2007 First Light Photo Workshop Online Newsletters

January

DIGITAL CORNER

Looking to purchase a new camera body or lens? You might want to hold off a couple of months as both Canon and Nikon are going to be making some big announcements at the upcoming PMA show in Las Vegas in early March. From Canon you can expect a professional line body with a self-cleaning sensor similar to the Rebel XTi. A couple of new lenses are also expected to be announced. In addition to the camera bodies and lenses some new high-end printers are also going to be available.

I haven't heard anything specific about what's new from Nikon but usually when Canon is coming out with some new gear Nikon also has something to announce.

The bad news with all of this is that as soon as you get that long desired camera body, it's out of date as something bigger and better is just around the corner. The good news is that if you don't have to have the latest in equipment, you'll be able to find some good deals on used gear as people look to upgrade.

BOSQUE DEL APACHE

If you went to Bosque del Apache this year you already know what I'm going to talk about. For those who didn't make it to this premier birding location, you picked a good year to stay away.

After several years of great activity at the ponds outside the refuge on the west side of the road, refuge management decided it was time to drain those ponds for the fall and winter. The official explanation was that the grasses in the area needed rehabilitation. The technical definition was that the soils were being stripped of salts.

For photographers, the meaning was that some great morning photography of the sandhill cranes running on the water to take off with light on them was not possible. The only other place this can be done is from the flight deck at the main lake on the refuge. Anyone who has ever tried this knows that's difficult at best as the cranes are further away than at the outside ponds.

The one pond on the east side of the railroad track was left full and this became a very popular and crowded location every morning after the mass take-off from the main lake. While there were plenty of birds here at fairly close range, the downside was that they were backlit. If you ever wanted to get silhouettes of cranes and snow geese taking off this was the year to do it. You could get some decent light on the birds with proper exposure as these two snow geese shots show.

If the situation at the refuge wasn't dampened by the ponds being drained this year, then the lack of corn fields on the north end of the Farm Loop road made shooting even tougher. The most productive mid-season field did not have corn planted in it this year so activity with the cranes and geese right in front of you was not available during the middle of the day during typical peak feeding times.

The fields that were active were cut so far back that any close-up work of the birds was close to impossible. This didn't mean there weren't any opportunities for flight shots of the birds in the fields. With a northerly wind, many of the birds still found their way over the road where flight shots were still abundant.

The best shooting during the trip was in the morning at the pond across the railroad tracks and on the flight deck in the evening capturing the cranes as they came in.with some nice light in the sky and the water behind them. It wasn't as good as the outside ponds but still created some dramatic images.

A night and morning of snow one day and frost the next day created some interesting settings. With most of the water on the refuge frozen, watching the birds try to take off was quite a sight. Getting them running on the ice was the call for the day.

Besides the birds, the snow and then the frost created some good opportunities in the cactus garden at the visitor center. It's not too often you're able to capture shots of cactus with snow on them.

Even with the less than ideal conditions, everyone on the trip had a great time and got some good shots. There's always something good to work at Bosque, no matter what the conditions are as long as you look for it and can be creative.

This year, I'm moving up my Bosque trip to December 1 - 5. This is being done to give me a little more working time to schedule the Falkland Islands trip to time it for the best action with baby penguins based on what I learn on my scout trip this month.

FALKLAND ISLANDS PENGUINS
I'll be leaving in a couple of weeks for my scout trip to the Falkland Islands for photographing the penguins that nest there. Hopefully my February newsletter will contain information about the dates and prices for a trip there next January. This should be a great trip so mark your calendars for next January and sign up early as I'm sure this will fill up.

SUBSCRIBER WEB SITES
I currently don't have any other newsletter subscriber websites to let others know about. If you have a website send me your web address and I'll get people directed to your website in a future newsletter.

February

LOWEPRO BAG CONTEST WINNER
As you have seen on the website and heard on workshops, each year Lowepro is donating a new backpack to one trip participant. To choose the person to receive this, each trip participant was encouraged to send several images from their trip for a contest. I had an outside photographer choose the winning entry as well as several honorable mentions.

I'm pleased to announce that the winner for the 2006 contest is Loretta Paul, who participated in the Historic New Mexico trip. This shot was taken at night in Santa Fe. Congratulations.

Inn at Loretto at night, Historic New Mexico workshop, Photo ©Loretta Paul

Three honorable mention winners were also chosen and each of these will receive $50 off the price of their next workshop. Steve Handley is the lucky one on this as he had two images chosen from the two trips he went on last year so he gets $100 off his next trip and Ed Berkheimer gets $50 off his next trip. Below are their winning entries.

Bristlecone Pine Tree, Mountain Goat workshop, Photo ©Ed Berkheimer

Dancing Reddish Egret, Fort DeSoto / Honeymoon Island workshop, Photo ©Steve Handley

The Mary D. Hume Wreck, Oregon Coast workshop, Photo ©Steve Handley

DIGITAL CORNER

When making a new digital camera purchase, be sure to check all of the features and functions that are included on the camera. While you might not think you'll need a feature right away, you never know what you'll need down the road before you upgrade to a better camera.

This was evidenced on my recent Arches and Star Trails workshop. With doing exposures of up to 45 minutes, one of the participants camera would only allow for a maximum exposure of 8 minutes while on bulb setting. While this could have made for a very disappointing trip, we did work things out where I let him use my back-up body and my sole wide angle lens. While others on the trip were taking the long exposures, he was able to get one 8-minute shot and one 20 to 25-minute shot and I got one 20 to 25-minute shot.

Another thing to keep in mind when doing very long exposures is that if you turn the noise reduction function on in your camera it takes about the length of the shot for it to write to the card, no matter what camera brand, flash card brand or other settings. Without this function on, the image writes almost instantaneously, allowing for a second shot.

It does create a bit of noise that has to be removed in Photoshop using a filter such as Noise Ninja or whatever else you use.

The best alternative is to have two camera bodies available. When one shot is finished, you take the lens off the first one and put it on the second body and use it while the first image is being written onto the flash card.

FALKLAND ISLANDS

Are you ready for the adventure of a lifetime? My 2008 Falkland Islands trip is ready for participants to sign up. Get a leg up on everyone else as I have just loaded the information on my Tours page and you can now check your schedule to see if you can go.

The dates of the trip will be January 11 - 20 and the cost is $4,395 per person. You should plan on an extra day at the beginning and end of the trip for travel to and from Santiago, Chile depending on what flights you're able to get there and back. I will cover the cost of the stay in Santiago as well as meals and transfers to and from the airport but you will need to get your flight from there to the Falklands. After signing up I'll provide information on where you can get your airfares taken care of at a price potentially better than what you can get on your own.

Once we're in the Falklands you will be amazed at the access to some wonderful species of birds and penguins. With hardly any predators and being used to human activity, you'll be able to get extremely close to a bunch of nesting birds. The shots below of the adult and baby black-browed albatross were taken with my 70-200mm lens without any teleconverters.

While you can get close to lots of great action, I did take my 600mm lens and used it quite extensively. Even though you can get very close, I prefer to keep my distance and shoot to my hearts content. Sometimes, you won't be able to shoot as once you sit down you'll have a dozen or so Gentoo penguin chicks converge on you to see what you're doing when you set up near their colony..

For some, some shots that present themselves might be tough to handle as there will be opportunities for some action of striated caracaras entering nesting colonies to grab a young chick for a quick meal. The most interesting aspect of watching this unfold before my eyes was the fact that dolphin gulls and Falkland skuas were dive bombing the caracara to try and chase it away from the colony.

After failing to do so, and after the caracara had it's fill, they would then come in and have a meal of their own on the scraps. Look for an upcoming article probably on apogeephoto.com called Wildlife Hypocrites.

With strong winds blowing constantly, when you get near the giant cormorant and albatross colonies, flight shots will seem easier than you've ever encountered with doing flight photography. All you have to do is position yourself with the wind at your back and you'll have lots of opportunities to capture some of the best flight shots you've ever taken.

