noelle wrote:
HAHA!! That is great,,,,,, I bet he startled you
Ya I was very surprised. So where are your pictures for today? Hehe... I know I know you've not been feeling well so.... I guess I'll let it slide for now. But I'm going to go to Monterey/Carmel and hopefully Point Lobos this weekend and try to get some more to show for critique on Monday! I hope you are able to get up from your lazy-boy and take some pictures as well!
A mother of 3 boys has PLENTY of free time! What are you talking about? I'm kidding of course. Well get better and take the kids to a wildlife reserve or something this weekend. Make a day of it... picnic, bucket of chicken, the works! Hehe...
noelle wrote:
Conrad.... I am still feeling a bit down but that never stops me
Raining today here in NJ so I am very sad I could not get to the park.
Tomorrow it is supposed to be in the 60's here so I plan on getting out to play.
BTW.... a mother of three boys never has time for a lazy-boy
I just might do that. My six year old is the one who will most likely be with me. He is a nature lover like myself and has the patience to wait for the birds. Here he is Eagle Watching in February.... looking through a scope to see a pair that was sitting in a tree across the river. It's a great joy to see him share my passion.
Conrad, that is getting better and better, nice BCNH.
For the in flight shot I can see you used the spot metering which was good.....as long as you are able to keep the spot on the bird. If a bird was larger in the VF, you'd use partial metering. Also you didn't need 1/6400 shutter speed....even 1/1250 would have done it. So you were using two stops needlessly.
I suspect you are shooting RAW and doing JPG conversion ? There is a bit of a blue tint in some of your images (the #1 and #3 above). For your kind of targets/light, I'd rather shoot JPG using "daylight" WB setting....you'd get more accurate colour representation that way as long as you are not in a deep shade.
Conrad, those last three are looking very good! Busy backgrounds may not be good and make it difficult to AF on BIF but they can make the shots more interesting than just a blue sky, kinda shows the bird's habitat. I actually like that last one with the busy background. Should be a good day for shooting today, I'm about to head out to the Baylands in Palo Alto...after I finish my cigar in the backyard of course.
Thanks Peter! Haha! I am of the school of thought that believes that if 1/1250 is good, then 1/6400 is better! I'm sorry I couldn't help making fun of myself. I didn't want to take any chances so I think I set the ISO to 800 or 1000 even though it was still only about 5PM and the sun was still good and visible. I just wanted to make sure there were no blurry or missed shots in case something exciting was happening! Silly I know. I'll try the JPG+daylight setting next time out. Sounds interesting! Thanks again Peter. Have a great weekend!
PetKal wrote:
Conrad, that is getting better and better, nice BCNH.
For the in flight shot I can see you used the spot metering which was good.....as long as you are able to keep the spot on the bird. If a bird was larger in the VF, you'd use partial metering. Also you didn't need 1/6400 shutter speed....even 1/1250 would have done it. So you were using two stops needlessly.
I suspect you are shooting RAW and doing JPG conversion ? There is a bit of a blue tint in some of your images (the #1 and #3 above). For your kind of targets/light, I'd rather shoot JPG using "daylight" WB setting....you'd get more accurate colour representation that way as long as you are not in a deep shade. ...Show more →
Thank you Noelle. I've never even SEEN a kingfisher! That's pretty cool. I'm going to Monterey and Carmel this weekend to try to get some real sea-birds. I'll put them up when I get back Monday. Sorry about your poor weather. I know your studio work is going to be lots of fun! I love to photograph my nephew. He's a real challenge! Haha! Have a good weekend.
noelle wrote:
Very nice Conrad!! I see a big difference already
Yesterday it was so gloomy I did not get any decent images
I did see my first King Fisher down by the bay so that really made me happy
Today it is raining and I have a 2yr old coming into the studio...should be fun
Wing, you and your cigars, haha!! Have a great time and happy hunting today! I hope you get some good ones. That spot in Alviso was pretty dead yesterday. Just that one lonely BCNH. Sucks! I hope Baylands is better for you. Ok have a good weekend too!
wing tong wrote:
Conrad, those last three are looking very good! Busy backgrounds may not be good and make it difficult to AF on BIF but they can make the shots more interesting than just a blue sky, kinda shows the bird's habitat. I actually like that last one with the busy background. Should be a good day for shooting today, I'm about to head out to the Baylands in Palo Alto...after I finish my cigar in the backyard of course.
Conrad Tan wrote:
Thanks Peter! Haha! I am of the school of thought that believes that if 1/1250 is good, then 1/6400 is better! I'm sorry I couldn't help making fun of myself. I didn't want to take any chances so I think I set the ISO to 800 or 1000 even though it was still only about 5PM and the sun was still good and visible. I just wanted to make sure there were no blurry or missed shots in case something exciting was happening! Silly I know. I'll try the JPG+daylight setting next time out. Sounds interesting! Thanks again Peter. Have a great weekend!
OK, Conrad, I underestand that, as long as you see that all the excess shutter speed comes at a cost of noise (high ISO) which becomes increasingly visible with cropping.
Yes you are absolutely right. I had to do a touch of NR in these as the 50D tends to be a bit noisy at ISO1000. The 50D is no 5D. Haha!!! Ok I'm off to Monterey! Going to try to get some shots at the Point Lobos Wildlife Reserve. I hope there's something more than seagulls there. Hehe...
PetKal wrote:
OK, Conrad, I underestand that, as long as you see that all the excess shutter speed comes at a cost of noise (high ISO) which becomes increasingly visible with cropping.
Conrad Tan wrote:
Here are the originals just resized to fit here. The distances from me are approximately:
1. 40 yards
2. 30 yards
3. 10 yards
Those aren't bad at all, specially since you have big resolution cameras. I'm guessing you used 1.4 TC with your 400mm? I tried shooting with 400mm the birds were too small in the VF.
The resolution helps a lot when cropping. Its the reason I picked up the 50D. I am not very good when it comes to framing my shots so I yend to need the extra cropping room!
n0b0 wrote:
Those aren't bad at all, specially since you have big resolution cameras. I'm guessing you used 1.4 TC with your 400mm? I tried shooting with 400mm the birds were too small in the VF.
At first I thought he was dead. Then he blew a water raspberry at me! Hehe...
