What Do I Think of the Nikon AF-S 80-400mm f/4.5~5.6 VR II—Part 2

Sometimes, I really wonder about both Nikon and Canon.  Why?  Because both of them completely ignore some very simple but important improvements that they could make to their equipment.   Improvements that the vast majority of their customers would appreciate and probably not cost them much money at all.

What specifically Nikon AF-S 80-400mm f/4.5~5.6 VR II feature am I talking about?  The tripod foot attached to the lens.  The manufacturers’ tripod foot is too bulky and lacks the Arca-Swiss milling that almost all advanced amateur and professional photographers use.  What would it cost to add an Arca-Swiss type of plate milled into the bottom of the foot?  People who do not use this type of tripod mounting could attach their own plate to the bottom of the foot like they currently do, but for millions of photographers who use the Arca-Swiss system, it would mean one less accessory (which neither Canon or Nikon makes) that the photographer would have to purchase.

In addition, in the Nikon AF-S 80-400mm f/4.5~5.6 VR II, I have found that the collar is not strong enough to allow for the lens to be easily pivoted from landscape to portrait orientation.  Many years ago, I purchased a Nikon AF-S 300mm f/4 that had a Kirk NC-300 replacement lens collar attached (you can see it here).  The collar works great.  I will probably replace the one on the 80-400mm with a Kirk collar made for it.

A shout-out to Nikon, people want equipment that works easily so beef-up your collars so that they do!

Today’s photo is as much about mood as it is about the crane.  The bird was completely in the shade and the light had a slight blue/green cast to it.  I wanted to maintain that look so I set the white balance to cool and I underexposed the photo by about 1½ stops.

Enjoy

Camera settings:  Nikon D800 (DX format), 80-400mm f/4.5~5.6 at 600mm (effectively), ISO 2500, f/5.6 at 1/250^th of a second on a tripod.

Post Processing:

Lightroom 5—applied Nikon Vivid preset during import, set white and black points, added clarity, sharpness and vibrance and did some dodging and burning with an adjustment brush.

What Do I Think of the Nikon AF-S 80-400mm f/4.5~5.6 VR II—Part 1

This spring, I purchased the Nikon AF-S 80-400mm f/4.5~5.6 VR II.  I bought this lens to shoot my grandchildren’s softball and baseball games.  I am going to Wyoming in August to attend my nephew’s wedding and JD and I plan to visit Yellowstone National Park (my very favorite national park) after the wedding.   I wanted a longer lens to photograph the animals.  I felt like I needed the extra reach that this lens gives me to do a good job photographing both subjects. 

I generally use the lens on my Nikon D800 with the camera set to DX format that effectively turns the lens into a 120-600mm lens. 

What do I think of the lens?  Before I reply, a couple of notes.  Shooting the lens made me learn “good long lens” technique.  Between the length of the lens and the small pixel size of the Nikon D800, you must keep the lens very still.  The slightest movement will produce blur.  Because the depth-of-field is so narrow, you must focus accurately on your subject. 

I intend to go through a series of shots and describe various aspects of the lens. 

Today’s photograph comes from one of my visits to Brazos Bend State Park.  I was taken relatively early in the morning when the sun was very low in the sky.  I focused on the bird’s eye. 

Enjoy 

Camera settings:  Nikon D800 (DX format), 80-400mm f/4.5~5.6 at 600mm (effectively), ISO 100, f/8 at 1/250^th of a second on a tripod. 

Post Processing: 

Lightroom 4—applied Nikon Vivid preset during import, set white and black points and added clarity, sharpness and vibrance.

Photos that All Photographers Must Take—But Why?

I was looking through photographs taken by serious photographers on a website a couple weeks ago and all of sudden, it struck me that there are photographs that are “standards” that all photographers seemed compelled to take.  Today’s photo is one of them—a male peacock with its tail spread.

When I see a photo like this one, I usually think:  “same ole, same ole.”  Yet, when I was presented with the opportunity to photograph this peacock I took over 70 frames of this peacock.

