Wulff

Very nice Andrew. For those mornings when the light is sweet but not a cloud in the sky or dew drop to b found a spray bottle is your best friend

Will When you figure that out let me know I use CS3 so its Bridge by deault. Similiar to Jay I never name folders, rather everyting is done by date. The exception is assigment work which gets directly DLd to a folder by name ala "Magazine ABC". Then the same date structure. Those then get immediately backed up to m exteral HDD. So I have immeditatly 3 copies of all RAWS.. INternal CD, external CD, Cards...Once I gone through the raws on my internal and ensure he backups exist I reformat my cards. Keeping a complete set on the external and Processed and whittled down images on the internal. As for "my" images. I do them by year/quarter/month/date. Each quarter I back up the newly completed qtr to external and each year around Christmas I weed out the previous years stuff before bck that entire year up again. So right now in Bridge I have under 2008 I have 2008 ~Q1 with Jan/Feb/Mar images..Its been backed up ~Q2 with Apr/May images 2007 has been weeded with 4 sub folders Q1 to Q4 each with 3 months worth of images. Once Id weeded them I overwrote all the previous back ups on the externals When thats complete the ended year also gets burned to DvD I do that at X-mas as I have te extra time at home over the holidays. Now if I could only figure out the Vista and Bridge problems moving files to CD...god damn permissions. (*&(*&(*&_)( HATE Vista

yeah, I beleive so. if you look hard enough you can just make out what looks like the line. In another shot ( the one with the gaping mouth) you can see the roe bag in its mouth

Well this weekend marked the opening of Trout Season. Including 12hrs over Tues/Wed shooting (and about 9hrs driving added) I spent about 30hrs total shooting various fishing related stuff over the past few days. Man am I dog flipping tired but it was fun One goal I set myself was to get a selection of Steelhead Airials this weekend. Few fish can rival their acrobatics. Its tough going though, as you only have about one to two seconds to acquire them before they are back down. SSs negate stopping down for extra DoF. Learned a few things now that Ive had time to go through the images, will be better prepared next time. The biggest being 1/800th to 1/1000th often isnt quite enough, F7.1-F8.0 would be about perfect (but so tough to acheive due to light), and that silver scales and white bellies are a biatch. Lessons learned All shot with the 24-70 f2.8 all with the exception of 1 are full frame. Hope some of you enjoy something you dont see every day. First a couple of nice Hens brought to hand They eyes have it Obligatory Reel shot Chrome! Some aerobatics 1 2 3 4 This ones cropped a fair bit but I loved the vertical so allowed myself the consession on this one 5 6 7These last two are at f2.8 8 Just slightly ooof due to the razor thin DoF

Nice Jay, glad you had a great trip.

Nice Ashby, like the seascape

The 85 1.8 is a great lens, especially for the price when you consider the 85 f1.2 L is $2,000 before taxes (one day). Its pretty versatile, a nice mid range focal and is fantastic in low light like indoor sports, nightime etc when you dont want to or cant use flash.

Thanks Ashby. I'm going to try to devise a couple ways to shed some light and yet keep it practical. No matter what idea's I come up with, I have to able to set up quickly. While I haven't spoken to the hunter about this aspect of the day yet (getting some pre dawn shots) one tihng Im pretty certain about. He's not going to be overly patient for me and I cant waste 20 minutes, setting myself up, then asking him to pose, then doing some retakes. Addition light added to the trunk might be the ticket. I have a pretty powerful flashlight with an adjustable head I could position in his trunk, slap a disfuserr over the head or bounce it back out and that might just be the ticket I need. While the photo above doesnt show it, its actaully quite a bit darker than what the photo conveys. The only reason his face is illuminated at all is because the shutter was open for 2.5s at f1.8. That gathers alot of light and makes it appear brighter than it actually is. You can "see" that by the blown moon...ever seen a moon look like that? It looks more like a sun. the other option I thought of was to use my cars headlights but I suspect he wont want the headlights lighting up the immediate area for fear of spooking anything. me thinks its time to experiment again the flashlight and bounce might just about perfect