At one point I had several albatross walk to within 7 feet of me to take off, making it a bit difficult to get all of their body and wings in the frame.

There are many tales to tell from this trip. The photography is endless, shown by my taking more than 6,000 images on my recent trip and this is with losing a full day of shooting due to the weather. Look for articles on the trip on both apogeephoto.com as well as in the winter issue of Nature Photographer magazine. I've recently been invited to become a featured writer for Go'n'Shoot, a fairly new online photo magazine dealing primarily with destination articles.

SUBSCRIBER WEB SITES
This month's subscriber website is one by Therese Tusa called Led By the Light Me. If you want to see some very nice images check out her site and let her know what you think of her site and her images.

While it's not photo related, if you're in Pinellas County doing some photo work of the birds in the area, check out Ronnie Pastrami's Deli in Pinellas Park. Check out the menu and grab an order to go for a great meal while in the field.

If you have a website you want others to know about, send me the info and I'll include it in a future issue.

March

DELKIN CARDS - SPECIAL SHORT TIME PRICING ON 2 AND 4 GIG CARDS
I received a batch of Delkin Pro cards at some very special prices on both 2 gig and 4 gig cards. I've sold a bunch of these and only have a handful left. The 2 gig cards sell for $40 each and the 4 gig cards sell for $80 each. Let me know as soon as possible if you want some because these last cards will go fast at this price. The new cards also are rated at 150X for writing speed as long as your camera is able to do so at that speed. If you find them at a better price let me know and I'll beat it.

MAY SOUTH TEXAS TRIP
Because of the number of people signed up for this trip, it's best if I get one more person for maximum benefit for all of the participants. If I get one more person to sign up, a second leader will be included so that people in both blinds will have a leader. The second leader was a first place winner in last year's Nature's Best contest.

OREGON TRIP UPDATE
It appears there is room for only one, and possibly two more people on this popular trip. If interested please contact me as soon as possible because of room availability where we will be staying over the Memorial Day weekend.

FALKLAND ISLANDS TRIP UPDATE

Although the trip was just recently announced and put on the schedule, there are four people already expressing interest in this trip scheduled for January 11-20. If you think you might be interested you should check out the page for this trip from my workshops page and let me know as soon as possible.

NORTHERN LIGHTS TRIP RECAP
What a great year this was for the northern lights. We had more nights of activity than any of my previous trips, including my scout trip. And one night the action was so great I had never seen it so good. The entire sky was going crazy for nearly two hours non-stop. Because of the temperatures we had to take short breaks to get out of the cold but it was very hard to heave the action. Luckily, there were a couple of lulls in the action that allowed for the breaks.

And for the first time, we had some good purples showing up in the sky. With one participant being on his third trip with me I also had to come up with some new things. Last year I added the tent which made for some great shooting. This year I took the light I use for my Arches Star Trails trip and light up the cabin we stay in and some trees in the foreground. I also played around with running across the scene swinging the light in the foreground and that created for some interesting shots.

Who knows what I'll come up with for next year to add another element to the shooting. The light also gave us some things to shoot even on a cloudy night on our northern leg.

There was also a pleasant surprise on the drive up from Fairbanks. Anyone who has been on the trip before remembers the wonderful hoarfrost forest at around mile 45 on the Dalton Highway. Last year there was road work going on and we were unable to stop and get out at this location.

I had everyone in the vehicle prepped to have cameras in hand so as to shoot from open windows as we were slowly led through the area by a pilot car. But, there was no road work, no pilot car and there were wonderful crisp blue skies. They added another pullout and a path leading up to a satellite station at another pullout.

This allowed for two great stops and some unbelievable shooting. I tried to find out if the project was completely over or if they decided to take some time off as there were no signs of work to be done. I wasn't able to find this out because the service center at the Yukon River was closed and the people further up the road didn't know for sure what the status was. Whatever the reason, everyone was quite pleased and got some great shots of this other-worldly area.

As if things couldn't get any better, the group was treated to a very rare sight. While stopping and shooting at Atigun Pass for some beautiful mountain scenics, a security person with the Alyeska Pipeline company pulled off and talked with me for several minutes. He told me about a group of more than 200 spruce grouse off the road, some dall sheep, several groups of caribou and a carcass not far off the road that a wolverine had been at earlier a little north of where we were.

While there wasn't much for large lenses in the vehicle we made the drive up to see what we could find and if anything was in shootable range. Typically when you have a non-photographer tell you about these things they look at it from a viewing perspective and not at a photographers short-range distance in order to get good images. This was the case for the grouse and the caribou. We didn't see the dall sheep and the carcass was close to the road but the only thing in sight around it were ravens.

I decided to go a bit firther up the road just to see if something else appeared. And we were glad we did as a wolf decided to cross the road in front of us about 40 to 50 yards ahead. It crossed the road and ambled across the tundra, stopping a couple of times to look at us. Those with somewhat large lenses shot away even though the images wouldn't be the greatest in the world. Especially since it was a black wolf on white snow and the light was coming from 3/4 over its back shoulder. Still, it was a wolf in the wild in Alaska.

Showing how rare this is, I asked the young daughter of the people we stay with if she had ever seen a wolf up there. Being 8 years old, she has spent her entire life way up here and she said she has never seen a wolf before. I told those on the trip to really treasure the moment as this shows how rare it was. Now, if it was only on that carcass that wasn't too far off the road.

Shot with a 70-200 and a 1.4 teleconverter - shows we saw a wolf

Good news for those wanting to sign up for the trip next year. I'll be able to take my full compliment of 6 people from now on as the second cabin where we stay on the northern leg will be up and ready. Previously we only had a total of 6 beds but this new cabin will have 4 more beds.

I already have the trip listed on the website so you can sign up early. Next year I have 4 nights at the northern leg scheduled, providing for more time in this unique area as well as a couple of new spots set aside for doing the lights up here. Joe, my regular on this trip, is already signed up and someone else on the trip said he might come back plus bring a friend so there might not be a lot of spaces available. The dates are March 1-8, so start planning early.

DIGITAL CORNER - SENSOR CLEANING

This is a new hot button topic for digital camera users. Yes, there are still some film shooters out there as I had one on my northern lights trip. Numerous companies have come out with devices designed to clean your camera's sensor. Some are good, some not so good.

In its latest camera body release, Canon now has two bodies with self-cleaning sensors. They first tested it on the Rebel XTi consumer model to see what bugs needed updated. They now have it on their newly announced 1D Mark III body, which will sell for around $4,000. From the material I've read, this is going to be a great body. If you were looking to get a new body, wait a short while because there will probably be a lot of good used 5D's and 1D Mark II's hitting the market pretty soon.

And if you really want a great body for doing landscapes and nature, although it's not officially announced, Canon will be coming out with a 22 megapixel camera later this year. Price will be more than $8,000.

Back to sensor cleaning. I have been using the Arctic Butterfly brush to somewhat decent results. I would use by rocket blower first, the brush, then the blower again. This seemed to do a pretty good job. There are also several kits with a cleaning solution and swabs. It's also been reported that a Lenspen can also be used to clean the sensor but I haven't tested this yet with a new pen.

Delkin has recently come out with the Sensor Scope. While it uses the cleaning solution with swabs, it has a couple of extra features that make cleaning a multi-step process. The best thing about this packet is the scope that comes with it. It fits over the opening on the camera body where your lens goes and has a light that illuminates the sensor, showing exactly where you have some dust that needs to be removed.

Cleaning can be a one or two-step process. There is a small vacuum that comes in the kit that you can use to get just a spot or two of dust off. If after using the scope again and you see dust, you can then use the swabs and solution to do a thorough cleaning. If possible, try to conserve your use of the swabs as packets of these replacement items will run up the cost over time.

Whatever option you use for cleaning your sensor, be very gentle as you definately don't want to scratch the sensor as this is a very pricey item to get replaced / repaired from the manufacturer.

A good test to see you might have dust if you don't have a scope it to take a picture of a crisp blue sky and blow up the image to 100% in Photoshop and look everywhere to see where you might have some dust.

