FEATURES

• ON THE ROAD BIG TIME!
• JAPAN 2012
• BAA KUDOS
• BAA FIRE SALE/CANON GEAR PRICED TO GO
• A GUIDE TO CREATIVE FILTERS AND EFFECTS (pdf) by DENISE IPPOLITO
• SHOPPER’S GUIDE
• IPT UPDATES

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Brown Pelican laughing, La Jolla, CA Image copyright 2011: Arthur Morris/BIRDS AS ART

Canon EF 800mm f/5.6 L IS lens with the 1.4X II TC and EOS-1D MIV. ISO 400. Evaluative metering -1/3 stop: 1/640 sec. at f/10.

The distant blue Pacific is one of my very favorite nature photography backgrounds.

ON THE ROAD BIG TIME!

I am driving down to Homestead, FL today for the Canon Everglades Workshop (sold out: 16 folks) this coming weekend, picking up Denise Ippolito at the Fort Lauderdale airport. On Monday we head over to Fort Myers on the west coast of Florida for the sold out SW FLA IPT, FEB 9-14. On February 15 I will be joining James Shadle and a crew of BPN Moderators for a morning with the spoonbills on Alafia Banks. We drive to my house midday on the 15th. On the morning of the 17th I fly to Klamath Oregon for a Canon-sponsored speaking engagement at the Winter Wings Festival. I fly home on the 22nd but do not get into Orlando until late so I will grab a room for the night. That puts me home on the morning of the 23rd. After two whole days in the office I fly to London en route to Thessaloniki, Greece to meet co-leader Robert O’Toole for the sold out DALMATIAN PELICAN EXPLORATORY IPT, FEB 27-MAR 5, 2011. After over-nighting in London on March 6, I get back to ILE midday on March 7. Dizzy yet? Hold on to your seat belts. Then I am home for eight whole days, seeing a hand surgeon on March 8th to schedule trigger finger surgery (middle finger, left hand).

On the evening of the 15th I’ll be at the Orlando Courtyard Marriott for my early morning flight on the 17th. I fly to Homer, AK, again to join Robert O’Toole, this time for two sold out HOMER BALD EAGLE IPTs. I fly back to Anchorage on March 28 the to catch a red-eye flight back to MCO on the 29th. Home for 5 full day, then back to the Courtyard Marriott for yet another early morning flight to Honolulu on April 5th. That same afternoon I fly to Hilo to meet and spend four days with Hawaii’s top bird photographer Jack Jeffrey. We will be doing some fairly high altitude hiking in search of some of the rare endemics. I fly back to Oahu on April 10th continuing on to Midway late on the 11th arriving at the seabird colony well after dark that same day. Yes, for another sold out trip. We leave Midway late on April 19th getting back to Honolulu at about 3am on the 19th. After a few hours rest I catch an overnight flight to DFW and continuing on to Orlando. I get into MCO at about 10:30 am on April 20. Insane and loving it.

Jim and Jennifer will be at the office to help you with mail order and trip registrations. Please hold onto your gear and other photo-related e-mail questions until the end of April and then feel free to e-mail me. During my prolonged absence you will usually be able to find what you are looking for in the searchable Bulletin Archives here, on the blog, in the original ABP (soft cover), in ABP II (916 pages on CD only), in Digital Basics, in our camera User’s Guides, or in our other educational offerings. The various discussion forums at BPN can be a godsend for those seeking good info and BPN’s Tutorials & Educational Resources Forum is a greatly under- utilized collection of killer mini-tutorials on a wide variety of subjects most having to do with digital capture and processing.

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Patterns in Surf, north of San Diego, CA Image copyright 2011: Arthur Morris/BIRDS AS ART

Canon EF 24-105mm IS lens hand held at 60mm with the EOS-1D MIV. ISO 400. Evaluative metering +2/3 stop: 1/40 sec. at f/22. We were photographing Marbled Godwits when I noticed these killer patterns as the waves receded. I grabbed my short zoom “B- roll” lens, made a few images and shared them with those of the group who were nearby. You can learn about all of my favorite San Diego spots in the San Diego Site Guide; you can find it (and lots more) by scrolling down here.