Why?  I have no idea.  Is my photo any better than the thousands that I have seen before.  Not really.  So why did I spend so much time taking and retaking photos of the subject?

I have no idea!

Enjoy.

Camera settings:  Nikon D4, 24-70mm f/2.8, ISO 200, f/8 at 1/500^th of a seconds.

Post Processing:  

Lightroom 4—applied Landscape preset during import, set white and black points and added clarity and vibrance.

Nikon D4—A New Experience—Letting the Shutter Rip!

Today’s photo was also taken at Brazos Bend State Park.  I wanted to isolate the bird from the background so I did wait until he got in a good position on the log.  I then did something that I rarely do—I put my camera in high-speed continuous shooting mode and held the shutter down.  Do you know how many frames you can rip-off in about five seconds of shooting—a lot more than I am accustom to!  I shot 68 frames in a matter of seconds.  I can see how Tim Timmins (see his work here) fills up so many memory cards each week.

I almost forgot my normal disclaimer:  I am not a bird photographer!!!

Enjoy.

Camera settings:  Nikon D4, 28-300mm f/3.5-5.6 at 300mm, ISO 800, f/5.6 at 1/180^th of a second on a tripod.

Post Processing:  

Lightroom 4—set white and black point and increased contrast.

What I Did on My Vacation #9

 

Before leaving my photographic tour of the Galapagos Islands, I would like to answer a few questions that I have gotten regarding visiting there.

First, yes, access to the islands is controlled however you still have quite a lot of freedom to explore most of the islands.  The reason that I say “most of the islands” is because they periodically put certain islands “off limits” so that the vegetation and wildlife can recover.  The government appears to be doing a very good job striking a balance between tourism and the environment—even though I am sure that both sides (tourism business and environmentalists would argue that point with me.

Second, why the photographic restrictions, like “no flash”?   Don’t know and really do not care.  My attitude on the “no flash” rule is that:  (1) it’s there country and they can make the rule; and (2) it does not seem to be an unreasonable rule consider how fragile the environment is.  Personally, I get a lot more upset when I encounter “authority” figures in the United States that tell me that I cannot photograph in this or that public place.  I recently watched a video on Fstoppers ( http://fstoppers.com/page/4)  that dealt with this very issue.  You might want to check it out.

Finally, would I go back to the Galapagos Islands?  The straightforward answer is “no.”  But, that is not because the Galapagos Islands are not a great place to visit and photograph, because they are.  Rather, it is because there are still lots of places in the world that I want to see, and of course, photograph.

Today, I present a few random shots.

Enjoy.

What I Did on My Vacation #5

Yesterday, I had lunch with a friend.  During the course of our lunch, my Galapagos Islands photos became a topic.  He wanted to know why I was not putting in technical data on my photos so he was curious about how the photos were taken and what post processing was done on most of the photos that I have posted.

As to how all the photos were taken, they were taken with my Nikon D3, set at variable ISO (up to ISO 1,600 with a minimum shutter speed of 1/180^th of a second), a Nikon 28-300mm, f/3.5-5.6 lens and NO flash (not allowed in the Galapagos Islands).   I also often resorted to using automatic bracketing (three shots at one-stop increments) to make sure that I got the photo was properly exposed. 

 Because there are so many animals that have almost no fear of humans, you can more-or-less shop for your shot.   As an example for the first photo of the iguana posted last Friday, I walked up and down a row of four iguanas that were perched on rocks.  I was looking for a simple, pleasing background and light falling on the iguana’s face.  After “shopping” for several minutes, I selected the one that you saw.  Normally, in wild live photography, you just cannot do that and that is one reason that I really admire wildlife photographers, especially bird photographers.

As to post-processing, it has been done totally in Lightroom 3 (Camera RAW).  The processing generally includes making sure that I have a good white and black point set, tweaking color hue, saturation and luminosity, adjusting clarity and vibrance, using various tone curves, cropping, using post-crop vignetting and occasionally using the adjustment brush to lighten or darken various parts of a photo.  The overall adjustment time would probably be less that two minutes on all the photographs presented.

