Nikon No More or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Canon

Brown Pelican photographed with the new rig. All photos in this post are cropped but have had nothing else edited. Apologies in advance for all the camera speak that is about to occur. Lake Merritt, Oakland, CA.

For years, I have been living life as a minority. No, not as a lonely half Korean half Welsh intergrade (are you out there HKHWs?), I mean I'm a birder who uses Nikon camera gear. Most birders use Canon, it is known. But I was not about to fall in line...for years I withstood the microaggressions, the slights, the taunts, the outright persecution.

And now it has come to this. I have jumped ship. I am a defector.

I recently switched from a Nikon D7200/Nikkor 80-400mm f/4.5-5.6G AF-S VR ED lens to the Canon 90D (their new APS-C body) and the extremely popular 100-400mm IS II USM lens. Why?

It wasn't the hostility from other nerds that got to me. In fact, I have had repeated problems with my Nikon gear over the years. For example, my most recent Nikkor lens performed very well at first, but by this time last year it was no longer to able to produce sharp images of objects at just a moderate distance away. It was all but impossible to get a tack sharp image of a bird in flight unless it was very close - and this was not a result of dirty lens or camera contacts either. I tolerated this unhappy situation for too long, and perhaps some kind of calibration may have helped...but when I did the ultimate dumbass move and dropped my shit on a sidewalk, Nikon refused to fix the lens because it was a gray market product. I had never even heard of the gray market (in this case, that means it was not supposed to be sold in the U.S., it was made for other markets), and this information is buried in their website. Around this same time is when the D7200 died while birding in Belize, when it was only 6 months old...I have had other previous problems and enough was enough, I was not going to give them my business any longer.

Since all that BS went down I have spent almost a year of using my ancient 80-400mm backup lens. It has been collecting dust for years but can still produce great images and had great sharpness with distant objects, much unlike my much newer, more expensive lens that was failing me even before it kissed the pavement.

Double-crested Cormorants at Lake Merritt.

But I could only deal with that setup for so long...the backup lens has an agonizingly slow autofocus and the D7200 had proved untrustworthy. Now, I am a Canon man. I'm ready to be sponsored, lets make a deal Canon, I'm your guy. Better hurry and set something up with me while I'm still in the honeymoon phase.

A few initial impressions, as a fresh Canon convert:

Regarding the gray market, from my "research" it seems that the Canon service department will fix Canon stuff no matter what, gray market items just are not covered by their warranty. In contrast, Nikon has tried to make it very difficult for independent operators to service Nikon equipment (whether a warranty is supposed to be in effect or not), and they won't service any of your gray market items at all.

There is almost little to say about the 100-400mm II lens. It is fantastic. Fast autofocus, great images, and definitely a closer minimum focusing distance than its Nikon counterpart. It also feels extremely well built and will hopefully be sturdier in the long run. So far it performs AS ADVERTISED and I can see why it is so popular with birders.

Ring-billed Gull at Lake Merritt.

I do have a bit more to say about the 90D. Having used nothing but Nikon before, it took a while to get used to the physical setup of a Canon DSLR, things are just arranged differently. No strong feelings about the differences yet but I do miss how easy it was to change focus points on the Nikon while shooting, though I know with the 90D you can "reassign" certain tasks in the menu so I can potentially do a lot of customization.

The battery life was better in the Nikon D7200, the D7000, and even the D90 (that's right, not the Canon 90D, the Nikon D90...real original naming schemes these companies have). It seems considerably better in the Nikons in fact. Oh well.

While learning the camera, for a good little while I thought I was just slow catching up to Canon menus, but after a bit of digging I discovered that getting the best performance out of the 90D is not really intuitive for anybody, even for very experienced Canon users. However, there is some great content on Youtube about this camera, if anyone gets a 90D I highly recommend checking out all the content Michael The Maven has made for it - good stuff and usually explained in a straightforward manner at a reasonable pace. He also made a FB group specifically for Canon 90D users, which is also informative and people are usually civil. I don't agree with all of his advice about what settings to use but even so he has put out a lot of helpful material.

