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Bill Coster Newsletter 4I have at last managed to complete and launch my new website and it now contains a much wider range of my work. I’ve introduced more galleries and reduced the emphasis on birds, although these still make up a large share of the images. The website address remains the same www.billcoster.com so do have a look and see what you think of it. It was good to bump into some of you at the Birdfair at Rutland Water and it was nice to be asked when the next newsletter is coming out! As the newsletter is now becoming established I am expanding it slightly by including a piece by a guest contributor – John Ball. If you’ve got something you want to contribute, just send me a word document by email and I’ll see what I can do. I’ve agreed to do a talk for the LVNP on the 15th Feb next year. Nothing unusual in that as I do a talk there most years. The big difference is that this will be my first ever digital show and I’ve been spending some time trying to master yet another new digital technique! I think I’ve sussed out the basics, but you can do so many clever things with it that it can be a bit overwhelming. The LVNP now have their own projector which makes it possible as I don’t have one of my own. They are still very expensive and the replacement bulbs cost a small fortune, so they don’t make economic sense at the moment. Like everything other new technology, I’m sure they will come down in price in the future. One thing is for sure - it’s a lot more work than sticking a few slides in a carousel……..
Birds Illustrated MagazineI’ll continue to plug this magazine as it needs and deserves your support. Many years ago it used to be published by the corporate publishing giant emap, who also publish Bird Watching Magazine, but it didn’t make enough profit for them as it was a niche market. The title was bought by Buckingham Press which is a small publishing company who specialise in bird related publications, so do take out a subscription now. I’m a photographic consultant on the magazine, so I’d be very happy to receive any feedback or criticism of Birds’s Illustrated. I’ll certainly get your views across to the editor. To subscribe contact Buckingham Press on 01733 561739. Mention my name and they will send you a free sample copy.
Handluggage RestrictionsJust when things seemed to be getting easier with BA lifting it’s silly hand luggage rules, the rules are changed again in the UK due to suspected terrorist threats. As one guy that was interviewed on the TV news said ‘I can’t see how having a bag 2 inches thicker than stated is a threat to the security of the aircraft’. Whenever security is raised as an issue all arguments are dismissed out of hand and there will always be a group of people that will support any measure if it’s for ‘security’. I suspect that if the authorities had to take responsibility for the safety of the valuable gear put in the hold and pay compensation for the costs of ruined trips if your hold luggage never turned up or camera gear stolen, the security issue would be viewed rather differently. You can’t win though and the only thing you can do is try to cope as best you can. Fortunately it looks as if the restrictions will be either eased or removed altogether in a week or so, although I suspect this has got more to do with reduced traffic now that the holiday season is coming to an end, then any reduced threat. At the end of this newsletter is a piece by John Ball about his experiences is trying to find a camera bag to meet the current restrictions.
Latest News – The following new restrictions come into force today, copied directly from the BAA website: Hand baggage restrictions
* This is the maximum bag size allowed through security. Smaller bag sizes may apply depending on which airline you travel with. We therefore advise you to contact your airline.
This is still not back to normal, as you cannot take a separate laptop bag, nor carry a small camera bag in addition to your other luggage. As far as I can see you can put things in your pockets though. Surprisingly (not) you can still contribute to BAAs profits by carrying onboard any items you have purchased in their shops, once you’ve cleared security. There are always luggage shops in the waiting area, so presumably you could buy a cheap laptop bag here and transfer your laptop to it, to reduce the risk of it being damaged in your camera bag.
InsectsI thought I’d have a bit of a change this month and show some insect pictures I’ve been working on recently. My interest in natural history started with moths and butterflies and I’ve been surprised how popular they have become in recent years. Backgrounds and props are essential when photographing insects and I’m always on the lookout for a nice leaf or lichen covered twig to use in my pictures.
The Dusky Thorn Moth1/15th second at f16, Canon 1Ds II, 100mm macro (400 ASA), fill flash at –1 You see too many moth pictures where the subject is full frame and dead centre, so I thought I’d try a different composition
Copper Underwing Moth0.4 second at f16, Canon 1Ds II, 100mm macro (400 ASA) This image is all about colour and texture, with the dried out ivy leaf looking like leather against the similar coloured, but carpet like texture of the moth. You’ll have to take my word that the moth has copper coloured underwings as it never shows these at rest!
Mullein Wave0.4 second at f22, Canon 1Ds II, 100mm macro (400 ASA), fill flash @ -1 This is quite a small moth at around 14mm across and is a member of a very delicate family of moths known as Sterrhinae or Waves.
The Pale Eggar Moth0.6 second at f18, Canon 1Ds II, 100mm macro (400 ASA), fill flash @ -1 One of the smallest members of the Eggar family, this is quite a local moth
Green Shield Bug0.4 second at f18, Canon 1Ds II, 100mm macro (400 ASA) This looks like a very contrived picture, but in fact I was working with the Dahlia flower to take some flower abstracts when the bug suddenly popped his head out!
Southern Aeshna Dragonfly in flight1/2000 second at f5.6, Canon 1Ds II, 100-400mm (400 ASA) My first attempt at a dragonfly in flight. I hope my identification is correct, but if there is anyone out there that knows better, then please email me.
2007 Bill Coster Photo Tour – More Pictures for your Pound.
Griffon Vultures in Spain - £1,300 plus flight – 17th to 25th March 2007 A fantastic opportunity to get really close to feeding vultures. We will have privileged access to a WWF feeding station where no other groups can go. This year we had around 200 vultures turn up. I’ll include a few pictures in a later newsletter. This will be in the last week of March.
