Post your best bird shots!

[Rocco]

That

[cls]

Bob & Rocco - thanks for your kind comments!

Was this taken in burst or were you watching, waiting?
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I would say something in-between. I didn't shoot in burst mode, but when they came into good positions I took a few photos before they turned away again. The one above is one of three similar captures with a couple ofsecondsbetween them.After a whileI saw a pattern where the mother(?) could swim away 50 feet or so, and after a while the kids would follow. So when I saw the white one move, I made sure to get into a position where the juveniles would soon swim by at a fairly close distance. (I spent more than an hour following them and took more than 100 photos. All except 17 of these were sorted into the trash bin.)

[conropl]

CLS:


Really nice detail. Love the pose.

[Dr Croubie]

So a duck (it looks like a male) and 6 little ducklings have taken up residence in my street, wandering around the gardens of a few neighbours. Yesterday they were on my front lawn, so I turned on the sprinkler for them, they had a great time mucking about in the mud-pool it created, and I had a great time capturing some of the action.


Then I had the idea to set my camera up on my gorillapod close to the ground, get out the RC-6 remote-control, and throw bits of bread just in front of the lens (alternatively Samyang 35/1.4 and 15-85)


This morning they were back, on my back lawn, so i set it up again, but this time did half with 15-85, and the other half with my new Lensbaby Plastic Optic (at f/5.6, with 0.42x WA adapter). had the TC-80N3 attached so just let fly with HSC.


This is my first-browse favourite photo, shrunk camera-jpg until i get to raw-processing and get more up (i'm a few months behind):


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Daddy beating the kids to getting the next bit of bread.

[Sheiky]

That is so cool!

[Dr Croubie]

Woo, thanks. Got a few more that look a bit better, gonna play with raw-converting and messing with the colours later (like more saturation, it is a lensbaby after all.
meanwhile, here's my morning's work, first attempts at focus stacking, one of the first shots with the 70-300. Focussed 3 shots individually on the front and back group, and the daddy.


Main problem was that they (and I) slightly shifted in between, so they don't quite line up, really noticeable at 50% where i've had to put in a blurrier bit to cover the fact the ducks shifted (or just have whitespace). Not much else I can do about it except hand-painting (or take more shots).


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.


Unfortunately, i'm not going to get any more shots of them looking all peaceful again. After 2 days of bread appearing in front of the camera, i've Pavloved them (if that's not a word it is now) so now they equate camera with food, as soon as they see me carrying it they come running...

[Dr Croubie]

And why not, a cute little one after playing in the sprinkler. 7D+70-300L


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