If you're interested in getting a Sensor Scope kit contact me as I can get these for you at a much better price than at any retailer. The markup on the kits is quite high, so I'll be able to save you a good chunk of change.

SUBSCRIBER WEB SITES
This month's subscriber website is one by Jana Jirak called Nature in Focus. If you want to see some very nice images check out her site and let her know what you think of her site and her images. There are quite a few images to look at. It's also put together very well and you can click on the thumbnails to get a larger view of each image.

If you have a website you want others to know about, send me the info and I'll include it in a future issue. Right now I only have one more to discuss for next month so get me your web addresses.

May

2008 WORKSHOP SCHEDULE

If you're wanting to plan ahead, I have already started putting together my 2008 workshop schedule. Check out my my workshops page to see what's already available. More trips will be added in the next couple of months with the full schedule available sometime in late July.

SOUTH TEXAS RANCHES TRIP RECAP
This year I added this new trip to several of the ranches in South Texas that were originally part of the Valley Land Trust Photo contest. Several of the ranches have banded together to become Lens and Land and there are a couple of other ranches that are independent of this group that offer photo groups a chance to use blinds they have set up at water / feeding holes.

My first group for this trip realized how productive the area was with one person keeping a count of how many different species she spotted at her various spots. Her count for the trip included 90 different bird species with 12 new birds being added to Cindee and Larry DuBey's life list. Yes, they are birders, but also photographers.

While he has been doing the majority of the photography over the years, this was her first real jump onto the photography side. By the end of the trip Larry told me it looks like he's going to have to get two of everything now that Cindee really enjoyed the photography on the trip.

With doing my scout trip last year and getting a lot of shots of most of the birds, this year I concentrated on getting more flight shots of the birds as they left their perches near the water / feeding stations. This is always easier said than done, even when you're set up for this. With many clipped wings or tails, I was able to get a bunch of decent flight shots with the one below of a female cardinal being my favorite.

While most everyone on the trip wanted to get some good shots of snakes, of course the only person not wanting anywhere near them was the one who saw the most. As Cindee was getting out of a vehicle at one ranch, a very fat 5' rattler surprised her. Obviously, she didn't want to spend much time at that blind which she was going to be in by herself for a short time.

The unfortunate thing about the trip was the weather. While it was great for sitting for several hours in a blind - overcast, breezy and not real hot temperatures - it wasn't the best for birds going to the water for a drink. There were several birds that did make their way to the water for a dip or small sip, the activity was nowhere near what I experience last year on my scout trip.

Jim Meyers, a regular on my trips, e-mailed me after the trip saying he got the shot he wanted. He also found out more about what he likes to shoot when he wrote 'Even through birds are not my hot button, It was a great trip and I learned a lot more about shooting and my camera.' Below is a copy of the shot he was glad he got of a crested caracara.

With his interest in sitting in a blind for several hours taking photos of the small birds waning, I presented Jim with a new challenge - getting birds in flight images. This perked his interest up for the final two days of the trip and I worked with him on getting at least on really good flight shot. Anyone who has tried doing flight shots knows this is not something that you perfect the first time out, but from what I saw of his shots that first day, his best one was probably the first one he tried. It was either beginners luck or a good teacher.

Another particpant brought his own portable blind where he sits on a small chair and then covers himself with the camo material that has a hole in it for the front of a lens. He used it one time at the edge of a pond and came away with mixed results. Showing how well it conceals, a roadrunner walked to within a foot of him making it impossible to get any shots. He was able to get some shots that those sitting in the permanent blind on the other side of the pond couldn't get, along with the roadrunner sitting on top of the wooden structure just above a lens sticking out through the camo netting.

After talking with the owner at the last of the three ranches we visited I'm planning on scheduling the trip next year for May 11 - 18. It will be a little later to hope for a little warmer weather plus this later date will also provide for a few more migratory birds including more chances of seeing painted bunting. We did have one good session with this georgeous bird but we'd like more opportunities than this. There's already one person signed up for the trip so if you're interested in this great opportunity to get a lot of different birds in one week think about signing up.

The price I have on my workshop page might change sometime in June for a couple of reasons. I might switch one of the ranches to a different one that doesn't charge as much and the Lens and Land group is meeting to go over things and might change their pricing a little bit. No matter what they charge, this is a trip anyone who likes bird photography will want to do at some point intime.

DIGITAL CORNER - WHEN AND WHAT TO BUY

The digital world has brought back a lot of people who had stopped doing photography for a lot of reasons. The cost of film and developing has gone away, but the price of cameras has gone through the roof.

A case in point is the new Canon 1D Mark III that is going to sell for around $4,000. For those who really want to experience sticker shock, the new 22 megapixel Canon 1DS model coming out later this year is probably going to cost more than $8,000.

Are you still shooting an older digital body that is now very obsolete? Try selling it and make a one or two step up to the mid-range body you had on your wish list as many people who have those will be looking to sell them to upgrade to the new bodies that are coming out.

Each camera manufacturer comes out with a new line of bodies every couple of years and pretty much as soon as you buy one it's close to obsolete, just like all of our computers. While most photographers don't need the latest and greatest, keeping one too long makes it harder to sell and you won't get the value for it that you would have previously. I know this for a fact as my backup is the old Canon 10D that I got just before they announced the 20D. I'm finally going to sell it and get a 5D that someone is probably going to sell for a reasonable price.

While e-bay is a very good place to get used equipment - I know as I've sold several items on there - there are a couple of other places to get good deals on used equipment. An alternative to e-bay is fredmiranda.com. You have to sign up to join the forum but there is a section in the forum for buying and selling used equipment. Another place I have used to get good deals on used equipment is Roberts Imaging out of Indianapolis.

Both Canon and Nikon are now selling refurbished equipment through several of the larger camera stores with Hunt's being one that often gets good deals on these cameras. Refurbs are a great way to go as they come directly from the manufacturer at a reasonable price. They wouldn't be passing these on for sale if they didn't meet certain criteria for reliability.

Another alternative is getting the higher end consumer models rather than the prosumer modles that cost quite a bit more. More often than not a manufacturer will new things out on these before incorporating them into the pro models. This is what happened with the Canon Rebel XTi when they used it to test out their new self-cleaning sensor. You get good quality at a more reasonable rate. And with the cost of equipment nowadays, who doesn't want to save a few dollars on getting something good.

SUBSCRIBER WEB SITES
This month's subscriber website is one that Ed Berkheimer is part of called Digitalwebimages. Not all of the images on the site belong to Ed. Look for the ones in the gallery the say Zugzwang Systems.

If you have a website you want others to know about, send me the info and I'll include it in a future issue. Right now I only have one more to discuss for next month so get me your web addresses.

 

FALKLAND ISLANDS TRIP UPDATE
I have started making deposits for this trip and the sooner I know of your interest the sooner you can get locked in for this special trip. This won't be a yearly trip so think about going on this one that's scheduled for January 11-20. If you think you might be interested you should check out the page for this trip from my workshops page and let me know as soon as possible.

2008 WORKSHOP SCHEDULE NOW AVAILABLE ON THE WEBSITE
My 2008 workshops schedule is pretty much completed and up on my website. There might be one or two more added by another leader so start planning ahead. Find out about some new and exciting trips and some other popular ones on the workshops page. Pricing on a couple of trips is still being finalized but they will be in line with other trips due to some pricing changes at the ranches in south Texas and at the bear lodge. Dates for the bear trip haven't been set year but it will probably be in early September.

ICELAND AND DENALI NATIONAL PARK - 2008
Two new adventures to go along with my new trip to the Falkland Islands include trips to Iceland and Denali National Park. I have the dates set for a scouting trip to Iceland that a couple of people have already expressed interest in attending. I was going to do this on my own but when they heard about this they asked if they could go along. The dates have been set for June 25 to July 5. I still have some more research to do before setting the final price but it will probably be around $3,000 or a little more. This will be the lowest price for this trip as once I have it scouted out it will then have the full amount charged for it. The earlier you let me know your interest the sooner I can know about vehicle, gas and hotel costs.

