Dang Nate....
I hope you have a gallery of these printed and for sale somewhere.
I'm still trying to scrape my jaw off the floor.
I feel like Jacob Marley!!
Obviously, this is your divine calling.
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Dang Nate....
I hope you have a gallery of these printed and for sale somewhere.
I'm still trying to scrape my jaw off the floor.
I feel like Jacob Marley!!
Obviously, this is your divine calling.
Thanks Chuck, and everyone else for your compliments. I'm just fortunate to live in an area where there are some wildlife reserveswithin15-30 minutes of drivingand I also have a job that gives me a lot of free time to enjoy photography [:P], so I shoot a lot and geta few nice shots here and there. Regarding printing and selling my photos, I have never thought of that and honestly I don't think my photos are worthy of making money yet [:)], so for now I just enjoy nature photography as a hobby, it relieves stress, gets me outand keeps me active.
Nate,
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sinh Nhut Nguyen
Can I kindly disagree? haha :) Excellent work Nate!
-Rodger
Thanks for the compliment Rodger.....here's another with the 300mm 2.8L + 1.4x extender, f/4.0, iso 320, 1/160 sec.....I'm really lovin' this lens. Thanks for looking, Joel.[img]/cfs-file.ashx/__key/CommunityServer.Components.UserFiles/00.00.00.32.28/IMG_5F00_0989.jpg[/img]
Joel, when I saw this shot I said (loudly) exactly this: "wooooooooooooooooooooow what the heck!!!!" [:D]
I second that. They could sell that lens solely off the back of pics like this
Thanks for the compliments guys! I decided to get the 300mm 2.8L based on Bryan's review that it was perhaps the sharpest Canon lens made and I thought using it with extenders would be more versatile and less expensive than the 500mm 4.0 or the 600mm 4.0.....it's doing a great job so far. These are backyard birds. I haven't had the time to travel very far to take pics since I got the lens earlier this year but I'm looking forward to trying it on different locations in the future.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jnort002
If you'd like to have your very own Canon 300mm f/2.8L IS, with the hard case and everything, check this auction on eBay. (The auction ends at 8:18 AM PDT, 10/14/09.) Starting price is $3,950 + shipping (which isn't cheap). Alas, I won't be bidding. I really don't need to get a new mortgage on my house. (The old one was paid off in 2005.)
Seems overpriced given that (1) it's an eBay auction (2) purchase date was in March, basically wiping out the warranty period; and (3) shipping is an additional $125.
I want a new EF 300/2.8L IS so bad I can practically taste it. I could buy one new if I sold my three L lenses, but that would be too painful. [U]
mmmm.... coated optical glass... delicious. [:P]
I purchased mine from B&H and used Bill Me Later to make monthly payments with no interest....If I remember, the price was $4100...took me 6 months to pay it off...I'm glad I did it though, I've really enjoyed it so far. Certainly seems like the one Ebay is overpriced to me.
Quote:
Originally Posted by wickerprints
1. A new lens costs $4,599 at B&H. That's a $649 or 14% "discount" for being used. Including shipping, it's $523 or 11%.
2. Canon L lenses hold their value quite well. For example, some time ago, I was considering getting a 24-70mm f/2.8L. (I got the 17-55mm f/2.8 IS, instead.) I found that the selling price of used lenses on eBay was only 10-15% less than the current retail price. I just did a search on eBay and the last 9 copies of the 24-70 lens that sold averaged $1100 plus shipping. (The range was $1000-1170. There was another at $1000, but it was damaged.) The lens is $1380 now, so that's a 20% discount. (There was a recent price increase.) I also found that the discount was greater (i.e., selling price was relatively lower) on more common lenses, probably due to competition. (There were quite a few 24-70mm lenses starting at around $1200 that got no bids.)
3. Most used gear is far outside the warranty period. This at least would have another 4-5 months.
4. The shipping is high, in part, because the seller is in Puerto Rico. I went to the UPS site and did a quick check on shipping a 16 lb package 15 x 12 x 18 (the lens would probably end up in a box bigger than that) from my locatio to San Juan, PR. Second day air was $126.54, "ground" was $113.57. The eBay price is $125.98, so it's roughly the same.