Today’s topic:  BIRDS.  Following is my usual disclaimer:  I AM NOT A BIRID PHOTOGRAPHER; I TAKE BAD BIRD PHOTOGRAPHS.  But, I felt that I had to include birds because they are such an important part of the Galapagos Islands experience.

I chose the first photo of a Blue-Footed Booby because it illustrates the lack of fear that the birds have of humans and shows how hard the light was during many of our hikes on the islands.  These birds have a tendency to stand (and nest) on the designated paths and will generally not move when you walk by them.  In this photo, I am about four feet in front of the bird and the legs are about two feet behind the bird. 

Second photo is one of the blue feet of the Blue-Footed Booby.  I really wanted a photo of a Blue-Footed Booby doing its dance (we saw it several times on our first visit to the Galapagos Islands) but I never saw any dance.  In the photo, I wanted to show-off what makes the bird unique.

The final photo is of a duck (forgot the name) taken in the highlands on an overcast day.  I really liked how the bold, vivid colors of the duck contrasted with the soft, muted colors of the reflection in the water.

Enjoy.

Patrick Is Going Canon

Now I am sure that several friends of mine will immediately hit the comment button after reading my title, but wait a minute.  Canon just made me too good of an offer.  All the gear I wanted up to a maximum of twice what I currently have invested in Nikon equipment plus an annual allowance which will more than pay for all my equipment needs and finally preference of the delivery of new equipment.  No more waiting six to nine months for newly announced equipment.  So, I sold my soul.

Just kidding.

But, this photo was taken with a Canon G12.  The boss told me that I was to purchase a little camera that:  (a) she could use; and (b) I was to use for casual family outing.  The two cameras that I tried out were the Canon G12 and the Nikon P7000.  Both are excellent point and shoot cameras however the Canon seemed to deliver slightly better photo—a little more contrast and a tack sharper.  Not enough to completely blow away the Nikon P7000 but enough to give the Canon the edge.

Overall, I am happy enough with the Canon to place my order.  But there are a few things that I will need to get accustom to:  (1) the delay that you get between the time you press the shutter and when the photo is actually taken; (2) noise at what I consider low ISO (say starting at ISO 400); (3) how many of the controls are buried in the menus rather than on buttons on the camera body; and, (4) the on camera flash—really not sure what is going to do or how the photo will look.

Still, with all these things, plus a few more, I am happy.  Why?  Because the BOSS is happy.

Enjoy.

Camera settings:  Canon G12 with a 6.1-30.5mm lens at 30.5, ISO 80, f/4.5 and 1/320^th of a second.

Post Processing:  

Lightroom 3—Set black and white points, adjusted exposure, added clarity and mid-tone contrast.

Bird Photography by a Non-Bird Photographer 101—Lesson 3

Today’s masterpiece of bird photography shows a pelican against a very simple background of blue water.  Here I wanted the pelican to stand-out against the water.  Unfortunately, I could not blur the background to the extent that I would have liked.

Enjoy.

Camera settings:  Nikon D3, Nikon 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6 shot at 300mm,  ISO 200, f/5.6 and 1/350^th.

Post Processing:  

Lightroom 3—Adjusted white balance, mid tone contrast and saturation of various colors.

Bird Photography by a Non-Bird Photographer 101—Lesson 2

I hope this photo generates a few comments and possibly a little disagreement among the viewers since my last post seems to have fallen on blind eyes.

Many people maintain that a viewer’s eyes go immediately to the brightest point of a photo.  I do not think that is correct; and, I believe a lot of research supports my view.  The research states that the eye generally goes to what the mind most readily recognizes, then the portion with the highest contrast, then the sharpest, then most saturated colors and finally to the brightest portion.  They do indicated that bright distracting points of a photo can distract the eyes but if the main subject has sufficient impact and interest, then the eyes will return to the main subject.

My last post generated several comments about wanting more separation.  I agree that good separation of the subject and the background does make the subject stand-out from the background.  In today’s post, I tried to create separation by depth-of-field and contrast in brightness. 

