Show your Bird Portraits
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clbayley said:
Beautiful bird, excellent shot clbayley!
The lighting brings out all details in the eyes (and - a light in the eye - the best way to create this "alive" feel). Nice colours also
Wiebe.
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HankMD said:
Thanks HankMD for identifying. With the 'mission' of the sanctuary I had expected the birds to be native in the South-African region - but hey, it's beautiful enough to break the rules
Wiebe.
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Thanks Wiebe. They say more snow and that can make for some interesting shots of the common birds if the timing and lighting is right.
Jack
Jack
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Thanks Click, Jack, scottkinfw for your nice words, very much appreciated.
clbayley that image is fantastic, the bird and lighting are superb!
I'm far from getting such results yet. But I've explored a new area in my city yesterday and while it did turn out to one of those places that look amazing to the eye but are really hard to photograph, I noticed that there was a ton of different birds around the ground and the sky. Giving this different type of photography a shot is really fun, it feels similar to doing macro. The diversity and difficulty make it quite exiting and rewarding.
Edit: Birds are giving me quite skeptic glances, that's certainly different from the indifferent stare of a bug ;D
clbayley that image is fantastic, the bird and lighting are superb!
I'm far from getting such results yet. But I've explored a new area in my city yesterday and while it did turn out to one of those places that look amazing to the eye but are really hard to photograph, I noticed that there was a ton of different birds around the ground and the sky. Giving this different type of photography a shot is really fun, it feels similar to doing macro. The diversity and difficulty make it quite exiting and rewarding.
Edit: Birds are giving me quite skeptic glances, that's certainly different from the indifferent stare of a bug ;D
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Joules, keep them coming.
One thing I've found in about 5 years owning a DSLR is that a motionless person, particularly sitting, for me often a lawn chair, is not threatening to many birds and animals. Often I'll pack along a good book and plan to just sit and read with the camera handy. Many of my best shots have come in these circumstances. When I tramp through the bush it seems I'm more likely to not see anything because they are far ahead moving away from me.
I try to observe from afar and if I see subjects then I quietly move into the area and set up to read (not in winter though).
Once while sitting right beside a very small creek that cut though a slough a baby muskrat came out of the water no more than 8 feet from me and proceeded to eat bulrush leaves for a number of minutes. Luckily, the 300 lens has pretty close focus. I couldn't stop pinching myself for days. Not a bird but I'm posting it anyway.
Jack
One thing I've found in about 5 years owning a DSLR is that a motionless person, particularly sitting, for me often a lawn chair, is not threatening to many birds and animals. Often I'll pack along a good book and plan to just sit and read with the camera handy. Many of my best shots have come in these circumstances. When I tramp through the bush it seems I'm more likely to not see anything because they are far ahead moving away from me.
I try to observe from afar and if I see subjects then I quietly move into the area and set up to read (not in winter though).
Once while sitting right beside a very small creek that cut though a slough a baby muskrat came out of the water no more than 8 feet from me and proceeded to eat bulrush leaves for a number of minutes. Luckily, the 300 lens has pretty close focus. I couldn't stop pinching myself for days.
Not a bird but I'm posting it anyway.Jack
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Click said:I really like this shot. Well done, Jack.
Thanks click. I thought, now how will I be punished for posting this strange looking bird.
Banned for a week? 
Never the less I stand behind the advice to any newbies.
Jack
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Jack Douglas said:
I have always claimed that my two best pieces of photography gear are a comfortable seat and a good book
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Well Don, how about that. Not great for exercise though. I imagine the animals get curious about what we're reading. Ah, but what if it's a Grizzly bear?
Jack
Jack
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Very nice photos as usually!
martinslade - your picture is making me nostalgic, I spent a lot of time as a child in garden with a lot of these trees (but the bird is exotic to me) - thank you!
clbayley - great shot! I love the colors of the background - perfect match for the bird!
Jack - that Muskrat Baby... I'm really jealous! Excellent light and execution!
martinslade - your picture is making me nostalgic, I spent a lot of time as a child in garden with a lot of these trees (but the bird is exotic to me) - thank you!
clbayley - great shot! I love the colors of the background - perfect match for the bird!
