Good for a Laugh, anyway

[jriepe]

sm, I've got over two years to scout out the area and I won't rush my decision. I'll start my scouting in the Chattanooga - Cleveland area. During the summer months when my daughter is out of school I can make several trips down there.

Jerry

Just wondered if maybe you knew someone in that area, or if you felt like your employment opportunities might be better there. There are definitely a lot of options--have fun checking them all out! There's really not a BAD choice of where to live in East TN...except maybe Cocke County...if anyone from Cocke County is reading this, sorry it's just a joke! Kinda...
If you're gonna get close to Knoxville on one of your trips, let me know and I'll try to at least give you some local places to check out.

I will probably drive on up to Knoxville and I'm not looking for employment since I retired in December of 2000.

Jerry

 

[sm4him]

So...any other thoughts on the photos? I seem to have derailed my own thread, but I *do* love to talk about my beautiful East Tennessee!

 

[cgipson1]

So...any other thoughts on the photos? I seem to have derailed my own thread, but I *do* love to talk about my beautiful East Tennessee!

I will be interested to see your results after you stop down a bit!

 

[Joel_W]

I've also had very little success with bird photography, other then geese, ducks, & Seagulls. Those little fellers are harder then heck to get close enough to for a decent shot without having to crop the heck out of the picture. Then one day I was out concentrating on fall foliage, and this little guy just lands right next to me. Go figure.


DSCN1162 by jaw101, on Flickr

 

[sm4him]

I've also had very little success with bird photography, other then geese, ducks, & Seagulls. Those little fellers are harder then heck to get close enough to for a decent shot without having to crop the heck out of the picture. Then one day I was out concentrating on fall foliage, and this little guy just lands right next to me. Go figure.


DSCN1162 by jaw101, on Flickr

Nicely done!

 

[sm4him]

So...any other thoughts on the photos? I seem to have derailed my own thread, but I *do* love to talk about my beautiful East Tennessee!

I will be interested to see your results after you stop down a bit!

I was SOO looking forward to getting out this morning and having another go at it...but the 33 degree (F) rain/sleet mix had most of the birds off hiding. I actually stood out there in the sleet/rain for about 10 minutes, but I had to keep the camera under my coat, and what very few birds I saw close enough to try to shoot, flew off by the time I could lift the camera up to my eye. After a few minutes, I was too cold and wet to care anymore.

Tomorrow is supposed to be pretty decent, so I'm determined to go bird-hunting in the morning and shoot something. In the meantime, I've been practicing on some uninteresting, inanimate objects in similar light conditions to get a feel for how far to stop down. I'm thinking f/8 looks to be about where I want to try.

 

[Thunder_o_b]

A good solid effort. Do you have a hot shoe mount flash? If so I highly recommend that you pick up one of these Visual Echoes FX2 Better Beamer for Canon 550EX, Nikon FX2 B&H But you can only use it at 300mm and up. I have had good resualts with mine.

EDIT: I never shoot birds with the tel zoom (never say never) wider than f/8.

 

[sm4him]

UPDATED EFFORTS:

Okay, so I've gone out a couple of different times now, working on some things that were suggested. Here's what I feel are the best four of the results. These were mostly concentrating on the sharpness issue, and I think that's improved, although I still have a ways to go. More of the efforts are on my flickr photostream; feel free to check them out if you want, but they are mostly mediocre to bad.

Okay, the new attempts:

Cardinal. f/8, 1/400 sec., ISO 1000, 300mm

cardinal_0384 by sm4him, on Flickr

Downy Woodpecker: f/7.1, 1/500 sec., ISO 1600, 260mm

downywoodpecker_0573 by sm4him, on Flickr

Robin: f/8, 1/400 sec., ISO 800, EV +4/3, 300mm

robin_0867 by sm4him, on Flickr

Sparrow: f/7.1, 1/1600 sec (OOPS), ISO 1600 (oops again), 300mm

sparrow_0789 by sm4him, on Flickr

I think the robin and sparrow came out the best so far. Should have used exposure compensation on many of these instead of bumping the ISO up; I'll work on that. Some still seem underexposed, but the sharpness is a BIT better than the previous efforts, I think.

Also, a note on the EXIF data for the sparrow: That was a complete FAIL, and I'm surprised the photo came out as well as it did. I'd gotten sidetracked by trying to catch some of them in flight (an exhausting endeavor!), and so I'd bumped the shutter speed way up (and again, bumped the ISO to compensate instead of exposure compensation). Then this little guy decided to basically land right next to me, and I completely forgot what my settings were. Still, I was pleased with the detail in it.

Alright...opinions? Are they an improvement at all? Other than using exposure compensation, what am I still missing?

 

[sm4him]

Oh, I also didn't mention...I finally got a flash yesterday! So now, I'll have to figure out how to use it effectively. I've been experimenting with it today. Mostly nothing worth posting. I did go out this afternoon and use it on a few birds; I think it'll help when/if I figure it out. I got a couple of decent shots of a nuthatcher at my feeder, then got obsessed with getting a decent shot of the woodpecker who continues to taunt me. He gets just close enough for me to see him, but not close enough for a decent shot. Plus, he's very skittish, so as soon as I even go to move the camera, he scoots around the other side of the tree.

Then, as I was getting ready to go inside, he showed up at the feeder, and stayed there even when I moved a bit. I'd already turned off the camera and the flash, but got them both back on and he didn't fly off. Unfortunately, I'd already lost almost ALL light from the sky, and didn't use the flash right, I guess, as the photos were underexposed.

Here's the best of the results:

 

[Thunder_o_b]

Your shots are improving quickly :thumbup:

With the flash you may want to shoot manually, using the flash to lighten the shadows, done right you can not tell that a flash is used, and you get the catch light in the subject's eyes.

Now, this is not a bird. But it could have been. I chose to post this shot to illustrate the benefit of the flash and the danger. The subject was above me about 15' to 20' away. The time of day was around noon, the sun was very bright which gave good light through the leaves. The subject however was in shadow. If I exposed for the subject the BG would have been blown out, so I used a fill flash with the better beamer. The lens was set at 400mm the f/stop I believe was f/8 and I stopped the flash down one full f/stop (I think). The photo was also cropped slightly. I feel that the lighting came out well in the shot. But here is the danger of using a flash, look at the shadow of the branch that crosses the subject's ear, it ruins the shot. You must be mindful of this while using a flash.

 

[sm4him]

Your shots are improving quickly :thumbup:

With the flash you may want to shoot manually, using the flash to lighten the shadows, done right you can not tell that a flash is used, and you get the catch light in the subject's eyes.

Now, this is not a bird. But it could have been. I chose to post this shot to illustrate the benefit of the flash and the danger. The subject was above me about 15' to 20' away. The time of day was around noon, the sun was very bright which gave good light through the leaves. The subject however was in shadow. If I exposed for the subject the BG would have been blown out, so I used a fill flash with the better beamer. The lens was set at 400mm the f/stop I believe was f/8 and I stopped the flash down one full f/stop (I think). The photo was also cropped slightly. I feel that the lighting came out well in the shot. But here is the danger of using a flash, look at the shadow of the branch that crosses the subject's ear, it ruins the shot. You must be mindful of this while using a flash.

Thanks for the encouragement! I will be shooting manually (as I usually do anyway), but so far I'm finding it a little challenging to figure out how to place the flash when it's off-camera. I'll be doing some more experimenting with it indoors under a more controlled environment to figure out the angles and power level and all that. It's harder to practice on something that scurries away faster than you can shoot anyway!