Reader Mail

As a special year end recap, I’ve assembled some of the questions that you, the readers, have asked me over e-mail and my responses to them. I've broken them up into five separate postings below. I hope that other readers will benefit from the questions and answers, so keep those questions coming by sending e-mail to jayparedes@hotmail.com.

Also don't forget about the updated December gallery.

Reader Mail Part 1 - Flight Photography

I was out with my new Canon 400mm f/5.6 L lens and got some great flight shots. I had it set in aperture priority, ISO 400 at f/7.1. In some of the shots, the shutter speed went up to 1/4000s, which is not good. Any suggestions on how to bring the shutter speed down?

Getting your shutter speed down is easy. Simply dial in a smaller aperture (f/8 or higher) or lower your ISO. Since during flight shots the background is mostly blue sky, you'll get very fast shutter speeds on a sunny day. Watch out for when a bird flies lower and your background turns green, as your shutter speed will dramatically drop. In general I try to keep my shutter speed between 1/800 and 1/2000. At 1/2000 if the background changes and the shutter speed drops, I'm not so worried that I'll get a blurry shot.

I really need your help. I was not happy with any of my flight shots of the harrier. I know you shoot RAW and had the Canon 300mm f/2.8 IS L lens, but I was wondering, how did your pictures come out? The pictures I took of the harrier, none were sharp and the head was dark.

My images of the harrier were alright. I had three passes total yesterday and I was able to adjust the camera settings a little each time to get better results. About 50% of my images of the harrier were in focus. It was a bit more of a challenge using the Canon 300mm f/2.8 IS L lens plus Canon 2x converter because that combination makes focusing a bit slow, somewhat like the Canon 100-400mm f/3.5 – 5.6 IS L lens.

I found from the previous passes that the sky was very bright making the harrier very dark, so I added +1 exposure compensation to bring more details out in the bird. To get it as bright as I wanted I had to further adjust the exposure in the RAW image about another +1/4 stop. That makes the image a bit washed out, and then I had to adjust the blacks and contrast back in. RAW makes processing more flexible.

I was wondering what you do if you get a bird flying and it is full frame. When you go to print it, how do you print it without cropping and cutting off some of the wing or if is too close to the edge to mat?

I believe what your asking has to do with the image's aspect ratio. Canon cameras create files in the 3x2 format (more commonly known as 6x4), which is fine if you are printing images with the same ratio (i.e. 3x2, 6x4, 12x8, 18x12, etc). However, if you print to a different format, say 11x 14 you'll end up cropping part of the image. So if you have something that is full frame and tight, you'll cut off part of the image you want to keep. There are a couple ways to get around this. The first is when printing, in Adobe Photoshop, I use the scale to fit media check box. This will fit the image on to the paper size but you'll get white borders around the image. The other method I use only works if you have a clean background such as an almost solid green on blue. Use the canvas dialog in Photoshop to add more canvas around the image so that you get an aspect ratio of 14x11 (or 11x8.5, etc). Then use the clone tool to clone in the background of the original image to the blank part of the canvas.

Reader Mail Part 2 - Teleconverters

I recently purchased a Canon 1.4 extender for use with my 100-400mm Canon lens. The extender does not allow my lens to auto focus. Does any manufacturer make a 1.4 extender that will allow my Canon lens to still auto focus? I would appreciate any suggestions that you might have.

You're right, the Canon 1.4 teleconverter will not allow you to auto focus with the Canon 100-400mm L f/3.5 - 5.6 lens. That's because most Canon camera bodies, with the exception of the 1D series will only auto focus if your lens aperture is f/5.6 or faster. The Canon 1.4 teleconverter adds 1 stop (f/1.4) of light loss to your lens, making its effective aperture f/8.0 (f/5.6 + f/1.4). So your Canon body will not autofocus. There are several workarounds for this issue, including using masking tape on some of the converter's pins, but most don't work very well. The only workaround that I use and recommend is to use the Tamron 1.4 extender instead of the Canon one. You'll have to use a specific Tamron 1.4 extender for this to work, namely this one.

Tamron makes several 1.4 extenders. The one you want is the black, non-pro version. This little teleconverter does not pass all of the lens data back to the camera body. Most notably, it omits the part about a teleconverter being attached, so your camera body still thinks that the lens is operating at f/3.5 to f/5.6 and so attempts autofocus. Notice I said "attempts". Whether it is successful or not, depends on the amount of light available and the amount of contrast visible on your subject. Autofocus is also slow, so this trick works for getting extra distance, but does not work very well for moving targets like birds in flight. When it works, it's great. When it doesn't (lack of light or contrast) its frustrating. Here's some tricks I've found to make this combination work better.

1. This trick works better on older camera bodies, such as the Digital Rebel or the Canon 10D. It still works with newer bodies like the 20D, 30D, and 40D, but not as well.


2. Use only the center AF point.


3. Focus on the highest contrast portion of the subject. Sometimes you may want to focus on the edge of the subject, right at the transition between the edge of the subject and the background as this area may have more contrast.


4. Use this trick to make far away birds appear larger in the frame.


5. Do not use for action shots like birds in flight.


6. Set your aperture to f/8 or smaller (f/10, f/11) to maintain sharpness and get the correct exposure.


7. If you use this trick with a flash in E-TTL mode the image will not be correctly exposed, because the lens data sent to the flash will be wrong. Use with flash in manual mode or dial in flash exposure compensation after taking some test shots.


8. Set your camera to one shot mode so you can tell if the camera locked on to the subject or is endlessly hunting due to lack of light or contrast for this combination.

I ran into someone at Green Cay on Friday. He was using a Tamron 1.4 extender that gave him auto focus with his Canon 400mm f/5.6 L lens. I think Kenko will also allow the auto focus to work. If you were to buy one, would you go with Tamron or Kenko?

You can use the Tamron 1.4x extender to get auto focus with the Canon 400 f/5.6 L lens and the Canon 100-400 f/3.5 - 5.6 IS L lens under certain conditions.

These conditions are:

1. It has to be a sunny day, and your subject needs to be well lit with a lot of contrast. (i.e. Red Shouldered Hawks have lots of contrast, but Snail Kites don't).


2. Autofocus will be slower than normal.


3. AI Servo will "hunt" to find its target more than usual.


4. Even though your camera will display that your aperture is set to f/5.6, in reality your exposure is being taken at f/8.

Although the trick works with a few teleconverters by Tamron, Kenko, and others; tests by users on internet forums like DPReview.com indicated that the Tamron performed better than the other brands. For this trick to work, you'll need to buy the inexpensive, "non-pro" version of the teleconverters.