JAPAN 2012

THE JAPAN ONE TRIP ONLY NEEDED PER LIFETIME IPT, FEB/MAR, 2012. Exact dates TBA

Limit twelve photographers; openings: 11). Co-leaders: Arthur Morris & Robert O’Toole. This trip will not confirm until we have 8 deposits in hand. Please see pricing and deposit info below.

Final details for this amazing trip will be sent first to those on the Friends List and then to those on the interested list. If you would like your name placed on the already long Interested List, please e-mail me at samandmayasgrandpa@att.net. If you are a happy camper who has been on an IPT before and would like your name placed on the Friends List, please e-mail me at samandmayasgrandpa@att.net.

The nearly final itinerary includes 3 1/2 days of Snow Monkey (Japanese Macaque) photography, 4 1/2 days of Steller’s Sea Eagle photography (including five morning boat trips ice conditions permitting), 3 days of Whooper Swan photography, (2 full and 2 half days), and 4 1/2 days of photographing Red-crowned (Japanese) Crane. In addition we will get to photograph White-tailed Eagle, Black-eared (Black) Kite, and several other species of birds. We will be asking for $5,000 non- refundable deposits quite soon; trip insurance is of course beyond highly recommended.

Though this trip will not confirm until we have 8 deposits in hand, we are fully expecting it to sell out quickly. We expect to be able to price the trip at $15,999 per person. This will include just about everything but your air fare to and from Tokyo, Japan. All lodging, all meals, all ground transportation (most by luxury bus), and the two great leaders. Robert has photographed in Hokkaido several times.

No other photo trip to Japan offers anywhere near the amount of photo time that our trip does. On all other trips you spend half of the trip days traveling only to spend a day or two at each location. If you are gonna go all that way, why risk having bad weather completely wipe out one of more of the great opportunities? Do consider joining us on this amazing trip.

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Harbor Seal looking curious, La Jolla, CA Image copyright 2011: Arthur Morris/BIRDS AS ART

Canon EF 800mm f/5.6 L IS lens with the EOS-1D MIV. ISO 400. Evaluative metering + 112/3 stops: 1/320 sec. at f/6.3. I was a bit tight on this cute seal with the 800 and was not thrilled with the original so I went with a square crop as the best alternative. With those big eyes I just had to keep this one. (For the most part, the seals slept peacefully.)

BAA KUDOS

An e-mail exchange with James Jerome:

AM: James, Been swamped… Sorry to be so long in answering. re:

JJ: Thank you for a wonderful workshop in San Diego–I had a great time, and I learned a great deal.

AM: YAW.

JJ: I especially benefited from your approach and advice on composition and vision, seeing and setting up opportunities at each location. I get very excited seeing new birds and discovering new compositional styles, and I was able to do both on this trip.

AM: All good!

JJ: Thank you also for your kind words in your latest bulletin.

AM: YAW again.

JJ: My skill and success so far in bird photography (I still feel like a newcomer) is due in no small part to the tremendous influence of you and your books. I have a very worn hard cover copy of, “The Art of Bird Photography” and can probably recite several sections of that book by heart. I also have your second edition of that book on CD, which I was able to save to my I-Pad and read for enjoyment just about anywhere. In addition, I have your shorebirds book and your Digital Basics guide. Your contribution to modern bird photography is unparalleled, and your compliments mean a great deal to me.

AM: As do your incredibly kind words to me.

JJ: You had mentioned an interest in drake Green-winged Teal. There is a healthy population of Green-winged Teal which winter at the Gilbert Riparian Preserve each winter. (http://www.riparianinstitute.org/birding.cfm) They can be challenging in that they like to feed in shallow, muddy water, which means the bird is a muddy mess and the backgrounds are ugly. In addition, the water levels at the preserve change daily, so opportunities aren’t consistent. January and February are decent months for them, as they start paying more attention to pairing up than constantly feeding. I’ve attached a couple of images I took in January 2010 when the birds were displaying. By March/April, the birds are usually paired up and feed virtually non-stop to fuel the trip north.

AM: Thanks for the two pix. The one with the still water is the bomb. When I was at Gilbert a while back all that I had was muddy water.

JJ: Thanks again for a wonderful experience in San Diego, and hopefully we will cross paths again.

AM: For sure.