I used spot metering on the bird to determine my exposure.  I knew that by doing this that the background would be considerably brighter than the gull.  I was not afraid of the eyes going to the background because of how sharp and recognizable the gull is in the photo.  I believe that all the details in the bird’s feathers will generally keep the viewer’s interest and focus.  I have included a second photo to make it easier to see the details of the bird and the effect of the limited depth-of-field to separate the bird from the background.

Enjoy.

Camera settings:  Nikon D3, Nikon 70-300mm f/3.5-5.6 shot at 180mm, ISO 200, f/5.6 and 1/250^th of a second on a tripod.

Post Processing:  

Lightroom—Set black and white points, adjusted saturation of various colors, added mid-tone contrast and vignetting.

Bird Photography by a Non-Bird Photographer 101—Lesson 1

Why would a non-bird photographer give a bird photography class.  Good question.  I do not think I have reached my federally approved level of humiliation this week.

I know what you are asking:  “What disqualifies you from being a bird photographer?”

1.  I take bad bird photos.

2.  I do not have the patience to take good bird photos.

3. I do not know what I am doing when a bird is in front of my lens.

4. I do not have the equipment to be a “real” bird photographer—in general, “real” bird photographers must have a lens that allows you to see ants on the moon.

I know your next question:  “Why are you doing this?”  I lost a bet?  Really, it all started when I was down in Galveston after a portrait session and I remembered that “birds of a feather” was our club’s assignment for October.  So, with my mighty 70-300mm lens in hand, I set-out to capture the perfect bird photo.

Here I wanted to play with the compression created by my massive 300mm of thundering glass.  The bird was about 100 feet from me and the rigs in the background were about 600 yards.  Yet, because of the compression, the two look like they are right next to each other.  I think this effect adds interest to the photo.

The image that is shown here only represents about 40% of the frame that I captured—a nice 600mm lens would have made the photo to be pretty much full frame and think about the compression and bokeh that I could have achieved.   And just think, I could achieve this by merely forking over $10,300 for a Nikon 600 AF-S f/4G VR.  Cheap at twice the price.  I wonder how fast B&H can get it to me?

Enjoy.

Camera settings:  Nikon D3, Nikon 70-300mm f/3.5-5.6 at shot at 300mm ISO 200, f/5.6 and 1/750^th of a second.

Post Processing:  

Lightroom 3—Set black and white points, added clarity and mid-tone contrast.

Photoshop CS5—removed a few distracting elements within the photo and balanced the colors within the image.

Hummingbird

I know this is not a great hummingbird photo, but I think hummingbirds are one of the coolest animals and anytime I can get a photo of one of them, I am going to do it. I wanted to show the colors and the nice bokeh.

Enjoy.

Camera settings: Nikon D3, Nikon 300mm f/4, shot at ISO 200, f/5.6 and 1/125^th.

Post Processing:

Lightroom— Set white and black point, added mid-tone contrast and clarity and increased saturation of green.

Brazos Bend State Park #10

After I photographed the two Black Bellied Whistling Ducks, a single one landed on a perch a few feet away. Again, better being lucky rather than being good. I had everything set, and just waited until the duck turned his head around.

Again, I liked the earth-tone colors throughout the image. I wanted the duck to be tack sharp so I selected an f/11. I knew that even at f/11, the background would be virtually out-of-focus.

Enjoy.

Camera settings: Nikon D700, Nikon 300mm f/4 with a 1.7x Nikon Teleconverter and polarizing filter attached, shot at ISO 200, f/11 and 1/125^th of a second on a tripod.

Post Processing:

Lightroom—Set white and black points, added mid-tone contrast, clarity and added vignette.

Photoshop—ran nik Color Efex Pro tonal contrast filter on the duck and stump to add contrast to shadows, mid-tones and highlights and added boarder with onOne PhotoFrame.

Brazos Bend State Park #8

I saw this Green Heron from some distance away.  I approached him very slowly.  I did not want to disturb him because I really liked how the green moss on the water set-off his blue and purple colors.  