Note you can also fool the camera when using a Canon or Pro teleconverter by taping the last three pins of the connector between the converter and the lens. However, the performance is much slower than the Tamron.

Reader Mail Part 3 - Miscellaneous

I took several pictures for HDR and Photomatix and I was wondering... Can you possibly tell me the basic steps you use? I have never really played with it, but now I am really excited about a few of these images.

I've wanted to write an HDR tutorial for some time, but I have so little time these days. Here's a roundup of a bunch of HDR tutorials. I've read them all and pick and choose methods that work best for a particular image.

http://tutorialblog.org/hdr-tutorials-roundup/

I currently use a 19 inch Viewsonic CRT. I am looking at the Dell 24 inch widescreen Ultrasharp LCD. What are you using and what are your thoughts on the Dell?

Dell's Ultrasharp line of monitors is very good and are usually manufactured by the same people that make the Apple Cinema displays. The Dell 24" display is a very good monitor. Apple displays look nice and they are usually the recommended monitor; but the Dell ones are just as good and for a lot less money. They also have more manual controls for calibration.

I use a Dell Ultrasharp 20" widescreen Flat Panel Display. I like it a lot. It also calibrates nicely, that is before I got Windows Vista. They haven't updated the calibration software to work with Vista just yet, so my monitor is uncalibrated. I prefer using a single widescreen monitor instead of 2 separate monitors.

I'm looking for a lens to take to Las Vegas along with my 28-135mm lens. I also want it to fill a gap in my lens collection. What do you think of the Sigma 17-70mm macro? Any other suggestions? I need a macro lens and a wide angle. A small mid range zoom is also needed.

If you want a macro lens, save your money for a true macro lens. The Sigma zooms that say macro are not true macro lenses. Now the Sigma 17-70mm is an okay lens. From what I've read, you need to stop it down to f/8 to get the best results; otherwise it may be a bit soft. Here are my choices for lenses at the moment, although I've not really used many of them yet:

Wide Angle: Canon EF-S 10-22mm f/3.5-45. A good cheaper alternative would be the Tokina 12-24mm f/4-5.6.
Macro: Sigma 150mm f/2.8 Macro. You can't beat the price / performance.
Medium Telephoto: Canon 70-200mm f/4 (non-IS). Again you can't beat the price / performance.

My next lens will probably be the Canon 85mm f/1.8 for portraits. For Las Vegas, I'd also bring the 50mm f/1.8. It will be great for low light shot without a flash. Just bump up your ISO.

I have a Sandisk 1.0GB compact flash card in my Canon S500. Would it make a difference to the speed of the shots if I upgraded to a faster card, perhaps the Sandisk Ultra II 2.0GB? Would this difference be noticeable?

The answer is yes, but it will not solve your problem with the S500; and here's why...

Your S500 can probably write data faster than a standard Sandisk Compact Flash card can handle, but not much faster. The speed gain will be negligible with this camera. Your camera also has a buffer of somewhere around 2 or 3 frames where the pictures are stored before they are written to the card. So unless you are taking more then 2 or 3 consecutive shots in a row, you won't notice the speed at which that data is written to the card. The only time you may even notice any difference is if you are using the camera's video function. In that mode the camera continually writes to the card and the extra speed may give you smoother video in some circumstances.

However this is not the "slowness" you are encountering with the S500. The perception of slowness has to do with the S500's shutter lag. That is the time between the moment you press the shutter button and the time the actual picture is taken. Like most point and shoot digital cameras, the S500 uses a traditional CCD sensor. This is the same type of sensor that is found in your video camera, and it allows you to get a live preview on your camera's LCD window. The disadvantage of this is that when you press the shutter button to take a picture, the camera turns off the CCD sensor momentarily to reset it for the proper exposure to take the picture, and then resets it again to display the live preview. All this resetting takes time with a traditional CCD sensor and that translates into shutter lag.

The digital SLRs advantage is that first of all they don't use a traditional CCD sensor. They use CCD that specifically designed for photography and not video, or they use a CMOS type sensor. The first thing you'll notice about an SLR is that there is no live preview on the LCD screen. It's simply not designed to do that. SLR's use a traditional mechanical shutter to take the picture, so the sensor is either exposed to light or not exposed to light. This means no resets in between and very little shutter lag as compared to the point and shoot cameras. The lag between the time the button is pressed and the picture is taken is very short, so the camera seems to react "faster" and you are more likely to get the shot you intended to get. Digital SLRs also have larger buffers, so you can take a lot more pictures consecutively, especially in JPG mode before the camera slows down due to the write speed of your memory card.

The differences can be summed up this way. A point and shoot digital camera feels like a boat. You can't stop a boat immediately, it takes time. A digital SLR is feels more like a car. You can stop a car relatively fast. There's still some delay between the time the brake is applied and the actual time the car stops, but it’s a lot faster than stopping a boat.

I just wandered across your site while searching for photography destinations in the South Florida area. I'm a Miami resident who recently found himself intrigued by nature photography. I have a 10 day vacation coming up, and would appreciate any suggestions for photography destinations within 100 miles or so of the Miami / Ft. Lauderdale area. My gear list might help, in terms of letting you know what sort of equipment I'll be carrying. I'll be shooting a 20D with a 17-40mm f/4 USM L, a 50mm f/1.8, a 100mm f/2.8 macro, and a 70-300 f/4 - 5.6 USM DO IS.

Thank you for writing. As you can see, most of my images are of birds, because they are abundant around South Florida. You'll find many of the nature photographers in South Florida concentrate on birds as their main subject. If you decide to pursue nature photography seriously, a 400mm lens is about the minimum that you would need to effectively capture images of birds. Of course there are other subject matters and it seems that you are well equipped to handle macro and wide angle landscapes.

With only 300mm, you'll need to get fairly close to your subjects, and there are two places in South Florida that you can do that. The first is Anhinga Trail in Everglades National Park, and the second is the Wakodahatchee Wetlands in Delray Beach. Both places allow you to get fairly close to your subjects. Aside from those places, you can always practice at a zoo. The Wings of Asia exhibit at Miami Metrozoo lets you get pretty close to your subjects. Flamingo Gardens has an aviary with many native birds from South Florida. Butterfly World in Coconut Creek, lets you get pretty close to many smaller birds and butterflies.

I hope that helps you find some good destinations for your vacation and bring home some fantastic photos.

Reader Mail Part 4 - Macro Photography

Outstanding macro images! I think the ring light works really well. I may need to get one. Superb depth of field (DOF) on the images. What DOF do you find you use most on average for macro photography?


I usually shoot in Manual mode at f/16 and 1/250th of a second at ISO 400. I have to vary the flash output from 0 to -1 depending on how close I am to the subject. Sometimes I'll go as high as f/22 or bump down my ISO to 200 if there is a lot of light.

