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[OM] Couch Potato photography

Subject: [OM] Couch Potato photography
From: Frank Ernens <fgernens@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Thu, 14 Oct 1999 21:35:48 +1000
Warren Kato wrote:

> I caught the second episode of a photography series on ESPN last Saturday 
> featuring C*n*n 600/4 and 400/5.6 lens on Wimberly heads and Arthur Morris, 
> bird photographer. It was mostly oriented towards amateurs and selling 
> cameras.

His book on the same subject is nothing more than an extended 
sales pitch for Canon... how good autofocus is etc. and how 
hopeless Nikon is.

What I noticed about most of the flight shots is that they were 
taken against an absolutely clear blue sky, with the bird centred 
in the frame. It reminded me of those stuffed birds suspended
from fishing line in museums. Easy for the AF, though - not even
a cloud.

The chapter on exposure is a real scream. Spot metering, it 
seems, is useless. His approach is to use evaluative metering and 
bracket until, at the light table, he hits upon the compensation 
for each kind of shot. His book has a cheat sheet of them, which 
of course only works for Canon EOS + Velvia. I especially liked 
the way he compensates +1/3 stop for what I would call average 
subjects - he rates Velvia at 100 and pushes a stop in development.

A better book IMO is Tim Fitzharris's, published by the Audubon 
Society. It recommends all the obvious camera brands as well as 
Sigma. It mentions Olympus and Leica as being too expensive, and 
trashes AF as useless. Not a bad read, until the last chapter, 
when he starts transplanting heads using Photoshop.

Both these authors are in agreement that without a good knowledge
of birds camera and technique are useless. There are people out
there taking good shots with Spotmatics.



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