Two birds-not my usual subjects

[Rachelsne]

I had my camera for two weeks when I went and took these pictures, I was at the zoo but the birds were wild and not 'zoo creatures'

I have taken so many pictures since these but I am rather slow on going through my poictures and deciding which are keepers and which are not, I decided these two were kieeps and with a bit of high pass sharpening and other adjustments these pictures could look ok

the first one the egret was on a lake near the zoo (Virginia Zoo) and I messed up and blew out the white-but even with that, the picture has grown on me, I took a few of the same egret, I was using my Sigma 70-300 F4-5.6 APO DG Macro I didnt get a good focus on the birds eye (they just looked like a black dot there were no catch lights), so I decided the best picture was the one where the eye was not viasble. I like how the water drops were suspended in mid air.

Camera: Canon EOS 30D Exposure: 0.002 sec (1/640) Aperture: f/6.3 Focal Length: 300 mm ISO Speed: 100 Exposure Bias: 0/3 EV Flash: Flash did not fire

This bird was in a tree singing really loudly, I used the sigma lens again and a bit of sharpening in Photoshop Elements and noise reduction. after I took the picture another photgrapher came up and did the same LOL this looks sharper on my computer than it does hosted on flikr-oh well

Camera: Canon EOS 30D Exposure: 0.006 sec (1/160) Aperture: f/5.6 Focal Length: 70 mm ISO Speed: 100 Exposure Bias: 0/3 EV Flash: Flash did not fire

If I were to be in the same situation again, what should I do differently-the shots were either hand held or I used my cheap monopod-I cant remember which. I think the bird in the tree still isn't sharp enough, Should I guess I should have used a faster shutterspeed

 

[tpe]

The composition and capture on those is just great. Hmnn what can you do to sharpen them up, use the sports program to auto raise the ISO to get the 1/300th of a sec needed for the lens? I dont know the lens but i should also imagine that it needs to come above 5.6 to be sharp at 300mm? Did you shoot with raw format? just wondering if it is possible to bring back some of the lighter shades in the first one, it is a really nice shot with all the reflection and great dof and coulours.

tim

 

[Overread38 1]

I agree about the composition - very nice work there (half the battle won!). Exposure on the first is a little too much, but it is a white bird and for an early shot is not bad.
I think you might also try and run the noise removal or blur tool over the water only to try and lose that grainy look that it has picked up - which I think is partly the result of the sharpening.
The second shot again has wonderful composition to it, so you are shooting right with that respect.
As for next time my experiences with the sigma and shooting at range is that I always use it with a tripod in such cases, I find its not the best handheld and with its tendancy to sofen at the 300mm end it can be very hard to get a sharp freehand shot. A tripod and also a faster shutter speed would help a lot, but for the first I would also look to using exposure compensation (if you are shooting in ap or tv mode) set to around -1 (I would not go lower unless it is a very bright day) or if you are in manual mode tweak the shutter speed and aperture to get that -1 underexposure. If you combine this with RAW shooting you can save the whites from blowing out by underexposing in camera and then boost exposure in RAW editing if needed - as you can't recover blown out whites even with RAW shooting and lowering the exposure (you can go a long way to recovering them, but its a long way round-

 

[Rachelsne]

Thanks for the replies-I dont remember running noise removal in that first one, probably so I will do it, I am not a fan of this lens for the animal shots but its not bad, definatly need to use a tripod when I extend the lens-I have learnt that over the few months.
I did shoot raw, so I will have another little play with the top pic I think