At that those apertures, no matter how much I've cleaned my sensor I usually spend at least 5 minutes in Photoshop cleaning up dust spots.

What do you think of a close-up lens? I have found some in 72mm and 77mm. Will it work with any of my lenses? I found a set with 1.5x, 2x, 4x, and 10x power.

I wasn't crazy about close-up lenses. I have a Canon 500D (58mm) which I bought for my 70-300mm lens. I didn't like it. Autofocus is out of the question, you need to go manual if you want to get stuff in focus. Also you lose infinity focus when you have a close-up lens attached, which is what drives the AF nuts.

I used the 500D for a couple of weeks then I put it away and saved up for the Sigma 150mm. I lent the 500D to my dad and he ended up buying extension tubes instead, and finally a real Macro lens. As you can see, he and I did very little Macro until we got our true macro lenses. Even with the 150mm, I only used it occasionally until I got a ring light, although with a diffuser, you can get away with using the 550/580ex flash.

Reader Mail Part 5 - Photoshop Techniques

I have a few questions about Adobe Camera RAW (ACR) conversion. Exposure, Recovery, Fill, Blacks, Clarity, Vibrance, Curves; do you have a set a preference for these settings?

Alright here we go...

Exposure - You use this slider to set the correct exposure. For many images you can set this by holding down the ALT key and dragging the sliders left and right until you have no over exposed areas of the image (i.e. the "exposing to the right side of the histogram" method). So if you had overexposed areas you would drag the slider to the left while holding down the ALT key until you had no overexposed areas. If you had no overexposed areas to begin with, you would drag the slider to the right while holding down the ALT key until you had some overexposed areas. Then you would ease it back to the left just a little until you had no overexposed areas.

With that said, exposure like many settings is what you decide it to be. Some images look better overexposed, and some look better underexposed, so the method above may not work for every image. You can always just drag the exposure slider around until you see what you like. I find this second method especially useful when the images were taken on an overcast day, indoors, or under a lot of shade. In this case you don't worry about overexposed areas because that's what we're going to use the recovery slider for.

Recovery - Once you've set your exposure, you can use the recovery slider to recover the portions of the image that are still over exposed. You can also use the ALT key with this slider to see which parts of the image were recoverable, and which part of the image will remain overexposed. One thing about the recovery slider is that if you drag it too far to the right on some images the whites will turn a little bit gray or yellow. Sometimes it fits the image just fine, sometimes you have to back off on the recovery slider to keep them white. Use the recovery slider in conjunction with the Exposure slider to get the overall exposure that you want. Of course it’s best to get it right in camera, but if we can't always wait for perfect light or to have exposed an image correctly the first time.

On a technical note recovery uses similar techniques to creating a linear and normal conversion of the raw image and then combining them. It's just that now you can do it with one slider. I tend to treat recovery like the highlight slider in the highlights/shadows dialog in Photoshop.

Fill - Fill is like the shadows slider in the highlight/shadows dialog in Photoshop. Just like the shadows slider if you drag it to the right too much you will reveal the noise in the underexposed part of the image. One thing to remember is that fill or the shadows slider does not add noise; it only helps reveal the noise that was already there. Ok, how much. It's again subjective to your liking. It's really there to substitute as a fill flash. I find that most of the time I do not use the fill slider and still prefer to use the shadows slider in the highlight/shadows dialog, because I tend to want to make color corrections first before setting how much fill I want. When I do use fill, I use it sparingly from +20 on an ISO 100 image to as little as +3 on an ISO 400 image. I hate noise so I try to avoid revealing it if possible.

Blacks - is pretty much the same as the black slider in the levels dialog. Used with the ALT key, you can see which areas are going to become underexposed. Personally I leave blacks at zero most of the time and just use the levels dialog to set the black point after I've done any cropping, because I want to see the final cropped image first before setting the black point. When I do set the black point I'm pretty liberal. If its part of the background and it's supposed to be black, I'll keep dragging that slider to the right until it’s completely black. Setting your black point adds the most contrast to the image, and I like lots of contrast for daylight images.

Clarity - I use this slider to see if I can add enough contrast back to the image to save a soft image. I know many of you will open an image zoom to 100% and then use sharpening to see if a soft image is worth editing. Well, I do the same thing, except I use the clarity slider. It adds contrast to an image without actually performing sharpening, so that when you do apply sharpening there is a reduced chance that you will get a halo. Most of the time I leave this slider alone, unless the image is soft, then I'll play with it to see if I can make a soft image better. You can play with this slider along with the sharpening slider in the sharpening tab to see if your soft image is worth editing.

Vibrance - The most I've added is +20 I think. I use this instead to Saturation as I tend to prefer the results vibrance gives over normal saturation. Again use is subjective and depends on the image.

Curves - I leave curves alone and set it in Photoshop if I have to.
Sharpening - I also leave this at 0. I don't want to sharpen an image until I have cropped, cloned, and color corrected. I use Smart Sharpen at 50% with a radius of .8 for web, and somewhere between 1.2 and 1.8 for printing. I save the PSD file unsharpened and always resize first and then resharpen for whatever I want to do. This keeps it flexible because what works for one printer does not work for another. I have to do less sharpening for the Epson 2200 than the laser printers at work. If there is a woman in the photograph always cut your sharpening in half. They'll greatly appreciate it.

Noise Luminosity - I leave this alone and use the noise reduction filter in Photoshop. Again I prefer to remove this noise after I've done cropping and color correction. I find Luminosity noise to be less objectionable and even film like in some respects.

Noise Color - I hate color noise. This is the noise you get from underexposing and image. I try to get rid of it whenever possible. So I set this slider to 50% as that gives me results similar to what BreezeBrowser produces. The one thing I really like about BreezeBrowser is how good it was at reducing color noise. I'll sometimes run the noise reduction filter in CS3 in addition to help get rid of color noise. If I can’t get rid of enough color noise, I throw out the image.

One thing about all of these new sliders is that you don't have to use them if you don't want to. You can get similar results by using the old dialogs in Photoshop. Of all the new sliders, Recovery is the one I use the most because I can now set exposure independently from recovering the highlights. The reason all of these new sliders are in Camera RAW is because they are required for Adobe Lightroom. Since Lightroom and CS3 now share the same RAW converter, CS3 users benefit from the new sliders. I have Lightroom, but I still use CS3 and Bridge 99% of the time. Lightroom is great if I want to take a picture now and print it immediately or "in about an hour". However if you're not under those time constraints CS3 is so much better.

Making the ordinary, extraordinary.

There is one sure way to improve your photography skills and that is to continuously practice by taking lots and lots of pictures. This is especially true for wildlife photography, because you can only hone those skills through practice.

