BIRDS AS ART
NOTES
NOVEMBER 5, 2009
Arthur Morris/BIRDS AS
ART, PO Box 7245 4041Granada Drive, Indian Lake Estates, FL 33855.
Telephone: 863-692-0906. Computer fax: 877- 265-6955
Visit
www.BIRDSASART.com
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FEATURES:
HOUSE-KEEPING ITEMS
WHY I LOVE MY
800MM F/5.6
DAYTON, OH
PROGRAM/SEMINAR: NOV 6/7, 2009 /ONLY
SIX SEATS LEFT FOR SATURDAY!
PHOTO EXPO WEST APPEARANCE
CANON 100-400 ZOOM LENS FOR
SALE/PRICE REDUCED
ROBERT
O’TOOLE’S APTATS II/Pre-Publication Discount Offer
If you are responing to a Bulletin via
e-mail please take the time to delete all irrelevant text and images .
Thanks.
HOUSE-KEEPING ITEMS
#1: Each Bulletin or Notes
has this near the top of the
page: If you have any trouble at all
viewing this Bulletin, you can access it in the Bulletin Archives here:
www.abcdefg.com.
Instead of a phony link, the link will take you to the Bulletin
Archives where you will be able to see all of the images all of the time as
long as you are online <smile> We had a few problems with some folks
being unable to see the images. Rather than reading the note above they
chose to e-mail As much as l love hearing from all of you, it would
be best if you simply click on the link so that I can get some work done <big
smile> I do try to answer every e-mail. Thanks!
#2: If you are responding to a
Bulletin via e-mail please take the time to delete all irrelevant text and
images. Doing so makes my life a ton easier. Thanks.
#3: Many times I respond to an e-mail
only to have it kicked back for a variety of reasons.
a: My favorites are the ones that tell me to
go this or that website, try to de-cipher some illegible word or non-word,
type it in the box, and then hit OK. If you are writing to someone
and asking for information it would seem that you could take the time to add
their e-mail address to your list of folks that you would not mind talking
to <smile> To do otherwise strikes me as rude.
b: Many times my response is kicked back from
me with various notes that might include "mail box full or over-quota" or
"recipient address does not exist." The latter after I hit Reply!
Man, you gotta love that. Then I try once or twice more to re-send these
e-mails almost always with the same results. As I said above, I strive
to answer every one of the hundreds of e-mails that I receive each week.
Therefore, if you have e-mailed a question to me and you know that I am home
and have not received and answer after a few days, please try to give us a
buzz.
WHY I LOVE MY 800MM F/5.6
Turkey Vulture, Indian Lake Estates,
FL
Image Copyright 2009: Arthur Morris/BIRDS AS ART
Canon 800mm f/5.6L
IS lens
with the 1.4X II TC and the EOS-1D
MII. ISO 400. Evaluative metering +2
stops: 1/160
sec. at f/8.
I was able to get closer to this bird and use
the 800 alone but I moved the car back and added the 1.4X II TC to reduce the
angle of inclination. WIth the set-up above the equivalent focal
length was 1456mm
= 29.12X magnification.
The BLUBB plus perfect sharpness technique helps me to produce sharp images
from the car:
https://store.birdsasart.com/shop/category.aspx?catid=16
Turkey Vultures in dead tree, Indian Lake Estates, FL
Image Copyright 2009: Arthur Morris/BIRDS AS ART
Canon 24-105mm IS lens handheld
at 35mm. ISO 400. Evaluative metering +2/3 stop: 1/1 250 sec. at
f/ 4. (Even the pros screw up: the exposure compensation here should
have been at least +2 stops and I should have used a smaller aperture).
Here's the view from the Sequoia using the 50D with the 24-105mm at 35mm.
Equivalent focal length: 51.2mm = 1.02X magnification. That about what
your eyes would see. Therefore, you gotta love the magnifying power of
those long lenses.... The bird in first image was the one on the lower
perch.
DAYTON, OH
PROGRAM/SEMINAR: NOV 6/7, 2009/ONLY SIX SEATS
LEFT FOR SATURDAY!