A potential bidder would have to decide whether saving $523 is worth losing 8 months of warranty at $65/month.
Joel,
Wow.... I mean... Wow... That is high quality right there.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sinh Nhut Nguyen
I would also like to kindly disagree!!! [:D] I'm not right into the bird photography side of things but your photos blow me away every time you come out with a new one Nate. They are simply spectacular and you would have no worries selling them if the right opportunity arose - and I'm sure it will. [Y]
Quote:
Originally Posted by Joel Eade
If a new lens was still $4100, you'd be very right, but the price has gone up to $4600--and may go up again. Do some searches on various L lenses that have sold on eBay (not those currently listed). They typically run 80-90% of the retail price unless there's something wrong. One seller (a pawn shop, who should know better) listed a lens without either cap. That lens sold for $180 less than any other had in several weeks. Because he was too cheap to spend $5 on lens caps (easy to find), he lost big. One of these days, I'll do an "article" for this forum on "eBay idiocy," both by sellers who price their items too high and buyers who pay too much, in some cases more for a used item than the cost of a new one.
What lens did you use?
I am too risk averse to buy used lenses through eBay. Something that is > $4000 retail, no way to inspect it beforehand, minimal accountability due to online nature of the transaction...it is not worth the potential hazards, in order to save 10-15%. Craigslist is at least better in that you can inspect the goods.
One could purchase a recertified lens for not that much difference. Waiting for the right deal to come along can also make an impact on sale price. There are a huge number of scammers on eBay and CL.
FYI... KEH has several 300 f2.8Ls for less than $3000.00. Every lens I've purchased from them has been in outstanding condition. They have a very good return and customer satisfaction policy.
I just wish I had $4600.00 because they have a 200 f1.8 L. What aportrait lens!
They now have two copies of the 50 f1.0L. That's right, f1.0.
LBA, LBA, LBA......aarrrrrrrgggg..[:D]
I'd be posting more shots comparing to Nate'sif my camera wasn'tbroken.I only had less than a month of experience with my 600mm before my camera broke and my shots really impress me thus far. I have had nolong lens experience beforeI got my 600mm.There is a lot of wildlife whereI life and I am realy kicking my self for not having a camera.
Hey Fast Glass, sorry to hear about your camera, what happened? Hope you'll get it fixed or have a new camera soon.
Turkey vulture and a dead apossum
40D & 500 f/4L IS, f/5.6, 1/1000, IS0 200
http://www.pscvn.org/members/308/10-...9-35-07_PM.jpg
that's way cool!!!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sinh Nhut Nguyen
Thanks Nate, there was a loose srew and fryed itself. I never dropped it, got it wet, it looked like new.
I was about to take some pictures of some humming birds in "sweet light" and I had to clear some pictures in my card, after I cleared them I put the camera to my eye and there was no lights. I looked at it and it was off, I later trouble shooted and took it apart and found a loose srew with no aparant place inside. I noticed a slight ticking noise when I shook the camera for the past month or soand I wondered what it was, now I know!
Thanks again Nate for your consideration.
John.
No animals in this one... but i just couldn't stop liking this tree... all by itself on top of a hill.[img]/resized-image.ashx/__size/800x1200/__key/CommunityServer.Components.UserFiles/00.00.00.28.47/Untitled_5F00_HDR2_2D00_2.jpg[/img]
Canon 50D + 17-40 f4 L @ 20mm f4 1/2500 ISO-100
I've gotta say it's one of these:
1. Green Anole Lizard trying to go to sleep.
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2580/...a78f16a6_b.jpg
2. Green Anole Lizard finally getting some sleep (first time I've ever seen this)
http://fc08.deviantart.com/fs22/i/20...hotography.jpg
3. Young male Blue Dasher Dragonfly
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2484/...82c6ab23_b.jpg
4. Carpenter Ant
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3640/...ddd4faf8_b.jpg
Those are way cool.
Nate, sweet shot of the vulture.
Jayson
The greens in that first shot really compliment each other - really nice. And detail in the shot of the dragonfly is great! Well done mate.