Western Gulls at Lake Merritt.

Now that I know a little bit about the camera and what settings are good to play with, I've got to say I like it so far. The focus tracking is excellent, and the photos I've taken so far require no sharpening outside of the camera, even when objects are far and a lot of cropping is involved.

My first impression was that noise was more of an issue at higher ISOs in the 90D than the D7200, but I am becoming less convinced of that as I have gotten to shoot more in less than ideal conditions. In any case, I'm not dying of a grain overdose.

ISO range is more heavily customizable in the D7200, which is better in theory...but I feel like the 90D sensor may actually be smarter/better, and when using auto ISO the camera is not so quick to jump to a high ISO when it is not actually necessary. I would say the Nikon options for this are better, but the execution (which is what counts) seems to be in the 90D's favor.

A Glaucous-winged Gull at Lake Merritt.

The insane frame rate the 90D has is something I'm still adjusting to. The shutter is also more sensitive - this means that I'm often shooting 2 or 3 shots at a time involuntarily. Not a big deal, I'll get use to perfecting the light touch.

What else...oh yeah having a touch screen on a DSLR is just crazy to me. When I first got the camera I forgot the LCD display was a touch screen and wondering why navigating the various menus was so weird. It was a geri moment. Speaking of geri, I also failed to wirelessly upload photos to my computer...how embarrassing. The camera does not come with a USB cord for image upload (lame) but luckily I found one that works lying around. At least I can get the camera to upload files to my phone without much difficulty.

Ok, that's a good start I think. It's not like I'm a photographer, right? The new Canon goods were a great way to ring in 1,000 blog posts, and I feel like it really has made crushing a lot easier even though I'm using the same focal length I have for years.

Female Canvasback at Lake Merritt.

Male Canvasback at Lake Merritt. I miss hanging out at the lake and all its tame birds, but the Oakland days...like the Nikon days...have come and gone.

One of the best birds to show up in Santa Clara County this fall was this Plumbeous Vireo at Charleston Marsh in Mountain View. This was a county bird for me and the first one I'd ever seen in northern CA. Luckily finding the bird was less difficult than figuring out where to park.

I was surprised at how well the new setup tracked the bird as it foraged in a pine. The vast majority of the shots I took had the bird nice and sharp, even though lighting was not ideal, it was moving around a lot, and of course there were constantly sticks and pine needles in front of it.

Acorn Woodpecker in dreary conditions at Guadalupe Oak Grove County Park in San Jose. I do like how the roof tiles look in this one. 

Belted Kingfisher at the Los Capitancillos Ponds in San Jose. This one is much more heavily cropped than the other pics in this post. Looks good from here.

Bewick's Wren at Rancho de Bastardos, not heavily cropped.

And here we are, at the dawn of The Canon Era. Hopefully Canon will be more dependable for me than Nikon was. At this early point in our fresh relationship, I not only feel resolution with a long conflict, but a sense of absolution as well. I'm optimistic that my camera-related grievances will be minimal for a good stretch, which will be quite the about face from the past several years.

If you're still reading this camera heavy post, thanks for bearing with me. Soon we will be back to your regularly scheduled blogging, bashing some birders, reppin the radius, maybe finding some vanguards, and chronicling my tireless journey to find other HKHWs.

The Death of The Bird Blog

This gleeful horsetender used to dwell in the Birdosphere. In fact, that is the only reason I know her. Like many, she got sucked into the gravity well of a non-blogging black hole, where so many of my comrades have met their fate.

Ah, the bird blog. At one time, it was very popular to be a blogging birder...but like so-called patriots telling us to "never forget", those days are long behind us. Most bird blogs lie fallow, with no fresh material being added for years. My flock, once large and thriving in the Birdosphere, is dwindling rapidly...there are only a handful of bird blogs I look forward to checking now. We are going the way of the Dodo...or to be more contemporary, our population decline mirrors that of the Lesser Prairie-Chicken. Our fate is uncertain, but it is decidedly gloomy for now.

So what has lead to the decline of the bird blog? It's not difficult to figure out.

