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.
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
Last edited by fringe_dweller; 28-08-2009 at 01:13 PM.
Good job with the lens especially (it's a heavyish lens and is a bit slow aperture wise from memory).
Dave
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
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.
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.
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.
yooza funny guy ha
