Shooting Birds in Florida

Posted on February 25, 2024 by admin

Getting Close to the Action

Earlier this month I spent a few days in Florida shooting birds.

 

In particular I visited two places that I knew was home to many of our flying friends. One is Green Cay Nature Center & Wetlands in Delray Beach. The second is the town of Flamingo in the Everglades National Park where a boat toured the brackish backwaters among the mangroves. I enjoyed my time at both of these locations.

 

Thankfully I was able to get close ups of the wildlife yet stay far enough away from the birds by using a long telephoto lens.

 

cc-by-ndlicense logo  This work by Arnie Lee is licensed under a Attribution-No Derivatives (CC BY-ND 4.0)

 
To find information about the Green Cay Nature Center & Wetlands:click here.

 
To book a two hour backwater boat tour in the Everglades from Flamingo Adventures click here.

 

 
 

Written by: Arnie Lee
 
 

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Nikon Zf Mirrorless

Posted on January 15, 2024 by admin

Nikon at CeS<br />

A Bright Orange Camera

 

If you read my previous post, you’ll know that I recently returned from attending the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

Since the 1980’s Ive been attending CES which showcases many of the newest gadgets and products that are destined to be delivered to the marketplace.

At the Nikon booth a bright orange colored camera caught my attention. This was the Nikon Zf which was introduced last November (2023).

The Nikon Zf is a 24mp full frame mirrorless camera that shares some of the looks of older classic SLRs – the familiar pyramid viewfinder, a circular shutter dial, an independent ISO dial.

I was told that it’s able to capture 11fps stills and handle 4K video at 30fps. The autofocus tracking can recognize nine types of subjects. The image stabilization is linked to the AF point. The rear screen is fully articulated. The camera also features several dedicated black and white modes.

For the fashionable photographer the Zf is available in six different colors.

The price is about $2250 with 40mm f/2 lens.

After speaking to the Nikon rep who explained the camera’s features, he walked me over to their in-booth photo studio for a demonstration.

I registered my name and email address and found myself in line to have my picture taken. Here the photographer was using the Zf camera surrounded by a set of lightboxes.

After sitting for a series of six photos I walked over to the nearby monitor where the artist assistant showed me the resulting pictures.

Whatever the artist did, the portraits turned out better than my real life visage.

Later in the day, the images from the photoshoot arrived in my email box.

Here are a couple of the portraits taken with the Nikon Zf.

 

 

My thanks go to the people from Nikon for a new set of portraits and for showing me another one of their newest capable cameras.

 

 

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Canon Portrait at CES

Posted on January 15, 2024 by admin

Canon Portraits

Magically Making a 3D Image

 

I’ve attended the annual Consumer Electronics Show pretty regularly since the 1980s. Due to pandemic concerns, I skipped 2022 and 2023.

However this year I decided to go again and just returned from this year’s event.

Naturally my interest in photography sent me over to the Canon booth where one of their presenters prodded me to have my picture taken.

Eric showed me what appeared to be a normal digital camera. He told me that he was going to take my picture and turn it into a 3D image.

After taking my snapshot, Eric walked me over to Jay who asked me to locate my image on the large board beside him and click on my photo.

 

Seconds later I received an email on my cellphone.

It contained the following short mp4 video.

 

 

Eric told me that the photo is passed through software which renders the single image into a 3D mp4 file. I don’t know the exact details of how this happens but the result is pretty cool.

Thanks to the staff at Canon.

 

 

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