Seagulls, waves and a duck

RobNZ · Jun 22, 2010

3rd time out with the new lens, this time with a 1.4 teleconverter, primary goal was to capture some birds in flight, I knew it was going to be tricky, I was right.

Canon 500D, kenko pro 300DGX 1.4 teleconverter, Canon 300mm /f4 L USM. No filters.

1: Surf has dropped from the 3-4metre swell from Sunday.

2. Surf shot 2.

3. As a fisherman myself, this really pisses me off, this poor guy has swallowed a hook, probably from a longline or the gull took the bait while attatched to the mainline and a fisherman cut it free, but left a good foot and half of trace.

4. The first shot I got of a gull in flight, missed the focus by this ....... much :blushing:

5. A bit better, got this on a pan, lucky shot.

6. Seagull guards its "sentry post".

7. And as promised, a duck, again missed the focus on the eye, close enough for the web though I think.

Thanks for looking.
C&C Welcomed.

tru_texan36 · Jun 22, 2010

DUHHHANNNGG. YOUR A BEAST. Awesome shots.

pmsnel · Jun 22, 2010

I love the bottle green of the wave of #2! And I really like #4 and #5! Especially #4, even if you missed the focus. I think #3 might be a bit to dark, but I really feel for the gull though, with such a large hook in its beak!
Great shots!

Stormchase · Jun 22, 2010

very nice indeed! love the water shots and tho a nice shot its sad to see the fishing leader on the gull.

katy625 · Jun 22, 2010

Beautiful...all of them

Petraio Prime · Jun 22, 2010

Viaduct? Vy not a goose?

dak1b · Jun 22, 2010

1) nice and relaxing. wish there was a soundtrack to this pic.
2) good capture of the surf
3) OK..seems a little dark
4) good framing
5) love the background colors!
6) again good framing with the bird's wingspan
7) very nice colors. pleasant summer bliss.

Stormchase · Jun 22, 2010

a comment about #2: reguarding this shot and an other you posted with the row boat tied up to a post. Im sure it has the lens and really I love this effect, But it seems that the subject is much smaller then what it really is. Like the boat looked like a toy and the wave in #2 looks as if it MIGHT be only a couple inches tall wich i know it is not. Can anyone explain this to me?
As of right now in guessing its the high quality crispness that im not used to in a tele zoom. Again i really like this feeling to a shot.
thx

RobNZ · Jun 22, 2010

Stormchase said:
a comment about #2: reguarding this shot and an other you posted with the row boat tied up to a post. Im sure it has the lens and really I love this effect, But it seems that the subject is much smaller then what it really is. Like the boat looked like a toy and the wave in #2 looks as if it MIGHT be only a couple inches tall wich i know it is not. Can anyone explain this to me?
As of right now in guessing its the high quality crispness that im not used to in a tele zoom. Again i really like this feeling to a shot.
thx

My theroy: its the way it appears that may fool your brain because of a couple of factors,

1: the compression factor, objects way off in the distance will appear larger relative to the object in focus, waves for example will appear as though they will tightly packed together instead of 30 to 60 feet apart, opposite effect of a wideangle lens.

2: Large F stop, leading to quite a shallow depth of field combined with an long focal length and an object that is quite large in real life also adds to the illusion. Think about a small model and getting down close to it and focus your eye on the model, the background will blur as well, but at life size scale you dont see this background/foreground blur with the naked eye, so your only reference to seeing something this way is the model example. Similar to a tiltshift lens, tiltshift though gives an an even better effect.

To me, this one also looks model like. Boat is clearly in focus but nothing else is, dof field relative to scale is much shallower than you would normally see thanks to the large aperture.

That my theory, lol.

BuS_RiDeR · Jun 22, 2010

:thumbup:

Nice photos.

Stormchase · Jun 22, 2010

RobNZ said:
Stormchase said:

a comment about #2: reguarding this shot and an other you posted with the row boat tied up to a post. Im sure it has the lens and really I love this effect, But it seems that the subject is much smaller then what it really is. Like the boat looked like a toy and the wave in #2 looks as if it MIGHT be only a couple inches tall wich i know it is not. Can anyone explain this to me?
As of right now in guessing its the high quality crispness that im not used to in a tele zoom. Again i really like this feeling to a shot.
thx

Click to expand...

My theroy: its the way it appears that may fool your brain because of a couple of factors,

1: the compression factor, objects way off in the distance will appear larger relative to the object in focus, waves for example will appear as though they will tightly packed together instead of 30 to 60 feet apart, opposite effect of a wideangle lens.

2: Large F stop, leading to quite a shallow depth of field combined with an long focal length and an object that is quite large in real life also adds to the illusion. Think about a small model and getting down close to it and focus your eye on the model, the background will blur as well, but at life size scale you dont see this background/foreground blur with the naked eye, so your only reference to seeing something this way is the model example. Similar to a tiltshift lens, tiltshift though gives an an even better effect.

To me, this one also looks model like. Boat is clearly in focus but nothing else is, dof field relative to scale is much shallower than you would normally see thanks to the large aperture.

That my theory, lol.

That makes sence. Pretty much what i was thinking about. I guess it the nice 2.8 on the lens that gives that long yet shallow dof. Thanks for the explination and I do understand it more. Again I do enjoy the resaults of that lens.