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Tuesday, October 14, 2014

Ooops...forgot the big news

I was just reading my last blog and discovered I forgot to follow up
on my big news!

As of September, my photography is officially a business!

I am now Doug West Photography, LLC.

Bird photography will always be my primary objective, but I wanted
to open up the possibility of making more money by offering other
photography services, so I figured this was a good time to do it.

Monday, August 18, 2014

Big Announcement Coming!

I have a BIG announcement coming, hopefully by mid to late September.
The timing is perfect because of the Ashtabula Covered Bridge Festival
I'll be at during the second weekend of October.

All I can say is, this is something I've wanted for such a very long, long
time.

Tuesday, August 5, 2014

Pedal to the Point 2014...Branching Out

On August 2, 2014 I volunteered to photograph my workplace team, Team MMO
(Medical Mutual of Ohio) as the cycled 75 miles from Brunswick High School
to Sandusky High School.

I decided that the place to setup so I could have the best opportunity to capture
as many team members as possible was outside of the lunch stop at the Lorain
County JVS in Oberlin, OH.

To make sure I didn't miss anything, I arrived at 7am. The first cyclist came
down the road at about 8am. Soon after, the first of the Medical Mutual Team
arrived.

The forecast was for thunderstorms, but in the beginning, the day started fine
with partly to mostly sunny skies. I didn't think of it, but I should've asked
somebody to drop me off a can of soda after their lunch, cause after 4 hours,
I did get a little thirsty :)

My equipment was simple...my Canon EOS 1D Mark IV and the Canon 70-200
F2.8 lens. I ended up snapping off over 1700 images! I would've gone over 2000
if the storms didn't roll in at the end.

At first when I started to shoot, I was starting at 200 and zooming out to 70, kind
of the same thing I do when photographing birds in flight as they come closer.
But I learned I had better success just picking a spot and shooting at 70mm.

The only hiccup I had was when my lens stopped focusing. I was panicking,
wondering how this could happen all of a sudden. Turns out while I was zooming
in and out, I accidentally turned the AF switch off on my lens. Ooops. Hey, at
least it was my fault and not the lens :)

Everyone that rode thru was so friendly, waving, giving me the thumbs up.
If I knew this was going to be such a success, I would've promoted this, but hey,
next year, cause I really want to do this again.

After shooting for 3 hours on the ground, I decided to get up and shoot the other
direction as the cyclists were leaving lunch. My plan was to shoot until noon, but
with the thunderstorm clouds coming in, the wind gusting and temps dropping by
at least 15 degrees, I decided to call it a day.

In all, I captured at least 30-40 of Team MMO. If I had that extra hour, I'm sure I
would've got a lot more. As far as the other cyclists? Its hard to tell how many different
individuals I got, but if I had to take a wild guess...300-400.

To view the other cyclists that participated in this event, visit my other web site at:
http://dougwestphotography.zenfolio.com/


Thursday, July 31, 2014

Busy...Busy

Last week I visited Brandywine Falls for the first time. This was
almost my first time trying to photograph waterfalls. I was there
for about an hour and came away with a few images I really liked.

I used my 24-105 lens for all of the shooting. I also brought my
Neutral Density filters, but it turned out I didn't need them. The
early morning found the sun behind the clouds, so my exposures
were manageable. I was using anywhere between 1 to 8 seconds
for my shutter speeds.

This week it'll probably seem like I'll be in my SUV more than
anything.

On Friday (8/1) I'll be traveling across the county to the Carisle
Reservation Nature Center to take my framed images down. This
drive takes me about an hour to get there.

After that, I have to drive all the way back to Euclid and hang those
same images back up at the Euclid Public Library, which is where
they'll stay for the whole month of August.

The Euclid showing is a little extra special this time cause its the
first time I've back since the library gave me my first opportunity
to show my work back in 2007. So its kind of like a homecoming
for me.

Returning to Euclid also made me realize how far I've come as a
bird photographer. What I had hung back in 2007 probably would've
ended up in the trash in 2014.

Then Saturday morning I have to get up at the crack of down and
photograph my company friends as they compete in the Pedal to
the Point. I'll be at the side of the road for a couple of hours in Oberlin
and then head to Sandusky to photograph them even more as they
cross the finish line. I might even be there on Sunday at the finish
line. Of course all of this depends on the weather.

I'm also planning my return to the Ashtabula Covered Bridge Festival
after a 3 year absence.

This return will also be big for me. I was always in the Grange Building.
The Grange Building had its own stalls and shelving. So setup was easy.
The building was also crowded, but some times to crowded in a way
that people couldn't admire my work. Normally only about 3 people could
get into my stall at a time, which meant a lot of people passing by.

This year I'm in the Commercial Building and will have my own 10x10
space. Right now I'm planning on how to best set up for that with a
combination of tables and art panels.