Jack - that Muskrat Baby... I'm really jealous! Excellent light and execution!
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ISv, it just happened. It's a wonder it was even close to being acceptable. I had to rotate part of my body to a very awkward pose ever so slowly so as to not frighten the guy and then fire in the moment, most likely not checking settings or anything. And that's what I like about modern DSLRs - they are very forgiving if you shoot RAW. Advice that's common sense - always keep your camera at roughly the correct settings for the moment. Since I'm usually on M, the camera isn't likely to be to far off.
Jack
Advice that's common sense - always keep your camera at roughly the correct settings for the moment. Since I'm usually on M, the camera isn't likely to be to far off.Jack
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Jack Douglas said:ISv, it just happened. It's a wonder it was even close to being acceptable. I had to rotate part of my body to a very awkward pose ever so slowly so as to not frighten the guy and then fire in the moment, most likely not checking settings or anything. And that's what I like about modern DSLRs - they are very forgiving if you shoot RAW.
Jack
Jack, I shoot in settings JEPG + RAW. Don't know why since anyway I'm PP the raw files and ignore the JEPGs. Time to change this...
"Advice that's common sense - always keep your camera at roughly the correct settings for the moment." - I always do this. My problem is that I usually don't know the next moment
! If you wait for the birds to come to you (one of your previous posts - and I absolutely agree with that one) it works. But if you are in area where there are not that much of interesting objects you have to hunt... and you don't know the conditions for the next shot."Since I'm usually on M, the camera isn't likely to be to far off." - hmm
! This looks like an equation. Why not take it from the opposite site? "If the camera is not far off from my "M", why I should not shoot at "A" (and be prepared for more unpredictable situations - instead changing the settings manually, anyway the processor is faster than me?I also use "M" but only when the camera is far away from the reality (night shots for just one example). The problem with all cameras is that they are calibrated for these 13-18% gray (I'm kind of confused for the exact %
). In +/- normal (well, what is "normal"? - but I'm sure everyone understands what I mean) light I find my camera (and for sure all other modern cameras) rather accurate.
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That is a beautiful image! Cute guy. Are they rare or do you see them often and it was only so special, because you also got to shoot it?Jack Douglas said:Joules, keep them coming.
One thing I've found in about 5 years owning a DSLR is that a motionless person, particularly sitting, for me often a lawn chair, is not threatening to many birds and animals. Often I'll pack along a good book and plan to just sit and read with the camera handy. Many of my best shots have come in these circumstances. When I tramp through the bush it seems I'm more likely to not see anything because they are far ahead moving away from me.
I try to observe from afar and if I see subjects then I quietly move into the area and set up to read (not in winter though).
Once while sitting right beside a very small creek that cut though a slough a baby muskrat came out of the water no more than 8 feet from me and proceeded to eat bulrush leaves for a number of minutes. Luckily, the 300 lens has pretty close focus. I couldn't stop pinching myself for days.
Jack
Also thank you very much for your advice! I will certainly give it a try when I'm out to photograph animals the next time.
I think I've also experienced that behaviour of birds quite a while ago. I was at a small lake around dawn, exploring a moor near my home. On the near bank I saw a bunch of geese, and since I had my EF-S 10-18mm on at that point, I sat down in the dirt and looked for my EF 85mm 1.8 (My longest lens at the time). It was burried all the way down in the bag, so it took a while for me to find it and put it on the camera. By the time I was finished, I discovered the geese had come very close and had spread around me in different more or less attractive poses. One of them was even uncomfortably close, so much so that I became quite aware of the pointy parts of its beak. It almost filled the frame ;D
Also, sorry for posting so many similar shots, but that was basically the last presentable bird images I had, so I'll try to up the quality and diversity if I can foir what may come in the future.
Edit: If I don't want my images to become so huge and take up that my space I have to upload them somewhere else and embedd them, right? Instead of using the CR attachment feature?
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