When you first start out in this hobby, you’ll probably be snapping photos of anything that moves. You’ll probably be holding down that shutter button in hopes of getting one good image out of a sequence. That’s good. Get it out of your system. You may get a few good images that way, and even a couple of outstanding ones, but you won’t be able to do it consistently. It’s only when you start to take your time and pay attention to the exposure, lighting, and composition of the shot that you will begin to take good photographs on a consistent basis.

When I first read about wildlife photographers composing images I thought that they were off their rocker. After all, you don’t have a lot of time to get an image of that otter crossing the canal bank. That’s where the practice comes in. Go out and shoot and shoot and shoot. Get 10,000 images of that Tri-colored heron. Then one day you’re going to see a Tri-colored heron and just do nothing. You’ve already worked it out in your head that any image you take of this particular Tri-colored heron isn’t going to be any better than the 10,000 you already have in your library. You’ve just composed your first image by not taking that shot.

Composition is not necessarily about placing the subject exactly where you want within the frame. In fact in many cases in wildlife photography, the action is happening so fast that you won’t have time to compose an image the way a traditional landscape photographer does. Instead you’ll compose by positioning yourself in a location where you’ll get the best light, with the best background. If the action is fast and furious, by all means take what you can get, but if time permits take the time to make sure that your camera settings are correct. Check your histogram for exposure; recompose if there are distracting elements in the frame. Composition in wildlife photography is more about knowing when to take the picture and when not to.

The next time you see that Tri-colored heron, you’ll know if the shot is worth taking. It will be well lit, properly exposed, with a nicely blurred background with the bird’s eye looking at the camera while it is holding a frog in its mouth. Okay, that may be a bit of a stretch, but it’s certainly something to strive for. You’ll only get there through practice.

You can see some of my weekly “practice” shots in the December gallery.

Our first uncommon visitor of the season.

The Bufflehead is the smallest diving duck in North America. It breeds primarily in Canada and winters in the United States. A female Bufflehead has been spotted over the last couple of weeks at Green Cay and this past weekend I was finally able to spot it and get some pictures good enough for positive identification. If you’re looking for this duck, it looks very much like a grebe with a white cheek. You’ll need a good pair of binoculars as she does not come close that often. I’m hoping that changes with time and that she’ll become friendly to visitors like the Eared Grebe last winter.

As birds go the Bufflehead has a couple interesting behaviors. Unlike other ducks the Bufflehead is usually monogamous, remaining with the same mate season after season. This duck also nests almost exclusively in holes made by Northern Flickers and Pileated Woodpeckers; a great example of how one species heavily relies on another for success.

Photography is an expensive hobby.

It’s the holidays and you’re probably thinking about next camera related item that Santa will be bringing you this year. However, more than likely you’re thinking about what you’re going to get for yourself this year, because Santa can’t really afford photography gear; after all, those reindeer are not cheap to feed. Whether you’re just starting out, or are a full blown professional, there is always that point where you realize that you’re not getting the results you want and that more and better equipment will alleviate this problem. Not to mention that every book and blog you read mentions loads of camera gear that you will “need” to produce great photos. In nature photography this tends to be a relatively fast high megapixel digital SLR camera and a professional telephoto lens. This, I’m afraid to tell you is true. The better your equipment, the better your results are likely to be.

Alright, I’ve either just convinced you that photography is too expensive for you or that you should place that pre-order for the Canon 800mm f/5.6 L IS USM lens. If you are the former group, don’t be discouraged; if you are in the latter group then you probably have enough spare cash to buy one for me too. The key to keeping your costs low is to learn how to use the equipment you already have and take pictures of things that your camera lens and body are suitable for. In other words learn the limits of your equipment and work within them. If you only have an 18 – 55mm lens, you’re not going to take too many images of wildlife; instead you’ll need to work with captive and friendly subjects, or landscapes, or even portraits and events. When you’re ready, step up to the next item that will give you the results you want. If you want to get images of birds in flight, then consider a fixed focal length (prime) lens that is 400mm or more. Don’t get too bogged down in trying to make the most out of your money by purchasing something that you can use for more than one type of photography. Often what you will end up with is too much of a compromise where it doesn’t do either type of photography very well. Get equipment for specific tasks, and concentrate on taking images that the lens was designed for. You’ll make your money go a lot further by buying the specialized equipment one at a time.

Next get creative. I’m not much of a DIY person, but some tricks are so easy, you’ll kick yourself for not trying them. Want to take some Macro shots and don’t have a ring flash? Use an inexpensive diffuser to bounce the light from your external flash onto your subject. You can find many tricks like that one by reading other sites about photography, not just nature photography. One of the best is strobist.blogspot.com.

Finally all that fancy camera equipment will only take your photography so far. As with anything, if you want to succeed, you need to practice, practice, and practice! I hope that the holidays are good to you this year.

‘Tis the season.

I hope that you had a wonderful Thanksgiving and got some good bargains on Black Friday. Birding season is once again in full swing, and to kick it off we have not less than five pairs of Great Blue Herons starting to build nests at Wakodahatchee. The pairs are busy gathering twigs and performing their courtship display.



The Great Blue Heron is the largest heron in North America. In Southern Florida we have two subspecies of the Great Blue Heron. The first is the normal one Ardea herodias herodias and the second is a subspecies Ardea herodias occidentalis; which has a white morph that is sometimes referred to as the Great White Heron. We encountered one of these white herons on the November 24th trip to Stormwater Treatment Area 1 East (STA-1E). There’s a picture of it in the November gallery. You can read more about the Great White Heron in David Sibley’s recent blog posting.

The STA-1E trip on the 24th was a bit on the slow side. It was overcast for the better part of the tour and it rained for about a half hour, which made photography more challenging. This time around I decided to bring along my macro lens and ring flash to see what I could find along the banks. There’s a wealth of nature there from insects to wildflowers that many visitors miss.

At the moment I am so behind in processing my images. I’ve got this site finally caught up, but I still have a lot of friends and family pictures to convert over from RAW. Not to mention an entire portrait session to edit and a few more to schedule in the future. I’ve also been doing the event photography for the Charles E. Schmidt College of Science at FAU, so I have some of those to process as well. So I’ll be busy for a while. Actually there is a new game for the XBOX 360 that I would love to play, but I’ve promised myself that I’d get the pictures processed first, then I can slack off a bit.

For those of you that recently purchased a Canon 40D that came with firmware 1.04 that was incompatible with some RAW converters, Canon has just released firmware 1.05 which is supposed to address the incompatibility among other things.

Enjoy the November gallery and I’ll see you on the boardwalk.

Draggin' my feet.