Friday, June 13, 2014

The Stinkers and the Keepers

After a day of shooting, the fun really starts...the time
to decide what images to keep and what images to delete.

When that time has come I use two programs, both from the
company Breezesys. They are Downloader Pro and BreezeBrowswer.

When setup correctly, DownloaderPro will automatically copy
my images from the CF card to a directory. All I have to do
is specify a job code. The job code is my description of the
images I just shot. For example it might contain the date of
the shoot and the place. All of that information is then appended
to the actual file name.

Now it comes time to review, which I use BreezeBrowswer. This
app is great because it allows me to view the images in full
screen via slideshow while marking my favorites. At the end,
anything that isn't marked, gets deleted.

I perform a couple of rounds of culling. The first round I delete
the obvious out of focus shots. If the images aren't sharp now,
they're not going to be sharp later. The second round is where
I pay attention to the technical side. If the image has a bad
head turn, bad background...anything that I'm 100% positive I
can't fix in Photoshop gets trashed.

The final round is usually marking the images that I think are
the best of the best. These will be the ones I'll give the most
attention to since they could end up in a frame or something.
The second best images if you will, are my backups, to be used
when I might need more down the road.

If I'm lucky, I'll have around 80-100 keepers out of a couple
hundred that were deleted. Now you hopefully understand better,
hopefully, why I'm so picky in the field (from my earlier blog).
I don't know about you, but I'd rather go thru 300 or 400 images
vs 1000-1500 images. Yikes!

After all of that I then move my remaining images to their own
directory. Me, I have a folder for each place I've visited. Then
that folder is broken down by year, then by RAW, TIF and JPG folders.

I know it might be hard to delete an image, especially if you've fallen
in love with the species. But this is where you have to separate yourself
from the others. You have to remove emotion out of the equation. I'd
rather see one great bird photo vs 10 below par images.

Sunday, June 8, 2014

North Chagrin Reservation - Lost Cause

I think it was last year, at about the same time this year actually, I wrote
about how North Chagrin Reservation was going down hill.

A year later, it not only has gone hill, it's freaking dead.

Let's start with Sunset Pond. Today I'd call it Sunset Pit. The water level
is low. It's filled with mud and algae. I know if I was a duck, I wouldn't
want to swim in that crap. Oh wait, they don't. You see, once famous for
their Wood ducks, I counted one. Mallards? I counted 0. In fact, the only
animal I saw in the mud pit was a bunch of Geese.

Now we move toward the back where the feeders are. Well, I think there
are feeders. I say that because the grass and weeds are so high, if Kareem
Abdul-Jabbar stepped in there, you wouldn't be able to see him. He'd
disappear.

Somewhere in that high grass are beautiful perches. Heck, there's even a
pond. But it's all hidden now. It's like that area has been abandoned.

Can't they even afford a weed whacker?


I keep bringing this up, but it's obvious nobody cares.

Whoever this somebody else, he's probably sitting behind a desk in
his air conditioned office reading a magazine gathering a paycheck
while ignoring what's happening (or should I say not happening) outside
his window.

Friday, June 6, 2014

Zones

After a morning of photographing lots and lots of Baltimore
and Orchard Orioles, the one photographer next to me remarked
how he snapped off 800 images. Then he asked me. I told him
around 300. He was surprised to find out I pulled the trigger
for that low of a number.

How? Why?

Simple. I shoot in what I call photography zones. Basically
I have two zones...

1. Shoot Zone. Anything that flies or lands in this zone I know
   for 100% fact will be a keeper because the sun is at the
   right angle and my foreground and background are perfect.
   Of course an image could still get deleted due to lack of
   sharpness, head angle, etc.

2. No Shoot Zone. I don't care how rare a bird might be, if it
   lands in this zone, I don't snap the trigger. The reasons are
   pretty much the opposite of above...the background could be
   cluttered, the sun angle wrong, etc.

I determine these zones as soon as I've established my shooting
position. Through the viewfinder I'm determining what will and
what will not make a good shot (I'm also taking test shots to
determine exposure).

What are the advantage? Two that I can think of.

1. Less culling and more time. For every bad shot I don't take in
   the field, that's one less image I have to review after I get
   home. When you're talking about hundreds of images, that's a lot
   of time I'm saving...time that can be used toward my keepers.


2. Less lens travel, increased chances of success. Since I know my
   zones, there's no need for me to be swinging my lens left/right,
   up/down, etc. I can focus on one area. This increases my success
   tremendously because there's little to no wasted time of trying
   to acquire the image, focus and change any needed exposure settings.
   So while the photographer next to me is capturing a bird buried
   deep in branches of a tree, I'm capturing something right in front
   of me.




I also don't turn my shutter into a machine gun. I still shoot on high
speed, but my average bursts are 3, with the most being 5. I can do this
because I've gotten to the point where I can predict what the bird's
behavior is going to be.


