Planet Earth

[John H]

Planet Earth can be a pretty awesome place when it is not too beat up, trampled or crowded with dudes. It also is a little under appreciated in my opinion. If you ask most people what is great in this world they won't answer trees, birds, rivers, oceans, mountains, wildlife or the desert. More likely they will say something like luxury cars, Instagram or food trucks. All good things of course but the planet can get overlooked when listing the great things in the world. I got out in the last couple of weeks and got to see some pretty good stuff we have here on earth. A couple of steelhead were swung up along the way and are definately on the list of awesome things on the planet. If you are out there looking for a winter steelhead I hope you find one and I hope they are around and abundant forever.

Thanks to Joe if you are out there for setting me up with some good flies and the confidence to keep swinging them.


http://i.imgur.com/1KbBzjo.jpg (https://imgur.com/1KbBzjo)

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http://i.imgur.com/lsGX8hJ.jpg (https://imgur.com/lsGX8hJ)

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[Bill Kiene semi-retired]

Wonderful John.

Fishing the Pacific coast in the wintertime is so unique and different. Your photos are so inspiring.




In the 1970s when there were more fish, I was taken over there by some of my old friends of the Great Generation.

After World War II these men got to fish on our North Coast in the 40s, 50s, and 60s with high numbers of Steelhead.

They took us young baby boomers over there and showed us what they had found and we were very fortunate.

Jack McLaughan, Sac City Fire Fighter and US Marine in World War II, told me that if I could go to the Coast in the winter and

hook a 10# fresh female Steelhead, close to the ocean, I would be changed forever. He was right.


Today these special Winter-run Steelhead still exist and are sometimes hooked by people who are adventurists.


To increase your odds and learn about this winter fishing you could hire a special fly fishing guide who still goes over

there to help others get that special feeling when they hook a large wild winter Steelhead on a fly.


Jason Hartwick (707-382-1655) and Geno Bernero (916-952-0467) are two of those guides.

I would text them because they are probably out on a river in the daytime.

[DLJeff]

Hey, you got your shot of a varied thrush. Nice when a plan comes together. Very good shot of the Stellar's jay too.

Caught this little Anna's hummingbird this morning in the lilac tree. Hard to believe these guys winter over here. There can't be much for them to eat. We put a feeder out but if that wasn't there I don't know...I guess there are enough tiny gnats and things to keep them going.


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[John H]

I did get the thrush. It took some effort. They were around but were always spooked and moving away so I was surprised to get a decent shot. That one hung around just long enough and the light was pretty good. I really like that Jay picture. A common but handsome bird. He was hanging around a neighbor’s feeder. My neighborhood is good bird habitat. That is where I got the thrush. I have a hummingbird feeder out also but nobody is on it. I did see one on a flowering bush yesterday.

[DLJeff]

We might have had this discussion but what lens are you using for your bird pics? I typically use a Canon L series 100-400 zoom. I have tried to bring a tripod but find it rarely works so the stabilization function is critical for handheld long shots.

And then are you cropping and cleaning up your shots in Photoshop or something? I use the free version of Photoshop but try not to do much other than crop and sharpen a little sometimes.

[Bill Kiene semi-retired]

A few weeks ago at the Sebastian Inlet on the mid-Atlantic coast of Florida, I ran into an interesting guy who was teaching bird

photography. I think he is fairly famous because he had 12 students who were all from foreign countries who came here just to take

courses from him. I think they all had Sony DSLRs with big Sony lenses. That day they were shooting Ospreys doing their thing.


Then an old professional bird photographer showed up, alone. I chatted with him and asked him about his equipment. He had all

Sony equipment and a huge Sony 600 mm f4 lens that he said was about $12,000.00 I think the Sony DSLR bodies are $6,000.00

He told me he had recently retired after 40 years and sold all his bird photos for a large number of dollars that I have now forgotten.

He was probably famous but I forgot to get his name.



At 78 my short-term and long-term memory is getting bad.