I had a visitor today.
http://homepage.mac.com/gslusher/.Pi...637_800_um.jpg
http://homepage.mac.com/gslusher/.Pi...639_800_um.jpg
http://homepage.mac.com/gslusher/.Pi...643_800_um.jpg
All taken with the Canon S3 IS I keep by my desk just for this purpose. The only "post-processing" was to use unsharp mask in Graphic Converter after scaling to counteract the inherent softness from scaling down. Shutter speed was 1/1600; apertures f/3.5, f/5, & f/5.6; ISO 800 (was set for indoor shots & I didn't take the time to change it); focal lengths 46.3mm (35mm equivalent 278mm for the first two, 72mm (432mm equivalent) for the last. The S3 IS does pretty well for a "point-and-shoot" except in low light. It has a 6-72mm f/2.7-3.5 lens (equivalent to 36-432mm on full frame), ISO 80-800, 6 MP, and about all the "modes" (including full manual) that a Rebel will have. One major failing (fixed in its successors, the S5 IS, SX10 IS, and new SX 20 IS) is the lack of a hot shoe.
[img]/cfs-file.ashx/__key/CommunityServer.Components.UserFiles/00.00.00.34.11/_5F00_MG_5F00_0264-copy.jpg[/img]
Alaska Landscape
Taken with Canon 50D f/3.5, 1/500sec, ISO 200. Level adjustment and burn tool on Photoshop CS3
[img]/cfs-file.ashx/__key/CommunityServer.Components.UserFiles/00.00.00.34.11/_5F00_MG_5F00_0120.jpg[/img]
Central Park NYC
Canon 50D f/7.1, 1/13 sec, ISO 100
[img]/cfs-file.ashx/__key/CommunityServer.Components.UserFiles/00.00.00.34.11/_5F00_MG_5F00_0044.jpg[/img]
Canon 50D f/11, 1/250sec, ISO 200
[img]/cfs-file.ashx/__key/CommunityServer.Components.UserFiles/00.00.00.34.11/_5F00_MG_5F00_0105.jpg[/img]
Canon 50D f/5.6, 1/60 sec, ISO 200
[img]/cfs-file.ashx/__key/CommunityServer.Components.UserFiles/00.00.00.34.11/_5F00_MG_5F00_0037.jpg[/img]
Canon 50D f/3.5, 1/125 sec, ISO 100
MOF_Sydney the tiger picture is especially cool I think. I love siberian tigers so that one really stands out among these pictures to me. Did I mention I love cats?
Great Lizard shot Goingcarcrazy and dasher shot, what gear did you shoot that with?
Some of my recient shots with new camera. 7D and 100m f2.8 usm macro
[img]/cfs-file.ashx/__key/CommunityServer.Components.UserFiles/00.00.00.33.11/7d_2300_2-045-copy.jpg[/img]
[img]/cfs-file.ashx/__key/CommunityServer.Components.UserFiles/00.00.00.33.11/7d_2300_2-026-copy.jpg[/img]
[img]/cfs-file.ashx/__key/CommunityServer.Components.UserFiles/00.00.00.33.11/7d_2300_2-065-copy.jpg[/img]
muc1
This is a shot of one of my backyard birds using a 40D, 300mm f/2.8L IS USM, 1/200 sec., f/4.0, ISO 500[img]/cfs-file.ashx/__key/CommunityServer.Components.UserFiles/00.00.00.32.28/IMG_5F00_0413.jpg[/img]
Very good shot, the wite-balance is to blue andit could use alittle bit more saturation.
Nice shot Joel, that 300 f/2.8 is a beauty, the crop is well balanced, exposure is good for my taste. If you want you crop clone out the two out of focus branches and I wish the bird is facing toward you instead of looking away. Good luck next time.
