Dive practice

 

Today I deliberately went to the kingfishers when I knew the tide would be still in. The sun was supposed to be shining and I wanted to concentrate of capturing them diving for crabs in the shallow water. Well two out of three isn't bad but it doesn't make good images. The sun let me down so all I got to do was practice my timing and focusing.

This set of images is grainy and not what I would normally post but I am doing so to show what goes behind a great image. Lots and lots of practice to get to the point of being able to focus fast enough to capture the bird as it leaves the water. The kingfishers are perched in a tree over the water and when they dive they do so with the intention of catching a crab they have spotted, and they do so at great speed.

The trick is to get the camera to focus on the bird as it dives into the water so that you can capture it as it leaves the water, bearing in mind that this is pretty much a split second situation so you have to be on your game. I found myself keeping both eyes open, one on the viewfinder and one watching where the bird was going, this allowed me to point the camera in the right direction for focusing.

In the past I have fluked a few really cool shots of the kingfishers diving but I haven't actually sought it out as the primary subject before. I can see it taking a good long while before I am satisfied with the results from this exercise.

Finding space

Not so long ago I got  new wizzy fast computer with lots of hard drive space. I am sure I told you all about it when it arrived, it's an awesome computer!  Now it is an awesome computer with full data drives! I have all my old images (prior to 2010) stored on external drives and everything from the last two and a half years on the internal 2 TB drive. You would think that would be heaps of space but no, it's full!

So I am busy going through all my old stuff and culling out the rubbish. There is a lot of rubbish and as I raise the bar with the quality of my images I am able to be more ruthless with the rubbish. I see no point in keeping something that is 'possibly ok'. If it is not sharp and clear it's gone.  So far I have retrieved 350GB, so I can go out this weekend and take more photos!

Ultimately I need to get another internal drive for the computer and this time I am eying up a 3TB drive. I have no intention of slowing down the amount of images I take but I am going to have to get more ruthless about what I keep. There is no point in having several images that are almost identical, I only need one of each.

This afternoon the sun was shining when I had finished work so instead of photographing the birds from inside like I normally do, I took a chair out to the lawn and sat a similar distance away from the feeders. The birds didn't seem to mind my being there and bounced happily around me. It allowed me to get some shots of them on different perches for a change and I am really liking the results.

Trying out a new food source...

Wing stuck

We were at the Mad Butcher's the other day and my husband found a large netted ball of something covered in breadcrumbs labeled "Winter Wild Bird Feed" or something there abouts. I have no idea what was in it but it was very heavy. At only $3.50 we thought it would be worth getting to see if the birds liked it.

Getting untangled

We hung it on the side of the bird feeders and for the better part of an hour they wouldn't go anywhere near it. After that it was just a convenient perch to hang out on. Not one bird would feed off it. We even tried not feeding them any sugar water or fruit to see if they would go to it but alas they have been too spoilt. Not even the sparrows were interested.

Some privacy would be nice!

So today I decided it wasn't worth leaving there, knowing that the blow flies were going to love it and I wasn't about to let it become live food for any of the birds no matter how much they would have liked it then. So I tried something else.  I took it down from the feeder, tossed it on the lawn and tossed a couple of slices of stale bread out too.

The starlings are not shy once they find a food source and they ripped into it with a passion. From there it was just a matter of time before the sparrows moved in. Now, the waxeyes have taken ownership and are feeding happily on it and chasing every other bird that comes near away!  I don't think I will be buying any more though, as it was way too big and I am not keen on attracting the flies.

Post Processing

As a photographer I know I am always comparing my images to others that I consider are better than me in an effort to try and achieve the same level.  This is not always a good idea because of the many variables involved in the process of actually making the image and I often feel like I am constantly coming up short.

I look at an image of a bird that has been shot with a huge prime lens and I know that I am never going to achieve that quality with the lens I have, but that doesn't mean I am not going to get images that are not as good or even better. My lens allows me more flexibility, I can hand hold it or use a monopod and this makes it very mobile. Some of the bigger prime lenses are very heavy and need to be mounted on a very sturdy tripod. I could never lug one of them around, I am just not that strong!

They shiver their wings semi spread in a display of dominance.

So I am gradually coming to the conclusion that while I can strive to get better I should be happy with what I am achieving. A lot of the difference can be made in post processing also. A friend showed me one of her bird shots recently and said "it's not as sharp as I would like". I could hear myself saying the same thing about my own shots.

The thing is, that most if not all bird photos shot with digital cameras require a certain amount of sharpening that the camera can't or doesn't do. Once you realise that, you can look at ways to improve your images in post processing and find that a lot of reject images suddenly become stunners! I am currently working between the old and the new in terms of my workflows in post processing and I think I am getting the hang of  it.

Staying at home with the Tui

This morning I decided that going in search of birds wasn't a smart move on a cloudy day. All that would happen is that I would get frustrated and grumpy when I achieved nothing. So I opened up the back doors and got my fix photographing the visitors to our garden yet again.

I had every intention of posting some waxeye images because I got some great ones today, but then the tui arrived and I haven't photographed him in a while.  I actually think this was a different one because it looked more lean and didn't sing for his dinner quite so much.  I use him loosely because it could be a her - I must research how to tell the difference!

I think I shot off something like thirty shots of the tui in the space of five minutes. He just kept posing for me, jumping to a new branch and then posing again. Eventually he made it to the feeder for a drink but by that time I was ready to download my images to see what I had.

The birds all seem to know when the camera is turned off because they start to come in much closer almost immediately the camera is put down. One day I am going to fool them and have a second camera set up with a remote!

Why the change?

I know it is not that long since I changed the blog style to the magazine format and it did look good, but it was awful when it came to editing or adding new posts. So I have changed yet again to a more basic format. One in which I can easily navigate around in the administration side and is still easily readable.

This morning the weather was somewhat nasty again so I turned to the backyard birds for my daily photography fix.  There were huge numbers of waxeyes out there this morning and we had several visits from the tui as well. He didn't stay long enough for me to get a shot of him this time but it is reassuring to know that our feeder is a regular part of his feeding routine.

I am sure the neighbours have been wondering what I am up to with the bird feeders outside. It was funny this morning to see a curtain pulled aside and a face peeking out at me while I was photographing the birds. The curtain closed quick smart when the camera turned in that direction.

The End

Up with the birds...

This morning we were up with the birds (literally!) and out the door to get to the inlet at first light. I thought it would be nice to get some kingfishers with the early morning sun on them.  I forgot to send the memo to the kingfishers!

Don't get me wrong there were heaps of kingfishers out and about but the few times that they came close enough to me were mostly when the sun was hiding behind the clouds!  I managed to get one cute little guy when he stopped on the log but he was casting and that isn't always a good look for a photograph!

There had been a very high tide overnight and the ground where I set up was particularly soft. More so than normal. I was extremely happy that none of the other photographers were about to see me and my camera fall off my chair!  One of the chair legs had sunk straight down into the mud turfing me out in the process.  Thankfully my son was nearby and was able to help me up.

Not one of my better days at the inlet but I have a respectable amount of images that I am happy with so I can't complain, and there's always another day...