[John H]

I have a Nikon 500 mm. It is not the best bird lens but it is pretty good and lightweight for a big lens. I use photoshop elements which is a one time $100 purchase. It has plenty of tools for me. I mostly pull up the shadows and turn down the highlights and crop. I do some other stuff if it is needed. I do most of the editing in raw.

I usually have to crop way in to get the bird to a good size. I try to stay above 300 dpi after the crop. The birds are so small you rarely get close enough to avoid having to crop.

I find if I get a really good picture very little editing and cropping are needed. The not so good shots need a little help to make them decent. I don’t use a tripod. I usually just walk around a lot with my camera and hope I run into a good shot. They usually fly away which can be frustrating but sometimes you get a break. The trick seems to be have good light, get close, get them at eye level and hope for a good pose. I have thought about getting a 1.4x teleextender which would give me a 700 mm lens.

[Bill Kiene semi-retired]

Captain Andy Guibord is a pretty good photographer too due to his love of the outdoors and education in Art at Sac State, some years ago.

https://andyguibord.wordpress.com/the-valley-fisheries/

[Bill Kiene semi-retired]

Some of you might remember Alan Barnard who worked as the manager for us and added a lot of class to Kiene's.

Alan is one of those rare people who can do anything he chooses at a very high level of excellence.

He has mastered many different facets of life like fly fishing, fly tying, graphic arts, web design, music, and photography.


http://www.alancraigbarnard.com/

The front page of his website has a slide show of some of his works.



Alan also did the pen & ink of our Mayfly logo on the top of our front page here.

[DLJeff]

Thanks for describing your gear John. We're doing similar things. I completely agree that light is one of the most important factors to getting a decent photo, especially with a long lens with f5.6 as the largest opening.

Do you see better editing quality / effects doing it in raw versus jpeg? Raw photos are such large files. I've taken photos in both formats but I've filled cards completely and it takes forever to open and edit them.
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[Larry S]

Thanks for the great shots, John. Always await
your next post.
Best to all,
Larry S
Sun Diego

[Joe P.]

Hell yeah, John! You're welcome, glad I could help.

Man, that's some super sexy steelhead water. Looks like the big boys liked that blue. And those razor clams...mmmmm.

Thank YOU for helping to keep the stoke level high with another stylish and classy post. Keep up the excellent work. I look forward to the next one.

Joe

[John H]

DL - I think the big difference is in raw the shadow details are saved and you can pull them out. The shadow details get deleted when your camera edits the photo to make the jpeg it gives you. Highlight blowouts are gone in both formats and not recoverable. My raw files are 2.5x the size of the jpeg files. For a long time I used only the camera jpeg files but a year or two ago I started shooting raw plus jpeg. It seems to be the way to go. The camera makes a pretty good jpeg and sometimes they are better than what I get from my own jpeg edits but I keep using the raw.

The head on that stellar Jay was totally black with no detail but it lightened up really nicely in the raw edit. The background was too bright and I turned the highlights down to darken it. I probably also punched up the color on the blue tail feathers just a bit because I like that rich blue. Sometimes editing is just about what you think looks good as long as it does not look unrealistic. Color saturation is like sugar - it makes things taste good but too much can be an overload and ruin your food. Someone told me you lose credibility if you over edit to the point they look over edited so I try to follow that advice.

I think that is a tree swallow in your post. That is a good picture. A good pose on a good perch with a nice blurred out colorful background that makes the bird standout. I think lightening the shadows would bring out the wing details and the eye. Shooting in spot or center weighted metering can help. Spot metering gets the bird correctly exposed. The background will be poorly exposed but it is better to get the bird right and try to fix the background in editing. A bird like the tree swallow is tough because it is very bright and very dark and your camera can’t expose for both.

Spot metering is really good for bright fish like stripers and steelhead. That chrome steelhead picture I took on my phone which does not spot meter and the highlights on the fish are kind of blown out.

I am talking too much. I will stop.

[DLJeff]

Yes, tree swallow. I have a nest box in that ghost juniper and they check it out but never use it. I think it's actually too small.

Anyway, I might have to test a few shots in raw again. I completely agree with you about editing. Over editing feels like one is creating something other than the photo. And over saturating colors just looks fake.