Bird Photography

[Isonychia 0]

The details on the eagle are excellent. Is that a wild bird?

 

It was -- at one time! At the time I photographed it, though, it was sitting on the gloved fist of our local Avian Center's executive director. It had been injured in a talon-locking maneuver with another eagle, and was on death's door when taken to the center. The folks at the center nursed it back to health. I shot the photo as part of a newspaper feature story on the bird's rehabilitation. I was a whopping six feet away when I took the photo.

 

Hey, remember the outdoor photographer's credo: "f/8 and be there!"

 

John

[kargen 0]

I have a photo simular to the golden eagle. Mine was taken at a demonstration sitting on its trainers glove. Somewhere I have some photos of a falcon hitting a moving target being swung around the trainers head. When I have time I'll look for them. They are slides so I will have to scan them, but need to do it anyway.

 

 

 

 

I used the photo to create this banner while doing a tutorial with photoshop.

 

 

I'm tossing in this Owl because it was on the same page as the Eagle. I saw it along side the road in SE Colorada and pulled over and walked back to get the photo. Just as I was getting close enough to shoot a truck went by and honked his horn for no #$@% reason. The owl flew and I was lucky to get one shot in focus as this was taken with a fully manual 35mm camera.

 

 

 

I have some other images on that page, just misc. stuff. If anybody wants to take a peak they are at.

 

http://home.earthlink.net/~kargen/

 

 

[kargen 0]

I have to tell on myself here. If anybody does look at the other photos the one taken at the Black Hole has some serious photoshop stuff done to it. I created all the clouds, lightened up some of the trees and brightened the highlights on the water.

[Graham 0]

I checked out your site, cool photos. And lots of snow!!! Wow..

[Frogfish 0]

Graham, what settings is your camera on for those amazing bird photos?!?!?

[Graham 0]

Hey Frogfish, thank you. I need to post some new pics here, got lots of new ones, but havent changed the file sizes for the internet and uploaded them yet. I set my camera for continuous shooting, but prefer 4 frames per second instead of 5. If the subject will fill the frame I use center weighted metering, but most of the bird shots use matrix (evaluative) metering. I have the custom menu set for continuous focus, set at release instead of lock.

 

I keep a close eye on the weather reports for optimal conditions for the lake I like to shoot birds at. South wind, but not a strong breeze, light haze or sunny, becasue the birds always take off and land facing the wind, like airplanes. I go either in the morning or late afternoon, and constantly keep an eye out for incoming birds, foucs on them seconds before pressing the shutter, then when the birds are close, press the shutter and keep it pressed and blast of about 20 frames. I can get that many frames when shooting RAW and JPEG, due to the write speed and memory buffer size. When shooting JPEG only I don't know yet if there is a limit before the buffer fills up and the camera stops shooting. I like to shoot RAW files. I shoot in shutter priority mode and adjust my iso to get fast enough shutter speeds. First thing I do is meter the water and go for 800 th/sec, knowing the speed will be higher when the lens is pointed at the sky. I have recently learned that I can tuen the VR off on my lens when shooting that fast of a shutter speed, and this saves lots of battery power. The one weird thing is, when using centerweighted metering I need to adjust the exposure higher for white birds, but, when using matrix, and need to decrease by .7 stops to keep the highlights from blowing out. I got a cool shot yesterday, a red winged black bird in a cherry tree in full blossom, the pinks, whites and black came out surprisingly well. I'm pretty good at bird whistling and the black bird stayed in the tree while I was shooting if from about 8 feet away. I have a lot of fun with bird photography. Sun and wind at my back makes it much easier and the pics turn out nice.

[Graham 0]

I kind of like this shot I took yesterday, a red winged backbird in a cherry tree. It was hard trying to figure out the exposure with black and white in the frame, and the sun was high in the sky and too bright.

 

 

I figured I could sneak one non-bird shot into this topic....

 

[Frogfish 0]

Here's some photos of Canadian geese that I took with a Kodak Easyshare Digi Camera.

 

 

 

I took some pictures of finches and grosbeaks with my Nikon N8008...Yes, the N8008! The film is developing, and I'll see if I can post the pictures tommorow.

 

I have a question, will the Nikkor Series Lenses work with any of the new Digital SLRs? Such as the 30D or D200?

[Frogfish 0]

One more thing, can anyone suggest a high-quality Digital SLR that is reasonably priced? Maybe around $600?

It will be used for outdoor phtotography.

 

The 30D is too expensive for me.

[Frogfish 0]

Taken with a Nikon N8008. The pics are a tad blurry because I was using the telephoto lense, w/o a monopod.

 

 

 

 

This counts as a bird, right? Macro!

 

[Frogfish 0]

A fleeting Mallard

 

[flyrod98 0]

I had just put a new Canon 70-300mm IS lens on my camera and went outside and spotted an eagle riding thermals over the small town in which I have lived most of my life. This is first time I have ever seen a bald eagle over town. This is one of my first pics with the lens and its hand held. I'm really looking forward to learning more about using this lens. I already found out I had the IS is the wrong mode for trying to pan a moving object.

[Carlin 0]

Nice shot of the eagle flyrod98, and nice lens! I just got the Canon 100-400L IS but I haven't had the chance to give it much of a workout yet. Hopefully I'll have the time this weekend.

[Graham 0]

Nice shots, and the eagle is MAGNIFICENT!!! Someday I'll get a shot at one.

 

I got a few new shots a couple of days ago, some new birds at the lake, some I'd never seen before. I need to get out my bird books and figure out what kind of geese and ducks these are... some of these birds were real shy, except for the mallard and Canadian goose, and I used a 300mm with a TC-14.

 

 

 

 

 

I think these are snow geese?

 

 

 

 

[Vito1 0]

Those are absolutely amazing, Graham! :headbang: Very impressive. Some of the best I've ever seen. :clapping:

 

Matt