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Greetings,
Well, I turn a Beatles song years old this month. I was thinking of writing a very corny piece using titles of Beatles songs but I've got a feeling that someone would tell me that I should have known better and to just let it be.
Thanks for all the feedback on new lens purchases. So far, I’ve invested in the Nikon Z 100-400 and the Nikon Z 24-120 f/4 lenses. I’ll probably be in the market for the 1.4x teleconverter for the 100-400 next (thanks to Greg Vaughn for that inspiration).
I recently took the 100-400 out for a ride, hoping for fawns prancing through flowers on Hurricane Ridge. Alas, not a good lupine year, and the fawns didn't come out to play. At least not while I was there. But I got this.
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Bosque del Apache and White Sands
Do you like wildlife and landscape photography? Or maybe you’re partial to one but want to learn about the other? Then this December 7-11 workshop is perfect for you.
Bosque is a spectacle. You’ll have the chance to photograph birds in flight, including individuals and flocks of Sandhil Cranes and Snow Geese. You’ll have the chance to try panning with a slower shutter speed for an impressionistic feel. And the sunsets can be amazing, especially combined with silhouettes of Sandhill Cranes approaching for a landing.
In the mornings we’ll photograph at the “Flight Deck” to capture images of Snow Geese filling the red tinged sky of the sunrise.
It’s a great opportunity to get more familiar with your camera’s autofocus capabilities and to also practice good wildlife composition. This comes after you’ve gotten the “bullseye syndrome” out of your system (where you’re always centering the subject) and can start thinking about composition as you’re framing up a moving bird.
Bosque can be fast-paced, to say the least.
We’ll then move to White Sands National Park, which, photographically and viscerally, is the opposite of Bosque. It’s a place to slow down and explore nuance and light, color and texture, sharp lines of the agave leaves and the sensuous curves of the white sand dunes.
In White Sands you’re not trying to keep up with flying birds. You’ll have the time to discover and let the compositions come to you. The mind set is totally different. Instead of striving to get the bird in focus with a pleasing background you’ll be working with graphics, light, and foreground. You’ll be able to slow down and really “see” the landscape.
If you’d like to join me and Cliff Zenor for this immersive nature photography workshop, or you want more information, click on through to the Bosque-White Sands page of my workshops and tours site.
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Some 2025 workshops and tours posted
I've posted a few workshops and tours for next year. More to come. Some possibilities include the Oregon Coast in the fall and the Faroe Islands in early August.
I hope to have something for you to look at regarding the Faroes in week or two. I have an early interest list going and will send those on the list a link to the page I create once I've posted it. If you want to be added to that list, just let me know.
But beside that, I've just posted the following trips:
Early-bird opportunities
For my Olympic and Palouse workshops I’m offering a $100 early bird discount.
For Olympic, click here and use the password ONP2025 (case sensitive)
For Palouse, click here and use the password PALOUSE2025
These two pages will be active for about the next thirty days.
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Maven’s Variable ND filter
 As you may know, I love the Maven line of magnetic filters. They’ve really made my photo life easier and more creative. More creative because it’s so easy to swap out filters and try another. And because of the color-coding, finding the filter I want is super easy.
One filter that I was initially sceptical about has become one of my favorites: the Linear Polarizer.
If you look on the Maven Filters website, you won’t see a variable ND filter for sale. Instead, you’ll find a circular polarizer, a linear polarizer, and several circular polarizers with additional built-in neutral density (Dark CPLs)
A variable ND filter can be made by stacking two polarizers, and with Maven magnetic filters, this is easy.
I’ll often stack my Maven Linear Polarizer on one of my Dark CPL filters. The Dark CPL filters come in 3ND, 6ND, and 10ND. Those are great starting points and often all you need. But by adding a Linear Polarizer you can dial in even more ND and fine tune things, which is what I did in the picture below.
Sure, you can usually accomplish what you want by compromising on the shutter speed or aperture you chose to use or by changing the ISO setting. But if you’re after the highest quality image, you may not want to do this. That’s where fine tuning the amount of ND by adding a Linear Polarizer to your CPL or Dark CPL comes in.
Oh, and the Linear Polarizer works great just by itself too. Mind you, for autofocus and metering reasons, you still need a circular polarizer on SLR and DSLR cameras. But linear polarizers, by themselves, work just fine on mirrorless cameras.
Click the links below to find out more and to purchase (affiliate links).
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Story time
As a homeowner, there are some things that you just take for granted and don’t really pay that much attention to. Unless something goes dreadfully wrong.
Take plumbing, for instance. Or to be more specific, a septic tank.
Before you gag with visions of…stuff…erupting from the sink, this isn’t that kind of story (I’m overwhelmingly happy to say).
Where I live, we’re supposed to have our septic tank inspected every three years. The county had instituted a program whereby homeowners could inspect their own tanks after having taken an in person or online inspection course. So, over the past several years I've inspected our tank and that’s what I was doing the other day. It was not due to be inspected for another year, but we’d been having some, I’ll just say “flushing,” issues so I wanted to see if the tank needed pumping.
I’ll spare you all the details (and I know you’re happy there are no pictures to go along with this distasteful story), but I will tell you that the septic tank is fine and passed inspection. The issue seems to have been that the tank’s outlet baffle filter was getting clogged, which caused the water level to rise a little bit. Once I pulled that out and cleaned it (not as bad as one might expect), everything was fine and I’m good for another year! (fingers crossed)
And what does this story have to do with photography? Absolutely nothing. Not even metaphorically. I mean, what’s the worse thing that can happen if you forget to clean a polarizing filter or camera sensor? Dust spots? Smudges? The ruination of every picture you just took on your $15,000 trip to Antarctica?
Ok, that last one might qualify.
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The End
On the home project front, I finally finished building fences and gates so we can park our new rv and my pickup truck in the yard rather than in the driveway and along the side of the road. The culmination (well, almost) of a couple years of planning and projects.
It was a long and winding road. But it's getting better.
I am the walrus.
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