Birds... A Couple More From Monday's Shoot

[jprzybyla]

I captured these at the nature reserve that is close to home and where my wife and I spend most of out time. The day was heavy overcast, flat light but it did allow shooting almost everywhere with little worry about colors blowing out. C&C welcomed and appreciated. Thank you for viewing.

Snowy Egret fishing...



Tri-colored Heron strutting...

#1



#2

[pinakibaidya]

Excellent bird shots Joe.Thanks for sharing.I am still struggling to get beautiful shots of herons etc.My 55-300mm nikkor falls short for the distance. Joe, any tips for beginners like me?

[SilverYeou]

Amazing shots! I also have some problems shooting birds, but I guess having the right place to go could also helps wonders.
Post some more and give us some tips if you have the time, please!

[Downrigger]

I'm with Lu. A couple hints on how you achieved these would be much appreciated. These are spectacular. Really fine - a sense of precision somehow - helped I think by the flat neutral background.

[kaneohebud]

Joe:
Beautiful as always! You've got birds down pat. Beautiful colors and feather detail.

[jprzybyla]

Excellent bird shots Joe.Thanks for sharing.I am still struggling to get beautiful shots of herons etc.My 55-300mm nikkor falls short for the distance. Joe, any tips for beginners like me?

Hello Pinaki, I shot most of my images with the 55-300mm, only recently have I upgraded to the 70-300mm. The best advice I can give is to get as close as possible to the birds. I go to a nature reserve where the resident birds are accustomed to seeing people. By waiting patiently they act naturally. These were shot at a distance of thirty to forty feet. The more one can fill the frame, the less an image is cropped the better detail in the final image. I still shoot images that I know will be cropped more than I would like. On those images I a careful how I trigger the shutter, I try not to jab it. Also I shoot with a high shutter speed to eliminate any motion in the subject or that I might make when capturing the image. A normal rule of thumb is the mm or the lens times the crop factor of the camera sensor. In my case that is: 300 x 1.5 = 450, so I use a shutter speed of 500 or higher for stationary birds. I use 2500 or higher for flying birds.

[jprzybyla]

Amazing shots! I also have some problems shooting birds, but I guess having the right place to go could also helps wonders.
Post some more and give us some tips if you have the time, please!

Hello Lu, having the right spot definitely helps. Try to find areas where the birds are accustomed to seeing people. See my response to Pinaki above for tips.

[jprzybyla]

I'm with Lu. A couple hints on how you achieved these would be much appreciated. These are spectacular. Really fine - a sense of precision somehow - helped I think by the flat neutral background.

Hello Mark, see my responses above for tips. To get that background I had to do some work in Photoshop Elements cleaning a few things up. Knowing how to use the post processing software can make a world of difference in the final image.

[jprzybyla]

Joe:
Beautiful as always! You've got birds down pat. Beautiful colors and feather detail.

Thanks Bud, I appreciate you taking time to view and comment.

[Suzan J]

Hi Joe: These are stunning shots, as usual. The overcast day sure enhanced the colours. Everything looks lush and sharp!

[Cantab]

Joe, thanks for again posting your recent bird shots. My favourite in this group is probably the snowy egret with its bright yellow feet.

[Bobobird]

Another great set of shots. Nicely done.

[jprzybyla]

Hi Joe: These are stunning shots, as usual. The overcast day sure enhanced the colours. Everything looks lush and sharp!

Hello Suzan, thank you for viewing and commenting. Yes to overcast, that means I can shoot almost everywhere.

[jprzybyla]

Joe, thanks for again posting your recent bird shots. My favourite in this group is probably the snowy egret with its bright yellow feet.

Thanks Bruce, your comment is very much appreciated.

[jprzybyla]

Another great set of shots. Nicely done.

Thanks Bobo, haven't noticed you posting in a while... hoping all is well.

[rudi]

Hi Joe,
Very nice shots as usual..
In nr 3 I would be tempted to crop it. For sure you thought off this, and possibly not what you had in mind, but I couldn't resist.
My try included. I hope you don't mind, iff so I remove it.
Kind regards,
Rudi

[pinakibaidya]

Thank you Joe for your valuable advice. What kind of metering do you use spot or centre weighted? I also followed your technique but whenever I crank up ISO to say to 1000 it looks nice initially but after cropping or slight sharpening grain appears and quality degrades. This specially happens in case of white birds. Someday I shall post those Heron pics. Am I going with wrong exposure? I don't know whether you use exposure compensation or not!

[jprzybyla]

Hi Joe,
Very nice shots as usual..
In nr 3 I would be tempted to crop it. For sure you thought off this, and possibly not what you had in mind, but I couldn't resist.
My try included. I hope you don't mind, iff so I remove it.
Kind regards,
Rudi

Hello Rudi, thank you for viewing and commenting. Your crop shows off the bird nicely. I did not use it because looking at other bird photographers websites (especially those with large telephoto lenses) the square crop with the bird is common. I like to use reflections whenever possible and to show the environment around the bird. I tried to do that with my crop. Thanks for taking time to explore the image.

[jprzybyla]

Thank you Joe for your valuable advice. What kind of metering do you use spot or centre weighted? I also followed your technique but whenever I crank up ISO to say to 1000 it looks nice initially but after cropping or slight sharpening grain appears and quality degrades. This specially happens in case of white birds. Someday I shall post those Heron pics. Am I going with wrong exposure? I don't know whether you use exposure compensation or not!

Hello Pinaki, regarding the metering I almost exclusively use Nikon's matrix metering, once in a while I use spot metering off the bird to have a choice. Nikon in the menu has one for ISO Sensitivity, I have that set for a minimum ISO of 100 (some cameras only go down to 200) and a maximum ISO of 3200. I have the minimum shutter speed set at 500. This way I know that when using Aperture Priority all shutter speeds will be 500 or faster. I have Shutter Priority set at a shutter speed of 2500. Maybe a little fast for slow moving birds but with faster birds it works well when they are flying. When shooting flying birds I do not use Shutter Priority because it always uses 5.6 for an aperture. I use M for manual because that will use the shutter speed of 2500 and the aperture of f8 for a little more depth of field. I try to turn the DSLR as much as possible into a $1000 point and shoot camera because sometimes things with birds happens quickly. The rest I do in post processing. The grain you mention is noise in digital photography. The images above had some, it was a dark overcast morning. Most times I use a software which is an add on to Photosphop Elements called Neat Image. Once familiar with it the noise is removed nicely without much loss of detail. I normally sharpen my images in Lightroom, amount set to 55, radius set to 1, detail set to 25, and the masking set to what looks right for a particular image. If I know I will be doing noise reduction I up the amount to 75 to counteract the slight softening of the image. If the light is bright enough noise should not be a problem, there may be some in the shadows but that is easily handled with the Adjustment Brush in Lightroom working just the shadows. Hoping this helps.

[pinakibaidya]

Thank you very much Joe for sharing such beautiful tips . I am sure your tips will help many beginners who want to develop skills for bird photography.