Denali National Park - I have been in discussion with the people at Camp Denali for a 4-night stay at their facilities deep inside the park and the use of a driver to take us around for three days of shooting. The trip will be scheduled for late July or early August and the cost will be $3,995. I need to have commitments from at least four people in the next two months in order to make the reservations and deposits. Camp Denali currently has time slots open during these dates so I need to move quickly to hold some dates during this time but I also need several people to commit to this trip as deposits have to be made at the time of the reservation. Let me know as soon as possible if you'd like to go.

NORTHERN LIGHTS 2008
Only a couple of more years of this trip before taking a several year break. Solor flare activity goes in an 11-year cycle and as it starts to reach the lower end of the cycle I'll be taking at least three years off from running this trip. Where we go on the northern leg has the strongest band of activity in North America and the aurora will probably appear, but it might only show up for one night and not be very active. Because of this, I'll take several years off. If you're interested in this trip, and it's one I think everyone should take at least once, you should consider the 2008 trip. When people now ask me what my favorite thing to shoot is, I tell them the northern lights. I have become completely taken by this great phenomenon.

OPEN FOR SUGGESTIONS
I'm looking to add quite a few new trips in the coming years to my workshop schedule. With this, I'm taking suggestions on places people would like to see me add. New England has been mentioned for both fall color and the coastal fishing villages. Not sure if this would be one trip or two. It could be two where I do a fall color trip and then a coast trip that would include the puffins of Machias / Seal Islands off the coast of Maine between late May and early July. Pass on any ideas and I'll look into doing a scout trip and getting it on the schedule.

SCHOOL PROGRAMS
Have you tried thinking of different ways to let others enjoy your photography? Try doing programs at elementary and middle schools. Toward the end of this school year I did programs at numerous schools around the Denver area, See the kids' eyes light up and the oohs and aahs you hear makes for a great experience. I try to include discussions about protecting the animals and telling them about places their parents can take them with just a short drive. Who know, if you can inspire just one of these children you never know where it might lead them.

OREGON TRIP RECAP
The Oregon Coast trip this year had us back to our regular routine in the Newport area. Last year both the bridge and the lighthouse were under repair so we weren't able to photograph either of these. This year, though, the was no scaffolding and tarps and they were available for a couple of great sessions.

For some people, it takes a little convincing as to accepting some help. While doing the tidepools at the Cobble Beach in Newport, I was moving around from person to person with a poncho to use as a sun shade to eliminate glare and reflections on the water. Once they saw how good a job this did in making for better images everyone was up for a helping hand. While we might have gotten some funny looks from others who were walking around on the rocks, those in the group were probably the only ones with good images.

One thing I have found out about the tidepools over the years is that they are different from one year to the next. One tidepool area we stopped at north of Gold Beach that has been productive in the past had nothing there this year. The Newport tidepool has always been productive though. And you can also get some good tidepool material at the Oregon Coast Aquarium at their seashore exhibits.

Each year the aquarium becomes a more popular stop on the north leg of this trip. Besides the great tufted puffins shots here, getting there for feeding time with the sea otters provides some great opportunities. The jellyfish room as also a spot people stayed at for awhile.

Next year's trip will probably be done a little different than my recent trips. We'll still start off stating in Port Orford but we might only do two nights there and then one night in the Charleston area for sunset at the beach and morning at the gardens and the marina. No matter what route we take and where we stop, there is plenty to photograph given the right weather conditions. There were several stops we didn't make but our time was still filled with interesting subjects everywhere we went.

MOUNTAIN GOAT PREVIEW
This years mountain goat trip is right around the corner and it looks like it's going to be a great one. I went up there the other day and came across 8 baby mountain goats less than two weeks old. By the time the trip happens they'll be playing with each other for some great interaction shots.

TRIP INSURANCE
While you might think purchasing trip insurance is typically a waste of money, I can tell you that it's something you should consider getting for most any trip you take. I have a friend and his wife who have benefitted twice from using it and there have been numerous people on my trips the past year who could have used it. If you read my cancellation terms, it provides the amount that is kept depending on when you cancel a trip. One person contacted me the day the Oregon trip was to start stating they couldn't make it because they were in a car accident that morning. Two other have just cancelled from my Colorado Wildlife trip and lost deposit money. There are links to several companies that provide various types of trip insurance on my links page. Think about this the next time you sign up for a trip. You never know what's going to happen.

DIGITAL CORNER - A NEW PIECE OF SOFTWARE By Bob Dean

The following is a quick overview of a new Adobe™ product. Recently the folks who brought us Photoshop™ and Photoshop Elements™ introduced Lightroom™. They did this intro in an interesting manner as they made it available at a low price in an early version. They then offered it at the normal price of $299.00. What caught our eye about a month back was a special promotion for NANPA members. Adobe™ offered Lightroom™ (as well as CS3) for a reduced price to NANPA members. In the case of Lightroom™, the special price was $199.00 and you could download it directly. Once downloaded it was quite easy to install and start using. Before doing anything, we looked up a few websites that offered short tutorials. The best one is http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshoplightroom/productinfo/features/?tab:uniqueid1=1

This website has a link to some really good video tutorials. What we liked about this product was the ease of the workflow process. It can “import” images form existing files or directly from CF cards. It gives you a choice of importing only or importing and copying to whatever location you choose (nice for importing from CF cards). During the import process, you can select the images you wish to import, add keywords and “metadata” such as location, copyright, subject descriptions, etc. all in a batch mode. Batch means you can specify a number of images, say wildflowers from the Northern California coast taken in May 2007, and apply the keywords, copyrights, etc. to all of the images with a single keystroke. In addition you can apply certain image enhancements to the images in a batch mode as well.

Lightroom™ has the unique attribute of creating a database for the images you work on while leaving the files in the directory you use for storage. This prevents file corruption and reduces the amount of memory required. Import is only the first of the features of the really cool program.

You can download a 30 day free trial but be careful!! Once you start to use the very intuitive, photographer friendly tool, you’ll be hooked. Then you can check with NANPA and get the special code for the discount. The NANPA discount is good only through August, so check it out soon.

Next month in the Digital Corner I'll talk about creating sepia prints in Photoshop. I have a project to do for a customer of 6 sepia images so I'll be learning how to do these and then passing this information on to everyone.

SUBSCRIBER WEB SITES
This month's subscriber website is one for Morris McClung at www.morrismcclung.com. He has quite a few galleries on there with some great photography. Let him know what you think of his site and his work. I know he'll appreciate any comments you give him.

If you have a website you want others to know about, send me the info and I'll include it in a future issue. Right now I only have one more to discuss for next month so get me your web addresses.

PHOTOGRAPHY LINK EXCHANGES
If you would like to help your page rankings, join in with other newsletter subscribers for a link exchange program. Send me your web address info and one line about your site and these will be included in future newsletters to build up your list of associated reciprocal web links. While it's good to get a lot of links from other sites pointing to your site, it's better to have sites that are common with the type of material you have. You can also do a search on photo directories and get listed on these as these are good incoming links.

UPDATED WEBSITE
I have been doing a lot of work on my website the last couple of months and would love to hear from as many people as possible as to what you think of the new home page, combining of galleries, the breakouts from the workshops page and other areas of the site. Is the site easy to maneuver around? What do you think of the overall design? Any and all comments are welcome. And if you click on a google ad or two I won't complain.

August

WILDFLOWER TRIP RECAP
A full house enjoyed a great wildflower trip in mid-July. With word floating around that several top spots were very poor this year, especially around Crested Butte, the spots we visited were full of flowers with great backdrops.

As always, Yankee Boy Basin is always productive. Even with recent warm temperatures a late snow in May soaked the ground creating a beautiful blanket of color for everyone to find more than enough to shoot. I had been told that American Basin was the best that someone had ever seen it so we moved our trip there up a day. While it was really good, I thought it was better last year. For those on the trip who had never seen the area before, the concensus was that the places I had picked out were better than they could have imagined, especially my hidden spot at Clear Lake that was the best I've ever seen it..

