Focusing On Wildlife

Bird Conservation Videos

Sat, 26 Mar 2011 14:31:00 +0100

Videos clips about bird and wildlife conservation have been added to the site as follows:

Born To Travel

Save The Albatross

Rescue Biodiversity

Stop Illegal Hunting -

Bird Migration on the Bihar Plain (Part 1) - (Part 2) - (Part 3)

Miracle In The Marshes Of Iraq

The State Of The Birds (2009)

Restoring America's Delta

Your help is needed to prevent the loss of bird habitats and to maintain biodiversity.

Bird & Wildlife Conservation Video Clips

Wed, 23 Mar 2011 16:32:15 +0100

Videos clips about bird and wildlife conservation have been added to the site as follows:

Born To Travel - "Migratory birds bind up the corners of this increasingly fragmented globe - uniting the poles and the tropics, forests and deserts, wilderness and cities. A planet that sustains them will sustain us; their fate is our fate" Scott Weidensaul for Born to Travel.

Save The Albatross - Every year, 100,000 albatrosses are killed needlessly by drowning on the end of fishing hooks. 19 of the 22 species of albatross in the world are threatened with extinction, largely because of long-line fishing. If you can help us act now, the Save the Albatross campaign can help stop these magnificent birds from becoming extinct. Your money can fund the Albatross Task Force teams and their urgent work to train fishermen to keep seabirds off the hook. We need your help.

Rescue Biodiversity - BirdLife calls upon the EU to champion biodiversity in Nagoya and at home. BirdLife International handed in to the European Commissioner for the Environment, Mr Janez Potoscnik, its “message for Nagoya”, an urgent Europe wide appeal to save the world’s biodiversity, as he leaves for the Japanese city hosting the world summit on biodiversity (the CBD COP10).

Stop Illegal Hunting - Illegal hunting is a widespread and serious problem in Malta, with poachers specifically targeting raptors (birds of prey) and Herons as well as rare migratory birds. This persecution reaches its peak during migration periods, when large numbers of raptors, herons and other protected species are killed by poachers.

Bird Migration on the Bihar Plain (Part 1) - (Part 2) - (Part 3) - Three documentary films entitled ‘Bird Migration on the Bihar Plain’ have been produced by the Wings Over Wetlands demonstration project team in Hungary. The film documents the importance of the Bihar Plains as a breeding, wintering and stop-over area for hundreds of thousands of migratory waterbirds, highlighting the role played by the fishponds found in the area as a source of food and as an important place for the birds to rest during their often long and arduous journeys.

Miracle In The Marshes Of Iraq - A film documentary on the regeneration of Iraq’s Mesopotamian Marshes, a project led by Azzad Alwash, the CEO of BirdLife Affiliate Nature Iraq, was screened on the UK’s BBC TV Channel on 18th January 2011

The State Of The Birds (2009) - This State of the Birds report reveals troubling declines of bird populations during the past 40 years — a warning signal of the failing health of our ecosystems. At the same time, we see heartening evidence that strategic land management and conservation action can reverse declines of birds. This report calls attention to the collective efforts needed to protect nature’s resources for the benefit of people and wildlife.

Restoring America's Delta - Marc Dantzker and John Bowman, from the Lab's Multimedia program, present their video production "Restoring America's Delta," a 30 min video about the shrinking wetlands of the Mississippi River Delta. The film features the delta's rich bird life, while examining our links to the ecosystem, the causes of its decay, and the potential
for wetland rehabilitation.

Why Not Use RAW Format In Your Photography?

Sat, 05 Mar 2011 10:19:33 +0100

Advantages of RAW Format In Your Photography

1) Better Image Quality After Editing - Digital cameras normally deliver your image in JPEG format after compressing the image inside the processor. When you edit the JPEG image on your computer and resave it, you introduce artifacts into the image. These will detract from the overall quality and be clearly visible when viewing your image at high resolution. When you set your camera to deliver your image in RAW format, then you will eliminate compression artifacts and the higher quality of your image will be clearly visible.

2) Better Control Over Image Processing - Digital cameras are normally set to make several interpretive decisions before delivering the JPEG image. Depending on the lighting conditions the processor may apply a varying degree of white balance, exposure compensation, sharpening and compression. If you set the camera to RAW format and the Picture Style to neutral, then you will postpone the adjustments. You will then have the flexibility to optimise each image individually.