JJ: I would definitely be interested in the Homer trip if you do it in 2012; please add me to the BAA Friends List, as I am most certainly a happy camper. If you do come down to the Phoenix area, definitely let me know.

AM: Will do all of the above. Not sure about Homer 2012 but if we go it will be the end of March. Robert and I will be in Japan for close to a month before that…. So I will be used to the cold weather.

JJ: later and love, artie

ps: What do I have to do to get you posting on BPN? Folks there have been loving my pelican stuff.

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Green-winged Teal, drake, Gilbert Water Ranch, AZ Image copyright 2011: James Jerome

James obviously has his schwerve on…. Not the perfect exposure, the perfect head angle, and the perfect reflection all with the bird well back in the frame. Likely created with the Canon 800mm and the EOS-1D Mark IV.

By e-mail from Dean Newman:

Thanks for the help, Art. If I’ve never said it before, I sincerely appreciate your willingness to help so many of us. I’m sure I must be one of hundreds who
bombard you daily questions and I’ve seen your schedule. It would be so easy of you to dismiss our problems as trivial and unimportant. Thanks for being
everything you are. Dean

Note: while I strive not to take things personally and am very happy with who I am and what I am doing with my life, unsolicited e-mails like those above are quite gratifying. artie

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Sanderling flock in flight at dusk, Coronado, CA Image copyright 2011: Arthur Morris/BIRDS AS ART

Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS lens (hand held at 125mm) with the EOS-1D MIV. ISO 400. Evaluative metering +2 stops: 1/8 sec. at f/6.3 in Tv mode. This is another in the series of sanderling blurs from the San Diego IPT. As we teach you to do in A Guide to Pleasing Blurs, I varied my shutter speed every few frames for a different look. Working in Tv mode makes that easy to do.

BAA FIRE SALE/CANON GEAR PRICED TO GO

I am offering the following used Canon gear below for sale. As is usual when I sell my gear, it is priced to fly out of here. Everything that I list sells within minutes of the Bulletin being posted. I do not send photos of the gear. All can be returned at your expense within one week in the original condition no questions asked. Your full purchase price will be refunded less shipping. Unless we know you personally, we will need to wait for your payment to be cleared by our bank as we were beat by a pro who sent a phony Bank of America teller’s check a few years back as payment for a used Mark III. Once burned twice wary.

Canon Extender EF 2X II in excellent condition: $170. Buyer pays shipping and insurance. Includes the TC and front and rear covers. No box, no grey pouch.

Canon Extender EF 2X II in very good to excellent condition: $160. Buyer pays shipping and insurance. Includes the TC and front and rear covers. No box, no grey pouch.

Canon EF 70-200 f/4L IS lens in excellent condition: $750. Buyer pays shipping and insurance. Includes all original stuff in the box: protective leather lens hood, front lens cover, plastic hood, and USA & Canada warranty card. Note: this lens does not come from Canon with the tripod collar; that requires a separate purchase.

Canon EOS-7D in excellent condition: $1,200 (with several costly extras; see below). Buyer pays shipping and insurance. Includes all original stuff in the box: CDs, strap, front cover, camera battery & cover, the battery charger, USA & Canada warranty card, and all cables. I cannot at the moment find the camera body manual but that can be downloaded; there is a link to the download in the 7D User’s Guide. I will include a copy of that with the sale.

In addition the sale price above includes the vertical grip (in very good condition), an extra Canon battery (with cap), and a second battery charger.

Though I love my 7D I do prefer the images from my Mark IV bodies (with their larger pixels) and having to travel with separate chargers and extra batteries is a hassle with all of the weight-restricted foreign travel that I am doing. The 7D is a fine light weight camera body that has possibly the best AI Servo AF system of any Canon camera body.

New B & H, Hunt’s, (or similar) prices for the above: camera: $1479.00, extra battery: $59.95, charger: $54.90, BG-E7 Vertical Battery Grip (allows for two batteries): $179.00. Total for the package new: $1772.85.

Best to call 863-692-2806 immediately.