With having a full house, I brought in a second leader to drive a second vehicle and he proved to be a big help for everyone. Clyde Elmore has been on numerous trips with my in the past and is a retired research professor from UC-Davis specializing in invasive plants. He's great with a camera and was able to help people out when I couldn't get to them.

The trip this year had 5 people registered by the first week of January so if you think you might be interested in this trip where you'll learn a bunch of new techniques that will amaze you, you should plan early.

FALKLAND ISLANDS TRIP UPDATE
Several people have already signed up for the Penguins of the Falkland Islands Workshop scheduled for Janaury 11-20. There was a promo piece for this trip in the latest edition of Outdoor Photographer and calls are coming in. The winter issue of Nature Photographer magazine will have an article about this trip as well. If you think you might be interested you should check out the page for this trip from my workshops page and let me know as soon as possible if you are interested in attending this trip.

2008 WORKSHOP SCHEDULE NOW AVAILABLE ON THE WEBSITE
My 2008 workshops schedule is pretty much completed and up on my website. I'm already getting registrants for several of the trips so start planning ahead. Find out about some new and exciting trips and some other popular ones on the workshops page.

ICELAND 2008
Final details are being worked out for a great trip to Iceland from June 26 - July 5. I'm in discussion with two guide services about putting together a great trip. I already have heard from four potential participants and this is without a fully arranged sechedule of where we'll be going. The trip will include several of the top bird photography locations as well as some of the best and most beautiful waterall and landscape spots.

NORTHERN LIGHTS 2008
Only a couple of more years of this amazing trip before I take several years off due to the low period of solar flare activity. In 2008 I will be doing two trips back to back due to a recent surge in interest. I still have space for a couple more participants in the first group which offers the added bonus of attending the ceremonial start to the Iditarod in Anchorage for those wanting to arrive a day early. The first trip is schedule for March 1 - 8 and the second trip from March 8 - 15. For more information on the trip visit the info page about this trip.

BIRDS IN FLIGHT PHOTOGRAPHY TIPS
I recently did a program at a Denver area camera club and during the presentation I was asked about my technique for doing birds in flight since I had several images in a row of some recent flight shots I had taken.

While I've discussed this a bit in the past, I thought it might be helpful to go over some techniques for getting good birds in flight photos. The best thing to keep in mind is that the larger and faster the lens you have the better your chances of getting good flight shots. While not everyone can afford the large super-telephoto lenses, the zooms that reach out to 400mm can give you good results.

Canon 1D Mark II, 600mm lens, 1.4 teleconverter, 320 ISO, f/6.3, 1/1600 sec.

The first rule I give to people is to bump up the ISO on the camera to at least 320 or preferably 400, even on a sunny day. Birds don't flit around in slow motion and you're trying to stop the action as much as possible. Going to 400 ISO gives you two extra stops of light to try and freeze the action of their wing movement as well as their flight. Another setting to use is AI Servo (Canon) or Continuous Mode in other brands so that focus will continue as long as you have your shutter button depressed half way and the bird is in your focusing square.

I also go at least 1/2 stop down from wide open to give just a little more depth of field. If the light allows for it, go a full stop to give that little extra depth of field to geet everything in focus.

Canon has a feature on its higher end models that allows you to expand the number of focusing squares that are activated in AI Servo. Go to this custom function and activate this to allow for better tracking. Also go to high drive to shoot bursts of images instead of single shot where you only have one chance of getting the shot you want.

You want your shutter speed to be at least 1/1000 of a second to freeze the action and if you can get faster than that your chances improve on getting a good shot. Even with a fast shutter speed you may find you have shots that are out of focus and you ask how this can happen. It happens because you were panning faster than the bird was moving. It takes time and practice but if you move with the bird at the same speed the bird is moving you;ll get sharper images. Because of this, it's better to try and get them as they're either hovering or coming towards you or just taking off from a perch.

Canon 1D Mark II, 600mm lens, 1.4 teleconverter, 400 ISO, f/8, 1/1250 sec.

For those without a lot of experience tracking birds in flight, the further away from your position you can get the bird in your viewfinder the better. Trying to find a bird in flight 15 feet in front of you is almost impossible as the closer the subject is to you the less degree of range you have. The further away the bird, the more range of view you have. Once you get it in focus track it until it's in the position you want for a shot and fire away.

Finding a location where there's a lot of activity is also key. Nests always provide a flurry activity as well as small lakes where plenty of birds and waterfowl are coming in to drink, feed or gather nesting material. Always be ready and on the lookout. If you're out by yourself, keep your eyes peeled to see which direction the birds typically come from and if there are any patterns they follow while near you.

DIGITAL CORNER - DIGITAL IMAGE ORGANIZATION - By Bob Dean

Life is good. No more film costs, processing fees, postage or trips to the lab, because digital photography enables us to shoot a lot of images essentially for free. With this great improvement in “image acquisition” comes added work after we come in from the field. In June the digital corner highlighted a new software tool for workflow. This time we take a look at some ideas on improving organization of all of those images we made for free. Organization and workflow are pretty closely tied together. If you know how your images will be organized, you can adapt the workflow process to make your computer time more efficient. Let’s consider some basic workflow and organization ideas.

The very first thing you need to do is an initial edit of your images to weed out the obvious bad ones. This first edit could be done with the LCD on the camera or a software package looking at the CF card before download. It should be really quick and weed out grossly out of focus, poor composition and bad exposure. This will then allow you to concentrate on the images that have a chance of making it to your permanent files.

After this initial edit, you are ready to download your “shoot”. But wait a minute! Have you decided how you want to file your images? The concept of file organization is boring but with a little planning you’ll be able to locate images in the future. One good way to set up (or convert your existing file structure) is to look back to how you stored images when they were on 35mm film. If what you did back then was good enough for your needs, you could create a file structure quite similar to that for your digital images. I used 3 ring binders and archival sleeves for my images and labeled the binders according to the content. Some examples are large mammals, small mammals, insects, wildflowers, etc. This worked pretty well as I had a list on my computer that had highlights of what was in each book. When I went digital photography in a big way, I kept that same basic concept but decided to use Windows™ ability to build multi level file structures to provide what amounts to binders with tabs and then sections with in each tab. Windows™ allows file names up to 256 characters so you can get a lot of descriptive information in the file name.

Here is a simplified version of my file structure:

Highest Level	Level 2	Level 3	Level 4	Level 5
Bob's Photos
	Air Shows and Aircraft
		Blue Angels
		Static displays
		Thunderburds
	Large Mammals
		Bighorn Sheep
		Elk
			Bulls
				Behavior
				Portraits
		Deer
		Mountain Goats
			Babies
			Mature
	Monterey Bay Aquarium
		Jellyfish
		Misc fish and sea life

You can see that with just 5 levels you can really get some detail. Windows™ allows nesting of file well beyond 5 levels. A really good website on file structure is:
http://www.itc.virginia.edu/desktop/docs/fms/pc/organize.html

Once you have you files organized, you can add additional folders at any level. Say you have never photographed wild horses before, but on a trip to western Colorado you got some great shoots. Simply add a new folder under the large mammal folder for wild horses. Note that Windows™ will arrange your files in alphabetical order so takethat into account when you set up your files.

I’ve found it best to create new file folders before downloading from a CF card. I can then specify the location to store the files when I do my download. Since I use Lightroom™, I can specify the import location, then bring my images in from the memory card and do a second edit on a larger screen, add location information, key words and metadata, and group images by quality.

Before your next big shoot, take some time to organize your files. The longer you wait, the more you’ll need to move around.

SUBSCRIBER WEB SITES
As an assistant editor of Nature Photographer magazine I wanted to let everyone know of a new feature on the magazine's website. Several month's ago they added a gallery page of work from the editors and field contributers. There are numerous galleres featuring some great photographic work. To get to the starting page of the numerous contributors please visit http://www.naturephotographermag.com/artistList/artistList.html.