Sometimes, when I'm not feeling particularly creative, I can slap something like this into a post and all I can really think of saying is "This is a Double-crested Cormorant...I sure see a lot of these. Yup...Ok moving on now...". That is neither fun to read, nor is it fun to write.

Most bird blogs are really similar in content and format. The vast majority of bird blogs that have surfaced followed the tried and true "I-went-here-and-saw-these-birds" format, with little variation. I'm not the first one to point this out, nor is this the first time I've stated this here. Obviously there is nothing wrong with this format (I follow it constantly) but unless you can really make your posts interesting and not the same stale, recycled trip report over and over again, it can be hard to get much of a readership...and knowing people actually read your content is key to having the motivation to create more. This leads us to a plain and simple fact:

Most people are not good writers. There is a reason that not all people are writers...most people are not good at it. That includes birders. If you don't have the ability to write in a way that draws people in, that makes people want to come back for more, then your writing won't gain much traction. Sure some bloggers honestly don't care about accruing readers, but hella people do. Of course, another reason bird blogs were popular was because it was a good place to see bird porn, which leads us to...

I like this Magnificent Frigatebird photo. It's not the most amazing photo, but I think it's definitely likable. Good bird, good pose, sharp, good light, no editing done except the slightest bit of cropping. Not long ago you wouldn't see bird photos of equivalent quality plastered all over Facebook or embedded in every listserv post or eBird checklist; blogs were actually a good place to check out bird porn. Bird blogs no longer have the significance they once did for photographers.

Photographers. Everyone is a photographer now. More birders carry some kind of camera than those do not, at least that is my impression, and there are a great many photographers (who aren't really birders in the traditional sense) who specialize on birds. This was not the case 6 or 7 years ago. And not only are there more photographers now, everyone is also sharing their photos everywhere they can. It's easy to see tons of bird porn on Facebook without even trying. Ugh, remember the "seven day nature photo challenge"? Glad that's over...I wasn't in to the whole birdspam thing. You couldn't avoid seeing bird photos if you wanted to.

A spring male Rose-breasted Grosbeak is a true thing of beauty, the sort of bird that can turn someone into a birdwatcher (sorry Savannah Sparrow). Is there room on Facebook to do this bird (verbal) justice? Is someone really going to launch into a profound ode to Rose-breasted Grosbeaks in a podcast? If so, please tell me when that becomes available. 

Social media is not just for sharing photos of course, the anecdotes and stories that once were prime blog fodder now get posted elsewhere as well. Aside from Facebook, podcasts have also begun to take up space in what was formerly blog territory. Who doesn't love podcasts? That said, if you are going to do a birding podcast you have to put a lot more effort into that than a blog post, and you better be good at it if you are going to have an audience. I can only imagine that making a consistently entertaining podcast is a hell of a lot more difficult than slapping a string of decent blog posts together, so I am very skeptical that podcasts are really going to catch fire in the birding world considering the necessary talent and effort required...also, birders tend to be very conservative in their public displays of humor, and that is not a recipe for good podcastery.

Many bloggers quit out of sheer laziness. That's cool, laziness happens. I can be pretty slothful myself. Life can get in the way too; yup, some birders have those. This is all totally understandable.

So there you have it - the bird blogger population is dwindling rapidly, and it is no great mystery why. With that all said, BB&B is going to call it quits.

Nah. I lied. BB&B has no plans for throwing in the proverbial towel...what would all of our interns do? Maybe we are atavistic scum-nerds with shit for brains, but we will blog onward. There are stories to tell, birders to lampoon, photographs to post in between the realms of Facebook and Flickr. The Birdosphere is not a popular place to be anymore, and that's just fine by me...if you really care about what is popular, then you shouldn't be birding. However, I will soon be facing a hurdle in my blog output...I'm going to be a daddy in a few months. Isn't that fucking crazy??? Not that it should surprise you (have you read the title of this blog?). I won't use that as an excuse to bury BB&B though, you have my word. As I said, what would all of our interns do?  

