I have the luxury of being able to shoot off my balcony straight into the gum trees in reserve across the road, about 20 to 30 metres away.
But it's a tricky lighting situation, facing south, shooting into the shadows with the sunlight coming down through the foliage, and it's a very overcast day in Melbourne. I got out there fairly early while there was still a bit of morning light about to test a lens I've hired to test before buying.
I missed or made a mess of lots of shots just trying to master this beast, I've never worked with anything over 300mm before. And I did encounter a few issues, but I had warned about them.
The local resident gang of raucous Red Wattle Birds came through terrorising the place in their usual way late in the morning and I was able to catch some encouraging reults.
Now it's off to the lake, the sky's pretty murky so I'll see what I can do.
Cheers,
Denis.
As you said, dificult conditions, lots of light and shade, probably moving as well. What kind of lens??
See what it does when youcan get closer to birds? Post some, please.
M-L
Good luck with the new lens - hope you get good conditions for trying it out.
Hi M.L.
Thank you for your interest.
It's a Tamron 150-600. I'm trying to decide between the Tamron and a Sigma 150-500. There are a lot of pros and cons for each but I've been leaning towards the Tamron and decided to test it first
I was warned the that Tamron is a bit slow and struggles in low light, and that is certainly true. I missed a lot of shots completely because it couldn't achiece focus at all against a backbround of canopy.
The light was bad enough to stop play at the cricket when I got the lake, so I used a Canon feature that most people overlook, the auto lighting optimiser, it's like auto exposure compensation.
The results were still pretty dismal but I still managed a few half decent shots. The BoM is promising a mostly sunny day tomorrow so hopefully I'll do better.
Cheers;
Denis
Best of luck with deciding on your new lens- some nice results there considering the lighting conditions
Ryu
Canberra
Aiming for DSLR-quality shots with a bridge camera
Nicely done. Yeah it does take a bit of getting used too. I remember at first I had to pull the zoom back to find the bird then zoom back in when I found it. Now I can locate it at full zoom. Just takes practice. A tripod or monopod help a lot in poor conditions. Love to know your settings. PM me if you like.
Looks like
Hi Devster,
Thank you very much for the feedback on PM. I understand the idea of a 'sweet-spot' in a lens from the old days and you've given a me good reference point to work from.
Sunday was day two of the Tamron test, with much better light. I decided to forget about the lake and concentrate on the trees out front. Passerines are much harder to shoot than waterfowl and big waders, and I was enjoying the challenge of the difficult conditions in the trees.
My biggest problem was camera shake because of my cheap flimsy tripod and many perfect exposures were ruined. And I keep shooting in old school film mode, forgetting that I don't need to change film to change ISO, and never reviewing my shots on the camera as I'm shooting.
Anyway the net result is that I've put a depost on the lens and a 'Punk' 3LT Evo3 tripod - lightweight and portable but a ball head and 20kg load capacity - easily enough to handle the 70D/Tamron combination. I pick them in time for the weekend.
I've picked out the best of Sunday's effort to share, all very tricky shots in difficult light. And I hope one of your more experienced birders can help me ID the species of the honeyeater and the parrot. I think it's a Fucous Honeyeater, but it could be a White-plumed. Ive got no idea about the parrot, there are just too many.
All these were shot in jpeg with minimal Ps post-processing. Shooting in RAW and input processing in Lr is my next big step.
Cheers and thank you again Devster,
Denis.
I think they are White-plumed HE and Musk Lorikeet
Ryu
Canberra
Aiming for DSLR-quality shots with a bridge camera
White-plumed HE - the faint black line above the white plum eis the indicator, Fuscous HE has a faint black line above a yellow plume
Musk Lorikeet - the red/crimson band above the beak to the eyes and then behind the eyes and the blue crown are the indicators
Red Wattlebird - silver/white cheek patch, red wattle and white tipped feathers are the indicators
Peter
Nice shots, I like the first and last shots the best. With a bt of post processing the last photo would come out ok and the fist shot is very clean, looks like you may have hit the sweetspot.
It definately takes a while to get used to it. Keep it up!!
Hi Peter and Ryu,
Thank you for that assistance. Two more for my catalogue.
I really appreciate the detailed indicators Peter.
Can anyone recommend a reference book or site to help me?
Cheers
Denis.
Hi Guys,
A couple of shots of the White-plumed Honeyeater from day 2 of the Tamron test that I didn't think were worth sharing at first, but I've reconsidered.
Very tricky shots in deep shadow and blue sky in the background.
Cheers,
Denis.
BTW I have my own Tamron now. and a better tripod.
you should look for a field guide, I like CSIRO publishing and search on bird field guide - http://www.publish.csiro.au/index.cfm
the newest is Pizzey & Knight and is very comprehensive
the 2nd newest is Simpson & Day is a v good and the best for sus-species
there are also photographic field guides and the newest is Campbell, Woods & Leseberg
there are aslo the app - Morecombe & Stewart (the original & the one I use) and Pizzey
I have read that the sounds in M&S are better than Pizzey
please PM if you want further detail
Peter