Another reason for the 3 to 5 burst is the last thing I want to do is
look and stare at 10 to 15 almost identical shots, trying to determine
which one is the sharpest. That would drive me insane.


The last reason is buffer. While the guy next to me has to wait a second
or two for his buffer to clear, I'm ready to go and catch the next shot
that he'll miss.


This next image was caught on a boat of about 6 photographers. I'm
the only the got the shot because I knew what the best angle was and
by studying the Loons behavior, knew when/where he would pop out
of the water next...




I hate to brag, but I will, but every time I've entered this in a contest, it has
always placed.

I guarantee that if you try this and have the patience and resolve,
you'll gain an extra keeper or two that you would've normally missed.

Sunday, June 1, 2014

My Never Ending Search for the Perfect Flight Lens

When it comes to hand holdable bird flight bird photography
I'm always looking (and evolving) for the better lens.

When I first started in bird photography my lens of choice
was the Canon 100-400. This was a very sharp and versatile
lens to use in the field.

Did I say 'sharp'? You've probably heard from the experts
who claimed this lens was soft and pretty much unusable.
Of course if you ask these 'experts' if they ever used one
the answer is usually a no. In the right hands, any lens
can be sharp, otherwise its usually operator error.

The lens was versatile because of the zoom. It was nice to
catch a bird at 100mm and zoom into 400mm as it flew in
closer.

I also used my 70-200 on the beach mainly due to the birds
were so close the shooter zoom was the best way to go.

But, as times change, so do my lenses. As I was studying
my flight shots I noticed that pretty much all of my captures
at 400mm.

So if that was the case, why not go prime? My next purchase
was the world famous Canon 400 F5.6 made famous by Arthur
Morris. Then lens was non-IS, but if you've followed my work,
my 600 is a non-IS lens and I've done pretty well with that.
After switch to the 400 I was a little worried I'd miss the
zoom action of the 100-400, but never did. I fell in love
with the 400 instantly.

Besides, if I needed anything less, I had the 70-200 and for
even more options the 1.4x. So I was covered from 70 to 400mm.

Then a few years after that Art wrote about the Canon 300mm F4
being a better alternative than the 400 F5.6.

Why better? Two reasons mostly. One is the addition of image
stabilization. The second was that by adding the 1.4x the 300
was now a 420mm, giving the photographer an extra 20mm.

Of course there are always the misinformed who complained the
lens and teleconverter combination was to slow, which was probably
due to using a consumer type of Canon and/or not knowing how to
use the settings/lens in the first place.

Never satisfied, I'm moving on again. My latest purchase is the
older version of the 300mm F2.8 lens. When this lens first came
out is was regarded as one of the sharpest. That's a good thing.
I also gain a stop of light because its a 2.8 vs 4, another good
thing.

Besides becoming my flight lens, it will also become my 600 substitute
when I don't feel like hauling 16+ pounds around. From what I've
heard from the people I actually trust, the lens works great with
the 1.4x II teleconverter and with the 2x III teleconverter.

I plan on this being my last lens for flight.

Yeah, right :)

Friday, May 23, 2014

Matthew Studebaker's Northern Ohio Song Birds Photo Tour



When I first became interested in bird photography in 2006 the one photographer that grabbed my attention was Matthew Studebaker from Art Morris. Matthew was from Cleveland so with the two of us living in the same area, I had become an instant fan and follower of his.

But, I had never photographed with him. The timing just wasn't there for me to attend one of his photo tours, until now.

I signed up for his May 7 to 10 Northern Ohio Song Birds Photo Tour. It had the advantage of being in my backyard, while still feeling like a vacation. The drive was a simple 40 minutes one way to the groups meeting place.

I was lucky enough to ride with Matthew to his favorite spots all four days. Watching him first hand on how he could pick out a single bird singing, just by driving down the road with the window open blew me away. If he heard something, he'd pull over, try his bird call and if the bird responded, we'd all get out and setup. Sure enough, that bird would appear.

I've been on Art's IPT's, with James Shadle on his boat and other places by myself. And on all of those I had a great time. But the norm was you'd pretty much be in the same spot for the morning and a second spot in the evening. Matthews? I lost count on how many different spots we stopped at. It was freaking unbelievable! I never, ever had so much fun!

The man also went out of his way to make the best perches available and to make sure everybody was happy. He'd even carry gear if he had to, including mine cause my fat butt was out of shape :) There were times he'd disappear for what seemed like 5 or 10 minutes just to find that perch.

How were the bird images? Just look at my Ohio images, pretty much from -3 to -5. I have never had so many keepers from one outing than this.

Would I recommend Matthew Studebaker for any of his upcoming tours? Does a bear shit in the woods?

Doug West - www.thebirdphotographer.com