If you have a website you want to share with others send me an e-mail with the link and I'll get it added to future newsletters.

September

COLORADO WILDLIFE TRIP RECAP
A warm summer made for some interesting searching in Rocky Mountain National Park for the wildlife this year. While on occasion wildlife can be spotted up high on Trail Ridge Road, that is where most of the action was this year. With temperatures in the 80s in the lower elevations, most of the wildlife sought out the high country for cooler temps.

A group of seven bighorn sheep rams were quite reliable in one spot and everyone on the trip was able to get some really good shots of the group. There were two nearly full-curl rams, one three-quarter curl and four younger rams in the group. Several mornings were spent following them around for awhile until they would dip over the ridge.

A bull elk resting high up on Trail Ride Road

Foggy, cloudy conditions created some nice landscape shots

Also in the same area was a large group of cow elk as well as a bachelor herd of numerous good sized bull elk. A bachelor herd was also somewhat cooperative at a regular low elevation spot. The most elusive animal on the trip was the coyote. There is one area that can almost always be counted on for at least one coyote working the area but was empty this year. I've been up a couple of times since then for the elk rut and there still haven't been any coyotes in that area. But, we did come across one fairly cooperative coyote in another area, right next to a parking lot making access to it real easy.

While the moose on the west side of the park weren't the most cooperative, a cow and a bull were found in two spots, although the bull moose was not very cooperative. A trip to that area last week still didn't have much moose action. While on the west side of the park we did get on a nice osprey nest with one young in it that was close to fledging.

Everyone on the trip this year was shooting Canon and since no one had a large telephoto lens I was letting everyone connect up to my 600mm lens throughout the trip so they could get good tight shots of the wildlife. Obviously they all enjoyed this opportunity.

While this was primarily a wildlife trip, there were several times when mountain landscapes were taken. Road work made a hop out of the vehicle easy for a view from on Trail Ridge Road one you don't usually have the opportunity to get pictures from. A bit of fog at one time made for some nice layering of the mountain ridges in the distance.

Next year the trip is scheduled to coincide with the elk rut, where throughout the park there are usually six or more harems typically close to the roads in several of the big meadows. Unless a big early snow comes, a trip to the west side of the park will have us looking for moose. I've been up twice already this year with average success but plan to go up twice more this week to capture some action, including a large 7-by bull elk I saw last week. The trip is schedule mainly during the week so as to avoid the large crowds of people who visit the park on weekends to watch the action.

NEW CF CARDS FROM DELKIN
Delkin has announded a new series of CF cards. They look real good, are state of the art and move way ahead of the pack with regards to quality. They are going to be a bit pricey, though. But at 305X as opposed to 150X writing speeds, they're going to be well worth the extra costs. My selling price, including shipping, will be: 1GB for $75, 2GB for $90, 4GB for $140, and 8GB for $240.

The cards write at 45 MB a second, making it so that you probably won't fill your buffer when shooting high drive mode. In addition to higher writing speeds to the cards, these are also UDMA cards that will write faster to your computer if used with a new UDMA reader.

You will notice in the very near future all flash card prices are going to go up a little bit. This is because the chips used in the making of these newer higher-speed cards are now costing the CF card manufacturers more as the makers of these have increased their prices recently.

If you're interested in getting some of these new cards, contact me and I'll get them ordered and sent out.

ICELAND 2008 TRIP FULLY SET
After much work the Iceland Adventure is now set. We will be led around the country by a local guide who is also a photographer. What started out with me doing the trip took several strange twists with the first being the cost of renting a vehicle to fit multiple photographers being around $3,000. That and gas at $7.50 a gallon made for some interesting expenses. We will be visiting some of the top spots on this island country including great waterfalls, glacial lakes, top bird photography spots and quaint villages. This trip will have it all. For a detailed itinerary visit the info page about this trip.

NOVEMBER ARCHES STAR TRAILS WORKSHOP
Only two spots remain on the November Arches Star Trails workshop. With early sunset times, we'll be able to get two or three 30 to 40 minute exposures at various formations each night as well as getting up in the morning for some good early morning shooting. The winter months are the best time for this trip because of the early sunset times as well as the nights being crisper and clearer. Visit this trips info page for more about this workshop.

FALKLAND ISLANDS TRIP UPDATE
Several people have already signed up for the Penguins of the Falkland Islands Workshop scheduled for Janaury 11-20. There was a promo piece for this trip in the latest edition of Outdoor Photographer and calls are coming in. The winter issue of Nature Photographer magazine will have an article about this trip as well. If you think you might be interested you should check out the page for this trip from my workshops page and let me know as soon as possible if you are interested in attending this trip.

NORTHERN LIGHTS 2008 - Second trip added
A second week for this unique and wonderful trip has been added to the schedule for 2008 due to a bunch of early sign-ups. The first week for March 1 - 8 has been filled so a second week from March 8 - 15 has been added. For more information on the trip visit the info page about this trip.

2008 BEAR TRIP
A new location has been set up for my 2008 Alaska bear trip. We will now be visiting Hallo Bay, which we access by plane from Homer. The salmon will be running and there's even a good chance for seeing wolves. This year there was a lot of wolf activity here including one that came within 50 feet of the grouup and sat and watched the people.

ONLINE PHOTO COURSES
I have joined the Apogee Photo Online Campus as a teacher. I will be offering two online courses starting in January, Wildlife Basics and Beyond, and Working With Light. Announcements for signing up will be on their site - www.apogeephoto.com - in the near future.

WEBSITE MARKETING
Do you have a website that either doesn't have the traffic or Google ranking you wish it had? Do you do searches that has your site so far buried that no one will every get to that page? There is hope. One way to help increase your Google ranking and help get you moving up the search engines is by making submissions to lots of directories. Photography is usually listed under Arts on these.

There are several sites that make doing submissions to these sites quite easy. I use http://www.directorysubmitter.com/. It sets up a template and gives you a link to several hundred directories and fills in the information you provided automatically. Be careful as numerous of them charge for placing a link. I don't use any of these.

Another good tool to use is Google Webmaster Tools at http://www.google.com/webmasters/.

There are plenty of Search Engine Optimization newsletters that provide lots of great tips on improving your search engine placement. And they work. I've probably put in several hundred hours this year doing this and am now on the first page of numerous search engines for quite a few keyword phrases. It takes work, but if you want to drive traffic to your website it's worth the effort.

DIGITAL CORNER - DIGITAL IMAGE ORGANIZATION:
DATA MANAGEMENT - By Bob Dean

Data management is the industry buzz word for how you handle the images you have in digital format. Data management starts with selection of memory card size and goes all the way through the file structure and the back up process you develop. These decisions are really driven by the type of shooting you do. Consider the following notes and decide what fits your needs.

1) Select a memory card size that meets your needs. I personally feel that either 1 or 4 GB is a good size. These hold up to a few hundred images in RAW format. Anything bigger could mean that your entire two week trip is on one card and could be lost or damaged. Anything smaller means you have a lot of cards that may get lost.

2) If you’re on a long trip using more that one or two cards, once you fill a card you have the choice of transferring it to a laptop or other portable device OR carrying enough memory cards so you can bring home your images on the cards. These cards are very rugged and immune to things like airport x-ray machines. Prices are dropping so this is much more of a realistic approach than it was just 2 years ago. As with any decision the “pros” have a variety of opinions. Some just use the cards; others make two or three copies on DVDs or other more permanent memory devices. I like just using memory cards.

3) Once you do get home, you really do need to consider your storage plan. A key decision is back up. Backing up data can be summarized in two words “DO IT”. Computer hard drives are electro-mechanical devices that will fail – some day. Now the question is what is the right way to back up data?