If you
are a member of a local camera club and would like to share this info via the
club’s web site or e-mail list in order to take advantage of the $15 club
discount, please cut and paste the information below and let us know of your
efforts. Thanks! artie
FREE FRIDAY
NIGHT PROGRAM: "LENSES FOR BIRD & NATURE PHOTOGRAPHY/BIRDS AS ART STYLE"
SPONSORED by CANON
USA/EXPLORERS OF LIGHT
& the FOCUS
PHOTO CLUB of DAYTON, OH
See here for
details, location, directions, and to register:
http://www.focusphotoclub.com/arthurmorris.html
In this practical and
educational slide program you we will learn which Canon lenses I use to create a
variety of my amazing images, how, why, and when I use each of them, and what I
am thinking as I depress the shutter button. Many folks will be
surprised to learn that a long lens with a teleconverter is often
not the best
tool for the job. A selection of books, educational materials, and prints
will be available for purchase.
Please note these important
basics for the Friday evening program: Date & time: Friday Nov 6th, 2009,
6:30pm. Free with a non-perishable food item for the Dayton Foodbank.
Location: Wegerzyn Gardens. Please register here:
http://www.focusphotoclub.com/arthurmorris.html
See you there! .
BIRDS AS ART
FULL DAY "THE ART OF NATURE PHOTOGRAPHY" SEMINAR.
DAYTON, OH.
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 7, 2009: 9am-5:30pm. (Lunch break noon til
1:30pm)
LOCATION: Cox
Arboretum, 6733 Springboro Pike, Dayton, OH 45449 (937-434-9006)
Limit: 48/Openings: 6.
There will be two programs
on Saturday morning. The first will be "Composition and Image
Design." The second will be "Tips on Getting Close." Each segment
will feature well more than a hundred spectacular images and will include the
tips, techniques, and ideas that I have learned, developed, and refined over the
past 26 plus years. The afternoon session will cover understanding and
adjusting histograms in the field, the complete BAA digital workflow (including
ACR conversions), and a slew of simple, easy to learn Photoshop tips including
the use of the Clone Stamp, the amazing Patch Tool, creating and using Quick
Masks for dozens of applications, and the Average Blur Color Balance trick among
others. I like to work quickly yet have my images look great. There will
be a 30-minute break morning and afternoon. Whether you photograph general
nature or just birds, all who attend will leave as better photographers.
(Do note that the Saturday
seminar will be a continuation of the free Friday evening program; Saturday
registrants are urged to attend Friday night if at all possible.)
The cost
of the Saturday Seminar is $159. Members of participating camera clubs may
apply a $15 discount. In addition, $15 from each registration fee
will be split and donated to the Dayton Foodbank and to Five Rivers Metro Parks.
Students under 22 years of age with a valid driver's license and a student ID
may register for $99. With a strict limit of 48 attendees,
registration is by phone only: please call 863-692-0906 with a credit card in
hand. Due to the short notice the registration fee is non-refundable.
We will be here pretty much all day every day to process your registration; feel
free to call between 7am and 9pm seven days a week.
Register
with a friend or a spouse and apply a $15 discount to each reservation. To
encourage out of town folks to register, those traveling more than 150 miles or
flying to the event, may apply a $50 discount to registration fee.
Hope to
see you there! A selection of books, CDs, and prints will also be
available for purchase on Saturday.
PHOTO
EXPO WEST APPEARANCE
I will be doing two seminars for Delkin
at Photo Expo West in Delmar, CA (just above
San Diego) on the weekend of November 14-15, 2009. My appearance is of
course being sponsored by Canon USA. In addition; jeez, I am not sure what
you call it--they put you on a small round stage sort of in the middle of the
circus and then you get to yak and show off. Anyway, I will be doing two
of them, one on Saturday and one on Sunday. You can check out the
details here:
http://www.photoexpowest.com/
I hope
to see many of you there.
