Aloicious
No longer a newbie, moving up!
- Joined
- Mar 12, 2010
- Messages
- 1,661
- Reaction score
- 452
- Location
- UT
- Website
- www.photographywild.com
- Can others edit my Photos
- Photos NOT OK to edit
So I scored one of my dream lenses from a local sale recently (got insanely lucky, after selling some stuff and saving up for a while, and good timing with the classifieds), a nikon 300 f2.8G VR1...although I purchased it mainly for work with motorsports, I enjoy wildlife and am trying to hone my supertele technique with birds and such...(since cars aren't very hard to sneak up on )...so since I now have something that is in a much more usable wildlife focal length (IMO, compared to ~200mm previously) I'm hoping to improve with it and share some good images. I know these aren't the best, but C&C for these is appreciated. This is my first REAL test of the lens since getting it on monday. I'll give my C&C on these at the end...I also SUCK at bird IDs too, so any help identifying these would be appreciated.
here's the lens just for kicks, no need for C&C on this one.
Here's a raptor (Hawk, maybe cooper's hawk?). sometime someone once said on here about looking for 'footballs' in the trees when searching for owls helped find them, although these aren't owls in trees, seeing 'footballs' on the telephone poles allowed me to notice them where I wouldn't before and approach with caution.
100% crop of the above shot, this is one of the cleaner shots I got.
then there were a bunch of these little black birds up on the telephone wires I was able to get moderately close to...
(too much sharpening on this one? I didn't add much but I don't necissarily like how it turned out, I might re-edit this one since I like the 'bad hair day' look heh)
anyways, all of them were taken with the D800 and 300mm + 1.7x TC = 510mm @ f5.6, 1/500s, VR on normal, and roughly ISO 300-700ish, handheld either from the car out the window (raptors), or standing/crouching outside in the cold...
I think I need to stop down just a little more, wide open would have been f4.8 with the TC, so I was only .5 stop less, maybe f8 or something and raise the iso a little since I was using the TC...the lens did very well with the 1.7x on it (at least in comparison to my 70-200 with it which I've never been fully happy with that combo)...however I think I may need to fine tune the AF adjustment with the TC, although it did well, I think there is still room for a little improvement with it.
Air quality this morning was TERRIBLE too, which likely contributed...
the small birds were a fairly heavy crop, I already mentioned the possible oversharpening on one of them, but overall I think they turned out fairly well all due considering...
just for reference, this is my 200 + 1.7x attempt at birding in summer...I'd consider this okay to mediocre at best....
here's the lens just for kicks, no need for C&C on this one.
Here's a raptor (Hawk, maybe cooper's hawk?). sometime someone once said on here about looking for 'footballs' in the trees when searching for owls helped find them, although these aren't owls in trees, seeing 'footballs' on the telephone poles allowed me to notice them where I wouldn't before and approach with caution.
100% crop of the above shot, this is one of the cleaner shots I got.
then there were a bunch of these little black birds up on the telephone wires I was able to get moderately close to...
(too much sharpening on this one? I didn't add much but I don't necissarily like how it turned out, I might re-edit this one since I like the 'bad hair day' look heh)
anyways, all of them were taken with the D800 and 300mm + 1.7x TC = 510mm @ f5.6, 1/500s, VR on normal, and roughly ISO 300-700ish, handheld either from the car out the window (raptors), or standing/crouching outside in the cold...
I think I need to stop down just a little more, wide open would have been f4.8 with the TC, so I was only .5 stop less, maybe f8 or something and raise the iso a little since I was using the TC...the lens did very well with the 1.7x on it (at least in comparison to my 70-200 with it which I've never been fully happy with that combo)...however I think I may need to fine tune the AF adjustment with the TC, although it did well, I think there is still room for a little improvement with it.
Air quality this morning was TERRIBLE too, which likely contributed...
the small birds were a fairly heavy crop, I already mentioned the possible oversharpening on one of them, but overall I think they turned out fairly well all due considering...
just for reference, this is my 200 + 1.7x attempt at birding in summer...I'd consider this okay to mediocre at best....