Bald Eagle - Full Crop NY S47 Band

I've seen a few eagles with a noticeably full crop, but none as pronounced as this bird today.

The bird was a banded eagle, from New York, with a (blue state) band of S47.





read on for more images, etc.













I don't know, if these aren't the utmost examples of what a bird and a full crop are, then maybe nothing can explain it via photos!

It was foggy most of the day, drizzled a little and there was like 10 minutes that the blue sky peeked through in the smallest patch, and these S47 shots were probably the best of the day for me since they show off such a unique thing even in the bland light...

p.s. this bird has a GPS transmitter, and you can see the antenna in a few of the photos.

-happy shooting,
Jon

Photos - More Than The Thing Pt2

In a handful of years now on flickr, getting active feedback (or not) on all my posts has helped me to focus on things that matter in an image.

I had the chance to attend a photo club monthly photo competition this week. I didn't present any images. I wished I had planned well enough to get some entered, but I missed the deadline. Anyway, it was helpful to see the images presented in categories for 3 skill levels (beginner, intermediate, advanced).

Read on for more.


I like to keep my personal data out of my posts, be it flickr or here. So, I'll just say that the judge at the event was someone who has been published and is a photographer well known to the MD/VA/DC area. I'm not writing this to review his job, he did well, but more to note how other photographers try something with an image but it lacks focus or pop, or impact.

By now, when I post something to my flickr.com/photos/-jon-/ page, it is something that I've looked over repeatedly and it has struck me in a way that does move me.

Here are my last 4 posts analyzed:


Posted the same day I took it, this pair of eagles was a delight to see. There was more to the back story regarding other eagles, how this pair reacted when I got closer, etc, but, the simple view of them together on that branch was enough for me...


This Great Blue Heron, my good friend - the heron, just caught a fish and prepares to down the catch. The close nature of the image, and action of the fish and water spray make it for me.


I shot this a month and a half ago, but knew I liked it as soon as I had reviewed it. The uniqueness of the action overcomes the technical execution issues like sharpness, DoF and iso-noise.


And finally another of the Black Skimmers along the beach.

None of these photos lack focus or interest. There's no wondering about what is being presented.

I think that's the most basic criteria a nature or wildlife photographer should meet in a given photo. What is the subject, action, behavior, mood, time, thought being presented by the photo??? If the viewer has to ask that question, and spend any significant amount of time answering the question then something's missing.

I shoot a bajillion images, and only a handful meet that criteria. And those are among the ones I select to share/post. ;)

Happy Shootin'

-Jon

Difference Between the Subject and the Photograph

I figured something out today, based on a couple of inputs, and thought to share it here in a blog post.

There's a big difference between a subject and a photograph. Sounds simple right, but it can be a problem when reviewing ones own work, and it can reveal itself maybe more when reviewing someone else's work.

I will give two quick examples based on my own work. Both will be eagles, but to me the difference will be context and location, etc.

First is a beautiful wild bald eagle and a decent image:

Soaring, got around 10 comments.


Captive, nicer light, very close.


The captive one got more responses, and is a "better" image.

read on for more.


The problem with comparing the two images is that they are both of an awesome subject. One could also argue that a WILD and FREE eagle is a BETTER subject than a captive one. The captive eagle was easier to photograph in that it was closer and couldn't fly away, etc.

Can you see the difference between subject and photograph?

Ok, well maybe this would be a better example, one I heard from someone else who was unhappy with a contest and the results:

A friend was telling me he doesn't participate in contests on this particular online site because he was in a contest and lost. He was upset because he lost to a much inferior subject. I hadn't seen either photograph, but his reaction sums up the reason for this post.

He was upset because his awesome wildlife photo (of something, I forget) lost to a macro of colored pencils! Woah! There's no way that PENCILS are more interesting subjects THAN for example an EAGLE! Right?! Can't be!

And there's the thing. Photographs are not usually judged on subject, they're judged on photographic qualities, the results of the photographic process - the 'print' or 'digital print'. In my mind I CAN SEE how a large group of people might like a pencil macro better than an eagle photo (not the best eagle photo, but many eagle photos)...

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The thing to remember as an image maker, a thing I know now, is that part of the photographic process is considering the VIEWER. There will be some 'artists' that say 'ha, I don't need no stinkin' viewers! I do my ART for MYSELF!' Ok, that's great. I'd argue then you might not even need a camera, you can just remember being there, ponder, enjoy, and ahhhhh.... It's all for you alone!

But usually artist want to make something, and share it. And part of sharing things is getting viewers, and if they view, keeping them interested, and making them want to come back again. (kind of like what flickr.com is to some people)

(*Although, it is possible your artistic vision is to make viewers uncomfortable, like with poverty or war images, and that's much different than fine-art photography. So I concede that point/example.)

