Mark Halonen had never done bird photography before. On June 4th and 5th he used my equipment, under my direction, while I guided him to birds in my area. He stayed at a nice cabin on Lake Huron, 1 mile from me. He arrived the evening of June 3rd, and I set him up with 6 pieces of blue tape on a small balsam fir tree so he could practice centering the lens on the tape and acquiring focus, eventually moving from piece to piece as quickly as possible, as described in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4J9ZqMMG16o
At first it was very difficult but after about 40 minutes he got pretty good at it. He was ready for the next 2 days.
The first day was mostly sunny and the second day was cloudy. I told him how to set up the equipment at each stop, and make all of the correct settings.
I selected images that were sharp on the bird, exposed correctly or very close to correctly, and had a good head angle on the bird (not facing away). Composition was a priority, as well as live vegetation in the background (when in focus or partially in focus), as opposed to sticks without leaves or needles.
One of the important things I do is correct the contrast and especially the color casts that happen with digital capture of warblers and other songbirds. I also demonstrate all of this to clients if desired.
After processed the images I sent him a mini-hard drive with excellent quality images ready-to-print at 12″x18″, 8″x12″, and downsized jpegs to share via email, social media, etc. I sent him a detailed email with all images, the settings for each image, and the reasons for the settings – the decision-making process before attempting to photograph each bird.
This gallery and other galleries of persons who attended workshops are intended to show results. For every image, copyright is that of the owner of the image. My use of the small jpeg from each selected raw image is for this gallery only. After preparing the jpegs of a workshop attendee gallery I destroy all of their raw images and original prepared full-sized files.
Male Black-throated Blue Warbler
Male Cape May Warbler
Male Blackburnian Warbler
Male Northern Parula
Common Loon
Male Nashville Warbler
Male Chestnut-sided Warbler
Male Magnolia Warbler
Male Northern Parula
Pied-billed Grebe
Male Black-throated Green Warbler
Red-eyed Vireo
Male Black and White Warbler
Male Cape May Warbler with Spruce Budworm
Red-breasted Nuthatch gathering Spruce Budworms
Male Northern Parula