Post your best bird shots!

[DavidEccleston]

I wonder what my chances are of getting my daughter to stand out in the middle of the yard with her hand filled with bird seed while we wait patiently for a bird to land!?

I don't know about your yard, but if there's some forest trails nearby, then potentially fairly good. The birds in the city can find feeders easily enough that they don't bother with people directly. You'll be able to hand-feed Chickadees mainly, and nuthatches on occasion. As winter approaches and they find less food, they'll come more readily, but Chickadees will come to you year-round. They love sunflower seeds, shelled, or not. My wife went out yesterday with a friend. They took simultaneous photos of each other with chickadees on their heads. We have a few shots with 2 chickadees on my wife's head, and shots with 4 swarming around her.


They're hungry.
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"Chickadees need to eat almost constantly in winter, and will exploit every avenue to access a meal. In parks like Weaselhead where they are have learned that people are really just walking vending machines, it's not only easy (and a lot of fun) to feed the little 'dees, but the savvy birds actively solicit passersbys. As soon as you stretch out your hand a chickadee will land there. I've had up to three on my hand at once squabbling for dominance. Sometimes a dominant bird will sit there for a minute and may even call."

[DavidEccleston]

I wonder what my chances are of getting my daughter to stand out in the middle of the yard with her hand filled with bird seed while we wait patiently for a bird to land!?

Oh, and if you're looking for larger birds, my wife stumbled across some birders at a park by the river who had figured out how to lure in seagulls... with shrimp.

[ddt0725]

LOL! Man, am I cheap ...the most the seagulls get from me is stale bread and they were pretty much attacking my 2 year old granddaughter for it!!!

[JJphoto]

Hi! Rich, those are awesome shots! I

[Richard Lane]

Thanks Denise and JJ, your encouragement is appreciated!


JJ, In the originals above, I hadbumped up the exposure in PP with the slider, from 0.4 on some to 0.6 on others. (Maybe I over did it). I will readjust and re-post them and let me know what you think, as well as anyone else that would like to render an opinion.


Thanks,


Rich

[Richard Lane]

Same EXIF data as above.


Just lowered exposure a bit on all of these, as per your recommendation. KIndly, let me know what you think!








Does anyone know why the front of the wings look a little jagged here, however they look fine on Flickr and my monitor at home?















Rich

[JJphoto]

Rich, they look a lot better to me!


what I learned for properly exposing the whites is to start with f16,ISO200,and 1/200 in M mode, so say you want to shoot f5.6, ISO 400, than the shutter speed should be 1/3200(is my calculating right?), than check the histogram in your camera,adjust setting if needed. you want to push it to the right as much as you can but not overexpose it( only when you shoot in raw). often, you will see the whites are too bright without details in your computer, that's very normal, all you need to do is to adjust the brightness/contrast to bring back the details of whites in PP


in your case, shooting such a white bird in sunny day with back lighting without fill flash is very hard to get balanced exposure. but you did a pretty good job.


again, I'm not a tech guy, anybody correct me if I'm wrong.

[Richard Lane]

Thanks JJ, That's very helpful, I'll keep those numbers in mind.


I must say that the histogram was in the middle, that's why I bumped up the exposure at home in PP, but you're right ,you do lose the detail in the white feathers if it's overexposed. I do shoot in Raw only, and tend to underexpose and bump up as neceessary, so this way I don't blow it out completely where it becomes unrecoverable. The above shots still have about +0.2 exposure in PP.


Shooting these birds are alot of fun!


It's like sports, but in the 3rd Dimension, with no boundaries. I feel like it could only add to my sports shooting.


Rich

[Richard Lane]

what I learned for properly exposing the whites is to start with f16,ISO200,and 1/200 in M mode, so say you want to shoot f5.6, ISO 400, than the shutter speed should be 1/3200 (is my calculating right?),

Your calculations look right to me, and I would I also like to add that my B&amp;W Circular Polarizing filter loses 1.3 stops of light. The 2X extender loses 2 f-stops as well, but that is howI got to f/5.6 from the maxium wide aperture of f/2.8 so that has been accounted for already.


So, based on your Sunny 16 formula, I was close with f/5.6, 1/1000sec, ISO 400 if you take into account the Circ Pol.


Good to know!


Rich

[Sinh Nhut Nguyen]

Cormorant fishing


Canon 7D + EF 500 f/4L IS, f/4, 1/2000, ISO 200, Manual Exposure, Tripod low o the ground.


Thanks for viewing and commenting


Nate,