So when reviewing images, editing images, deciding what images to share, think about this: You will judge and appreciate images differently than your viewers. You will likely consider the context of being there, the process and effort involved in the image making and then savor the resulting image with that context. Most or maybe many viewers however will see the image as just that - THE IMAGE. The don't have the same context, the same investment or the same love of results as the image maker would. So they are judging images with fewer things to consider. An awesome macro photo of some pencils may and can be preferred to a good photo of an awesome subject like an eagle.

And that might be one of the challenges that aspiring nature photographers struggle with. They're out there enjoying nature, in all its glory, living life to its fullest. Woohoo! Then images of that same thing, it is STILL AWESOME (darn it!!) are not praised for showing off that same emotion or scene. Realize the subject is STILL AWESOME.

An awesome subject isn't always going to result in an awesome photograph. I've personally driven hundreds of miles, stayed in hotels, and then taken a trip to a local pond and liked an image from there better than most from the long trip.

Green Heron


(p.s.)
And finally I'd show off this very flawed Eagle photo, it is not sharp, it is not super in focus, and it small/cropped, but woah, that's something right?! This might almost prove the opposite of what I was getting at above, here the subject trumps the technical photo... But it is about the 'image'....



Happy shooting,
Jon

More Different More New, Less Old, Less Same

This year I'm figuring more things out. I've been to a lot of places I go many many times. And when I go again now I struggle to see new things, and walk away with images that I like, that are unique, that tell a story, a new story.

Light Is Life


Read on for more.


On a related note, I watched a couple ted.com videos about neurogenesis, and how you can stimulate and regrow your brain.




What I think I took away from those are do new things, expect new results, make the bright new future come to you by just going out and living it. With too much inertia things will seem to never change, and your brain will actually fail to grow.

The way this relates to photography for me is that I am in year 5 of taking things seriously, and realized more so today that I need to hit new spots, try new things, and not just redo old travels.

I went to a new spot this past weekend, that was near another spot I just started to go to this year. The newer spot failed - there was nothing to see but ocean and a guy with a few scopes "counting" stuff. But the other new spot was great within moments of starting to shoot.



Would I take the above image over an even better eagle photo than I've ever taken? Probably not. I really like bald eagles and I would really like to get even better images. But what I've come to learn is for me to compete with myself (past trips, past photos, etc) I need to keep challenging myself and forcing myself to take new risks with new trips to unknown locations.

That's in relation to me and competing with myself, but I think when it comes to competing with others - I could go out and get a top of the line pro-dSLR and a 600mm or 800mm (assuming I wanted to retire a year or two later) and 'get closer' via gear alone. But I'm not ready to do that. It would be like a teenager getting a Corvette. It would be cool, and fun, but it wouldn't be the right thing to do. I want to learn as much as I can by a gradual increase in gear quality, and lots and lots of time using said gear, and wearing it out.

For the record, I've taken nearly 1,000 trips to places in 4 and 1/4 years, give or take a little, and I've taken 250,000+ images as of a month or so ago. Some days maybe 2 or 3 locations, other times 1 place a day.

What this means for me and the next couple months is that I am going to not go to Conowingo Dam anywhere near as much as past years. I've been a bunch of times already this year, but, not much grabbed me. It IS a little early for crazy days which come in late November and some of December.

Last year, early, I found a few new to me spots and I need to hit them during Fall - times I've never visited before. These are 'secret' spots, spots I share images from but not the locations of (on line that is, I've told many people I know in real life). A few images from these spots are:













What I like these days is not just seeing and capturing things, but seeing things others are not seeing and capturing. The uniqueness of an encounter is valuable to me. Shooting eagles with my 400mm next to a row of 500mm and 600mm lenses - assuming the photogs are as skilled as me, that's a wash, except for this or that in a way. I'd like to think I will capture things better than the next guy, but in reality they probably think the same thing, right?! So, I will shoot with my gear - that I like, that I've chosen, but I won't spend hours and days trying to keep up with anyone or out do them on a level playing field.

I want the playing field (which to me is knowledge, location, skill, execution, determination, vision, prediction, etc, etc) to be WAY stacked in my favor to make unique images that tell a story. The Jones' will need to keep up with me if I do it right.

Scott Bourne posted something recently about taking risks, and I read it today, and I agree. I want new results, better results, different results, and I am NOT going to try the same things as before to reach that goal.

Happy shooting,
-Jon

Make photos pop - selective sharpening

I've done a little guide already once showing off selective sharpening, here's another good example.



read on for more details



The background has a nice blur to it, but the bird needed to be sharpened.

here's the starting image with level adjustments already



And here is a layer with just the bird sharpened and everything else masked out



Then the lower layer is added back (to being visible) and you get the selectively sharpened image...

Black Skimmers

On one of my recent photo trips I was lucky enough to come across a flock of more than 400 or 500 black skimmers. They were very cool to watch, observe and photograph.

I first posted this photo because for me it represented some action, and a way of thinking differently (go for blur via lower iso when higher iso would seem the desired setting...)



read on for more.

I really liked going for color with these guys. Sunrise helped out, and so did they, they tolerate photographers and beach walkers pretty well.





