elf

Are you shooting in RAW mode? If so, expose for the moon and extract the image twice,

once for the moon and once for the clouds. Then combine them in PS.

The basic assumption with BG paper is that every time you do a new setup you'll pull down

the stuff you've used and cut or tear it off. So the paper isn't real resistance to crimping or

getting dents and pleats in it.

Generally, however, it does have to be cut or at least torn on a straightedge or slashed with a

mat knife.

Good wrapping paper after you're done shooting...

You might want to check at Pinkham and see whether they will accept your gear from UPS

or FedEx. I doubt the airlines will permit you to carry any of that on board, and you may

not want to put it down under since the TSA does not bond their baggage handlers, so you

stand a reasonable chance of arriving without your luggage, or without most of that gear

in it.

If you are not acquainted with the Appalachian Mountain Club and its guides to the White

Mountains of New Hampshire and its hut system, I strongly recommend you look into

them. I believe their web site is http://www.outdoors.com but it that doens't work just

Google them.

They have online discussion boards on their site and you can get up to the minute

weather, trail and wildlife info from them, as well as some info from Pinkham.

Having climbed half the 4000 footers in my younger days, including about 60% of the AT

through the Whites, I would strongly recommend that you be in top condition. Elevation

gain is substantial and steep in those mountains and as someone has already mentioned

the weather is capable of considerable damage. In fact, if your goal is to do the

Preisdentials from Franconia to Pinkham in five days and shoot as well, I suggest you pick

one or the other. Just going up Ike at that time of year with a camera would take me a

whole day and most of it would be spent below tree line, especially if I wanted to go the

scenic route along the Webster cliffs instead of the direct route up the Crawford Path from

Crawford Notch.

Wherever you're coming from, if you don't prepare yourself with the AMC's White Mountain

Guide and lots of time online seeing more or less what the place looks like, you may find

your plans too ambitious for both hiking and shooting.

Here's a shot from a week I spent on a small pond at 2000 feet elevation. I spent a week

there a couple years ago. I was never at a lack for things to shoot within a half mile of the

pond.<div></div>

Go to the closest one and see what happens!

Scouting is a big part of being a successful photographer. Study maps, throw darts, check

out hearsay.

Develop your own ideas!

Jeremy Point, Highland Light - my map's on my wall. Gooseberry Neck and Acoxet in

Westport. Ned's Point in Mattapoisett.

My understanding is that many use the gradient tool in PS to achieve the effects of grads.

I've only just started experimenting with that so can't say I'd had success yet.

Keep in mind that the grads really are pretty crude tools, being as how one is confined to the

horizontal area of gradation. They never have been a substitute for dodging and burning.

From the point of view of cost, given that time is money in our culture one has to weigh the

learning curve into the equation also.

If you're in good shape hike or raft the Grand Canyon.

Take your camera and use it. You'll regret it deeply if you don't.

Apparently it's still only for commercial shoots with models, makeup people etc.

A couple people on PhotoPro have received correspondence from NPS personnel

confirming that it's not for the individual shooters unless they're bringing in a crew and

shooting a commercial.

But as long as the government is quite determined to spend money on war and use the

environment for profit, we will continue to see an expansion of this sort of thing.

Talk to your congressperson regularly.

Well, let me tell you. I've spent 6 hours in Muir woods trying to get an adequate shot of

those trees. It's extremely difficult. It's very dark in there and the sky is very bright way

up there above you. Those trees are very big. Until you see them for the first time you

just really don't understand what big means when it's applied to a tree.

Now, unless you know like the back of your hand how to get out of San Rafael and up to

Point Reyes, it seems like a very long trip. It is at least a good hour and then another 45

mintues from Inverness to get to Point Reyes light and you haven't even begun. You

haven't stopped at the ranger station, you haven't gotten to Drake's Estero, you haven't

gotten to Limantour. So my suggestion is to not bother this time.

If the weather is good, rarely, Marin Headlands could keep you busy from dawn to sunset,

especially if you go to Muir woods during the middle of the day.

Keep Kate Wolf's "golden rolling hlls of California" in mind and be extremely thankful for

the green which you will find there right now. In two weeks it'll be brown - oops, sorry -

golden.

Also, there's a fabulous web site http://www.californiacoastline.org Check it out.

Point Bonito and Muir Woods. If you have any more time go up Route 1 a bit more.

Beware. It's fabulously beautiful and foggy.

While it's true that shooting RAW doesn't improve sharpness, the tool in ACR for correcting

unsharpness is more sophisticated than the one in PS. In addition, it can be used to smooth

grain resulting from high ISOs in a better way than the gaussian blur or other blurring

features of PS.

When you shoot RAW, as I see it, you have the possibility of avoiding nearly everything you've

usually done in Photoshop simply by adjusting your RAW file to the fullest extent possible.

And you get all the wonderful batch features of the RAW converter as well.

I couldn't hand hold that combo to save my soul. A monopod on the lens probably would

have helped. And a blind.

Better to get a sharp crop than an unsharp full frame.

First borrow that D70 again and shoot RAW. Then explore Adobe Camera RAW with your

shoot. Then borrow a low end Canon digital, just so you're more fully informed, and do

the same.