CANON 100-400 ZOOM LENS FOR
SALE/PRICE REDUCED
David McNicholas is offering a used Canon 100 - 400
mm f/4.5 - 5.6 L IS USM lens in excellent shape with the lens case, and lens
hood in the original box with the original manual. It is a one-owner lens that
has been sitting on the shelf since I started using the 400 mm f/4 IS DO
lens. He is asking $999 for it and will ship it insured at buyer’s expense.
Contact David by email at
dmcnicholas@comcast.net or give him a buzz at 239-352-0616 or on his cell:
973-452-4940.
Note: the 100-400 is a great started lens for bird
and nature photography and is one of my favorite Bosque lenses.
ROBERT O’TOOLE’S APTATS II/Pre-Publication Discount Offer
Robert and I sat at my dining room table for the better part of two full days
editing the text for his great new Advanced Photoshop Tips and Techniques
Simplified guide, APTATS II. For years I have been stating that I could never
learn to use Layer Masks:
paint with black
to hide, paint with white to restore.
It was all too confusing.
But with Robert’s explanations and tutoring and my dogged insistence on
hammering out text that would be clear, concise, straightforward, and easily
understandable I have to say now, “I got it!”
Robert
O’Toole’s APTATS II CD (Advanced Photoshop Tips and Techniques Simplified II).
We are aiming for late-December, 2009 before the holidays…. Order now;
save $5.00. See below for details.
APTATS II will include
sample images for each tutorial so that you can easily follow along and
practice. Dozens and dozens and dozens more screen captures will make your
trip through each tutorial both pain-free and mistake-free. After working the
sample images you can try each technique on some suitable images of your own.
In short order you will own the techniques. Once that happens you will find
countless new uses for the techniques. For me the great revelation
that I garnered from APTATS II is that using Layer Masks (paint
with black to hide, paint with white to restore)
and Hide All Layer Masks is actually simple. And if you do make a small
error while painting, you can simply hit X and paint to correct your error.
(When using a Quick Mask you need to go back in History in order to correct
mistakes.)
Here are the tutorials in APTATS II:
·
Composition Correction: Increase Lead
Room Without Cropping/Basic
·
Composition Correction: Increase Lead
Room Without Cropping/Intermediate
·
Composition Correction: Increase Space
Near a Frame Edge/Advanced
·
Super-Fast Element Removal: Basic
·
Super-Fast Element Removal Plus
Composition Improvement
·
Gradient Background Blur
·
Mask Blending for Mega-Depth-of-Field
·
Selective Highlight Detail Enhancement
·
Selective Noise Reduction and
Sharpening
·
Selective Sharpening with Finely
Detailed Edges
·
Average Blur Color Balance Trick
BIRDS AS ART is
currently accepting pre-publication orders for Robert O’Toole’s APTATS II CD
(Advanced Photoshop Tips and Techniques Simplified II). Unlike
APTATS I, APTATS II will be a professionally designed, packaged, and burned CD.
We are striving to have them here at BAA in time to ship them before the holiday
season. APTATS II will sell for $30 plus $3.00 shipping and handling to US
addresses. Shipping to Canada is $6.00. It is $8.00 for all foreign
orders. Florida residents will need to add 7% sales tax ($2.10) on the
cost of the CD only.
Now
here’s the best news: you can save $5 by pre-ordering your copy of Robert
O’Toole’s APTATS II now (only through BAA). You can send us a Paypal,
call us at 863-692-0906 with a credit card in hand, or order APTATS II from the
BAA On-line Store (with secure credit card data transmission) by clicking here:
https://store.birdsasart.com/shop/item.aspx?itemid=277
(Note: Shipping charges with
BAA On-line Store orders may vary by small amounts from those noted above.)
Best and great
picture-making,
artie
Note: Arthur Morris has been a Canon contract photographer, part of the
Explorers of Light program, since 1996 and continues in that role today.
Hunt's Photo of Boston, MA is a BAA sponsor as is Delkin Devices. Back
issues of all BAA Bulletins can be found in the Bulletin Archives which
may be accessed from
the home page at
www.birdsasart.com.
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