What a beautiful picture. You did a great job and it's easy to see why you won. Congratulations!

Is that incredible or what?

You are an artist.

My first thought was, 'these are beautiful, how could they possibly be improved upon?', but then 'reader' asked this question...



Great question. If you can bring out more feather detail that would improve the picture. You did a great job getting the pics.

Steve Perry I bought your book and enjoyed it very much and plan to read it again soon. The auto ISO, manual mode suggestion you make in the book is great. The one problem is when things are dark. Before sunrise the other day some otters were enjoying fish for breakfast and I took a large number of pictures. The ISO turned out to be 6400 and the pictures were so noisy that I finally deleted them. A few days later the otters were back and the light was much better as were the pictures. I now have the ISO limited to 1600 but that has limited the opportunities when the light is limited - its been very cloudy the last several days. Amongst my bucket list of faults is a sever impatience with post processing. The other day there was a post here on The Ugly about EBTR (Expose beyond the Right) which is on my bucket list of things to try. Do you have any other suggestions for those with a post processing short fuse?

My wife and I accompanied our children - our son-in-law is a Blackhawk pilot - to Fort Wainwright by Fairbanks, Alaska last summer. While waiting for on-post housing to open we spent a couple weeks staying at nearby Eielson AFB. There are a couple 'no photography' signs along the highway going past Eielson but those signs would be easy to miss. They do not want any pictures taken of the flightline or any aircraft currently in use. I was provided with information of where on base I could go to take pictures of the Alaska Range - 'But no pictures of the flightline or any aircraft, except for those on static display at the memorial park'. Last year while taking a military hop to Korea, my grandson - using his phone - started to take a picture of the airplane and was quickly stopped. The dressing down he received left no questions unanswered; there would be no photography of any military area or equipment. A few years ago my son-in-law took me to the field on Ft Rucker where he served as a flight instructor and suggested I set up near the gate to get some good photographs. All the helicopters there were used for training and had no weapons systems or other sensitive equipment. In fact they fly these choppers by the house routinely where I've taken photos before. I was close to and in full view of the gate and MP Guard shack. I was there for awhile having a great time but eventually one of the MP's came over and told me I'd have to stop because someone complained. He apologized and seemed to be a little embarrassed. He didn't ask to look at the photographs I had already taken and suggested that the unit commander would give me permission to continue if I asked. This is dealing with photography on military property which is of course not public right-of-way. However I know of public rights-of-way where the public can get photographs of military equipment, installations or personnel that the military would not want taken. These 'rules' can change depending on the threat level and/or intelligence information that the public knows nothing about. Actually the rules don't change but security levels do so be careful when near military installations. If you want to photograph military hardware and you are on the way to an airshow to do just that and you happen to see the aircraft taking off from their home base to go to the airshow you may want to wait and photograph them at the show. It seems kind of silly but there are reasons.

Very nice.

Nice shot, I can almost feel it.

Excellent.

Very well done.

That is really good.

Anybody have experience with the Movo Gimbal head? Amazon has it for $199.95 and the reviews are encouraging. One reviewer received the head with a plate that was straight on one side rather than the normal arca type bevel. His camera fell off onto the ground and he revised his 4-star review saying he was not happy. Jason@movo responded to the revised review saying Movo is based here in the US and they stand behind their products. The reviewer then re posted saying Movo replaced the mount bracket and plate and offered additional compensation. Other reviewers say the head works well. With that kind of product support and a price that is less than half the price of a Wimberley this may qualify as a dream come true. Anybody in UHH land that has the Movo?

There are rumblings that the shenanigans going on at the Clinton Foundation (or wh**ever it's called) are going to sink their ship.

Thank you for this. Great photos.

I believe the clinton dynasty is going to have a train wreck real soon. The FBI has been investigating their foundation for some time now.