Then decide.

My experience is that Canon's default white balance is natural and Nikon's isn't. The

Canon often requires hardly any color correction, rather only slight adjustments to look

like Velvia with the Saturation and Contrast controls in Adobe Camera RAW. The Nikon

default white balance in my experience is badly off to the blue and requires much work to

correct before enhancement. The convenience of that factor was enough to drive me to

switch.

The image you capture with a digital camera is the equivalent of a negative or a positive

that has no color bias. It requires processing after you capture it to make it look either the

way you saw it, or want it to look. If you have Photoshop you can shoot RAW, which is the

most flexible capture mode, and then bring your images into Photoshop and process them

in Adobe Camera RAW, a conversion module of modern Photoshop.

Even with the low end D70 you should be able to achieve the look you want by adjusting

saturation and contrast, as well as color temperature, in Adobe Camera RAW.

Image correction is a huge topic. I suggest you take a short course somewhere or spend

much time online researching it, as well as subscribe to Pop for a year and read and study

the columns that are devoted to management of digital capture and file.

There is nothing in the digital capture which limits the look of your final product.

It depends on what kind of sports, too. F 4 is too slow for most sports even at ISO 3200.

That's why I bought the f2.8, which is marginal. When I shot basketball for the paper we

pushed the Ilford 400 to 6400 in processing. It was only for newsprint, after all.

Well, they've pretty much abandoned the feeder in the interest of nesting, but once in a while

one comes by and they're a whole lot golder than they were in the winter.

I'll try attaching my image of the winter one.<div></div>

I've got a 70-200 f 2.8 autofocus for a Nikon that I'll never use having switched to Canon.

It's for sale.

elf@cape.com

my 75-300 on my Canon 10D with 1.6 multiplier gets goldfinches at 4 feet so they fill about

a third of the viewfinder, through double window glass on a tripod.

camo, waders and a blind. Shoot RAW so you don't lose so many adjustment options.

The best bird shots are 75% luck, reflexes, waiting and homework/25% equipment and

technique I suspect.

Search for Arthur Morris bird photography.

Yes, the standard presentation for art photography - landscape and wildlife and actually

digital art - is the box with matted prints. There are nice hinged boxes out there and also

canvas covered boxes with 3-ring binder spines. You mat the piece and punch holes in

the mat and put it in the binder.

I dislike them all a lot but they sure do look nice in presentation.

As for a book I suggest you buy a Kolo book - search on web. Go to you college's book

store and see if there are any there. They are tops, beautiful paper, expandable with linen

hinged pages and post binding. You get your images printed and mount them on the

pages in the Kolo book.

The larger ones come with a beautifully finished window in the canvas cover, into which

you can insert a piece of your work, or any other title you create.

Finally, I have been experimenting with the custom printed books one can buy online.

Most of the companies that carry portfolios to share and offer print services also have

books, mouse pads, calendars, mugs, on and on.

I recently had one done by Apple through iPhoto. Basically you either prepare your book

pages on your computer and upload them to the book making company and pay and wait,

or, if you're on a PC, you download the software from your chosen book maker and create

your entire book on your own computer with their software of choice. Then you upload it

to them and they create the book.

20 page books run around $30.

Search for custom photo books on Google if you decide to try this.

My book from Apple was very nice, the color was accurate but the service was only

moderately speedy. The paper was very nice and heavy and the binding was secure and

excellent.

Yeah, but you've got to take global warming into consideration. We're having ospreys who

are not leaving at this point here on Cape Cod. And the redwing blackbirds are back

already. The robins haven't left in years and the cardinal population is booming.

In addition there's a lot of evidence accumulating now that evolutionary changes are

accelerating in bugs and butterflies.

Roger Tory Peterson's Eastern Birds (USA) says it might be a little gull, larus minutus - 11

inches, red feet. Head black in summer capped in winter.

Was it that small?

Entering the highly competitive landscape and animal market requires that you fully

educate yourself about the business. It's always a great dream, to get published, but you

can earn yourself a lot of disrespect from your colleagues by entering the business before

you understand how to play the game.

Do us pros a favor and recognize that once you seek publication you must behave in a

fully professional manner, both in your photography and in your business practice.

A trip to http://www.editorialphotographers.com is the first step. Joining the Yahoo list

T-O-P-A is the second step.

Once you understand how to be in business, then you need to carefully study your target

market and shoot to it. If you don't shoot to the market there's basically no point to

aiming for it. Contact the Art Directors/Photo Editors at the magazines to be certain that

you're preparing yourself to meet their technical criteria and understand how they work.

Study the work of those who are already being used in the magazines as well. Seek it out

on the web as well as in the magazines and notice carefully what other kind of work those

people do as well as their wildlife and landscape work.

No magazine buys negative work, most magazines no longer want film. Film is dead in

the western world at this point. The highest end Canon and Nikon digitals make better,

finer grained results than any film available at the present time and the manufacturers are

going out of the film business as fast as they can. Even Fuji, who last week claimed that

they were not abandoning film, has dumped Velvia 50, their finest grain film.

Good luck and be prepared to keep your day job for at least 10 years.