Head on shot: male Anna’s Hummingbird, Sony 15mm f1.4 @ f2.0, 1/800s, ISO 400, camera controlled by Sony Creator’s App. For years, I have captured backyard flight shots of our year-round resident Anna’s Hummingbirds. My strategy was always to remove our three-hole perching feeder, and replace it with a single-hole vertical tube that forced the […]
Every list of bird photography tips invariably tells us to “shoot at the bird’s eye level”. A tip that’s often ignored, though not by prize-winning photographers. Of recent top 100 winners in the Audubon photo contest, 70% were clearly eye-level; most of the rest very close to it. But all rules have exceptions. The eyes […]
Sony A6700, 100-400mm f4.5-5.6 @ f5.6, ISO 1250, 1/250s Wildlife photography is forever changed with the advent of fast, accurate, eye-detect-focus mirrorless camera sensors. With bird-eye tracking enabled, the camera (usually) detects the eye, and follows the eye even if the eye exits the focus area. This is huge. It makes composition and sharp-in-the-eye image […]
Sagebrush Dry Cam-Dry (blue), Sure-dry Hip Pack (green), and big custom bag. Note: This is an update of a 2011 post. Gary Luhm has used Sagebrush Dry gear since 2001. Probably my most frequently asked question is “How do you keep your camera dry while kayaking”. In the 90’s I had no pat answer for […]
The year 2023 had some interesting twist and turns and a surprise as well. I started a bird-photography year gung-ho with my Sony A7 IV and 100-400mm GM zoom, same as 2022. By August, though, soon after I purchased the APS-C Sony A6700, I realized the new camera would be my go-to. I sold the […]
Ursa Major charter yacht in Lituya Bay, Glacier Bay National Park, June, 2002, scan from Fujichrome Velvia. Following suggestions by Mark Galer, I built a film scanner using wood, cardboard, a 2” drill bit, a light table and a mirrorless camera. My intention was two-fold: scan curated color slides, and re-scan selects to compare with […]
Photography in 2022 again saw limited travel and a focus on birds, shot with the Sony A7 IV, almost exclusively with a 100-400mm f5.6 attached. The A7 IV inherits the auto-focus of the vaunted Sony A1. And that auto-focus, particularly with bird-eye control, is precise, nailing shot after shot with a correct set-up (see Mark […]
2021 continued the 2020 trend of photographing birds locally, mostly by kayak, with many compromises due to Covid. All but three favorites were shot with my Sony A7 III and Sony 100-400mm f5.6 lens. Two shots used a tripod. Seated in a kayak, I mostly rested the lens on my palm or on a padded […]
With my farthest photo travel since March a 58 mile jaunt to Ice Caves State Park and 59 miles to Whidbey Island, this year was about staying home. My odometer clocked 2,500 miles. I didn’t backpack due to knee issues, but paddling locally, I found fresh photo ops. Bird nest searches returned engaging photos as […]
On July 10, 2020, I launched a kayak from Joseph Whidbey State Park, Whidbey Is, WA, and paddled to Smith Is. My photo target was Tufted Puffins. Flat-top, 400-acre Smith Island is not a destination for paddlers. The five-nautical-mile, open water route crosses a shipping lane with barge traffic and speeding watercraft. Wind from the […]