Carolina Wren
https://joeleadephotography.zenfolio...93545901-5.jpg
5DS R
600mm
iso 1000
1/500
f/4.0
Printable View
Carolina Wren
https://joeleadephotography.zenfolio...93545901-5.jpg
5DS R
600mm
iso 1000
1/500
f/4.0
Wow, so much great content above. A few from yesterday:
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...ba296786_k.jpgWood Duck Left LPads2 by Patrick Hildebrant, on Flickr
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...1aa8ae20_k.jpgFemale Wood Duck LPads by Patrick Hildebrant, on Flickr
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...01884ac4_k.jpgWood Duck Male Right by Patrick Hildebrant, on Flickr
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...3197a96f_k.jpgWood Duck Right 4 by Patrick Hildebrant, on Flickr
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...41aa8422_k.jpgWood Duck Male Left by Patrick Hildebrant, on Flickr
Red Wing Blackbird
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...4df55ac5_k.jpgRed Wing Blackbird by Patrick Hildebrant, on Flickr
Love Wood Ducks, amazing colors on them. The first and last one in the series are killer!!Quote:
Originally Posted by PatrickH
Same here! Wood ducks are amazing. As soon as I get back from working over a week out of town I'm gonna see if I can't find some. A couple of years ago I found a place where they hang out.
Needing no introduction...male Northern Cardinal
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...245fa9dd_b.jpg6S0A4453 by kayaker72, on Flickr
Very nice!
Summer Tanager (F)
https://joeleadephotography.zenfolio...95250658-4.jpg
5DS-R, 600mm, iso 1000, 1/320, f/4.0
A tufted titmouse after the rain:
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...0d98c6ae_b.jpg6S0A4469-2 by kayaker72, on Flickr
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...5f2aefaa_b.jpg6S0A4474 by kayaker72, on Flickr
Thanks for viewing...Brant
I especially love the Summer Tanager. My style of photograph with lots of buttery smooth bokeh.
was digging around and found this, was taken with my old 2012 point&shoot camera.
did a little work on it and it turned out better.
https://i.imgur.com/2IwxiBJ.jpg
Lucky snap
https://joeleadephotography.zenfolio...96854566-4.jpg
5DS-R, 600mm, iso 800, 1/3200, f/4.0
Backlight with underexposure
https://joeleadephotography.zenfolio...96857599-5.jpg
5DS-R, 600mm, iso 800, 1/6400, f/4.0
Great stuff
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Me likey, I like the flair on the Cardinal. It adds a cool halo effect. It's as if the bird is saying, I'm a holy bird.:D
Eastern Phoebe. A flycatcher.
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...00f05829_b.jpg6S0A6148 by kayaker72, on Flickr
Quote:
Originally Posted by Joel Eade
Love it
Beautiful setting....super nice picture!!!Quote:
Originally Posted by Kayaker72
A bit more of a fun one of the Phoebe:
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...5ea27261_b.jpg6S0A6152 by kayaker72, on Flickr
A bit of blur in its head. I am trying to decide if I should crank shutter speed up to the 1/2000 or faster range for these little birds. Of course, ISO would take the hit.
Anyway, thanks for viewing...Brant
Love the action in this one and the beautiful background. You probably could fix the slight motion blur in the head with Topaz AI Sharpen. As for shutter speed the small birds are a big challenge. Increasing shutter speed helps but, as you said, the higher iso may introduce other problems.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kayaker72
Have you tried adding "fill flash"? Using an on-camera speed light with something like the Better Beamer can really help reduce motion blur. Generally I would keep the flash in manual mode + high speed sync at a very low setting like 1/64th or 1/128th power. This provides a very brief low powered flash (somewhere in the range of 1/15,000 second) which can enhance the effect of freezing motion without over powering the exposure.
got this right after a rain "Yellow-Billed Cuckoo"
https://i.imgur.com/bCgVXIz.jpg
Thanks Joel.Quote:
Originally Posted by Joel Eade
I'll have to try Topaz AI Sharpen. Maybe this weekend.
As for fill flash, do you use it often? I tried it once years ago. I found it scared the birds. But, I easily could have had it well above 1/64th to 1/128th power. But, do you run into that often? Also, I wonder about the refresh rate of the flash. I find myself usually shooting in short 7 fps bursts if I see a poise I like.
BTW, I am learning and adapting from these comments. I should probably post this on the thread where we discussed it, but I have been using spot metering with letting ISO float for the last couple of weeks. It is better for small birds. As I mentioned in that thread, I tried spot metering before and did not see a desirable effect, but I am really wondering if that was for small birds. Also, I've used photoshop a couple times now to remove things. Lasso to select, but then delete key with content aware and it does a pretty nice job. Little adjustments = more keepers.
I do use fill flash fairly often and yes it does sometimes "spook" a bird but not always. The response to flash seems individualized. Some birds ignore it, some will "flinch" and not fly away while some will immediately leave.
The Better Beamer (or something similar) is key because of its ability to "focus" the flash at a distance....this allows you to use the very low power settings.
