This is for the birds....!!

[Barry Johnston]

I visited a local birding sanctuary in Victoria a couple of days ago, and managed to get these shots. I am new to the 400 2.8, and the heavy beast that it is makes it really hard to hand hold at any time. Never the less, I was happy with the outcome of some of these as it was my first time shooting birds of any sort.

Camera: 1D MkII N + EF 400 f/2.8 L IS USM with monopod

1/800s f/4.5 at 400.0mm iso640

1/320s f/8.0 at 400.0mm iso800

1/250s f/5.6 at 400.0mm iso800

1/1600s f/8.0 at 400.0mm iso800

I have a few more, which I will post later.... for now, it's been a long Christmas Day !!

Regards,
Barry.

 

[Don Cohen]

Excellent images, especially considering these are your first bird images.

The 400/f2.8 IS is quite a nice Christmas present. You must have been really good this year!

Best,

 

[Barry Johnston]

A few more....

Here are a few more I took from the same place...

1/250s f/7.1 at 400.0mm iso800

1/250s f/5.6 at 400.0mm iso800

1/1250s f/4.5 at 400.0mm iso800

1/60s f/9.0 at 400.0mm iso800

Regards,
Barry.

 

[Asher Kelman]

These images are great and a pleasure to look at.

The pictures are actually wonderful and show no evidence of any restrictions to the birds themselves. I like the bokeh.

Some points:

Choice of Aperture: I do have some questions about your thinking in terms of aperture since you vary a lot.

For my own interest, thinking of the weight factor, it seems one would do as well with a lighter f 5.6 lens. In any case I'm jealous for that lens of your stellar white magic lens.

Processing: Did you do much photoshop work on the images? It seems that they might have an impressive reserve of detail and dimensionality to deliver. I looked at the second picture with a curve 226 outputted to 243, 129 outputted to 214, 108 to 157 and then 49 to 44.

It took well to the very simple unsharp mask 184% with 0.3 pixels and a threshold of 2.

Illumination: Do you ever use flash and if so do you have an extender like Better Beamer™.

Barry, your work shows the great resources avaialble near to urban areas for people interested in bird photography. We just have to take advantage of them.

Thanks for sharing.

Asher

 

[Rachel Foster]

Lovely! Lenses and skill can make a big difference!

Now, for the Chutzpah of the year award: I wish the first had the little guy's entire tail in the frame. Oh, one more thing: I wish I took shots like that! HAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaa!

 

[Barry Johnston]

For the Birds...

Thanks Rachel,

Yes, you are right, I did miss the tail of the owl. It is unfortunate, but he was only still for only a few seconds. A more experienced photographer than I would have probably been quicker off the mark and been able to get the shot, but as it was, the owl sat very close to me, and I would have had to take a few steps back in order to get the tail. By the time I could have done that, he flew away... a shame !!

Thanks Asher,

I personally do have a few problems with the birds. Firstly, some of them are ringed. To me this is a sign that a bird is actually restricted which I don't like.

It was a miserable day (very cloudy, raining and then sun) and I had to use a high ISO in order to achieve a reasonable shutter speed. The light was constantly changing and I was adjusting shutter and aperture most of the time.
It occurred to me that I may have been better of with the 5.6 lens primarily because the DoF up to 2.8 is incredibly shallow, and as you commented on the weight factor, it would have been easier to carry it around. I am also still coming to terms with the 1D after using Minolta for so many years, I often push or turn the wrong button, but I'm slowly bending her into shape to see things my way... ;-)

I did have a flash bolted to the camera the whole day, but not every shot was taken with flash. I am not familiar with Better Beamer either, can you tell me a little ablout it please.

I didn't do any PP work other than cropping really, in some of the photos I may have reduced the brightness by 1/3 stop; and I don't really like to 'sharpen' images in PP as my primary objective is to get it right in the camera if possible.

Hi Don,

Many Thanks for your comment.... and yes, I was a very good boy this year...., but maybe not good enough to deserve a lens like this !! just lucky I guess .... ;-)

Regards,
Barry.

 

[John Harper]

I did have a flash bolted to the camera the whole day, but not every shot was taken with flash. I am not familiar with Better Beamer either, can you tell me a little ablout it please.

Hi Barry

Info on the "Better Beamer" can be found here It basically extends the range of your flashgun by using a fresnel screen and a lot of bird & wildlife photographers swear by them.

John

 

[David A. Goldfarb]

I personally do have a few problems with the birds. Firstly, some of them are ringed. To me this is a sign that a bird is actually restricted which I don't like.

It depends. Legally captive birds and pets should always be banded, but wild birds may also be banded for the purpose of studying migration patterns, population growth or decline, feeding patterns, and other things. If you find a dead bird that has been banded, or if you get a good enough view of a live bird in the wild to read the band (not easy), you can call your national birding society (such as the Audubon Society in the US--I'm not sure what it is in Australia) and report the number and location. From the number and kinds of shots you have from a single day's shoot, you probably have a mix of captive, resident, and migratory birds in there. The captive birds at a non-commercial bird sanctuary tend to be birds that were injured and are unable to return to the wild.

 

[Don Cohen]

I didn't do any PP work other than cropping really, in some of the photos I may have reduced the brightness by 1/3 stop; and I don't really like to 'sharpen' images in PP as my primary objective is to get it right in the camera if possible.

While the goal of getting it "right in the camera" is perfectly legitimate and desireable, this doesn't eliminate the need for appropriate post-processing, which includes sharpening. It is the nature of the beast with digital imaging that the data has to be manipulated at some point in the process. Whether we're talking about white balance, saturation, contrast, sharpening, etc., the data is being massaged at various steps in the path from what you see through your viewfinder to what you see on the camera's LCD, your computer monitor, or ultimately, a print.

For example, if you are shooting Jpeg, the camera is already applying a certain amount of sharpening, using an algorith and amount that is specified partly by the camera, and partly by your settings. If you're shooting Raw, then the camera does minimal processing, and it's up to you to do the conversion from Raw, and sharpening is part of that process.

I am a strong advocate of shooting in Raw format, as it puts the photographer in control of the entire process, allowing him/her to achieve the best results possible. There are different Raw converters out there, and a wide variety of tools and techniques in Photoshop or other editor, and decisions need to make that will effect the output every step of the way.

So once again, even if you've achieved perfect focus in the camera does not eliminate the need for appropriate sharpening in the post-processing stage if you're shooting Raw, or in choosing how much sharpening to let the camera do if you're shooting Jpeg.

Too many words, but hopefully you get what I'm saying here.

Best,

 

[Rachel Foster]

Raw is intriguing but I found it takes a ton of memory on the CF card.

 

[Don Cohen]

Raw is intriguing but I found it takes a ton of memory on the CF card.

True, Rachel, but it's quite worth it (IMO). Fortunately, memory costs have dropped incredibly in the last year or so. I paid well over $200 for my first 1gb IBM MicroDrive when I started shooting Raw with my Canon D30 a number of years ago.

Check out this page on my website, where I try and define the benefits of working with Raw:

http://www.dlcphoto.com/RawFormatWorkflow/RawFormatWorkflow.htm

It does take more storage space, and some additional learning and tools, but again IMO it will enable you to get the absolute best image quality. And once you've gotten used to it, it's really quite quick and convenient.

 

[Rachel Foster]

I'm already a convert on the benefits, just the costs are still bothering me. I'll go back to some old raw files and fiddle a bit.