4) A starting point is to do a quick edit of your images as we discussed last month. Then with your RAW images edited to remove the true discards, store them in a file on your hard drive in the most compact manner you can. I like to do this by trip. Then I copy that entire file to a high quality write once DVD, not a rewritable one, they are much less archival. Make two copies if you’d like. Blank DVDs are cheap and two copies provide good insurance. Keep the two in separate places if the images are really special. Then you can rearrange your files on the hard drive. This is where a good batch processing program (like Lightroom ™) can be helpful. You can annotate each image with the DVD identifier in one step.

5) Now once you have started to do your image processing with Photoshop, you can also make copies on other DVD’s of the resultant jpeg or psd files. That’s up to you, but you’ll have your original RAW images on a fairly archival media. Do remember however that DVD’s are not permanent like old Kodachrome™ slides. They tend to deteriorate so it’s a good idea to rewrite new ones every few years.

SUBSCRIBER WEBSITES
Newsletter subscriber Dick Erickson has passed information on about his website for others to visit and enjoy. He has some wonderful macro work of wildflower in his gallery as well as some other great shots. Drop him a line to let him know what you think about his work. His site can be found at http://www.dickericksonphotography.com.

If you have a website you want to share with others send me an e-mail with the link and I'll get it added to future newsletters.

October

FALL COLOR 2008
What a strange year for fall color, both in Colorado and North Carolina. Areas in Colorado that are usually ablaze in color were as green as you see the aspens in July. Doughts from five years ago and a very wet August led to a very late or no fall color season this year. I actually saw the best fall color in Rocky Mountain National Park three weeks after is should have been peak when going up there to photograph the elk during the mating season.

The droughts left the aspen in Colorado susceptible to a couple of types of diseases. At last count, 140,000 acres of aspens in Colorado have died. That seems like a huge amount but considering there as several million acres of these beautiful trees, it's a small percentage overall.

Even with not a lot of color, there was still plenty to photograph. Instead of the sweeping vistas with hillsides blanketed in color, small spots were found to do a lot of isolation. Finding a stream with lots of colorful leaves, ice on leaves from a cold night, a small pocket of color reflecting in a lake, small patches of color grouped together. These were the things that kept people busy on both of these trips this year. North Carolina won't be included in the schedule next year but I'm talking with someone about possibly having them lead a trip to do fall color in New England.

Sunrises on the Blue Ridge Parkway in North Carolina were still great with a beautifully colored sky highlighting the stacks of ridge lines in the foreground. A foggy morning at a nice lake with some color around it also proved to be a very popular spot. The best shooting came on a morning at Maroon Bells outside of Aspen where it snowed the night before and the entire area had a beautiful coat of snow. An the amazing fact was that there were only about 10 people out there for sunrise. Anyone who has been to the Maroon Bells knows there can be 50 or more people lined up along the shore of Maroon Lake well before sunrise.

Snowy morning at Maroon Bells

Blue Ridge sunrise

Everyone has probably had a trip that went south on them because the conditions weren't what you had hoped for. These trips is scheduled for when the colors are typically at their peak. but, for whatever reasons, you come across years when it isn't quite so. That's when you look around for the small things that can still make it a great trip.

Showing how it was supposed to be peak on the North Carolina trip, we came across a group of photographers on Saturday morning on a camera club field trip from Asheville up near Boone for the peak color. We could hear them making comments about but like everyone else there for the color, they were able to find enought to keep them busy and happy.

That's all we can ever do when on a trip. Take advantage of what's there, enjoy the beauty of our surroundings and be happy we're able to go out and do what we love doing.

POTENTIAL NEW 2008 TRIP
A couple of people have asked in the past about a trip to do wildlife at a game farm. I was recently contacted by Animals of Montana about possibly putting together a trip there next year. If there are enough people interested in doing a trip here let me know and I'll get back with them to get the details for a trip here. I'd need at least four people who express interest in this before I put anything together. Let me know as soon as possible if you'd like to go and when you can do this in 2008 and I'll see about setting this up.

SENSOR SCOPES FROM DELKIN
Delkin has reduced the price of their Sensor Scopes as well as their Sensor Scope kits. I can sell the scopes by themselves for $55 plus shipping. Whatever way you use to clean your sensors, these are great for getting a good look at the sensor to see exactly where the dust spots are.

LOWEPRO BACKPACK CONTEST - GET YOUR ENTRIES IN
If you have attended a workshop this year you need to get in your two best shots from the trip for the backpack contest. Lowepro provides a Classic backback each year for me to give away in a contest for the best photo taken on a workshop. Last year two runner ups were chosen and they received a discount for a trip this year. Get your shots in to me as soon as you can. Righty now I only have a couple of shots entered thus far so your chances are pretty good if everyone doesn't submit two images.

ICELAND 2008 TRIP FULLY SET
Two people have already signed up for the new trip leaving three spots remaining. The guide I'm using is also going to advertise this trip so you might want to think about getting signed up fairly early as there's a good chance it will fill up well in advance. What started out with me doing the trip took several strange twists with the first being the cost of renting a vehicle to fit multiple photographers being around $3,000. That and gas at $7.50 a gallon made for some interesting expenses. We will be visiting some of the top spots on this island country including great waterfalls, glacial lakes, top bird photography spots and quaint villages. This trip will have it all. For a detailed itinerary visit the info page about this trip.

DIGITAL CORNER - SENSOR CLEANING
Have you been too afraid to try and clean your sensor other than using a blower ball due to things you've heard? Don't be overly concerned. There are a couple of ways I have found to clean the sensor on the camera that does not damage the sensor. With both ways, I start with using the Delkin Sensor Scope to see where and how much dust is on the sensor.

Method one uses PecPads and Eclipse cleaning fluid. These can be bought both online and at local camera stores. You can order the cleaning swabs that Delkin offers or you can find something that will fit into your sensor area and wrap a Pec Pad around this. I have found that it takes several minutes and numerous wipes using a couple of Pec Pads to get the sensor completely clean.

The second way is to get and use a LensPen. Make sure you use the LensPen only for the sensor. If you have a LensPen you use for cleaning your lenses, get another one for use only on the Sensor.

Both products are very soft and do not damage the sensor. I have used both methods and have not had a problem with doing this. You have to be gentle, though. Don't be rough with how hard you apply pressure on the sensor.

NORTHERN LIGHTS 2008 - Second trip added (4 spots left)
A second week for this unique and wonderful trip has been added to the schedule for 2008 due to a bunch of early sign-ups. The first week for March 1 - 8 has been filled so a second week from March 8 - 15 has been added. One person is already signed up for the second week so that leaves four more spots for this very popular trip. For more information on the trip visit the info page about this trip.

2008 TRIPS FILLING UP
In addition to the Falkland Islands and first week of Northern Lights being completely full at this time, only three spots remain on the April Birds of Florida and two spots on the May Oregon Coast trips. For those signing up for the Oregon trip, you can add a couple of days onto the end if you want to join me as I scout out some new areas further north from where I've been before. This new area will be included in the 2009 trip.

ONLINE PHOTO COURSES
I have joined the Apogee Photo Online Campus as a teacher. I will be offering two online courses starting in January, Wildlife Basics and Beyond, and Working With Light. Announcements for signing up will be on their site - www.apogeephoto.com - in the near future.

SUBSCRIBER WEBSITES
Robert and John Porter were on my recent Colorado Wildlife workshop in Rocky Mountain National Park. He has created a gallery page of some images taken on this trip. They can be viewed at www.porterartphotos.com. Drop him a line to tell him what you think of the web site as well as his photos.

If you have a website you want to share with others send me an e-mail with the link and I'll get it added to future newsletters.

 

December

2007 BACK ISSUES OF NEWSLETTER
Based on a comment from a recent trip participant, I have condensed all of the 2007 newsletters into one web page. As I did with previous years, ads and product specials have been taken out so there's only articles and other items of interest. As always, if there's some other change you'd like to see, let me know and I'll see about incorporating it. Photo related questions you want to ask are always open and if there's something else you'd like to see in the newsletter, let me know and I'll see about including it. The previous 2007 newsletters can be found at www.firstlighttours.com/newsletter_07.html.