The low power settings offer a few advantages:
---refresh rate is very very fast and will keep up with short bursts of shots (but this might be more frightening to birds)
---the flash duration is very short so it aids in reducing motion blur
---battery life is extended greatly
---the images do not look "flashed"
Great shots. Do you think it is motion blur or focus? I ask because I see sharpness just beyond the plane of the head, back by the wing. I'm having my share of challenges with this. My goal is to place my focus point on the head, but for small birds that can be difficult. I'll often lock onto a larger part of the body.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kayaker72
Female purple martin
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...2b053d2e_c.jpg
Female Purple Martin Feeling Cute by Patrick Hildebrant, on Flickr
Hi Patrick,Quote:
Originally Posted by PatrickH
I think that is a great observation and now that I've looked at it a bit more, I think it is both may have been factors, which is a bit fascinating. I would put the sharpest point more at the shoulder/top of wing, which should not be that far off from the eye. Also, I do not see things getting progressively more blurry going from the head to tip of beak, rather I'd put those fairly consistent, which indicates it is somewhat parallel to the image plane. It seems the phoebe may have lunged not just forward within the plane, but a little to the side, closer to me. I do see a bit of directional blurr in the beak and, it is really tough to tell elsewhere.
Something that interests me is how "sharp" can vary. Playing with this example, DOF calculator online indicates I should have ~2.36 inch thick focus plane (700 mm, f/5.6, ~10 m away). But that side movement is less than 1.2 inches. Maybe 0.5"? Which, to an extent with something this small and detailed, but I don't think the same rules apply as to "critically sharp." I routinely see 5 images in a row all on a birds eye and you can see one that is in better focus.
But, yeah, little birds are a challenge. They move very fast, so this may be AF speed, shutter lag as well as shutter speed. If AF speed, I could potentially buy into the idea that a 1DX series body would be faster than my 5DIV. Shutter speed is something we can all adjust, at the expense of light on sensor. Shutter lag, hmmm, the 1DXIII rates it's lag at 29-55 ms while the 5DIV is 58 ms. Shutter lag doesn't get discussed much, but playing with the math, 58 msec is 1/17th of a second. 28 msec is 1/34.5th of a second. So, I wonder how much of the side movement happened in that 1/17th of a second?
I think it is possible that the sharpness is a bit off due to a combination of motion and perhaps a small AF micro adjustment. Either way it "cleans up" pretty well with Topaz AI sharpen
https://joeleadephotography.zenfolio...04700163-4.jpg
For sure, that's a solid change. It doesn't appear to be destructive. I'll have to look into it. Could save some images that I might otherwise skip over.Quote:
Originally Posted by Joel Eade
Nice Joel! I will be downloading a copy soon.Quote:
Originally Posted by PatrickH
And in all the assessment of the image, we probably can't neglect that it was taken, hand held, with me leaning over the guard rail of my porch trying to get the small tree (see green foreground on righthand side of image) out of the way. Not textbook. ;)
In the meantime, some more recent pictures....
Indigo Bunting. This was actually pretty far away (cropped with a 2x tc on my 500). I've seen him two other times, but still need to process those pics....
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...4c89087d_b.jpg6S0A5294 by kayaker72, on Flickr
….and finally, the female northern cardinal posed for me.....
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...1f9592a2_b.jpg6S0A6902 by kayaker72, on Flickr
Thanks for viewing...Brant
BTW...excellent set. I love the image with the Robin with worms. It really makes me feel present in the candid scene.Quote:
Originally Posted by Joel Eade
Greats shots fellas!
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Nice pics of the Bunting and Cardinal.
I have not been lucky in getting the Indigo Bunting's into a good pose this year...they want to feed in the grass and not use my perches for some reason.
I think you will enjoy Topaz AI Sharpen (also AI DeNoise is phenomenal)
In your image I selected only the bird and applied the filter to it so as not to disturb the background.
It has the ability to enhance focus, remove slight blur and also to sharpen.
It is easy to use and the results are impressive.
Very nice! I esprecially like the second.
These are so great Joel. Really nice variety. Honestly, if someone told me these were stuffed, under museum lights, and shot against a backdrop I would believe them. They are expertly exposed and isolated.
Thanks Brant [emoji846]Quote:
Originally Posted by Kayaker72
I tried to mimic your Lalalalalalalala picture, This little guy was quite the music maker!
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Thanks Patrick. I enjoy the "studio" look and I have worked to place perches very precisely to be the correct distance to achieve fine detail and also to get a clean background. I've always been fascinated by the details that are visible in the images when using a really good telephoto lens. Especially because such detail is seldom visible any other way. I still really like "birds on a stick". Thanks for looking and commenting.Quote:
Originally Posted by PatrickH
I think you have got it down! It is amazing how much noise some of these small birds can make.Quote:
Originally Posted by Zach
What you do and post is very impressive and has inspired my backyard set up. Always great to see your posts.Quote:
Originally Posted by Joel Eade
As for a few more from me....Downy woodpecker. I was worried about whether I was miss identifying these as the Hairy woodpecker is very similar, just larger. I now have a much larger version showing up and the difference is obvious. Actually, I have 3 sizes, some very little ones (chicks?), the size below, and then what I think are the much larger Hairy woodpecker. I do not yet have a good photo of them, but give me time. They are showing up more often.
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...9294b249_b.jpg6S0A6781 by kayaker72, on Flickr
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...66690d22_b.jpg6S0A6773 by kayaker72, on Flickr
Thanks for viewing....Brant