The bald by nature is opportunistic and a scavenger, I don't know quite why people get upset when they find out it not some nobel predator.Homer is famous world wide for photogpahing them from the deck of some ladies house. Also if Im not mistaken the cry you often hear in movies/shows/commercials etc is that of a Red Tail Hawk and that the Bald makes quite a different sound. I know anytime ive heard them is more a peep. Personally I think its a fine symbol and its nature (scavenger) has little to do with the "Freedom" its supposed to represent and not some fierce killer of weak prey . Hell what does the Beaver (ours)represent????? A buck toothed slightly overweight couch potato? Oh and nice pics Will

Thanks guys. Its an odd one, with some problems to overcome. Namely shooting in dark, flash cant be used ( nightvision or jut plain old spooking the wildlife/birds) and Im actually hoping for a light drizzle to boot. Hence trying to figure out some ways to get close to what were hoping for. Ashby the reason his face looks a bit distorted is because the shots taken with an 85mm at F1.8. So the effective DoF at that distance/focal range is suffice to say tight..probably around 2 inches..and its manually focused in the near pitch black. Gettin him in focus at all as a bit of miracle. The other hurdle is the exposure time, even at ISO 640 and F1.8 the shutter was still open for 2.5 seconds. At that DoF/exposure time if he even blinks the image will be blurred (motion blur). But Im glad it did once as now I have some ideas on how to overcome it. For example if is forecast to be a bright moon I may bring a silver reflector along o bounce some light bck onto the subject/scene Will no problem, Im constanly thinking about ways to change/improve/differentiate comps. Its why I asked people to be honest. If everyone always says...Nice image... you dont learn how you might shoot it differenly next time

Cool find Will. J

I have a couple assignments coming up ( 1 starts tonight with a 4 to 5 drive lol, but thats another story) but the other is covering a Turkey Hunt. Turkey hunting is a tricky thing, where silence and lack of movement is critical. To boot I need to meet the hunter/writer at 4am on the day of the actual hunt. The editor is hoping I can get some pre dawn shots of a. the hunter gearing up by moonlight, car headlight b. the hunter setting up decoys in the pre dawn light c. the hunter making some initial calls, in pre dawn light Then its dead silence and hiding in the 2nd blind for me while the hunter does his thing. Because Turkeys have acute hearing I likely won't be risking any shots of the Turkeys themselves as the risk of getting busted by the sound of the shutter tripping is too great. Anyways, having neven done this before I went out with another Hunter on Sunday. He wanted to scout his area prior to this Fridays season openers and I to get a taste of what to expect. So there I was on the road at 3:30 am, we were on location at 5am. Exeriment #1. Shoting a hunter gearing up in the dark at 5:30am Thats a full moon in the BG. Because I had to expose for the very dim light cast by the trunks interior light the moons blown. Also due to the lack of contrast I had to manually focus. As good as my bodies AF systemy is, there are limits. Lesson learned. Trying to get both some detail of the hunter and a moon in the BG is impossible. If I expose for the moons light, the hunter wont be anything but a silohette. If I expose by whatever little light is illuminating the hunter, I'll blow the moon in the BG. ISO 640, f1.8, 2.5 second exposure be honest, tell me what you think. Interesting shot. After a couple hours calling the Toms it was time to pack it in. The hunter started walking along the hedgerow where I was located. Because I had set up in the dark myself and despite not having a blind but instead was simply in full camo, he had trouble locating me even though he knew the general area. Its me hes looking for All in all the outing gave me really some good insight into what to expect and how to get some of the shots the editors hoping for. Another advantage of getting out before the suns up. I was able to get some nice WT shots. A small herd of 8 had no clue I was there and while it took quite a bit of time, they eentually got within 30 feet of me.

Coming along nicely L. With indoor sporting shots as with the rodeo, you need to sacrifice everything to get the fastest Shutter Speeds possible. So that typically means using the fastest lens you own, no matter what its focal length is. if a choice between reach or faster SSs choose the faster SSs.

