.
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Images copyright 2012: Denise Ippolito & Arthur Morris. Card design by Denise Ippolito. Click on the image to enjoy a spectacular larger version.
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Holland 2014 7 1/2-Day/8-Night: A Creative Adventure/BIRDS AS ART/Tulips & A Touch of Holland IPT. April 17-April 24, 2014: $4995 Limit: 12/Openings: 5
Act soon: this trip is a go and is filling quickly.
Join Denise Ippolito, Flower Queen and the author of “Bloomin’ Ideas,” and Arthur Morris, Canon Explorer of Light Emeritus and one of the planet’s premier photographic educators for a great trip to Holland in mid-April 2014. Day 1 of the IPT will be April 17, 2014. We will have a short afternoon get-together and then our first photographic session at the justly-famed Keukenhof. Most days we will return to the hotel for lunch, image sharing and a break. On Day 8, April 24, we will enjoy both morning and afternoon photography sessions.
The primary subjects will be tulips and orchids at Keukenhof and the spectacularly amazing tulip, hyacinth, and daffodil bulb fields around Lisse. In addition we will spend one full day in Amsterdam. There will be optional visits the Van Gogh Museum in the morning and the Anne Frank House in the afternoon; there will be plenty of time for street photography as well. And some great food. On another day we will have a wonderful early dinner at Kinderdijk and then head out with our gear to photograph the windmills and possibly some birds for those who bring their longs lenses. We will spend an afternoon in the lovely Dutch town of Edam where we will do some street photography and enjoy a superb dinner. All lodging, ground transportation, entry fees, and meals (from dinner on Day 1 through dinner on Day 7) are included. For those who will be bringing a big lens we will likely have an optional bird photography afternoon or two.
Click here for additional info or to register.
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Join me for the 2014 Tanzania Summer Safari!
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2014 Tanzania Summer Safari, 14-day African Adventure/leave the US on August 9. Fly home on August 24: $12,999.
Co-leaders Todd Gustafson & Arthur Morris. The limit is 12. Three photographers/van; you get your own row of seats. Our trip is a bit more expensive than the average safari for good reason. It is the best. We have the best driver guides with a total of decades of experience. They have been trained over the years by Todd and by me to drive with photography in mind. We have the best and most knowledgeable leaders. We stay in the best lodges and camps. We hope that you will join us for what will be Todd’s 35th African safari, and my 8th.
If you are seriously interested please e-mail me; I will be glad to send you the illustrated PDF with the complete itinerary and deposit info.
What else makes this expedition unique?
•Pre-trip consultation and camera equipment advice
•Award-winning photographers as your guides
•A seamless itinerary visiting the right locations at the best time of year
•Hands-on photography instruction in the field
•Specially designed three roof-hatch photo safari vehicles
•Proprietary materials for preparation, including free copy of “A Photographer’s Guide to Photographing in East Africa.”
•Post-safari image critiques
All-inclusive (double-occupancy) except for your flights to and from Kilamajaro Airport, bar drinks, soda & water (except at the Intimate Tented Camp where everything is free for our entire stay), tips for drivers and camp staff, personal items, and trip insurance.
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|
Breathe deeply, bite the bullet, and live life to its fullest; we all get only one ride on the merry-go-round… Join me on this great trip.
Click on the image to enjoy a larger version.
|
The Southern Ocean…
If you would like to explore the possibility of joining me on the Cheesemans’ Ecology Safaris Antarctica/The Extended Expedition Voyage< trip: Antarctic Peninsula, South Georgia and Falkland Islands: December 13, 2014 to January 10, 2015, click here for additional information and then shoot me an e-mail.
The DPP RAW Conversion Guide
To learn why I use Canon’s Digital Photo Professional (DPP) to convert every image that I work on, click here.
Support the BAA Blog. Support the BAA Bulletins: Shop B&H here!
We want and need to keep providing you with the latest free information, photography and Photoshop lessons, and all manner of related information. Show your appreciation by making your purchases immediately after clicking on any of our B&H or Amazon Affiliate links in this blog post. Remember, B&H ain’t just photography!
Amazon
Everyone buys something from Amazon, be it a big lens or deodorant. Support the blog by starting your search by clicking on the logo-link below. No purchase is too small to be appreciated; they all add up. Why make it a habit? Because I make it a habit of bringing you new images and information on an almost daily basis.
Typos
In all blog posts and Bulletins, feel free to e-mail or to leave a comment regarding any typos, wrong words, misspellings, omissions, or grammatical errors. Just be right. 🙂
IPT Info
Many of our great trips are filling up. See especially info on the South Florida, Holland, and Nickerson Beach IPTs. Two great leaders on most trips ensure that you will receive individual attention, have all of your questions answered, and learn a ton including how to think like a pro, see the situation, and get the right exposure every time. In addition you will have fun, and make lots of great images. Click here for IPT details and general information.
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