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 […]
In September, 2020, Australian Birdlife published a two-page article I wrote about photographing birds by kayak. Have a look at: https://en.calameo.com/read/0041078957045ff95451f If the link doesn’t take you directly to the article, use the menu to scroll down to Photo Lab, page 62.
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 […]
Adobe updated Lightroom Classic CC last week (October, 2018). Two additions of interest to me are the One-step Merge to Panorama and the new Color/Luminance Range Mask. The One-step Merge creates HDR panoramas with a single select and click, where beforehand you needed the separate steps of creating multiple HDR images, and then select and […]