Still sounds awesome to me.....can't wait, are you formulating a game plan?Quote:
Originally Posted by bob williams
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Still sounds awesome to me.....can't wait, are you formulating a game plan?Quote:
Originally Posted by bob williams
Nice catch Gasam, very tough to capture these guys as you said---they do move fast.
Don't shoot a lot of birds, but liked this one so thought I'd share.
Attachment 164
Larger size here Mallard Thanks for looking.
Very nice Denise
Nice Mallard image, good full broad side pose and head angle.Quote:
Originally Posted by Don Burkett
Really nice Denise, I like 'em both!!
Denise, Your raising the bar---Nice job
This was from a week or so ago, haven't had much time since then......I added a watermark to my Zenfolio sitehttp://joeleadephotography.zenfolio....70324308-5.jpg
Joel, great shot. I hung up some more woodpecker feeders. I had a little Downy sitting on one all day, but he never moved to a perch! Here's all the decent shots I have for now. I was trying to get a Tufted Titmouse so my setup was a little too close for the Blue Jays.
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7153/6...83af4daa_z.jpg
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7172/6...60050729_z.jpg
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7009/6...6abe1869_z.jpg
Finally got a Tufted Titmouse today, and a Black-capped Chickadee as well.
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7155/6...f361c478_z.jpg
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7173/6...d4115b18_z.jpg
..those are great! Someday I'll actually put my 400 5.6L to good use. The bald eagles will be here before I am ready. I need to start shooting some birds. What do you guys shoot? 1/1600 sec for BIF?
These are super sharp and very well done, excellent work!!!
Yes, you will want all the shutter speed possible. If you have the light go as high as you can even 1/5000!!Quote:
Originally Posted by Rocco
Really nice series Dustin. The creamy backgrounds really allow the feather detail to come through on these.
Recent Downy Woodpecker image from the back yard, a gray overcast day so had to use a higher ISO to get adequate shutter speed
1D3
500mm f/4L
Manual mode, evaluative metering, central AF point only
Tripod
ISO 1000
f/5.6
1/500
580 EXII + better beamer ETTL -2 1/3 stops
See my other images : http://joeleadephotography.zenfolio.com/
http://joeleadephotography.zenfolio....77743943-5.jpg
Nice Junco Denise! Great pose and head angle....only thing I see is that the critical focus point seems to be midway back on the body.
Thanks, Joel! Now that you mention it, you are correct ...I looked back and my focus point was not on his eye as I had thought! So much for my dependable hand holding abilities with the 100-400mm!
I think these are alittle better as fars as correct focus goes ...
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7022/6...38a66510_z.jpg
Male Northern Cardinal by Denise Trocio, on Flickr
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7006/6...1a0c8976_z.jpg
Female Dark-eyed Junco by Denise Trocio, on Flickr
Denise, I agree, these are really nice and I like the framing too. On the male cardinal see if you can do a little dodging on his eye so the iris just slightly more visible. I think that would really add some impact. Good work!!
These are shots I got today just before sunset.....lots of birds feeding now, especially Titmouse, Chickadee, Sparrows, Woodpeckers, Finches and Doves.
http://joeleadephotography.zenfolio....37194247-3.jpg
http://joeleadephotography.zenfolio....18163690-3.jpg
Nice job, Joel. You still using the 1D Mk.III and 300/2.8 for these shots?
Beautiful shots, Joel!
Yesterday, I went "duck hunting" and saw two different types on Lake Michigan that I never saw in this area before ..
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7153/6...d0025376_z.jpg
Hooded Merganser by Denise Trocio, on Flickr
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7170/6...c0967f78_z.jpg
Northern Pintail (Sprig) by Denise Trocio, on Flickr
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7024/6...c1b0f296_z.jpg
Northern Pintail (Sprig) by Denise Trocio, on Flickr
and then there were the common mallards ...
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7004/6...f0823f96_z.jpg
IMG_5625 by Denise Trocio, on Flickr
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7013/6...69f72699_z.jpg
IMG_5675 by Denise Trocio, on Flickr
Great Pintail shots, I think they are my favorite looking duck...beautiful!
Thanks.....still using the 1D3 but recently acquired a used 500mm f4/L and I am trying to learn how to use it....these last few were shot with the 500.Quote:
Originally Posted by HiFiGuy1
Fabulous duck images Denise!!! Especially like the Hooded Merganser.....I have seen these from a distance here in Ky. but have not been close enough to push the shutter, really nice images, congrats!Quote:
Originally Posted by ddt0725
Thank you, Joel!
Here is one I caught of Mr. Cardinal this morning. I had to blur the background due to the lines of my wooden fence but at least he is finally going to the perch I set up! :) Is there a more "natural" way I should have handled this? I am surrounded by fence!
Let me know if there is anything I should do differently ...he was in part sun, part shade due to the time of day.
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7020/6...a9d4c4ce_z.jpg
Mr. Cardinal by Denise Trocio, on Flickr
Quote:
Originally Posted by ddt0725
You did well blurring out the fence, short of putting up a background that's probably the best you can do. Try to maximize the distance from the bird to the fence so the natural bokeh from your lens will help. The only other thing that would be more natural is to use a more natural perch. A better sun angle will help the IQ but I find it difficult when the sun is high and bright. It's just too contrasty to get the best results. Overall you are doing great, those last duck images are impressive.