3) Possibility to Reprocess Images - By storing your images in RAW format you will always be able to make adjustments to your original images. If you store your images in JPEG format, then it is impossible to undo any processing changes which you or the camera may have done.

Disdvantages of RAW Format In Your Photography

1) RAW files are much larger than similar JPEG files, and so fewer photos can fit within the same memory card and the RAW files take longer to write to the memory card. This argument has become less important as the price of memory has come down. Today you can buy a 32 GB Extreme CompactFlash Memory Card for only USD 169.-- and with space for more than 1,000 uncompressed RAW images.

2) Many digital cameras will not achieve the same frame rate with RAW images as with JPEG images. However the processor of the Canon EOS 50D 15.1MP Digital SLR Camera is capable of capturing 6.3 frames per second in RAW with up to 16 images in one burst.

3) RAW files cannot be given to others immediately since they require specific software to load them, therefore it may be necessary to first convert them into JPEG. However with the Canon EOS 50D 15.1MP DSLR Camera you can set the Quality to "RAW+L". That means that each image will be saved on the memory card in both RAW and JPEG format. This is very useful for pre-screening images, which are of sufficient quality for post-processing.

How to Integrate RAW Format Into Your Photographic Process (Process adapted for Canon EOS 50D DSLR)

1) Quality Setting "RAW+L" should be checked on your Canon EOS 50D DSLR Camera. At the same time the Picture Style should be set to "neutral". In this way all RAW images will have a corresponding JPEG image for initial screening purposes. The "neutral" setting will also ensure that the RAW image is not subjected to "in-camera" processing. Download the screened images to your computer for processing.

2) Digital Photo Professional (DPP) Software from Canon can be used to batch process your RAW images to TIFF images. Open the TIFF images in Photoshop and a) crop to the required dimensions; b) adjust the levels; c) optimize the contrast; d) reduce the "noise" using a filter such as "NeatImage"; e) sharpen the image using a filter such as "Unsharp Mask"; f) change the image mode to "8 bits per channel"; and g) save as a JPEG with a "quality 12" setting (minimum compression).

3) Archive Your Original RAW Images (in case you ever need to go back to them) and also your optimized JPEG images. The JPEG images originally downloaded from the DSLR can be deleted as these have not been optimised.

Conclusion - by shooting your images in RAW format and post processing with DPP and Photoshop, you have optimized images to the highest professional level.

Ken Billington is a professional wildlife photographer, and the owner of the site FocusingOnWildlife.com. View a selection of the 2,500 high resolution images in his portfolio and convince yourself that the tips in this article make sense.

Canon EOS 60D Digital SLR Camera Review

Fri, 04 Mar 2011 15:00:00 +0100

Advantages

18.0 - megapixel APS-C CMOS Sensor - those remote bird shots can now be cropped even more without losing image quality. This is a big advantage compared to the older Canon models 50D (15.1MP), 40D (10.1MP) or 30D (8.2MP).
Full 1080p HD video capture with NTSC or PAL frame rates of 24p, 25p or 30p (50p or 60p at 720p HD and SD). This is the first of the Canon top end DSLR's to feature video capturing capability. In combination with a good telephoto lens this can be a key advantage provided the equipment will be mounted on a solid tripod.
In camera RAW processing. This new feature is maybe nice to have but most professional photographers will continue to prefer to do the RAW image processing on the computer.
Price - 25% cheaper than the Canon EOS 50D.

Disadvantages

Partial Weather Sealing - only the Canon 1-series bodies are weather sealed. The 60D has the same level of weather sealing as the 50D but slightly less than the 7D. Better not to get your 60D wet!
Slower Frame Rate - the processor can only shoot up to 5.3 fps, in bursts of up to 58 JPEGs - somewhat slower than the Canon 50D, which has 6.3 fps with bursts of up to 90 JPEG's, a definite disadvantage when shooting birds in flight.
The 60D does not have the magnesium alloy chassis and does not feel as solid as its predecessor the 50D. This for me is a definite downgrade in the quality of the camera, and I don't understand Canon's reason to sacrifice cost in this way.

Summary

The Canon EOS 60D 18.0 MP Digital SLR Camera offers some advantages over the Canon EOS 50D but also some disadvantages. I guess it all depends whether you really want video capability in your DSLR.
If not then it may be better to wait for the "70D".

Happy Shooting and Good Luck!