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Tulip with Pinch Filter Image Copyright 2011/Denise Ippolito Photography

A GUIDE TO CREATIVE FILTERS AND EFFECTS (pdf) by DENISE IPPOLITO

A Guide to Creative Filter and Effects (pdf) by Denise Ippolito, edited by Arthur Morris was released just two days ago.
On Denise’s Facebook page experienced photographer and BPN member Keith Carver wrote: “Superb job, Denise! I’ve been going through my copy of the Filter Guide. Doing so is bringing to mind all kinds of ideas. Thanks for doing it!”
My foreword pretty much says it all:

“Denise Ippolito is about as creative, as hardworking, and as dedicated a photographer as you will ever come to know. And over the past fourteen months I have come to know her quite well. Her creativity is—as you will come to see as you are reading her Filter Guide—totally amazing. She can look at an average image, a simple snapshot, heck, even a bad photograph, and in seconds know exactly how to turn it into a piece of art using this filter or that effect. And then do just that in minutes. And most of the time she is working with the beautiful images of flowers and birds that she is so good at creating.

To quote our mutual friend, Kerry Perkins, one of Denise’s co-moderators on the BPN Out of the Box Forum where she has worked tirelessly helping other to improve their photography for more than two years, “First off, I want to say that the Filter Guide is an amazing work. There is so much information here and so many wonderful images that I am just blown away that you managed to get it all together in one document! Wonderful work Lady D!”

Denise has worked incredibly hard on “A Guide to Creative Filters and Effects” and at the same time, worked incredibly hard at improving her writing skills. I congratulate her here on two jobs well done.” arthur morris/Indian Lake Estates, Florida. January 30, 2011

Here are some of the filters and effects that are detailed in the Filter Guide:

• Topaz Simplify, Clean, & BuzSim Filter
• Flaming Pear Filter (including Swerve, Twist & Vein)
• Fractalius (including Denise’s Soft-Fix preset creation)
• Adding Texture
• NIK Color Efex Pro including Midnight Filter
• Omni Lighting
• Pinch Filter
• Twirl Filter
• Ripple Filter
• Radial Blur
• Find Edges Filter
• Orton Effect
• Blank Canvas Creations!
• The Mixer Brush
• The New Paste Special Option in CS-5
• DAP
• Polar Coordinates and Mini-Worlds
• Holiday Lights Creations
• Snap Art 2 Impasto Filter
• Creating Composites
• Creating Your Own Brush Presets
• Using Blend Modes Creatively
• Using Layer Masks and Inverse Layer Masks Creatively
• Kaleidoscopes
• Combinations of all of the above!

Some of the filters above require a separate purchase. (The Filter Guide includes links to all available free trial downloads so that you can try before you buy.) Many of the filters can be found in various versions of Photoshop (though most folks–including me before I edited this guide–have no clue that they exist and no clue as to how to use them). Each detailed tutorial section is written in a clear, concise, simple, easy to follow style that can be followed even by someone opening up Photoshop for the first time.
You can order your copy of “A Guide to Creative Filter and Effects” for $38 right now by calling 863-692-0906, by sending a PayPal to birdsasart@verizon.net or birdsasart@att.net, or from the BAA On-line Store here.
Be sure to visit Denise’s blog here.

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Tree with Multiple Filters & Effects Image Copyright 2011/Denise Ippolito Photography

SHOPPER’S GUIDE

Here is the gear that I used to create the images for this Bulletin:

Canon 800mm f/5.6L IS lens (My very best friend :))
Canon 70-200mm f/2.8 IS L II lens (My favorite new lens. By a mile.)
Canon 24-105mm IS L zoom lens (I am never without this lens in my vest….)
Canon EOS-1D Mark IV professional digital camera body (I only own and travel with two.)
Canon EF 1.4X II teleconverter (I never leave home without at least two of these.)

And from the BAA On-line Store:

Gitzo 3530 LS Tripod (Sturdy and light and will last you a lifetime.)
Mongoose M3.6 Tripod Head (I use it every day with my 800mm.)
Double Bubble Spirit Level (Make your life easy by getting it right in the field; just a glance and you are square to the world.)
Delkin e-Film Pro 32 gb Compact Flash Card (Fast and dependable. Everything I want in a flash card.)

If you are considering the purchase of a major piece of photographic gear be it a new camera, a long lens, a tripod or a head, or some accessories be sure to check out our complete Shopper’s Guide. You will learn to find the lowest prices, comparison shop, and help us to keep offering tons of great free info and images.