Project 52 by Kerry S

[kezmal]

Thanks so much Dave, I saw that the other day and wondered how I would fix that Thanks for the feedback. Now to get Mal to post his photos

[kezmal]

I think I'm behind, so I need to get my act together. However, moving house just doesnt give me the luxury of taking photos at the moment - although perhaps next week could be the tower of packing boxes piled up in my living room???

So Jazzie and I had a few minutes together outside taking Bug photos, she was teaching me!!!!! My 6yo was showing me how to find Bugs LOL.

These are the best of a bad bunch, I swear doing macro is like being at the rifle range. Get your aim, settle your breathing, slowly press the trigger and hope to hit the target!

[Donald]

Is it responsible for all the damage on the leaves we can see? If so, I think I'd be trying to shoot it with something other than a camera and get out that rifle that you were thinking about!

But it does throw a good pose when the camera is on it.

[kezmal]

It sure is Donald And there is a whole family of them in our garden. Its okay, there is plenty of garden for them.

[Goldcoastgolfer]

So Jazzie and I had a few minutes together outside taking Bug photos, she was teaching me!!!!! My 6yo was showing me how to find Bugs LOL.

These are the best of a bad bunch, I swear doing macro is like being at the rifle range. Get your aim, settle your breathing, slowly press the trigger and hope to hit the target!

Jazzy is officially our expert bug finder now I find that macro bug shooting is exactly like being at a rifle range. I think people refer to it as focus breathing but when doing this photos by hand, I think a lot of people don't realise exactly how difficult it is to get the focus and lighting spot on... especially when your subjects move!

[Geoff F]

So Jazzie and I had a few minutes together outside taking Bug photos, she was teaching me!!!!! My 6yo was showing me how to find Bugs LOL.

These are the best of a bad bunch, I swear doing macro is like being at the rifle range. Get your aim, settle your breathing, slowly press the trigger and hope to hit the target!

You've forgotten check shutter speed and aperture, plus flash compensation to suit each scene. Then slide tripod closer. And you only have two seconds before the bug flies away.

Plus, if you want to achieve a positive identification of the target. Search the 'portable database' to recover information about which parts of the target need to be in sharp focus and clearly visible to separate that individual from all of it's lookalike cousins.

But great fun - if you don't go mad.

I mentioned once before about being perfectly lined up on a fly but waiting to get the critical angle and finding myself saying 'Come on you little minx, show me your hind femur'!

[kezmal]

Well Mal and I are finally back online - the phone company took 3 weeks to connect the broadband
We are now living in the beautiful Currumbin Valley on 1.5acres, we have adopted some beautiful birds LOL...I'm hooked, and have found myself at the Pet Shop purchasing the proper food for these gorgeous birds. Mr Kookaburra has expensive taste and only likes raw minced meat and chicken, the Lorikeets have a specially made Nectar (it smells like powdered milk), and I also feed them a wild bird seed mix. We also have Crested Pigeons, Magpie-Larks that insist on flying into the windows?? Grey Butcher Birds, Noisy Minors and many more. Its great, I've never been so fascinated by bird life before LOL.









That took me so long to upload, sheesh, I'm 5mins out of the CBD, I might as well be on top of Ayers Rock for the amount of time that took to upload 4 photos.

[oldgreygary]

Really nice shots Kerry. Although the parakeets(?) are the more colourful the 1st shot is for me the standout.

Cheers for now

Gary

[Donald]

Well Mal and I are finally back online - the phone company took 3 weeks to connect the

Welcome home.

I didn't know you guys were moving. I hope it wasn't too stressful. Anyway, great to have you back up and running, even if the broadband connection is a bit on the slow side.

If these are the neighbours, then you have a wonderful ready-made set of models with whom, I'm sure, you can spends hours and hours and hours. Gorgeous birds.

[kezmal]

Thanks so much Gary and Donald. I definitely need to improve on my 'bird' photography, I'm just not a stealth photographer. However the birds are getting to the stage that they are more interested in the food than me now, so I'm hoping to get a lot of practice in. Gary the colourful birds are Red Necked Lorikeets

[kezmal]

Oh forgot to mention that these are untouched, I only cropped the photos slightly. Those colours are all theirs

[Goldcoastgolfer]

You beat me to it! My photos from the other day didn't come out very well either. Good thing they're visiting everyday now though

[dje]

I'm envious of your new environment Kerry. Nice shots of the birds, the Kooka certainly has a nice pose. I remember as a kid visiting the Currumbin Bird Sanctuary for the daily feeding of the Lorikeets.

Keep shooting
Dave

[Goldcoastgolfer]

We just live down the road from Currumbin Bird Sanctuary. Feel free to swing by sometime Dave - feeding times here are 630am and 4pm

[Donald]

We just live down the road from Currumbin Bird Sanctuary. Feel free to swing by sometime Dave - feeding times here are 630am and 4pm

Is that at the bird sanctuary or in the new Schulstad family home?

[kezmal]

Is that at the bird sanctuary or in the new Schulstad family home?

LOL, at the Schulstad family home and the feeding times are not so early - they see me coming generally around 7 to 7.30am. They sit in the trees waiting for me to come out, they're quite patient.

[Donald]

LOL, at the Schulstad family home and the feeding times are not so early - they see me coming generally around 7 to 7.30am. They sit in the trees waiting for me to come out, they're quite patient.

Oh, the birds. I'm glad to here that. I thought Mal was telling Dave when to arrive so that he'd get fed. I thought, "Gee, they're pretty disciplined".

[dje]

Oh, the birds. I'm glad to here that. I thought Mal was telling Dave when to arrive so that he'd get fed. I thought, "Gee, they're pretty disciplined".

Yes I was looking forward to a good feed !!

Dave

[Wendy Stanford]

Hi Kerry, great to see you are up and running again.
great shots, the kookaburra is well framed, nice DOF with good focus on the eye.
The lorikeets have great colour, very busy birds, looks like you have made friends.

[Dave Humphries]

Hi Kerry,

Glad you and Mal are back on line again - and what has Jazz been up to?

~ I definitely need to improve on my 'bird' photography, I'm just not a stealth photographer. However the birds are getting to the stage that they are more interested in the food than me now, so I'm hoping to get a lot of practice in.~

Looking at the EXIF on a couple of these bird shots, one piece of advice would be to get the shutter speed higher than 1/60s to give sharper birds.

The Kooka was shot at 100 iso - I'd make it iso 400 on a sunny day and iso 800-1600 on a dull day here in UK (short for yuk, usually a description of the weather).

Looking forward to more in due course.

Cheers,