Birds 2013

[Birma]

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[mvanrheenen]

Wowser Mark! Those are some cracking shots. Lovely detail in all of them. I like the second one especially, probably because I am such a sucker for great bokeh . I have sent you a contact message on Flickr. I think you will find the Doc, KB, John, Caporip and several others have a presence there. (Great for sharing pictures, but I prefer the discussion here .)

Thank you Andy!

I like Flickr because it offers an easier interface and integration than PBase does.

Mark

[sury]

Great shots there Mark. You are a Master.

Sury

[sury]

Aha, Sury, you are getting accustomed to whatchamacallit...
Nice catches. But still, you have to clean the sensor.

Thank you Doc. My sensor needs some serious cleaning. I am trying convince the
missus that it may be better to get a new sensor like A99.
It will go to camera shop for cleaning this week. It is long over due.

Sury

[mvanrheenen]

Great shots there Mark. You are a Master.

Sury

Not by a longshot, but thank you for the huge compliment!

Mark

[sury]

Here is another one....



DSC36528cropshrp by BigSury, on Flickr

[Dr. Harout]

... I am trying convince the
missus that it may be better to get a new sensor like A99.
It will go to camera shop for cleaning this week. It is long over due.

Sury

... and return with an a99...
You're on the right path my find.
BTW, your shots are really getting better and better. And along with Mark's superb bird shots, I'm just holding myself to buy a 70-400 (I know, I know, it's not the camera and/or lens, it's the man behind them... ).
And Mark, what are your main processing steps, I would really like to learn.

[mvanrheenen]

And Mark, what are your main processing steps, I would really like to learn.

Don't know if you will learn anything from me Doc, but I'll try to describe the steps I follow.

My style of shooting (walking around and shooting everything I can get close to) leaves me without much time to worry about setting up my camera. I always shoot in Aperture priority mode and use EV or flash to compensate (depending on the conditions). The most important thing with wildlife, using telelenses and my style of shooting (monopod or handheld) is shutterspeed. I've learned this the hard way and will gladly bump up ISO, even to 3200, to get a minimum shutterspeed of 1,5 times the focal length of the lens I use. Also, I try to shoot 1 stop from wide open to increase sharpness. I have the 70-300G as well as the 70-400G and the first needs it more than the latter. Also I use continious shooting drive mode. I tend to stress the buffer of my a580 to the fullest and average at 200-300 shots in about 2 hours, all in RAW of course.

For processing I begin with selecting the best shots obviously. I import them in Lightroom and delete every shot I don't like. I usually bin about 50-75% of the shots as I have lots of doubles and are getting more critical by the day it seems

After that, I tackle the following in order in Lightroom:

Lens corrections and troubleshooting CA etc.
WB - sometimes a bit tough to correct to my liking
Shadows - if needed I try to recover some details from the shadows. In my own country I mostly shoot in diffuse lighting conditions, but in sunny countries I need this slider if I don't have my flash with me for fill or if it doesn't outflash the bright sun.
Highlights - for those sunny days abroad and to recover some fine details in white plumage. I use this one in care.
Contrast - most important slider as far as I'm concerned. Increasing contrast a little can boost the pop of colours a lot. I almost always use it, especially if I shoot in my country (diffuse light tends to leave me with flat colors). (never more than 20)
Vibrance - I sometime use it to boost the colors a bit more if the contrastboost didn't have the effect I wanted (never more than 10)
Saturation - Only very low levels sometimes (between 2 and 4)

After this, I tend to cropping. The thing is that I usually don't have very much time to compose in the field with my style of shooting. So I tend to do the composition as best as I can in the field and correct it afterwards. Sometimes I use PS to get distractions out of my image, but I'm not very skilled with it, so don't use it that much.

Last, I use the noise controls in LR to get rid of most of the noise from the high ISO shots and sharpen the image if needed (which is most of the time ), but not more than 40. After this, I export the image and will sharpen it for screen or print. If I use it on the web, I resize it to 6 megapixels to save up some space online. For print, I don't resize.

That's about it. Hope it helps you a bit Doc.

About the 70-400G - it's a great lens for sure, but the 70-300G is great too. I know you own a copy. As I mentioned above, the 70-300G needs a bit more stopping down in my opinion, but it's great too. I tend to use the 70-400G only when I'm not going walking for more than 4 hours because of the weight of it (1500 grams). The 100 mm extra seem great at first but if you are like me, it'll soon be to short too

Still dreaming about a 500 or 600mm lens... keep on dreaming

Mark

[sury]

Mark,
I am with you on that 400 sometimes being too short. In fact, I am tempted to take the 200-500 Tammy
with 1.4x converter and A700 and give it a try. Thanks for the process information. I have been doing
so minimal tweak, it is not worth talking about it.


Sury

[mvanrheenen]

Well sury, even if we had 800mm lenses, they would become too short somewhere along the way. As will we because of the weight of those beasts

Mark

[Dr. Harout]

Thanks Mark. It does help.

[mvanrheenen]

You are most welcome Doc!

[david antony]

Choc full of remarkable shots guy's.

Goose from today, put the other two geese in Asters Challanege

[Greg Beetham]

Some great shots there Mark, it makes the effort all seem worthwhile to get some really good ones.

That was a good whatchamacallit BIF Sury.

Neat Goose DA.
Greg

[mvanrheenen]

Thanks Greg.

That's a nice specimen of a Canada Goose (Branta canadensis) David. They're still here in large numbers to preparing for the next migration.

Mark