Someone say DUCK!!!

[BBJ]

Hi all , ok went for a spin up the lakes today to kill some time and took the Nikon 300m F2.8. Was a horible yucky day but not as hot as yesterday so i had a walk and well seen a red bellied black snake stalking one of them water fowls and was hoping he would pop his head out and have a go in the open instead of being in the rushes on the edge of the water and i was on a walking platform other wise i would be out of there and he disapeered.
Well here is a couple of duck and a Wren i believe.




I have a lot of respect for bird photographers, cos it's bloody hard.
Cheers
John
BBJ

[samester]

nice sharp capture for all three - i like em

not a fan of the white borders in #2 and #3 however, would look much better with a black border imho.

cheers

[pharmer]

#1 is nice - good colour and sharpness

#2 - too OOF for my tastes - the top duck is very distracting

#3 - head and eyes are soft, kind of spoils it

I agree, bird photography very trying

[avkomp]

it sure is hard work.

they can and do just fly away, even if you dont do anything to cause it!!

1 looks the sharpest here.
this would have been a great shot if the duck would have done that facing the camera. these are black ducks BTW.

3 looks soft around the head as does the tail. Fairy wrens and other small birds often move heads and tails without warning.
not sure if the softness is caused by this or narrow DOF. the neck seems to be the focus point.

This shot needs to have the bird facing towards camera. and the eye has to be sharp

I only have a few sharp shots of fairy wrens after many efforts at getting them.
The one I have which takes the fullest amount of frame is looking directly away from me. he was facing me perfectly but in between the time I decided to shoot and the camera completed the exposure he managed to perform a complete 180. I was annoyed but did get other shots that day which I really liked. I kept the moon shot also. although I never posted it anywhere.

until you photograph wrens you just dont realise just how small they are.

Steve

[BBJ]

Thanks All, yeh these were just snaps out of a few i took but yeh it is very hard as the wren was all over the place and had people walking past as well so he was just jumping everywhere and the front shots i did get of hum had branches over him.

The ducks were just sitting there so after awhile i just scared them of to try some flying shots but also hard and not a nice day for it anyhow but killed an hour or so, thanks for the coments.

[Finch]

Having been a bird photography specialist for a number of years, I have to admit that photographing birds is very, very trying indeed (most of the time). You certainly need infinite patience and correct technique before you even get a look in.

Steve (Avkomp) pretty much summed up what I was going to say as well - bird needs to face camera, sharp eyes, DOF correct etc, etc.

Good attempt and look forward to more shots

Cheers

Michael

[BBJ]

Michael, i think i will stick to my motor sport.LOL I was going to go up the day before while it was sunny and use the convertor so would give me 600m but yeh it was gloomy overcast and not 32 degee's, spent more time watching the snake the had a foot or so of his body exposed and a water fowl very close to him so thought i might see some action but none, but i will try again another day not that we see a lot of birds there as there are lots of people and some noisey ones as well.

[avkomp]

the light looks quite nice in these shots.

nothing worse than bright sun for this sort of thing.

Steve

[petermmc]

I am a big fan of the 'Elusive Blue Wren' one of which taunts me every day in the back yard. You could have asked him/her to face you when you are pointing such a great lens but birds are like that.

That second shot is brilliant.

I get both wood ducks and wrens in my backyard in the Gong. They get around.

Peter Mc