I wasn't lucky with the birds recently. The first two photos are of immature Saffron finch from yesterday. #3 is older adult pic (for comparison).
Show your Bird Portraits
- Thread starter 1982chris911
- Start date
! " I've finally realized that I can't fix bad pictures with PP. lololol..."- You are absolutely right! With PP you can (well, valid at least for me...) make good photo slightly better (or just destroy it if you don't know what exactly you are doing).
If your camera is signaling for small patches of overexposure it is still OK. I actually prefer that variant. Than you can clip little bit the highlights and lift the shadows (if necessary lift also the mids). If the highlights are to "high" (in big patches) clipping is counterproductive. What you will clip in that variant is the coded in the RAW file data for the highlights. In the really overexposed patches you clip nothing - there is no data that you can work on there.
Not very sure if I expressed myself in good English but it's what I'm doing (or trying to do) with my photos
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Wow. Was just going through my Cedar Waxwing pictures the other day. Glad I didn't post one. LMAO... Are you shooting these with the 400mm DO II?
We all like to feed our ego but if this criterion was valid no one would be posting anything. One aspect is the technical quality of the photo but don't forget we all like to see the different bird variants and poses etc. There will always be someone doing better - so what. What I like about this thread; it's a friendly place to be.
I was using 300 2.8 II X2 which AlanF used to praise constantly.
Now neither of us own it because .... good question. For me I judged that I seldom used 300 and sold so I could get the 400 DO II. When 300 was needed that lens was superb and pretty decent X2.These photos I'm going back to resurrect are getting DPP post processing as best I can do (minus selective NR) because in most cases the originals weren't done that well. I had only owned the 6D a very short time then and I didn't even own a DSLR about 2 years before that (D5100 was my starting point). When I'm done I'll choose those that might be worthy and do background NR etc.
There is a motive to this. I've been interacting with the county regarding their indiscriminate beaver trapping and these shots are all from the affected area when it was vibrant. They will be hearing from me loudly.
Jack
I seem to recall that we both had kept the 300mm for quite a while after we had the 400mm DO II. According to Arf Morris the price of the used 300/2.8 on his bird site dropped dramatically after the introduction of the DO II.We all like to feed our ego but if this criterion was valid no one would be posting anything. One aspect is the technical quality of the photo but don't forget we all like to see the different bird variants and poses etc. There will always be someone doing better - so what. What I like about this thread; it's a friendly place to be.
I was using 300 2.8 II X2 which AlanF used to praise constantly.
These photos I'm going back to resurrect are getting DPP post processing as best I can do (minus selective NR) because in most cases the originals weren't done that well. I had only owned the 6D a very short time then and I didn't even own a DSLR about 2 years before that (D5100 was my starting point). When I'm done I'll choose those that might be worthy and do background NR etc.
There is a motive to this. I've been interacting with the county regarding their indiscriminate beaver trapping and these shots are all from the affected area when it was vibrant. They will be hearing from me loudly.
Jack
You are right. In my mind I had sold it to get the 400 (promised the boss because I was also getting the 1DX2) but it took some time to unload it at a decent price. No regrets on that because of low useage (I actually never mounted it again after the 400 arrived). I didn't loose that much ... not like trying to sell a 1DX2.
I wonder how many DO II there are out there? I do regret one thing - the closer focus of the 300 - I wish they'd but a close-up feature in all the telephotos for bugs.
Jack
"I was using 300 2.8 II X2 which AlanF used to praise constantly.We all like to feed our ego but if this criterion was valid no one would be posting anything. One aspect is the technical quality of the photo but don't forget we all like to see the different bird variants and poses etc. There will always be someone doing better - so what. What I like about this thread; it's a friendly place to be.
I was using 300 2.8 II X2 which AlanF used to praise constantly.
These photos I'm going back to resurrect are getting DPP post processing as best I can do (minus selective NR) because in most cases the originals weren't done that well. I had only owned the 6D a very short time then and I didn't even own a DSLR about 2 years before that (D5100 was my starting point). When I'm done I'll choose those that might be worthy and do background NR etc.