Extramadura - £1,300 plus flight – 10th to18th April 2007 Photograph Great and Little Bustards on their display grounds, plus Lesser Kestrels, Bee Eaters, White Storks, Montague’s Harrier and others. Many are hides set up specifically for us. It is illegal to photograph most of these birds in Spain without special permission. We have this permission. This will run in early April. Stop Press – Roller has now been added to this trip, with hides set up on breeding pairs. In the last couple of years the Rollers have been arriving early and assuming they do so again in 2007, we will have good opportunities to photograph this colourful bird.
Pantanal - £2,800 plus flight – 4th to 21st August 2007 This famous wetland region in Brazil has a riot of birds and other wildlife to photograph. There is a reasonable chance of Jaguar at a regular spot for this elusive species, Giant Otter should be quite easy as should Hyacinth Macaw and a wealth of other birds, including many species of Hummingbird, Guans, Storks, Herons etc etc. Should be a great experience.
Computer Bits
Sensor Cleaning For those of you that are wondering what cleaning a camera has to do with ‘computer bits’, you should remember that in this digital age the camera is simply an I/O device for capturing digital information which is input to a main computer. The camera body itself also contains at least one computer chip and an ever increasing array of software to process the captured data and control the cameras functions. The reason I’m covering sensor cleaning now is that I’ve recently been taking a lot of macro images, hence the pictures of insects in this newsletter. If you are a bird photographer you will usually use a long telephoto and large apertures (typically f4 – f8) and you probably don’t have a serious problem with sensor dust as it doesn’t show up very well at large apertures. If you’re shooting macro or landscapes and using apertures of f16 - f32 then dust specs are a real pain. Even if you don’t believe you have a problem, I would suggest that you carry out the following test: Take your camera and lens and set the minimum aperture (usually f22 or f32). Pick out a clearish patch of sky (white clouds are perfect) and take a couple of pictures. Use a tripod if the shutter speed is low. Download the file to your computer and convert to tif. Open the tif in photoshop and view at actual pixels. Start on the top left and go through the entire image. I would wager that you will find dozens, maybe hundreds of dust spots on your image. The bigger the sensor, the more spots, so a full frame sensor will have more than a 1.3x or 1.6x sensor. It’s quite an eye opener. No method of sensor cleaning is recommended by the camera manufacturers and if damage is caused whilst doing this, then this is not covered by the warranty. They suggest that you return the camera body to them for cleaning. This of course is nonsense. They produce a digital camera that is a dust magnet and then tell you that you mustn’t clean it! How do they get away with it. I’ve found that however careful I am, simply changing a lens will result in dozens of dust specs appearing on the images taken at small apertures. In some instances I’ve thrown away landscapes that had just too many spots to be worth the effort of cleaning. I’ve tried several methods of cleaning the sensor and I’ve finally found one that works for me. I first tried the liquid and (very expensive) swabs approach, but I thought this was both messy and didn’t work too well. Next I invested in one of those ridiculously expensive brushes from Canada, but all I got were a load of streaks across the sensor which looked worse than the spots! Then the breakthrough. Art Morris had discovered that a major camera manufacturer was ordering hundreds of lenspens which they were using for – cleaning sensors. Lenspens are very cheap and before you use them on your sensor you have to tap them on a lint free cloth about 20 times to remove the excess graphite, but I’ve found that they are both easy to use and work! Use a blower brush before and after you’ve used the pen to get rid of any dust loosened by the lenspen. Of course I must say that you use the lenspen at your own risk. If you do damage your camera using them, then please don’t blame me! All I can say is that I’ve now used them dozens of times to clean the sensors on my cameras and had no problems – just be careful. By the way, if you have purchased a UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply) as I recommended in newsletter 2, then you can plug your camera into this whilst carrying out the cleaning operation. This will protect the camera should you have a power failure during cleaning which otherwise could well damage the shutter.
Guest Spot Airport baggage restrictions – By John Ball With the recent airport baggage restrictions, I decided I would have to buy a new camera hold all Lowepro were the only company I could find which offered a bag within or close to the new restrictions, which is 45 X 35 X 16 cm. The Lowepro Omni Trekker 45.5 X 16.5 X 34.5 (external dimensions) was according to the brochure plus 0.5cm on both the 16 and 45 cm dimension and minus 0,5 on the 35cm dimension, would this be acceptable? And can I fit all my gear in, next move make a card template yes I can, and the bag has a back strap harness and a shoulder strap, great just what I want. Then I noticed that the Omni Pro, the next bag down in size, that the internal – external measurements gave a difference of 4 cm. whereas the Omni Trekker was only 1cm. difference, which bag was correct? not a big difference you may say, but when you arrive at the check-in, and they say its oversize, its got to go in the hold, would it arrive at the destination, would it be damaged? Would any item be missing? A phone call to my local camera shop, they made contact with the Lowepro Rep. (I did not have confidence in phoning the suppliers direct, my reason that they most likely, would only quote from the catalogue) coincidently the Lowepro rep. had sent out an E-Mail to his customers stating, The bag meeting BAA. requirements was the Omni Pro, the smaller of the two bags, he also stated that most of the measurements in the catalogue or brochure were incorrect Before buying a new bag make sure the dimensions stated are in fact correct, as it is not always possible for your supplier to have that particular bag in stock in which you can try fitting all your gear in, or you could have bought a bag which did not meet airport restrictions. When you read this baggage restrictions may have been removed, and with any luck back to normal, however when buying a new bag it would be good to know the brochure is correct
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