More tests with my new shiny 70-200mm f/2.8 L IS II. I absolutely love it, the detail and sharpness I can get is simply amazing. I might have overdone the sharpening a little for these during post processing though..
Attachment 236 Attachment 237 Attachment 238 Attachment 239
Last year at this time of December there was over two feet of snow on the grass field and the sea was frozen so it's a little weird to be seeing all the ducks and geese just strolling happily around now. I'm glad of the warm sunny day though, excellent weather to test the new lens :)
EDIT: BTW does the site do something to the color management of the photos? They look too green and muddled now after upload versus the ones on my computer.
EDIT2: The error was in my workflow, didn't convert them to sRGB properly. Correct images can be seen in my blog: http://qwrad.wordpress.com/2011/12/1...warm-december/
These 2 shots were from the back yard this evening, very nice day here, about 60 degrees and light clouds, made for good diffused light
1D3
500mm
ISO 1600
f/5.0
1/800
http://joeleadephotography.zenfolio....62905068-4.jpg
http://joeleadephotography.zenfolio....19706736-4.jpg
This was an experimental shot....I used my 40D + 500mm f/4L + 2X TC II for a total effective focal length of 1600mm !!!
The 40D will not autofocus with this combination so I used live view and manually focused. This Cardinal was about 30 yards away in low light
ISO 1600 f/8 1/160 in AV mode, no flash. If you zoom in it's pretty noisy and probably would not make a good large print but for internet viewing it's not too bad considering I was using manual focus high and very high iso for the 40D.
http://joeleadephotography.zenfolio....32038102-4.jpg
1600mm and 1600ISO on a 40D, that is still a pretty sweet image Joel and I imagine, opens a world of possibilities for you.
Very nice indeed, Joel!! Man, I would be in heaven with that set-up!!
I could never get that clarity with my 40D at ISO 1600. In fact, I'd cringe everytime I had to go to ISO 800. Well done
OK, i've spent waaaay too much time on this photo today, got too much work to do before xmas, and I haven't even put any clothes on or had breakfast yet. And it's 2pm.
Anyway, HDRed 3 shots +/-1EV, tried a few different algorithms for making the .exr, then another few algorithms for tonemapping with way too many options.
Finally I got one I liked, well, almost, took it to GIMP and adjusted the curves.
Then selected all but the bird and in-focus foreground stick/branch it was sitting on (GIMP has no smart select like PS, so it was a lot of fuzzy-select and deselect by colour), then did a 5px Gaussian Blur to the background, and finally a 0.5px Gaussian Blur to de-noise (although I think I should have done that before selecting, live and learn), then cropped and shrunk.
I'd say i'm getting good at this, but that depends if the final product is worthwhile.
At least I'm getting faster.
(and why not, i'll post the original uncropped unHDRed 0EV jpg for the hell of it...)
Attachment 280
Attachment 281
(I suppose if I could get a nicer longer faster lens I could get some sweet shots like Joel's with a lot less effort...)
Thanks Steve, Denise and Don....Quote:
Originally Posted by Don Burkett
this arrangement is usable only for birds that are relatively still....without autofocus using live view is almost impossible with a littel bird jumping around quickly.
I am going to try the same lens combo with my 1D3, it will autofocus but I expect it to be very slow doing it. Also the percieved "reach" won't be as great since it is 1.3 crop factor.
Hopefully I can try it this week. Mostly I wanted to know if I could get adequate sharpness using the 2X TC
This was a sharpness test using 1D3 + 500mm + 2x TC II at ISO 1600 from about 15 feet away, I had trouble keeping the whole bird in the frame but it seems at least my version of the 2X TCII is sharp enough to produce good images. The autofocus however is painfully slow so little hyperactive birds are not easy.
http://joeleadephotography.zenfolio....52875729-4.jpg
High ISO test
1D3
500mm + 1.4 TC II
AV mode, evaluative metering
ISO 3200
f/8
1/320
580 EX + Better Beamer -2 2/3 sops
http://joeleadephotography.zenfolio....21586048-5.jpg
As usual----Beautiful shot Joel. I went tried to go to the BdA, but the weather wouldn't allow---freeway's were closed, but I did manage to make it to a smaller bird preserve called Ladd S. Gordan waterfowl complex. Anyway, It was snowing fairly heavily so AF wasn't cooperating with me, but I did manage to get a few:
http://rwilliamsimaging.com/img/s9/v14/p61581640-3.jpg
http://rwilliamsimaging.com/img/s11/...20407256-4.jpg
http://rwilliamsimaging.com/img/s8/v10/p227893329-4.jpg
http://rwilliamsimaging.com/img/s3/v38/p180207489-3.jpg
And One I cought on the way home of a local ranch house---with some post processing of course--
http://rwilliamsimaging.com/img/s8/v12/p627010312-3.jpg
Really nice set of pictures Bob!!