I took a little break from nature photography in October to pursue portrait photography with some success. It’s probably something I’ll do from time to time, while I continue to build a portfolio. However the real news is it is November, which is usually the time when bird photography starts to get exciting again. Right now, the happening spot continues to be Green Cay, as Purple Gallinules, still in their juvenile plumage, climb the stalks of the Fire Flag to reach the remaining flower stalks. You’d better hurry however; as the cooler weather will soon wither away the Fire Flag and the gallinules will become less accessible until the spring.

I also had a chance to check out the Loxahatchee Marsh Trail this past weekend, and I saw a couple of Northern Harriers working the area. Also present were two Red-shouldered Hawks and a Snail Kite. There were just a trickle of Blue-winged Teals and a few very shy Wood Ducks. Photo opportunities were low as many of these new arrivals were still very shy.

With the holidays approaching, I plan to be out in the field a lot more and hopefully get some great shots this winter. My new Canon 40D has become my primary workhorse and I really like its faster autofocus speed, faster frames rate, and deeper buffer. What I’m not so crazy about is that the larger LCD does not seem to make it any easier to determine if the shot is in focus, motion blurred, or not. I guess Canon would need to increase the actual pixel resolution for that to happen. Overall it’s a great camera and I’ve taken some excellent shots of birds in flight, macro, and portraits with it.

What I’ve learned when doing portraits is how to use flash more effectively. In particular how to use flash off camera. I have yet to try my newfound fondness for flash photography for nature photography; but I hope to find some sort of application for off camera flash in nature photography soon. One such application that I’ve seen used is to freeze the motion of hummingbirds, but that would be difficult here in South Florida, where we don’t get many hummingbirds. If I do find an application, I’ll be sure to write about it here.

Finally, I’ll put in a plug for the STA-1E birding tours being conducted by South Florida Water Management and Pine Jog Environmental Education Center. Remaining dates for the 2007/2008 season are:

November 10 and 24, 2007
December 8 and 22, 2007
January 5 and 19, 2008
February 2 and 16, 2008
March 1 and 15, 2008
April 12 and 26, 2008

Times for the tours are 8:00 AM to 12:00 Noon. To attend and for more information, please contact Helen Beers at (561) 686-6600.

September morning

Hello everyone. This is a quick update to let you know that I'm having a lot of fun with my new Canon EOS 40D. It's not leaps and bounds better than the 20D, but a worthwhile upgrade nonetheless. I will post my experiences with the 40D in upcomming web log posts as I become more familiar with the camera's strenghts and weaknesses. In the meantime the September gallery is now open, and I have posted two follow up articles regarding flight photography. The first is on the use of "Manual exposure for flight photography" and the second is on "Tracking birds in flight". I hope you enjoy them.

Green Cay delivers again.

Green Cay is a joy to watch because it is the newest of the three wetlands in Southern Palm Beach County. Wakodahatchee is fairly well established by now, while Loxahatchee undergoes constant change as studies are conducted in the different compartments of the Marsh Trail. Green Cay is still fairly new and still developing. Surprises such as the Ruddy Duck, Greater and Lesser Scaups, and the Eared Grebe are hopefully only the beginning of what Green Cay will attract in the future.

What’s exciting right now is that Black-bellied Whistling-Ducks have, for the first time, produced offspring at Green Cay. The proud parents have been escorting their eight little ducklings around Green Cay to the delight of many visitors. Black-bellied Whistling-Ducks produce some of the cutest ducklings. Their distinct black and yellow bands earn the ducklings the nickname “bumblebees”.

Whistling-ducks are also known as tree ducks in other parts of the world. That’s because they belong to a group of ducks that readily rests on tree branches. There are many different types of whistling-ducks around the world, two of which can be found in Florida. The two we have are the Fulvous Whistling-Duck and the Black-bellied Whistling-Duck. While the Fulvous Whistling-Duck has remained relatively shy of urban areas, the Black-bellied Whistling-Duck has greatly expanded its range. It is common in Southern parts of Texas, Mexico, and Central America. I first encountered Black-bellied Whistling-Ducks in the wild while fishing from a boat in Lake Yojoa, Honduras. The Florida population of Black-bellied Whistling-Ducks was once thought to have originated from specimens that may have escaped from zoos or private collections; but it seems more likely that the breeding population arrived from Mexico and decided to stay. In South Florida, Black-bellied Whistling-Ducks may now actually outnumber the Fulvous Whistling-Duck which arrived and established itself in Florida much earlier.

August Gallery

Canon and Nikon announce new cameras and lenses.

You can find all the information about the new Canon EOS 40D, my next camera, at DPreview.com. The Canon 1Ds Mark III was also announced at the same time. Nikon also announced new cameras this week, including the D300 and the D3. It looks like a good year for camera owners. Canon's new lenses are the EF 14mm f/2.8L II USM, EF-S 18-55mm IS, and EF-S 55-250mm IS. Nikon has the AF-S 14-24mm F2.8G ED, AF-S 24-70mm F2.8G ED, AF-S 400mm F2.8G ED VR, AF-S 500 mm F4G ED VR, and the AF-S 600 mm F4G ED VR.

It's important to remember that when making a buying decision that you are purchasing a system, and not just a camera. Whether you choose Nikon or Canon, you will be using their system of lenses and accessories for a long time. Switching systems can be very costly.

Ants in my … err … camera.

August! So many things happen in August for me. My daughter’s birthday is in August. My wedding anniversary is in August. School starts in August. Of course Canon makes new camera announcements in August. So, will there be a new Canon 40D that will be announced in August? Only time will tell, but there is enormous speculation on the forums, especially dpreview.com. I’m hoping that a 40D will be announced because I really need a new camera. I’ve outgrown the 20D, and I can’t afford any of the professional bodies in the 1D series. My 20D is back at Canon service again, because it was recently infested with ants. That’s right, ants. I use the camera at least every weekend if not more often, so it wasn’t sitting in some dark corner of the house. Anyway, theories for the infestation range from having taken too many macro shots of insects to taking way too many “sweet shots”. In reality, very small ants like sugar ants and moisture ants are attracted to electronics. They will colonize computers and other electronic devices, especially in very hot and humid places. I’ve read some accounts on line about ants being a problem in the tropics. I’m not sure exactly how the ants got into the camera itself, but when I took out my camera from my camera bag to get shots of a Snail Kite; literally thousands of ants started crawling out of it. Most of them were hiding out in the pop-up flash, but they were all over the place. The battery grip and the LCD all had ants crawling around them. I shook and blew off as many of them as possible. The camera still worked and took some great images that day, but there were dead ants still stuck inside the camera. To prevent any damage from the decomposition of the dead ants or their eggs, it’s off to Canon for a cleaning.

