new birding site...

[ving]

just thought i'd share some shots from my new birding site. its across the road... literaly! LOL

[telemarker]

Love the spotted pardalote... cute lil' munchkins.
All in all a set of really nice closeups. We will be seeing more no doubt with a good site in such close proximity. I'm looking forward to them. :thumbsup:

[dpastern]

cuties, great shots. What gear setup?

Dave

[lacad01]

Outstanding to say the least :thumbsup:
Also interested in the gear, settings, etc. Cheers!

[ving]

there are all hand drawn and coloured with texta and crayon...

[ving]

oh ok! nikon d40 wth a sigma 150-500 OS DG HSM lens... oh and an external flash (also sigma)

[lacad01]

:lol: yooza funny guy ha

[Bobj]

Love 'em, especially the eastern spinebill (No.5)

[dpastern]

Good job with the lens especially (it's a heavyish lens and is a bit slow aperture wise from memory).

Dave

[Liz]

Wow, they are all gorgeous shots!! Love them all esp 3, and 6 is funny - took me a a few sec to realise what the ballbird was :lol:

[RB]

David, all beautiful shots !!
Well done.

I especially like the first one, very nice indeed, and the look of the bird in the last one.

:thumbsup:

[GTB_an_Owl]

i was gunna say Ving - "what book at the library did you get them out of " ?

you don't mean to say YOU actually took those !

we ALL know you can't take pics as good as that







loved every one of them

geoff

[renormalised]

Great shots!!!!. I love #6....all you can see is this ball with feet:P:D:D

[fringe_dweller]

woah nice set of bush birds! ive been following your twitching career ving, and they would be hard to get shots! twitching is my new hobby that replaced astronomy, better hours and conditions eh!
shy little bushbirds i have to phish them usually, i have quiet a range of calls and scolding (fighting words) variations in my repertoire, i must be a sight to the unsuspecting bushwalker! i am that good i had a female golden whistler choose me as a mate one time! first ones a brown thornbill and the second seems to e a thornbill too, 4th is a yellow tufted (or helmeted) honeyeater, you are lucky in NSW having so many species bloke :)

[fringe_dweller]

eerr number 2 could be an LBJ? (a Little Brown Job) :D

[ving]

nah the lens is a dream to use. i hand hold all my shots even at 500mm as the OS works really well. there are tricks to using this lens tho, you have to shoot at f8 or higher as wide open at f6.3 its just a bit too soft. in poor light the AF can sometimes be a bit hit and miss but generally the focus is pretty good... helps to have a good flash on board for those times that the light is poor too. the fact that its 2kg doesnt bother me as its still quite well ballanced with the rest of my gear attached and i can d0 2-3 hours without tiring.

the birds in order are: brown thornbill, female golden whistler, spotted pardalote, yellow tufted honey eater, eastern spinebill, and another spotted pardalote.

i use bird calls to get them close enough to shoot :)

[dpastern]

f8 is a bit slow, surprised at the bokeh that you've achieved @ f8. Has good optical quality it seems, matches what others have said about this lens. 2kg isn't too bad for that focal length. I wouldn't recommend hand holding it, even with OS. Get a nice wimberley gyral tripod head (not cheap) and a good tripod.

No AF is perfect (let's look at Canon's Mark III lol). It won't help that you're AF module is basically working at f6.3 - less light for the AF module means slower/less accurate AF. Only way of beating that is paying big moolah for superfast teles like Canon's 500mm f4.

What body?

Dave

edit: if you haven't already, go visit www.birdsasart.com and grab a copy of Artie's DVD book. Awesome photographer, awesome advice. I rarely bird shoot because I only have a 300mm f4, and even adding a TC to it makes it too short/slow.

[fringe_dweller]

do you use recordings or make the calls yourself David? i keep meaning to record calls and playback in the bush, would be like shooting fish in a barrel or birds with a camera? i know you can get the CD's, anyone interested in getting shots like this should get to know all the calls, a great site is birdsinbackyards.net has MP3 samples of most aussie birds, be it the sydneyside versions of them, still most are very similar.

[ving]

david: it actually focuses at f5 which isnt too bad. the max aperture it shoots at is f6.3 tho. I have used a tripod and a monpod but it restricts my movenemt too much so i dont bother any more... if i keep my shutter speed above 1/125th i get clean shots and keeping it that high is pretty easy when i use a flash.
I use a nikon d40 with grip. and a sigma ef500 dg super flash thats diffused.

kearn: the birdsinbackyards calls are perfect for me as i am in sydney :) I just play my funky ringtones (yup on my mobilephone). i do some calls myself which work to varying degrees, mostly on the more curious birds like eastern yellow robins.

[fringe_dweller]

wow excellent idea with mobile David! how cool! thnx :) :thumbsup:

[dpastern]

f5 isn't too bad, agreed. I'm a bit old fashioned and don't really trust OS/IS/VR etc, I still try to stick to the old 1/focal length rule. I know several pros who still recommend this, and mandate the use of a tripod. I know what you're saying - since I'm in the same boat with macro!

