Gotcha! Regent Bowerbirds in flight

[Finch]

Hi all

Mark (Slider) and I spent a great day at O'Reilly's Rainforest Retreat in south-east Qld yesterday, photographing birds in flight, mainly concentrating on the Regent Bowerbirds.

Here's a few:









Cheers

[ATJ]

Great timing in the shots, Michael. It is just a pity they aren't a little sharper, especially around the eyes. I guess at f/3.2 & f/1.4 there isn't going to be a lot of DOF.

[olrac]

Number one is the standout for me.

I love the way the bird seems to be looking at me....

[sirhc55]

What can one say but, wow, wow and wow

[radar]

Great captures, birds in flight are not easy.

What was the setup to capture these? Looks like they were fairly close or are they cropped much?

Thanks

André

[Matt. K]

Unique and valuable. One day there will not be any of these birds left....but the images will remind future generations of mankinds destructive powers.

[Finch]

Thanks for those that have replied with positive comments. Here's a couple of replies to questions:

ATJ - it was a choice between lower shutter (and therefore more blurry), higher ISO (more noise) or lower aperture. Last one is just a tad soft on eyes but first two are quite good

Radar - we had the birds flying towards us and we took numerous continuous shutter shots (both used Nikon D200s). We prefocused on a point, reset to manual and as birds flew in we clicked like mad. This was a very difficult shoot indeed with lots of failures from us both but the winners were worth it.

Cheers

[sunnylass]

I would be incredibly proud if these images were my work! What gorgeous birds, I've only ever been up that way once or twice and now I'm hankering to get up there again.

If anyone is organising another outing, please, please, please let me know and I might be able to tag along. I promise I'll try not to chatter too much.

[the foto fanatic]

As we have seen in another thread, photographing birds on the wing is no easy task. Couple that with the available light in a rainforest environment, and you have a substantial degree of difficulty.

Gorgeous bird, great pix.

[lukeo]

I'm impressed, thanks for sharing few appreciate how truly difficult it is to capture anything wild in the viewfinder let alone birds...

[BT*ist]

Great shots - particularly the first, love the pose and the 'attitude'.

[robert]

Love the colours on the top of the head, amazing stuff.
I've been to O'reilly's 3 times and never saw one.
Robert

[Chad]

Great captures Michael. 'Wish I had had that 'in flight' success when I was there a while back, still, my 'stills' are nice. 'Gotta say that the Regent captures are the only RAW images I've ever felt the need to desaturate out of the camera, such are their brilliant colours.

[Finch]

Thanks guys.

Yes, this was a very difficult shoot and Mark (Slider) and I used all of our combined photographic knowledge, resources, gear and patience in order to capture a few decent ones.

Lot's of fun, that's for sure

Cheers