Around the end of July and the beginning of August the farms around Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge begin planting for the fall. This is a great time to visit them as the wading birds and the Snail Kites are attracted to the area as the soil is prepared for planting. This past weekend we were able to observe Wood Storks, Egrets, Herons, Spoonbills, and Snail Kites at very close proximities just outside the gates of Loxahatchee. Inside the refuge itself there was little bird activity, but there was plenty of insect activity with butterflies and bees going about their business. Enjoy the August gallery.

The Sargasso Sea

Last week I had the opportunity to tag along on a filming expedition. Sisbro Studios rented one of FAU’s boats, the Elasmobranch Research Laboratory Dusky, to film fishes that congregate underneath the mats of sargassum macroalgea that float along the Eastern coast of Florida. Robert Sams was the cameraman and I just acted as extra lookout and safety diver. We snorkeled in open water, which is something I haven’t done often. We looked for patches of sargassum just east and south of the Boca Raton inlet. The first patch we came across was quite a distance from shore and the water was crystal clear. Robert spotted a school of Mahi-mahi (Coryphaena hippurus) when he first dove in. When I entered the water, there were schools of various baitfish and young Sargassum Triggerfish (Xanthichthys ringens). I also spotted a small Tripletail (Lobotes surinamensis) among the sargassum. Just before finishing up, a small Great Barracuda (Sphyraena barracuda) passed by just in front of Robert’s camera, so hopefully he got a nice shot of it. Unfortunately, sargassum was difficult to find in the open ocean in large quantities, so we had to come closer to shore to find more. There the water not as clear and there were a lot of particles suspended in the water that probably made filming more difficult. Nevertheless we persisted and I was able to spot a young Scrawled Filefish (Aluterus schoepfi). We wrapped up the day with lunch and Robert spent the afternoon filming fiddler crabs, while I went back to the office.

The film project is for an upcoming educational DVD for grade school students about water, and how inland lakes are ultimately connected to the oceans. I admire such projects and the people who create them. Education is the key to conservation.

The experience had me thinking again about why we fellow nature photographers trudge around lots of equipment in the blistering hot sun each week. I am not a professional photographer, I only do this as a hobby, because I like nature and I like photography. I don’t make any money from my photographs. In fact, I spend far more money on camera equipment then I ever get back from winning photography contests. So why do I do it? Well first and foremost is that it’s fun. I learn so much about photography and wildlife from my weekend photo adventures. It’s neat to see animal behavior that has not been seen by many, and even better to document it in photographs. Second, it’s a hobby that lets me contribute something to the community; by letting you see that there are beautiful and interesting creatures right in our own backyards. Hopefully the work will inspire some to take a closer look at the wild things around them and to want to preserve the few remaining habitats that they have. To help get this message across, I provide my images for free to educators, students, and others that will use them for educational purposes. If you’re interested in using any of my images is such a matter, please contact me.

Since I mentioned FAU’s Elasmobranch Research Laboratory, I should also mention that Shark Week on the Discovery channel starts this week. One of the graduate students from the FAU shark lab will be featured in the documentary Perfect Predators on August 1, 2007.

Why Canon?

Another of the questions I am often asked is why I chose Canon equipment over that of other brands. I’ve given that question more thought recently and the answer, I’ve concluded, is advertising. When I was much younger, my first experience with an SLR camera was with my dad’s Asahi Pentax Spotmatic. It was pretty much completely manual, but its ability to use interchangeable lenses for specific purposes always fascinated me. Growing up, and getting to see different parts of the world, my interest in animals and nature grew. We had a subscription to National Geographic Magazine and a whole slew of back issues that we kept in our library. I would constantly go through all the issues looking for stories about wildlife, and dream of being able to travel the world to get similar stories and images. Not every issue was about wildlife, but you could always count on an advertisement from Canon to feature a new species. The advertisements were titled “Wildlife as Canon sees it”. Each magazine had a different advertisement that highlighted one Canon’s long white telephoto lenses that was used to capture a spectacular image of a rare species.

When I started working part-time and made enough money to afford an SLR camera of my own, I knew that Canon was the brand that I wanted. A trip down to the local Service Merchandise also revealed that Canon made one of the most affordable SLRs, the EOS Rebel. Like many would be photographers I had delusions of grandeur when I got my first SLR. I quickly found out that it was not easy to get those spectacular shots; at least not with the EF 28-80mm lens that the camera came with. So I invested in a telephoto zoom lens the EF 75-300mm lens and a Speedlite 200E. They made things a little better, but not by much, as my reach was still limited. Despite the limitations, I enjoyed using the EOS Rebel and decided that it would take wonderful pictures during a trip to Costa Rica. I was excited because I was finally on a trip to an exotic locale with a camera in tow. The camera performed well enough, although my shooting skills were less than spectacular at the time. A week or so later, the EOS Rebel started acting funny and the EF 28-80mm lens wouldn’t work at all. This was my first lesson that travel photography requires good equipment. It seems that moisture had made its way into the camera and lens from the high humidity of the Costa Rican rainforest. The camera could be repaired, but the lens could not. A week and a few hundred dollars later I walked out of the camera store with a new EOS 28-80mm lens and a repaired EOS Rebel. I put the camera away and didn’t touch it again for quite some time.

The digital camera revolution took place and once again I was intrigued by the new digital SLR technology. So what brand do I purchase? Well, Canon of course. Justifying that I can still use my almost new 28-80mm lens and 70-300mm zoom, I would once again become a great wildlife photographer.

So, why Canon? For the advertising. In addition to the ads in National Geographic magazine, Canon also sponsored one of my favorite shows on PBS, Nature. So Canon, to me, was synonymous with great wildlife photography. Speaking of which, one of the shows I’ve been enjoying lately on PBS (WLRN) are repeats of Travels to the Edge with Art Wolfe. It’s also sponsored by Canon.

Partly Cloudy...

Partly cloudy, highs near 90° F with scattered thunderstorms. That about sums up the weather in July. When you adjust for humidity it can easily feel like 98° F out there, and that's enough to keep most photographers indoors. It's only in the very early morning or the late evening that the temperatures are bearable for outdoor activities, and that's true for the wild animals as well.



So today, my friend Chuck and I went scouting for some new locations to shoot. One of the places we stopped at was Secret Woods Nature Center, in Broward County. It's a well hidden park that looks promising for macro photography. There are lots of land and fiddler crabs, as well as a variety of insects. I didn't take any pictures as I left my camera in the car, because it was just a scouting trip. I did leave with a rather nasty spider bite that happened when my left arm brushed against the boardwalk railing and I felt this painful burning feeling on my arm. I'm not sure what kind of spider it was as I never saw it, and I'm actually just guessing that it is a spider bite from researching the symptoms on the Internet. I like taking pictures of insects and spiders, but I hate being bitten by them.