Sweet Jay, love the wolf

Oh Man do I ever live in the wrong location. /cry

Nice Andrew. J

Heres what Im thinking about Will. I lookd hard at the Wimberly and RRS systems. Both are really good but RRS just seems to be a sturdier and b more flexible (add ons) 87B bracket. http://reallyrightstuff.com/flash/02.html Big enough that I can also use with my 400mm to get the flash off the body when wildlife shooting to avoid redeye. Possibly a second flash mount and 2 extrenders and I can have this Scroll half way down, theres an image of a guy using a 180mm f3.5 and duo heads http://reallyrightstuff.com/flash/05.html Possibly the focus rail http://reallyrightstuff.com/macro/02.html And whatever plates and clamps I need and yeah their Ball head is on my list to.Tubes over a reverse 50, save that for somewher down the road. But I need to make sure it what I want/need as their stuff is god awful expensive. ( BH-55 ) ****** Streamside I cant decide if I want to go the Tripod (focus rail ) route or try mounting it all on my Bushhawk. One thing I want to try doing for sure is getting Mayflies in flight....Bushhawk + 400 + 25mm to 50mm in tubes might do it. What I need to do is give more thougt to what your doing. A metod to collect and then have a mini aquarium/lighting nearby or build a nice mini studio in the basement. Last year didnt go as well I had hoped. Been thinking about finding/buying one of the larger butterfly nets to help collect and have thought about everything from a small cooler to a screen type terraium similiar to what pet stoes sell for geckos and the like...kind of a mix between a terrarium and a light box.

Fly tyer. Whether you use diopters, TCs, Tubes, or reversed 50s your DoF gets increasing thin. A 1:1 macro is extremely thin with just the bare lens. Addd a TC or Tubes and its getting thinner. Add a reversed 50 and its even thinner. At a certain point you *have* to balance your desired magnification against the *required* DoF for the subject. Example. With a 1:1 macro, focal lengths immaterial you get 1:1. The only difference is working distance and your DoF is razor thin. Add 60mm in Tubes and while you've increased your magnification but porportinately decreased your DoF and MDF. Add a reversed 50 and youve increased your magnification yet again and yet again porporionately decreased your DoF. So with my 180mm 1:1 and 60mm in tubes and a reversed 50 I could shoot mites and tics and show every gory detail. But then again its doubtful the available DoF will capture anything more. So with a Stonefly for example I could shoot one of its eyes and have that eye putting a cyclops to shame, thats all Id have in focus if that (the entire eye). Conversely you could save all the add ons and just get Canons MP65. It offers everything from 1:1 to 5:1 with just the bare lens. The problem is its really only good for tiny stuff, smaller than ants stuff. if you want to see some sick, sick macro work I could point you to a few shooters work. Will I should email you to brainstorm a bit. Ive developing some ideas todo some similiar stuff and Im putting a shopping list together to add to my macro arsenol. Everything from flash brackets and a focus rail ( all from RRS ). Oh and speaking of post work.. I hate cleaning up dust specs nothing like Macro to make you realise just how filthy your sensor is Nice work Will.

You right TG is isnt actually more reach its the cropped appearance of more, or an effective xxx rather than actual xxx. So a 400mm on a 1.6body has for lack of better words, the effect of shooting at 520mm but without the detail or magnification of an actual 520. It also is without the lack of loss in IQ cropping in post would accomplish. Your stil left with ## number of pixels shot on a X lens on a Z body that have been "cropped" to apear as though the image were taken with Y lens. So its not quite a true crop either

Very nice Andrew. Still waitng for some bugs to start showin up here.