Point Reyes: Blackbird Hype, Vague Runts, Vireo Discomfort

"I've been very uncomfortable with my vireos" is a line uttered often among California birders...and who can blame them? Birders misidentify them on the regular. Hell, someone just erroneously claimed a Red-eyed Vireo the other day down in Santa Barbara, and was forced (by the Bird Police, no doubt) to make a very public and very bulky apology. Shortly afterward, another Santa Barbara birder posted photos of a "Yellow-green Vireo" that was clearly a Warbling Vireo. Classic. Luckily this Philadelphia Vireo was identified with prowess and was easily the Bird of The Day.

Ahhh, fall. It's been a good one. Vague Runts abound, and My Grunts have been plentiful. Of course, if you live in the bay area, it is to Point Reyes you must go in September and October (and even November). As the San Francisco Giants thrive in October (even years), Vague Runts thrive in the cypress patches of the outer point in autumn. And so three nerds, in a storm of spoonerisms (delta smelt=smelta delt) and bad Star Wars jokes, recently birded the point. It was not one of those days that become birding legend, but it was a good day...although the Cape Mays stung a bit.  We dipped on not one but two Cape May Warblers, which I feel is an impressive feat. Luckily, Philadelphia Vireo made everything better...as did Chestnut-sided Warbler, 41 Black-vented Shearwaters, and the birds you will see below.

I know it's not a crush, and for that I apologize. But I am very comfortable with my vireos. I really like Philadelphia Vireos, and have been lucky to see a lot of them. They are the cutest vireo, after all, and have cerulean legs for style points.

I decided that I would start making an effort to photograph Tricolored Blackbirds this year. Here is a female. Look how horrifically drab and wonderful she is.

Unlike Philadelphia Vireos, I can understand that this is a tough bird to identify, but with some practice it can be done without inducing . She has no warm tones in her plumage and little contrast anywhere. 

As I have mentioned in the past, Point Reyes has hella Tricolored Blackbirds. This flock is pretty much all Tricolored. If you are in the bay area in the fall and want to meet this bird, head out to the point or Moonglow Dairy in Monterey County. You will be rewarded, although some birding pundits claim they are overrated.

You show me a cow, and I will show you a Tricolored Blackbird. This was a fun pile of birds, despite their critics. They whole heap of them sound like a cacophany of Red-wingeds with pneumonia.

On this day, there were Blackpoll Warblers galore. We had 6 that day, which is by far my best one day total for the species in California. Other than Yellow Warblers, it was the most abundant warbler species that day. Isn't that fucked up? Birding is weird.

Mmmmmmmmmmm eastern drabness.

Here's a different one. They're not flashy this time of year, but they are Good, in the moral sense of the word.

Have I even posted Barn Owl pictures on BB&B before? If I haven't, it's not for lack of interest. They may be common but they are one of the best-looking owls.

Oh that's right...a Barn Owl has graced our hallowed halls before. In fact, it is one of the best Barn Owl pictures I have ever seen...feel free to take a look at the carnage.

According to one birder, this White-winged Dove I found flying past the Fish Docks parking lot was the best bird of the day out on the point, especially in comparison to Cape May Warblers. I heartily disagree with this viewpoint; having seen both species on the point in the past, I can objectively say that I would gladly look at 500 Cape May Warblers before I looked at another freaking White-winged Dove, anywhere. 

Being the #7 U.S. birder, it is important to strike a balance between vagrant-lust and robin-stroking...but no one should ever overdo the robin-stroking. Here is a Double-crested Cormorant. I like it's cankles. I will say nothing more.

Officer Searcy treasures nature. Look at the looking. The treasuring.

Officer Searcy gets credit for finding this creature. He identified it by screaming and pointing "VOLE! VOLE! VOLE!". Obviously it is not a vole, but I didn't have the heart to tell him. He had just gotten off the Farallones, where people tend to forget things about the mainland. He also misidentified a deer. That's why he is not in the Mammal Police.

Making Sweet Sweet Bird Love

An American Coot and Tufted Duck race. The duck, a born Winner, not only challenged the local coot cabal to races, he flogged them regularly...just for being coots. Lake Merritt, Oakland, CA.