The July gallery is now open. Like the June gallery, it's going to be a mixture of the standard birds as well as some insect macro photography.

On our way back home we stopped by the southern entrance to Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge. From there you could clearly see the afternoon thunderstorms gathering over the Everglades.

Some of you have been asking about out little girl Arwen. Since I took down the old web site AmyandJay.net, I guess there have been no updates about her to the general public. Well, I didn't know so many readers of Beauty of the Wild were so interested in our little girl's progress. To find out all about Arwen's monthly adventures you'll need to subscribe to Multiply.com. That's where we've moved all of our family related information. There are three main multiply sites where you can find us. They are: Jay Paredes, Amy Paredes, and Jake Paredes.

Canon EOS-1D Mark III Autofocus Issues

Since the release of the new Canon EOS-1D Mark III camera, I've been reading complaints regarding its autofocus system. In particular, its ability to track moving subjects in AI Servo mode. I first saw these complaints on Naturescapes.net, but they have been popping up more and more on different photography web sites. Now, Rob Galbraith has written a comprehensive article on the autofocus issues that many users seem to be having with the 1D Mark III.

I'm not lucky enough to be able to afford a Canon 1D Mark III, but if you are, you should contact Canon if you are experiencing problems with the autofocus system. The more people report the issue, the more attention Canon will give it.

Newsletter Archive

If you're not a subscriber to the Beauty of the Wild newsletter, then now is your chance to catch up on what you've been missing. The entire newsletter archive for the past year has just been posted under the "Articles" section. The archive includes the latest newsletter highlighting more macro photography and some winning images from the 2007 Orange Audubon Society Photography Contest.

Please click on the "subscribe to newsletter" link, to make sure you get future updates sent directly to your inbox.

Lady Beetle Wallpaper

"Lady Beetle" taken at my parents' garden on June 2, 2007. This shot was produced by using a ring flash with manual exposure and a 150mm macro lens.

More macro photography shots can be seen in the June gallery.

This image is available for download as a desktop wallpaper in several resolutions:

Full Screen 1024 x 768   Full Screen 1280 x 1024
Full Screen 1400 x 1050   Widescreen 1280 x 768
Widescreen 1680 x 1050

June is Bustin’ Out All Over

South Florida is in the middle of one of the worst droughts in its history. The water levels of Lake Okeechobee are the lowest since the record was set in 2000. Palm Beach and Broward Counties are under Phase III water restrictions. Earlier in May, before the rainy season started, our skies were blanketed with smoke from the wildfires burning throughout the Everglades. These conditions have not been good for the traditional season of our nesting birds. There were fewer nests this year, and even fewer eggs that actually hatched. It’s even evident in the number of young birds that normally visit our backyard feeders at this time of the year.

The drought seems to have had an opposite effect for the birds in water controlled areas such as Wakodahatchee Wetlands. There the birds have had to contend with higher than normal water levels in these areas, as water managers pump more water into them to force the replenishment of the aquifer. Some Black-necked stilts at Wakodahatchee and Green Cay, have had their nests flooded out by high water several times. The success of nesting birds in South Florida depends on delivering the right amounts of water at the right time, and this just isn’t happening for many species this year.

One species that seems to be having a good year are Crows. At least is seems that way, because I’ve seen many more of them this year. They have been busy raiding the nests of grackles and blackbirds. For the second year in a row, they’ve also managed to tear up the nests of the Purple Martins at Wakodahatchee.

A bad cold and some rainy weather have kept me indoors for a good part of May, so I wasn’t able to catch the tail end of spring migration. Having missed all the Swallow-tailed Kite action this year and having had a rather poor migration season, has me longing for some better photography opportunities. We’re in June now, so there will be fewer different species to photograph. To keep me occupied this summer, I recently purchased a ring flash to use with my macro lens. I’m going to try to get some close-ups of insects. Hopefully I’ll have some successful shots that I can post in the gallery.

In the meantime I’ve been working on improvements to this website. Most of which have been invisible to visitors, like the upgrade to the gallery program. I’ve also been working on launching the Everglades Photographic Society website.

June marks the beginning of the Atlantic hurricane season. An El Niño effect kept South Florida safe last year, but we have no such protection this year. Be prepared, and keep safe.

The Lusty Month of May

It’s not just a Lerner and Loewe song, but May usually marks the end of the migration season and the beginning of the full fledged breeding season. Of course here in Florida, many of our birds, like the Great Blue Herons, have been nesting since December; but still there are birds that produce offspring in May such as the Moorhens, Gallinules, Stilts, and Mottled Duck. Other birds, like the Black-bellied Whistling-Duck are just beginning to nest.

The extreme drought that South Florida is facing this year has placed a damper on our spring migration. I noticed fewer warblers then usual during April. The Swallow-tailed Kite activity in Everglades National Park is also slower than last year. At Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge, there doesn’t appear to be any successful Red-shouldered Hawk nests. The drier conditions have forced many animals to move closer and closer to populated areas to seek food and water; like the Bobcats at Green Cay that have made the parking lot a regular place to hang out.

Hopefully these are not signs of a long term trend, and these populations bounce back next year. One of the goals of this website is to be able to keep track of the trends from year to year.

Thank you for the kind e-mails everyone sent me, after my car accident on April 1st. Most everything is back in order again or in the process of getting back in order. After a few doctors’ visits, it looks like my injuries are minor. We now have a new car, the newly redesigned 2007 Honda CR-V LX in Glacier Blue. Actually when I say “we” I mean my wife got the new car, I’m back to driving my old car, which she had taken over after our daughter was born. I’m pretty sure this whole thing relates to the Circle of Life somehow.

If you’ve been looking for something to watch on television, you didn’t have to look far this spring. There was the beautiful documentary on Planet Earth, on the Discovery Channel. Another great documentary on the Galapagos was on the National Geographic Channel. A new show called Spring Watch USA on Animal Planet. Finally there’s always the continuing series Wild Florida on your local PBS station.

The May gallery is now open. Enjoy.

No April Showers

The April gallery is now open. We've had little rain and a lot of wind lately, causing many of the migratory birds to travel over the west coast of Florida, instead of spreading across the state. I am still without a car since my accident on April 1st so it's kind of hard to get around to where the migrants are. Hopefully that can be rectified soon...

Common Kingfisher with prey

April 1st, 2007

Sorry about the quality of this picture, I am travelling and had to post from my laptop.