I tried to frame my photo so that it only showed only a minimum amount of different components of the scene.   I wanted my image to really contrast the blues and purples of the Green Heron against the green slim on the water.

Enjoy.

Camera settings:  Nikon D700, Nikon 300mm f/4 with a 1.7x Nikon Teleconverter and polarizing filter attached, shot at ISO 200, f/16 and 1/125^th of a second on a tripod.

Post Processing:

Lightroom—Set white and black points, added mid-tone contrast, clarity and vibrance.

Photoshop—cloned out some leaves on the water so that the green became very uniform through the image and used nik Color Efex Pro tonal contrast on the bird to increase the contrast of the shadows, mid-tones and highlights.

Brazos Bend State Park #6

I believe that this bird is a Yellow-Crowned Night Heron.  

There are two things that I liked about this photo.  First is how the blues and greens of the background complemented and set-off the neutral white, gray and black of the Heron.  Second, I liked the Heron’s pose--he even seems to be posing for me.  The lighting on the bird was very good except for some shadow on his face.

In processing the image, I just wanted to make sure that the details of the Heron came out.

Enjoy.

Camera settings:  Nikon D700, Nikon 300mm f/4 with a 1.7x Nikon Teleconverter and polarizing filter attached, shot at ISO 200, f/9.5 and 1/350^th of a second on a tripod.

Post Processing:

Lightroom—Set white and black points, added mid-tone contrast, clarity.

Photoshop—used nik Color Efex Pro tonal contrast filter on the bird and the stump to bring out the details of both by adding contrast in shadows, mid-tones and highlights, and then made only the Heron’s face lighter by using a curves adjustment.

Brazos Bend State Park #4

Sometimes it is better to be lucky than good.  

This photo is a testimonial to that.  I was trying to take a photo of these two ducks who were in a heavily wooded area.  No matter what I did, I could not get a clear shot of them.  When I moved a few branches, it startled the ducks and off they flew.  But to my amazement, I turned and saw the two ducks landing on a stump that was about 80 feet from me.  I had a completely unobstructed view of them and a great background to boot!  I did not move my tripod, I merely turned my camera around and started firing.  I felt like Moose Peterson--I was firing away at like 1,000 frames per second!

I really like the earth tones in this scene and how the ducks are clearly separated from the background.   The background was far enough away so that even at f/9.5 (which made sure the ducks would be totally in focus), I got a very nice out-of-focus background.

Enjoy.

Camera settings:  Nikon D700, 300mm f/4 with 1.7x Nikon Teleconverter and polarizing filter attached, shot at ISO 200, f/9.5 and 1/90^th of a second on a tripod.

Post Processing:

Lightroom—Set white and black points, added mid-tone contrast. Increased color saturation and hue for yellow and green.

Photoshop—used nik Color Efex Pro tonal contrast filter to add contrast to highlights, mid-tones and shallows, and added a boarder to the image and added boarder using a stroke and various layer style options. 

Brazos Bend State Park #2

The contrast of colors was what drew me to this scene.  The greens and browns of the background and water versus the blues and reds of the bird is what makes this photo for me.  For some reason, when I posted the image and then previewed it, the browns have a slightly greener cast than my original RAW file, so try to image it without that cast.

I put my tripod as low as it would go (I was laying on my belly--constantly watching for alligators) so that I would be shooting straight-on at the bird’s eye—I wanted to make sure I would capture any catch-light in the bird’s eyes.  I then yelled "action" and this little guy started swimming straight at me.  It is great to work with "first rate" talent like this guy!

Enjoy.

Camera settings:  Nikon D700, 300mm f/4 with 1.7x Nikon Teleconverter and polarizing filter attached, shot at ISO 200, f/16 and 1/60^th of a second on a tripod.

Post Processing:

Lightroom—Set white and black points, added mid-tone contrast and darkened brown and greens in scene.

Photoshop—cloned-out blown-out highlights and used nik Color Efex Pro tonal contrast filter only on the bird to bring out as much detail as possible in his feathers.