The group shots of them in flight were extra nice, seeing so many of them in similar poses at once...



Getting good exposures for the lights and darks in their feathers wasn't always easy, but the early light helped.



And finally here's my most recently posted shot, it is one that I liked when I saw it, because the birds are all lined up, looking towards the camera and you can see how their beaks are very thin from this angle, while from the side you'd think they are much bigger/fatter.......



-Jon

Bulk Photo Editing in Lightroom with Sync & Previous and Copy & Paste Settings

I shoot a lot of images, and like to be able to process them quickly. Lightroom 2.x has a couple of features that make processing images fast a breeze.

After a few years of shooting mostly in Aperture Priority mode and praying I set the exposure compensation correctly for unpredictable subjects like eagles and hawks, etc - I now shoot 99% of the time in full manual exposure mode.

The 1% not in manual mode is for bracketed shots to be used in an HDR where I fall back to aperture priority mode to get a good center frame and +/- ones around that middle camera metered shot.

Anyway, the main benefit of manual exposure mode is control over exposure, and this works well since the light usually doesn't change as much as the subject or what's in camera view. The best example of this is a bird with sky behind him that then suddenly has tree/foliage behind them. A camera will meter those differently and good luck with that. A properly set manual exposure will yield much more consistent results.

read on for more.


It was around a year ago that I started to shoot manual mode (mostly) and I think it helped a lot in this sequence:

all sky bg


trees beginning to be in the shot


finally nothing but tress/dark in the bg


Hopefully that example shows off how manual exposure can really help out for action sequences with changing backgrounds.

The benefit of manual shooting doesn't end there though. In manual mode the exposures are much more likely to be + or -, and color balanced (or mis-balanced), pretty much to the same degree for a sequence of shots. They might all have a blue cast, or all need some highlight recovery or all need to be boosted +0.4 exposure wise, etc.

The way I like to edit my photos is in two main stages, where the first stage is to put on a decent but not super refined edit on to ALL my images that I'm working on usually from a day or a trip. Then once I export the edited images, I review them and pick the ones I like and then further edit them, or even re-edit them from scratch. So, doing the first part fast is important especially since I might be editing 50 images I will never use for each one I do use.

So here are the two ways to speed up edits in Lightroom:

1) Edit the first image in a sequence and get everything just right. This includes exposure, white balance, highlight recovery, tone curve adjustments, saturation and clarity... Then do a Control-Shift-C and select everything except the crop part. Now cycle through the other images and when one looks like it needs an edit do a Control-Shift-V to paste all the settings from a moment ago. When the images are shot in manual mode this pasting of settings works pretty well. If the camera had a chance to meter things, it will be less effective.

OR

2) Do your edits in lightroom as you would already do, and when you get to a new image in a sequence edit it (as above, exposure, color, etc) and then at the same time, with the original image still selected, select all the next images in the sequence (shift select) and click the Sync button.

An alternate to this method is to do edits, and then click through to next images, and when a similar image is found, or one that deserves editing is found maybe 5 shots later, click back to the edited image 5 shots ago, then click the newer shot and you can hit the Previous button and it will basically sync or paste the settings from the previously selected image even if that image is not directly adjacent to the image you want to edit. I hope that all makes sense.


And to speed up the processing part I apply changes to images with a mixture of the above techniques and add them to my Quick Collection (hit B), and when I get a decent number of images waiting to be exported I then view just the Q Collection (Ctrl-B), then hit Ctrl-A to select all those images, then hit Ctrl-Shift-E to export. Then the exports start. I then either select File>Clear Quick Collection, or I hit Ctrl-Shift-B to do the same. Now the exports still are happening in the background and I can start to build up my list or group of images to be processed next.

My computer is pretty fast, so it can handle lots of things at once. (It's an AMD phenom2 Quad-core 3GHz processor with 8GBs of RAM.)

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One modified way to do the sync'ing of settings is to include the crop part. This works ok for birds that are not even close to filling 20 or 30% of the frame, since most of the pixels need to be cropped out. Bird placement can be updated on each image after it is synced.

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Another cool feature is the virtual copy one, where you can do all sorts of edits to a source file. Then create a virtual copy and you can try something totally different without destroying the first edit.

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And finally when it comes to RAW vs. JPG I am 100% fully converted to shooting ONLY RAW and NO JPGs. It wasn't until I used Lightroom that I found the ease of processing RAW files to my liking. To me Lightroom is an UBER RAW processing tool plus file management. It doesn't replace Photoshop. For me it replaced a broken Picasa for file management, and the inferior JPGs that suffered from exposure problems and unrecoverable white balance settings. The funny thing is that I was happy with the JPGs for a long time. And I am happy to have shot that way since it made me work harder to get the exposure right (as if I learned with film) and to try to get the WB right as shot as well. Now that I can do that fairly well, the benefits of RAW are great - (change exposure, white balance, highlight recovery, saturation adjustments, etc, etc, etc).

-J