Thought you might like to see my last Malachite Kingfisher. Taken with A700, Sigma 500mm F4.5 and 1.4x TC

I have had two opportunities to capture images of those...blew it both times.
Nice, image; thanks for sharing it.

tremendous colors and nice blurred background. There is no such bird here in Germany, the local species does not sport those glowing colors

Thx for sharing - Markus

I wish we had birds here that colourfull nice job capturing it too!

Great shot, thanks for sharing.

Thanks for your positive comments guys. These are pretty scarce in most places in South Africa and are in fact quite small birds, only about 2 inches high. We have some very colourful birds over here, this one being my absolute favourite.

Hi and thanks for sharing!

I love small birds, and when they are coloured with the 'rainbow' like this kingfisher, I love them all the more so. Hardly anything to see in Istanbul.
And I am amazed how neatly sharp this photo is with each feather showing distictively. You must be good with this lens of long range, hard to keep under control or is it not? I wish to shoot birds too, and I really would like to know...

Thanks again,
Yildiz

If you have a zoo park, then it would be a great idea to begin from there. Personally, I visit a lot our zoo.
Give it a go Yildiz.

Shoot, my wife just got a raise...I think we'll go to the zoo as well!

We do have specially reserved parks and regions for animals and birds, it will take a whole day out of a weekend to visit any of them as they are situated outside Istanbul naturally. I strained my wrist today which hurts and makes lifting difficult, so it won't be this weekend unfortunately.. But definitely have it on my agenda.
Thanks for the encouragement Dr. Harout.

Yildiz

ps. I also think maybe I should purchase a 70-300G before I go any animal/bird shooting for good range and sharp images, but David wrote that the 70-300G will be no good with A900. Maybe I'll go your way and buy a more reasonably-priced lens in the mean time until all is tried and sorted out with the new Sony lenses that work nicely with the A900.

So you already made up your mind concerning A900. And you did the right choice. I was going to buy the 70-300 G, but stopped doing so. Let's see further results.

Yes, it would be better to wait and hear/read about the lenses that will use the full benefits of a full frame body like A900. The 70-300G seems to be problematic on the edges of the frame...With the newly developing bodies in Sony's renovation/innovation department we might get new cameras that may make the purchase of a 70-300G worthwhile still. So to me, it's 'wait a little for the right decisions' time... Haste may make waste and we can't go lens-buying every other day, can we? Because I can't...

Yildiz

ps.The new lenses plus the newly-arrived batches of the the old Sony lenses already showing up in Istanbul Sony Stores and at other camera retailers' is a good sign though. It won't be difficult to decide and pick one out when the time's right..

Thank you Yildiz, Avian photography is difficult enough most of the times, and when you don't have the subjects to photograph, then I can just imagine! It is not an easy aspect of photography, requires plenty of patience. This photograph took about 4 hours of waiting and hoping that the bird would appear. And when it did, it was only there for literally 1 minute. I managed to get 3 pictures of it, and then it was gone. To get the image sharp, you need to have an absolute steady rest, good lens, high enough shutter speed and enough light. I use a 500mm lens for most of my birds because anything less than this is not long enough because the birds are very very seldom ever near. Actually for this pic, I also used a 1.4x TC.

Dr H has a good suggestion to visit your zoo, but make sure then that you have a very shallow DOF so that you don't get any cages or unnatural things in the image. We have some zoo's over here, but we prefer the natural wildlife. We sometimes have to drive far, but always worth it.

It also not neccessary to go far to get some interesting subject in flight. This bee was taken in my garden with a 105mm macro lens.

Thank you Robbie,

I'll copy/paste this piece of information you've supplied into my 'new camera purchase to-beconsidered list'. Good to know all aspects of wild life photography and its demand on the photographer. Patience in all respects it seems...

It was hard enough to photograph a 5mm-ant on a balcony flower of mine while still on the move with my macro lens (Tamron 90mm F2.8 ) that, I can definitely imagine awaiting for a bird that may never show up at all. Definitely a pursuit of patience regarding each detail of the shoot.

I appreciate your input and thoughts and that bee is truly loaded with beautiful details...

Thanks again,
Yildiz

Robbie,

this picture is gorgeous... brilliant colours, nice composition, everything right.
Next to showing your excellent skills, it makes a very good plea for the lens you used... I am just not that patient.

Thanks for posting, still the best reason for visiting sites like this one is the chance to see this kind of pictures.

Cheers

Jonathan