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Mendocino pelagic 5 August 2024 (3 Viewers)

Mendobirder

Well-known member
United States
We had a sold-out trip scheduled for July 22 but the weather suddenly deteriorated (seas 10.5 feet at 9 seconds, 25-30kt winds) so we rescheduled it to Monday August 5. Some of the folks who were signed up for the earlier one can't make this date, so there are spaces available. If you happen to be in northern California and jonesing for some seabirds, get in touch with me! Best to email as I don't check in here often: [email protected] Forecast right now looks favorable, seas only 5 feet and declining during the day, with light winds. We will be heading 30 miles out looking for late-summer rarities like Cook's Petrel, any of the Boobys, or a vagrant Shearwater. Expected birds include Black-footed Albatross, Sooty and Pink-footed Shearwater (good possibility of Buller's as well), and we could get early migrant Jaegers, Sabine's Gull, Terns, etc.
 
Turned out to be a good trip, with two Hawaiian Petrels (the second only about 12 miles offshore), several Pomarine Jaegers, two Parasitic Jaegers, a gorgeous Tufted Puffin, several Ashy Storm-petrels and one Fork-tailed, many Pink-footed Shearwaters and a few Sootys, a few Sabine's Gulls, and large numbers of Black-footed Albatrosses. At one stop the leaders counted 63 of them. Most of the Albatrosses were subadults and adults, but we did see at least two fresh juveniles.
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Turned out to be a good trip, with two Hawaiian Petrels (the second only about 12 miles offshore), several Pomarine Jaegers, two Parasitic Jaegers, a gorgeous Tufted Puffin, several Ashy Storm-petrels and one Fork-tailed, many Pink-footed Shearwaters and a few Sootys, a few Sabine's Gulls, and large numbers of Black-footed Albatrosses. At one stop the leaders counted 63 of them. Most of the Albatrosses were subadults and adults, but we did see at least two fresh juveniles.
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Really excellent photos.
Very impressive detail, especially for offshore birds. Could you please expand on your gear selection and shooting techniques?
 
Turned out to be a good trip, with two Hawaiian Petrels (the second only about 12 miles offshore), several Pomarine Jaegers, two Parasitic Jaegers, a gorgeous Tufted Puffin, several Ashy Storm-petrels and one Fork-tailed, many Pink-footed Shearwaters and a few Sootys, a few Sabine's Gulls, and large numbers of Black-footed Albatrosses. At one stop the leaders counted 63 of them. Most of the Albatrosses were subadults and adults, but we did see at least two fresh juveniles.
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Absolutely, stunning pics!!
 
Really excellent photos.
Very impressive detail, especially for offshore birds. Could you please expand on your gear selection and shooting techniques?
Camera is Canon R7, with RF 100-500 f4.5-7.1 L lens. I set the shutter speed at 1/4000 (electronic shutter), kept the lens wide open, and let the camera set ISO. These pics were in strong light so ISO was low; early in the day I got some not-so-nice images in fog.
I have it set so I can toggle between three autofocus modes but on the boat I used whole-area most of the time. Eye detection ON, subject tracking ON.
Burst mode set to the second-highest rate (H, not H+), which with the ES I think is 15 fps.
These were saved as jpegs in-camera using the high-res and Fine Detail settings. Post-processed a little with ACDSee, cropping and adjusting light.

Thanks for the compliments! It has taken me several months to figure out how to use this camera effectively, and I am still in the learning curve. It is quite complex with many different settings to keep track of. I messed up some early shots because I keep forgetting to check all the settings, and somehow the ISO had gotten reset to a fixed speed, which resulted in badly exposed images. And of course tracking the birds was extremely difficult, as it was quite a rough sea (mixed swell, NW 5 feet at 6 seconds and WNW 3 feet at 8 seconds, resulting in a "confused sea state"). I didn't post any of the hundreds of images with only part of a bird, or just sea or sky... or all the ones where the camera couldn't focus on the bird as it raced through the waves... etc.

What made these images possible was the birds themselves - we had a lot of activity near the boat for a long time, with many birds repeatedly circling the boat. Many times I would fail to get onto a bird in time, and watch it circle around so I could get onto it for another try. That also enabled me to get in a position with the sun at my back and try to catch the bird with light in its face, as in some of these shots, instead of the usual backlit silhouette.
 

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