I'm actually going over to a friend's house for a couple hours this afternoon to try and shoot some birds. She's got a big backyard with a good deal of open space and lots of birds so I'm going to set up a perch and see what I can attract. I'll let you all know how it turns out.
So we tried several different spots with our attempted perch without much luck this afternoon. I even rubbed some peanut butter and nuts on it. Then we looked up and saw this red-tail circling around...which may in part explain the absence of birds. If any of you guys have any ideas or suggestions on how to build a perch and then attract birds to it, I'd love to hear them!
My shots of the hawk are so-so....Nowhere near as great as Bob's from his backyard....Maybe we need to have a shoot there!
We are honored by those who have joined us in membership of our annual pass program. We would like to offer a big thank you to all of our annual pass holders for making this program such a tremendous success. In order to best serve our members, the last day to purchase annual passes for 2006 is January 15th at 6pm.
I am planning on going back to the Georgia Aquarium on Sunday morning. It opens at 9 AM. Is anybody interested? Does someone have a better idea for this weekend?
Hey guys!
Wow, I just realized this thread has been going on for quite some time! I'm about 1.5hrs west of you in Oxford, Alabama. If you guys are getting together at some point I'd love to join in. Hopefully I'm going to pick up my 70-200 f4L soon and need to really test it out. I've been dying to go to the aquarium also. Most of what I've done is portrait and wedding (need the money, y'know) and some food/product, but what I really want to do is nature/wildlife and landscape.
Jeff
Just saw your post on the aquarium. I need to check on family plans but will let you know by six tonight. Were you able to get a reservation?
John
Reservation? We don't need no stinkin' reservations.
When I got to the Aquarium at 9 AM, they were sold out for today and Monday. No walk up ticket sales today or tomorrow. Annual Pass holders were ok without a reservation. I left about 11:45 AM. It was pretty packed. There were some exhibits that you could get to with just a little more patience than before. There were a couple of places with a line. I didn't stick around to see if it got worse.
When I left the Aquarium, I headed over to the zoo. I got some pictures of the baby gorilla twins. I'll try to post some pictures from the aquarium and the zoo later tonight.
Edit: Maybe I'll post pictues tomorrow.....must....get....sleep...
I really didn't get much new at the Aquarium. At the zoo, I did get the gorilla twins, lion, rhino, panda, and zebra shots. I got a lot of bad pictures of monkees, kangaroos, birds, lion, giraffe, panda, etc. I took more bad photos in one day than most people can take in a week.
On that note, I have a question. When photographing animals through a mesh fence or cage, a small enough DOF sometimes makes the fence/cage virtually disappear. The lemur cage has a very heavy contrasty front mesh. The autofocus usually grabs the attention of the lens. Sometimes setting the range on the lens helps, but not always. I think I have to use manual focus, but the lemurs are most photogenic when they are moving. I think I'll just have to practice a little more patience and prediction. Any tips?