Nate,
Thanks for the comments guys, now that you point it out, it does look too blue. Here's one I took earlier today with the same lens, I agree Nate it really does perform beautifully. I think the shots you've posted are amazing. I'm still on the upslope of the learning curve.[img]/cfs-file.ashx/__key/CommunityServer.Components.UserFiles/00.00.00.32.28/IMG_5F00_3466.jpg[/img]
There we go, less blue....[Y]
Quote:
Originally Posted by Joel Eade
A suggestion, Joel: use JPEG + RAW. That way, if you had the wrong white balance setting, you can change it. The EXIF data says it was on Auto White Balance, which was probably fooled by the background. AWB works well in some situations but is terrible in others. A background with a strong, predominant color is one of the "terrible" situations for AWB. The only real drawback for JPEG + RAW for nature photography is the extra storage space, but memory cards are cheap (well, at least, compared to what they USED to cost!). (Most sports photographers don't use RAW because it really slows down the camera, so they can't shoot bursts as quickly.) If the JPEG is good, use it. If it needs tweaking in exposure, tone curve adjustments, white balance, picture style, etc., use the RAW shot.
Here's an example. I don't remember precisely what happened, but I think that I was resetting WB from daylight to shade and inadvertently went one step too far to tungsten. (Evidence for that explanation is that, right after several shots like this, I have more shots of the same flower with shade WB.) The result is "interesting," perhaps, but hardly realistic.
http://homepage.mac.com/gslusher/.Pi...nsharp_800.jpg
Because I shot JPEG + RAW, I was able to fix it with Canon's Digital Photo Professional. (You an also use Photoshop or Lightroom.) Here's the same photo with Shade WB.
http://homepage.mac.com/gslusher/.Pi...ade_800_um.jpg
Better, maybe, but it's apparent that Shade wasn't the best choice. I tried Daylight, instead:
http://homepage.mac.com/gslusher/.Pi...nsharp_800.jpg
Remember that this was all from the same file. (I could probably tweak the white balance a bit more, but it's not worth the time.)
I should add a few other points:
- The RAW file is not altered by any of these adjustments. They choose the "recipe" used by the software to convert (render) the RAW file to JPEG. Your camera does the same thing in creating the JPEG, but, like a cake that's baked, once it's made into a JPEG, your options for adjustment are much more limited
- With DPP & Lightroom (edit: and Adobe Bridge for Photoshop), it's easy to apply corrections like this to a group of photos all at once. I'm not sure about Photoshop, as I only use Photoshop Elements, which can process only one RAW image at a time.
- If you're going to be working on the photo in Photoshop or Elements, it's a good idea to choose the TIFF output option in DPP, rather than JPEG, as it preserves all the information. (JPEG uses a "lossy" compression scheme. Every time you change something and recompress the image, you lose quality and increase the likelihood of artifacts.)
- For the same reason, save your Photoshop work as a .psd file, then as a JPEG. That way, if you want to redo something, you can.
- You can crop in DPP, as well, which can give better results than cropping the JPEG.
- I wouldn't recommend shooting in RAW only because that would add a lot of time to your "workflow." Much (most?) of the time, the JPEG that comes from the camera will be fine.
- The RAW files from my 30D are 6.7-8.2 MB. RAW files from your 40D would be larger, both because the 40D has more pixels than the 30D and it uses 14-bit capture vs 12-bit on the 30D.
- To cut down on storage requirements for your HD, you might keep only the RAW files you need to tweak. (It might be good to backup all the files, including RAW, to DVDs or CDs, in case you want to work with an image later.)
Thanks George for all the handy tips. I usually shoot raw with auto white balance and work with acr/photoshop cs4. I don't shoot a large number of images due to lack of free time away from work during daylight hours so I guess I haven't noticed it slowing me down but I'm sure you're right about that. I'll try the raw + jpeg option to see how it works. I typically save my finals as jpegs to an external drive and burn my raw files to dvd. I'll definitely try your ideas about tiff and psd files. Thanks again.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Joel Eade
Wow! Joel, I have many times said how great Nate's pictures were and that no one here comes close to him. I can now tell you that with this picture, you are on par with Nate (image quality wise). That's what I think at least [Y][H]
Both great shots Joel - that's a wicked lens. Maybe I'll look into robbing a bank...
Thanks Oren & btaylor, the lens does have fantastic sharpness. I don't think my shots have great light and interesting backgrounds like Nate....mostly because they are shot in my backyard which is surrounded by tall trees that filter out the morning and evening sun and also cause a diffuse green background in summer or diffuse grey in winter. But I like trying to get detailed portrait type shots of the birds from close range. The biggest challenge is to get a fast enough shutter speed to get a really sharp image.