HAND INJURY UPDATE
For those on the November star trails workshop, here's the latest on my injured hand. I do have a fracture in that area just above the wrist. There is no ligament damage. In fact, the ligament held on so well that it broke a chunk of bone off. This turned out to be good news. The brace I bought in Moab is all I have to wear and I do a couple of slight movement exercises each day. I go back in December to have it checked out to see what progress has been made.

BOSQUE DEL APACHE REPORT
The new refuge manager at Bosque del Apache is doing his best to ruin the photography at one of the best national wildlife refuges in the country. This is his second winter birding season at the refuge and each year the photographic opportunities are no where near what they were in the past.

This year, the main lake where there are usually more than 100 people there to see the snow geese take off at sunrise was drained to almost half empty. As a result, there were very few birds in the water and those that were there were so far from the shore it wasn't worth sticking around for any photography.

This year, at least, the ponds along the highway had water in them, making for some really nice morning and evening shooting. But, on the last day of my workshop the water in the southern pond on the east side of the road was quickly being drained and was losing the birds that had been congregating there.

Snow goose coming in for a landing

The good news was that the two ponds on the west side of the road were full of both snow geese and sandhill cranes, providing plenty of opportunities both in the morning and in the evening.

The north grain fields were again a mess. Three of the fields had no grain in them, one was being cut from front to back and the others were cut way back very early. There was only one area while we were there that provided much in the way of good flight shots of the geese and cranes as they moved in and out of the fields.

Something else that looks to make for poor photography is the addition of new grain fields on the south loop road. The positioning of the fields will never allow for good light as the sun will always be behind them.

Their standard answer about what's going on with the lessening of great photo opportunities is that they're manging it for the birds. With only half of the sandhills that are usually at the refuge, even the birds don't agree with what's going on. If this continues, the number of both photographers and birders will decline each year. While this won't hurt the refuge, it will hurt business in both Socorro and San Antonio as they depend on the visitors to help their economy.

If anyone else makes a trip to the refuge this winter, please pass on what you experienced there and I'll include it in the next issue so others will know if things improved, stayed the same, or got even worse.

PICTURES IN YOUR MIND
Everyone has a photo in the back of their mind that you actually want to capture in your camera. For several years I have been wanting to get a shot of a sandhill crane in front of the sun with an orange sky at Bosque. I'm still waiting on that shot.

But, on a trip to Florida in November I was able to get the next best thing, a pelican directly in front of the sun with a nice orange sky at sunset. The people on the beach at Fort DeSoto State Park in St. Petersburg must have thought I was crazy as I was running down the beach with my 600mm lens on the tripod over my shoulder.

There were a group of pelicans fishing just off the shore and they kept moving further away from me. I saw the sun quickly dropping and the sky turning a beautiful orange and I knew the time had come to get that large bird in perfect position. And so it happened. The shot after this with the pelican just to the left of the sun isn't bad also, but the silhouette in front of the sun was a magical shots I've been looking to get for some time.

The other shooting at Fort DeSoto wasn't all that bad either. Hundreds of skimmers and laughing gulls would bather together every morning and evening at one spot and put on a show of splashing in the water and taking off, if even for just a few feet back onto the sand. Several hours and about 2,300 shots were worth the numerous visits to this great spot, now being ranked as one of the top bird photography spots in the country. This is one of the numerous locations used in my April Florida bird trip.

Pelican soaring in front of the sun

 

NEW 2008 TRIP - CALIFORNIA REDWOOD COUNTRY
A new trip has been added to the 2008 schedule - California Redwood Country set for March 10 - 16. This trip will be led by Bob Dean who has written numerous of the Digital Corner articles you've read. Find out more about this trip on the trip page.

NEW CF CARD PRICING FROM DELKIN
Delkin has reduced the price of their 305X UDMA CF cards. I have just ordered a batch of 2 GB cards that are available for $65. Suggested retail price is $80 so you see the savings you'll get through me. If you want other sizes, all the way up to 16 GB, please contact me and I'll let you know the price.

LOEWPRO BACKPACK CONTEST - GET YOUR ENTRIES IN
If you have attended a workshop this year you need to get in your two best shots from the trip for the backpack contest. Lowepro provides a Classic backback each year for me to give away in a contest for the best photo taken on a workshop. Last year two runner ups were chosen and they received a discount for a trip this year. Get your shots in to me as soon as you can. Righty now I only have a couple of shots entered thus far so your chances are pretty good if everyone doesn't submit two images.

ICELAND 2008 TRIP FULLY SET
Two people have already signed up for the new trip leaving three spots remaining. The guide I'm using is also going to advertise this trip so you might want to think about getting signed up fairly early as there's a good chance it will fill up well in advance. What started out with me doing the trip took several strange twists with the first being the cost of renting a vehicle to fit multiple photographers being around $3,000. That and gas at $7.50 a gallon made for some interesting expenses. We will be visiting some of the top spots on this island country including great waterfalls, glacial lakes, top bird photography spots and quaint villages. This trip will have it all. For a detailed itinerary visit the info page about this trip.

DIGITAL CORNER - NIKON DSLR AMP GLOW
On my recent star trails trip to Arches National Park, three of the participants had a problem with what in the old days would be called a light leak onto the film. One participant, Ned Brokloff, did a quick research on this as soon as he returned home and discovered their is an amp glow problem on the D70, D70S, and D80 bodies. This is the first time this problem has come up as other Canon and Nikon bodies on this and other trips have not had the problem.

Here is some of what Ned included in his email to me - This seems to be an artifact in ALL DSLRs with long exposures -- additional noise/current in the CCD chip. But the Nikon D70, D70S and D80 seem to suffer from this artifact much much more than other Nikons or Canons. Seems using noise reduction helps some, lower ISO helps some, cooler temperatures help lots .... but only dark images in Photoshop really remove the problem. So taking exposures with the lens cap on and subtracting the images in Photoshop helps.

A Google search on "Nikon long exposure amp glow" yields lots of website. Seems that astro-photographers see this problem all the time with DSLRs. Here is a decent link to the problem.

http://www.fotocanada.ca/Articles/D50%20vs%20D80%20amp%20glow%20images/
D80%20vs%20D50%20amp%20glow.html

Here are two of my photos .... of the sample scene, one with amp noise (without Noise Reduction) and one without (with Noise Reduction). I have read in a few places that turning on Noise Reduction decreases the brightness of the stars -- so its a catch-22. Seems only way to really remove it is to subtract dark images in Photoshop. In retrospect, the pictures that I took at home before the trip also exhibit this amp noise artifact.

Without noise reduction

With noise reduction

NORTHERN LIGHTS 2009
My northern lights trip has become my most popular, with three weeks full for 2008 and four people on the waiting list. I'm encouraging people who are really interested to go ahead and sign up for 2009 as these will probably fill up as well. The first trip will be scheduled for Feb. 28 - March 7. Once this week fills up, more weeks might be added depending on availability of where we stay on the northern leg. For more information visit the detailed page about this trip.

FALKLANDS 2009
One person has already signed up for the January 2009 Penguins of the Falklands trip. Price will be similar to the 2008 trip and dates will be set in the near future. If interested, let me know as this appears as if this will be a popular trip that fills up early.

2008 TRIPS FILLING UP
In addition to the Falkland Islands and three weeks of Northern Lights being completely full at this time, only three spots remain on the April Birds of Florida and two spots on the May Oregon Coast trips. For those signing up for the Oregon trip, you can add a couple of days onto the end if you want to join me as I scout out some new areas further north from where I've been before. This new area will be included in the 2009 trip.

ONLINE PHOTO COURSES
I have joined the Apogee Photo Online Campus as a teacher. I will be offering two online courses starting in January, Wildlife Basics and Beyond, and Working With Light. Announcements for signing up are on their site - www.apogeephoto.com.

SUBSCRIBER WEBSITES
If you have a website you want to share with others send me an e-mail with the link and I'll get it added to future newsletters.

 

 

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Andy Long firstlightfoto@aol.com

 

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