Our highly paid tour guide informed us of a location where we could get very close to a Common Kingfisher (Alcedo atthis). I insisted, through an interpreter, that the location should be as natural as possible. I did not want to photograph kingfishers that had been lured in by goldfish. I wanted a natural setting and natural behavior. Our guide insisted that the kingfisher was wild and that it was not feeding on goldfish. Sure enough we hit the jackpot and captured this Common Kingfisher feeding on blue fish.

Canon EOS 40D, 1/500 sec, f/5.6, Av, EC -2/3, Flash Off, Evaluative, ISO 400, Canon 100 to 400mm L @ 250mm, One-shot AF

March

It took some traveling to put together the March gallery. The first trip was to Little Estero Lagoon just off Ft. Myers Beach. There I was able to photograph the American Oystercatcher and the Reddish Egret, both of which are appearing in the gallery for the first time. At Little Estero Lagoon, I found a small Mangrove Salt Marsh Snake. This non-venomous water snake was a treat as I have never seen one in the wild before. After several pictures, he was set free and continued about his business.

The following weekend it was off to Osceola County and Joe Overstreet Landing. Meadowlarks and Sandhill Cranes were abundant in this area. There were also a couple Crested Caracara and many Bald Eagles. Unfortunately the Eagles were not very cooperative and I have few shots of them. Also speaking of non-cooperative birds, I managed to see my FOS (first of the season) Swallow-tailed Kite there.

Enjoy the images in the March gallery.

An Inconvenient Truth

We haven’t been to the movies all that much lately, so when we go we often go see the latest blockbuster action movie. One movie that slipped by us over the past year was Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth. It finally made it to the top of our Netflix queue and I got the chance to see it this past weekend. I have to say that it wasn’t at all what I expected. I thought that it would be a documentary; like one that you might find showing on PBS or the Discovery Channel. It’s pretty much Al Gore’s slide show presentation delivered directly to you, and it’s a powerful reminder about how we are destroying the very planet we live on.

We’ve tried to live green. We have replaced the majority of our light bulbs and appliances with energy efficient ones, our cars are low emission and fuel efficient, and we recycle. I’m not going to write here about how you should live your life, but you owe it to yourself to watch the movie and find out how you can help preserve what we have for future generations.

Loxahatchee, it’s no contest.

First of all, congratulations to the winners of the Loxahatchee Photography Contest; recently held at the Green Cay visitor center on February 4, 2007. I know many of you and of the hard work you put into our craft. I would also like to commend many non-winners for sharing your photos.

What follows next is an editorial review of how the Loxahatchee Photography Contest was conducted. Please take it as constructive criticism on how the contest can be improved.

In any photography contest, judging is ultimately very subjective; however, it should be consistent.

This was the first year I entered the Loxahatchee Photography Contest, after being disqualified last year for having the wrong presentation board. All I can say is that the execution of this contest was a complete mess, and Loxahatchee could really improve the whole process.

First of all, they need to make the contest rules clear. The rules and the categories are very vague; especially the differences between the Animal Life, Plant Life, and Close Up categories. It can be difficult to figure out which category an image should be submitted to. This is one of the reasons there are so many entries in the Animal Life category, because it becomes a catch all category for many of the images.

Rules as simple as the types of presentation boards allowed are not spelled out clearly enough for participants. In fact, the Turtle River Times (Loxahatchee's own newsletter) promotes a photography workshop by John J. Lopinot, one of the judges, that will include explaining the photo contest rules to you; but more on that later.

The contest administrators made many mistakes in categorizing images. It seems that they miscategorized more than a few images, and photographers had to quietly tell them which category an image belonged to. This in spite of the fact that each photograph had a label on the back that clearly displays which category it belonged to. This was all done in the middle of judging and a miscategorized picture meant that your image would be dismissed, since it could not be judged at the same time as the others.

The application of the contest rules was also wildly inconsistent. Photographs submitted to the Animal Life category that the judges thought should have been entered in the Close Up category were moved; and the same thing for the Plants category. However, no such consideration was made for photographs entered into the Close Up category that the judges thought should have been in Animal Life. Those images were just dismissed. Now remember, the category rules are so vague that it seems like only the judges know which category a picture should belong to.

Furthermore, judges did not seem to know the Loxahatchee area very well, because some people clearly tried to sneak in pictures taken at other locations such as Wakodahatchee, and the judges never caught on to this fact.

Judges did not know their wildlife as well. When judging photos, the judges would often misname the animal pictured. This is critical, because if you're going to judge a nature and wildlife photography contest that will include birds and animals, then you had better know your birds and animals. The subject matter of a photograph is as much a consideration in the overall image than anything else. A heron may sit still long enough for you to compose an image of it swallowing a fish, but a Prairie Warbler on a branch will give you no such luxury. Should they be judged equally? If you know your animals then you'll know that the photographer who took that image of a heron had all the time in the world to compose the image, compared to the photographer who had mere seconds to get an image of a tiny bird on a branch. Which is the better photographer, and which is the better image? Ultimately the subject matters.

Judges could not consistently apply their own preconceptions of what makes a good photograph. We all have a preconception of what makes a good photograph, which creates our bias. We apply this bias when looking at an image to see whether we like it or not. To judge properly, you need to do this consistently; otherwise contestants will never learn what they could have done better. Judges dismissed a photograph of a Great Blue Heron in flight, because a tiny portion of its wing tips were cut off. The same judges said that they liked a picture of a Red-Shouldered hawk that had its tail completely cut off by the bottom of the frame. They did this type of inconsistent nitpicking over and over.

The judges are not up to date with modern techniques in digital photography. For someone promoting digital photography only workshops, including Photoshop classes, John J. Lopinot could not identify a High Dynamic Range (HDR) photo. In fact he thought the image was miscategorized, but then failed to move it into the category for which he thought it belonged, and judge it there. Here's where the judges inability to adapt to new techniques, combined with their inconsistency in re-categorizing images, and the vagueness of the rules all come together. We have an image that consists of three separate exposures, so it clearly belongs in the Special Techniques category. But the judges aren't familiar with HDR so they think that the image is in the wrong category and should have been placed in the landscape category. However, even though they recategorized and rejudged other images, they neglect to do so for this image and simply dismiss it as having been placed in the wrong category; which were vaguely defined to begin with.

Finally, there is some sort of conflict of interest when during the judging of a photography contest, you are promoting your own photography workshop. Want to do better next year? The judge will gladly point you to his photography workshops costing $100 to $400. If that's not a conflict of interest, then I don't know what is. The Loxahatchee Photography Contest is supposed to promote the wildlife refuge, and its inhabitants; not the judge's for profit photography workshops. If this contest is to be used as a marketing event by an individual or corporation, then my federal tax dollars should not be endorsing it; and solicitations for the photography contest should be made off any public property.

Thanks for reading.