Well, between plovering, assisting The Great Ornithologist Felonious Jive in his next cathartic 10,000 Birds post, and a quick and bird-saturated desert camping trip....I don't have much to say today. Work is good, ravens and coyotes are eating plover nests left and right (not good), the migrants are migrating, and the weather is fine. Here are a few pictures from back in the bay, earlier in the year, that I haven't posted yet.

Have a positive weekend...I'm sure you won't have trouble picking up a couple year birds.

A less-frequently seen perspective of Hooded Merganser. From this angle, it is clearly a Rail-headed Merganser. Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, CA.

Glaucous Gull, my one and only for the year. It is a beefy gull. It didn't do much except bob around in front of me, but at least it floated into some interesting light. Golden Gate Park.

Dusky-capped Flycatcher, at this point also my only one of the year. This one also holds the honor of being a very rare bird. Golden Gate Park.

Black Phoebe. Not a rare bird, but master of the two-tone. Golden Gate Park.

American Kestrel. Have you ever thought it odd that we have all these other kinds of falcons around, and none of them hover? Heron Head Park, San Francisco, CA.

A menagerie of shorebirds. Long-billed Dowitchers, Marbled Godwits, and a lot of Willets. Radio Road, Redwood Shores, CA.

Spotted Sandpipers should be adding their summer spots now, but even in winter, their obsessive-compulsive tail-bobbing captures our attention. It seems like predators would have caught on to this strange habit by now...photographed at Heron Head Park.

A Double-crested Cormorant with a mouthful, and then some. You can also see that Double-cresteds take great pride in their magnificent eyebrows. Lake Merritt.

This Iceland Gull, unlike the Glaucous, cannot be characterized as "beefy". It's smallness is what made this particular bird so popular in the first place, and it didn't take much guff from the mud-blooded Olympic Gulls (rear).  Fort Baker, Sausalito, CA.

Another day at the Albany Bulb. Photo by Brittany Lassiter.

Des Lacs National Wildlife Refuge

Juvenile Franklin's Gull.

It finally happened.

The news you have been waiting for. I, Seagull Steve, your humble nerd-servant, have advanced from #8 birder in the nation to...#7 birder in the nation.

World leaders, movie stars and famous birders alike have already been showering me with enthusiastic congratulations, assorted accolades and all sorts of gifts (well, mainly bourbon). Each day here at BB&B headquarters is a crescendo of compliments, a cavalcade of courtesies. Yes, it feels good to be that much closer to The Top...eventually I could be considered peers with The Great Ornithologist Felonious Jive...which is frustrating, since I know him well and he is a complete dirtbag. But his skills are not to be scoffed at...once in a while even I, the #7 birder in the nation, am left in a glassy-eyed daze after spending a few hours birding with him.

Juvenile Black Tern.

In accordance to The Code, I am not at liberty to divulge how the national birder ranking system works...but I should point out that the former occupant of the vaunted #7 position should not be down on themselves for slipping down the scale. This is, after all, my destiny.

In other BB&B news, the critically-acclaimed Human Birdwatcher Project is cooking up yet another interview...those things seems to be pretty popular yeah? I did a little bit of updating in the other pages here (the HBP and Seagull and Felonious tabs, located under the banner), to get things up to speed and a little bit more cohesive. Two weeks from now I'll be pulling in to Las Vegas, after visiting Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks, which I have a few target birds for....things are really looking Up. In a mere eight (8) days the Perpetual Weekend begins again!

Today's photos are all from Des Lacs National Wildlife Refuge, a North Dakota refuge that is not particularly well-known or visited by birders, but it is legit...definitely not just a duck factory. If you're ever in the area, bird it, you will be happy you did.

Molting Black Tern.

Forster's Tern.

Double-crested Cormorant.

Des Lacs National Wildlife Refuge. Serenity now!

Anyone know what these are?

Uhhh.....some kind of leopard frog? This is not my area of expertise.

A recently fledged Swainson's Hawk.

Yellow Warbler.