Dave

[ving]

heres a new species for me, its an olive back oriole. they are supposed to be fruit eaters but i guess during winter there isnt much fruit. this one was getting stuck into a bee hive way up a gum tree.
female
62897

and male
62898

[ving]

i think the thing is that i am too lazy to lug around a tripod, lol.
even with my macro gear which i get up to 7x magnification i use hand held and that doens have stabilisation
samples:

[fringe_dweller]

OOOO nice! another species we dont have here :( sez in book its a ventriloquest! altho i noticed most bush birds have an element of that, guess it must be a survival tactic?
and yep seen birds eating stuff outside their listed diets, honeyeaters eating bugs ect. specially when flying ants of any kind are on the wing, then its ON! BIRD XMAS!! woohoo!

on a sad note, havent seen any robins of any kind for years :(

predators are a plenty on river murray round here, they love the jagged holey cliffs for breeding, at mannum get peregrines and kites ect. in the town, river murray is petty good birding generally in fact, dumps outside rural/outback towns are pretty good for raptors too!

[ving]

gah! i havent seen any raptors around here, i guess its not open enough. I heard an owl a few weeks ago but it was bellow zero outside si i didnt pursue it :)

gunna have to go raptor hunting i think.

we have whip birds in the gully and i think they are my next target :)

[dpastern]

I'm not aware of any macro lens offering 7x mag and IS/OS/VR. Only Nikon's macro lens (60mm from memory) offers VR. None of Canon's macro lenses do. And only Canon's MPE-65 has any real high mag - 1:1 - 5:1. Minolta had a 5x macro lens years ago, but I doubt you're using that. You could be using TCs, tubes, etc, but you'd lose IS/OS etc imho. I'm curious now.

Good shots of a horsefly as well.

Dave

[ving]

lol david, i never said my macro setup was a single lens ;)

pk13 extension, tammy 2x TC, nikon micro 55m, f3.5... gives me up to 2x mag. reverse a 50mm on the end and an apid just can fill the frame :)

[dpastern]

hehehe but you wouldn't get OS then :P

I've been there and done that, I'm not a high mag macro photographer, I prefer to actually see the insect/arachnid in its environment. Have you seen Brian Valentine's images? Google LordV.

Dave

[fringe_dweller]

good luck! hope you get a raptor David

did you see that pic in the news of the crow attacking/riding on the vultures back in spain in the news recently? i see ravens hounding wedgies regularly
imagine getting a shot like this!

[ving]

yeah, it was lordv who initially inspired me to do some macro. :)
no OS, thats correct and still hand held :p
I should have been a surgeon :p

thats a wicked shot kearn, is it yours?

[dpastern]

I know you're referring to the other David, but I couldn't resist:

http://www.macro-images.com/images/Birds/slides/CRW_0080.html

http://www.macro-images.com/images/Birds/slides/CRW_0081.html

I was lucky I had the 300mm on my D60 (Canon, not Nikon). I got 2 shots before it took off. I couldn't get very closer to it, but was happy with what I got, since it's a rare bird in suburbia by all accounts.

Dave

[ving]

gee they are nice shots david :) hope it find something like that here :)

[TrevorW]

great shots

tell you a story

while on holidays I had a Willy Wagtail sheltering on the verandah from the rain

I went outside and talked too it. held at my hand and it jumped on my finger

walked around it followed me

went inside left the slider open it came into the house and followed me around jumped on the kitchen bench then I took it outside again followed me around for a bit more sqwarked the flew off

birds are smart and some are not afraid of us

[dpastern]

Oh yeah, don't even believe that animals are dumb, they're not. I've seen some very game Willy Wagtails - bold as brass as the saying goes.

Dave

[fringe_dweller]

its not my shot dave! i just remembered seeing all over the news and in the papers just back a while, and googled it, wish it was mine! :)

David P. nice grey goshawk! reminds me of a brown falcon story, similar looking bird to, ..was walking thru an outersuburban park along the river, and heard a hell of a commotion, it was dozens of the common new holland honeyeaters, and they were all going nuts with alarm calls and a community/flock rally. as a brown falcon had just grabbed one of their family/mates, and they were trying to get it back and scare off the falcon with the racket and make the falcon drop the bird, i can only assume. i tell you, Meercats had nothing on this lot!!, as they were all acting not unlike a family of meercats, with the intense stretching and keening to see all atop the highermost branches, the level of concern intelligence and caring shocked me!

oops long story sorry! :D

[dpastern]

Thanks. I would have loved to have gotten closer, and the focus on the D60 is poor at the best of times, so it's a pity it wasn't on my 1 series body, but I didn't want to take the risk of changing bodies and losing the opportuntiy.

Yeah, honeyeaters, mynahs etc are very raucous birds, and very much community driven. One for all, all for one is their motto. They're very funny birds to watch.

Dave

[multiweb]

Amazing :eyepop: Terrific pictures. :thumbsup:

[ving]

reminds me...
cheryl and i went for a drive down the south coast and stopped at a lookout. i saw this little object flying towards us up the cliff from the rocks below... it was a willy wagtail. seemed friendly enough so we offered it some meusli bar...

[Jeffkop]

Fantastic photos David ... more amazing when you say you call them to come get their picture taken ... CLASSIC ... I suppose thats common in the bird watching fraternity though. I love birds and envy your situation. Anyway great photos once again .. it looks like you are definitely getting the best out of your gear.

[dpastern]

Isn't that wonderful. Gave me a good smile this morning David, thanks.

Dave

[ving]

thanks jeff and dave