LFF it really depends on the specific, body, lens and converter. Some like mine do ok. Thats the ID + 400 + Canon 1.4 TC. Most of my recent White tail images were taken wth that set up. Virtually no loss in Image Quality but there is drop off in Focus speed. Not a huge amount but enough that its makes a in focus vs out of focus image dicey. Sometimes it will lock on fast enough other times it wont. Those by the way are all full frame. With bodys below the 1D series, if the addition of te TC brings you to f8 you'll lose auto focus. Theres 2 ways around that. 1 you can tape the pins or 2 use non reporting TC. I used the 30D + 400mm f5.6 + Tamron non reporting 1.4 TC for quite awhile. Results were mixed, sometimes good, sometimes not god but when faced with a shot vs no shot I didnt mind adding it. That said if I was after birds in flight I would not add as even though auto focus worked it was slow, way to slow for birds in flight. Not that I couldnt get BiF with it, I ould and did but that the chances of a great series being missed due to slow focus were unacceptable and Id rather have the faster, more reliable focus of just the Bare lens. The following were all with the 30D + 400mm + 1.4 Tamron non reporting TC Cropped if I recall between 30 and 50 % Not cropped, full frame The only reason I had te TC on though is the birds especially the Snowy were waaaaay away and ended up flying right at me. In fact the first words out of my mouth after the snowy flew at and by us within about 40feet was %^&*!! I had the TC on. Luckily it grabbed and held focus. I tried a TC with the Canon 100-400L and did not like results at all. Therefore I would recomend not using one with zooms. The build and complexity in design between zooms and primes really doesnt do well for TCs an zooms. They should be used with primes. BUT Define "well". My definition of acceptable might be more stringent than the next persons and far be it for me to say, thats not a good shot. Its too soft or whatever. Its your shot and if your happy thats all that really matters. Just because Im nit picky means squat if "you" like the shot. Again, Im trying to sell some images to mgazines so I very well may be deleting "unacceptable" shots that others would be happy or more than happy with. Bu I have to have tack sharp images with little room for error. If you have a 300 zoom like the 70-300 and the rebel XTI and sometimes get frustrated by the lack of reach and would like the shot of some distant bird/deer/fox get a Tamron 1.4 NON REPORTING TC. They retail for about $100.00 If I saw an Eagle tomorrow way yonder and the only chance at any kind of a decent image was to stack my Canon 1.4TC on the Tamron 1.4 non reporting, then add them to the 400mm for an effective range of about 1,200mm and manually focus Id do it, even if the image was "unacceptable" to some people. Id do it again the next day and next day until such time a I got some snappy Eagle shots at closer ranges to call my own.

Im hoping to do some scouting this weekend to locate some Toms and get some pics before the season. Then Im hoping I can find a hunter or two that will let me tag along so I an get pics of the hunt. What bow did you get? I got a 40pd Recurve for 3D shooting and a pair of Diamonds (liberty and edge) for my daughter and I

Lol yeah, unfortunately. Its almost (but not quite) impossible to do both. What I should do is hire a guide. Imagine his surprise when I tell him its so *he* can fish while I tag along Wish I could hop over, so many pinners fly are few and far between. Openers Im either hittingheadwaters for Brookies or Tailwaters for Browns. Opportunity for Steel is starting to get thin. Then I have t try to find bow hunters for turkey season and somehow squeeze in Walleye openers all just in time for Musky June 6th

thats what cable releases are for camera dangling, set at its widest manual focus set for about 10 feet f14 or more for a deep DoF. Hands on the rod Cable release in your teeth. Have it all planed out. Also plan on doing that for casting and surface strikes when out solo Have a similiar idea for when Im top water for bass/musky out of my toon except I'll have a mini tripod on he stripping apron. Or you could call me and Ill come do it for you. Lol. J

Very, very nice Will. Lighting is great. Focusing on Mayflys and Nymphs is a biatch as I well know. For me Im constantly torn between maxing magnification at 1:1 and backing off a bit to get a bit more DoF. The problem is their size and skittishness. Not so small as to warrant tubes, which would increase magnification but reduces DoF further. Yet not quite big enough use tubes +300 prime like people use for dragon and butterflies but too large to make getting them within the effective DoF a major PIA!!!!!. They seem to fall between all the cracks. Lighting Im considering getting a Wimberly macro flashbracket. ATleast that way Im not always relying on natural light and atleast can keep SSs at 1/200th to avoid shake and movement blur. re "aquarium" I assume your collecting and bringing home? Well done. Have similiar thoughts but I question their survival given my driving time, as Im normally on the stream for a few hours and then almost a 2hr drive home. Atleast with my favorite stream. Portable. Ive considered bring a small clear one with me but wonder about glass/weight/size and depth. Such a bloody problem but I can say yours is close. A lazy susan to spin the aquarium might help. Save moving the rig or aquarium leaving only distance from lens to subject to contend with and subject movement. the lighting imo youve got perfect