There is a motive to this. I've been interacting with the county regarding their indiscriminate beaver trapping and these shots are all from the affected area when it was vibrant. They will be hearing from me loudly.
Jack
Now neither of us own it because .... good question."My simple good answer is that something better arise later... After that even it goes down because there was something much better to appear - again, and again...
D5100?! I started with cameras not even worth mentioning. Later it was slides with N80, F100 and started the digital era with D7000 (few months later D7100 appear
). I'm not sorry for any peace of equipment (I mean cameras or lenses, including the "not worth mentioning") that I have used: for the time it was a lot of fun and learning with every new peace and for not pro what else matters?!
Back when we bought the 300mm F/2.8 II, it was a choice between the even then elderly non-IS 400/5.6 or the 2-stop IS 100-400mm L, my copy of which was soft, or the very expensive big whites. The 300.2.8 II with a 1.4 or 2xTC was the only real alternative for a hand-holdable telephoto 600mm with 4 stops of IS. We have to thank Tamron for introducing the 150-600mm, which forced the others to produce affordable longer lenses. Many keen amateurs bought 500/4 and 600/4 Ls. It will be seen whether that trend continues. My gut feeling is that their sales will drop. Arash Hazeghi, on the other hand, claimed in FM that every bird photographer has a big white because the US economy is doing so well that they can all afford one. He mixes in different circles from me.
Hi Alan.
Should that have been every ”American bird photographer has a big white because the US economy is doing so well.” My guess he mixes in American circles!
From memory you are in the UK so a different economy! Also, what is his interpretation of ”a Big White” if it starts at 100-400 his comment might be much more valid, I see many 100-400 for every 500 or 600!
Cheers, Graham.
“Arash Hazeghi, on the other hand, claimed in FM that every bird photographer has a big white because the US economy is doing so well that they can all afford one. He mixes in different circles from me.”
Should that have been every ”American bird photographer has a big white because the US economy is doing so well.”
My guess he mixes in American circles! From memory you are in the UK so a different economy! Also, what is his interpretation of ”a Big White” if it starts at 100-400 his comment might be much more valid, I see many 100-400 for every 500 or 600!
Cheers, Graham.
“Arash Hazeghi, on the other hand, claimed in FM that every bird photographer has a big white because the US economy is doing so well that they can all afford one. He mixes in different circles from me.”
He meant the full Monty. It was in answer to the comment that the 100-400s etc were the most common lenses.Hi Alan.
Should that have been every ”American bird photographer has a big white because the US economy is doing so well.”
From memory you are in the UK so a different economy! Also, what is his interpretation of ”a Big White” if it starts at 100-400 his comment might be much more valid, I see many 100-400 for every 500 or 600!
Cheers, Graham.
“Arash Hazeghi, on the other hand, claimed in FM that every bird photographer has a big white because the US economy is doing so well that they can all afford one. He mixes in different circles from me.”
These are some incredible shots by Arbitrage on FM using the Sony 200-600mm + 1.4xTC at f/9. https://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/1624234
"Thanks Morris....yeah these are big crops and that probably is why the DOF covered both of them most of the time.
These ended up being ~ 4.25MPs out of the 24MPs I started with."
Thanks for posting Alan!
I think that says it all because the biggest challenge is keeping the birds in the viewfinder and next to that is AF spread, which is roughly 100% coverage, and it's speed of tracking. That's where the optical AF falls down and why I'm thinking R5. Shots I did of Redpolls fighting were about half the frame and close, and next to impossible to track and the 1DX2 couldn't refocus at 14 FPS. That's why I could almost be tempted by the 1DX3 but there are just too many negatives with it for me personally and I certainly won't be sacrificing hard to come by $$$ for it. If the R5 is good but expensive I will sacrifice $$$.
Jack
I think a DSLR could do the same. It’s a question of having a suitable hand-holdable lens to go with it. Those owls were far away and so easier to frame.
That's my thought too. But again, my situations have typically been such that the bird would slip into the regions where there are no focus points and maybe my settings are off for that scenario, because I'd tend to lose focus. My biggest problem though is simply not having a lot of flights to practice on.
Jack
Three Australian coastal birds from today - Little wattlebird, Brown honey-eater and White ibis
