First Birds with K20

[Trojansoc]

I hopped out of bed this morning, anxious to see what the new K20d would do with birds, and made it to one of my favorite areas, just below a nearby dam. I wasn't disappointed, as I found a number of Great Blue Herons, getting in some early morning fishing



This guy let me get pretty close



Joining the herons were a few Canada Geese, who haven't gotten the message it's time to go back north

[Trojansoc]

I came back home, edited the shots above, then walked to the back of the house just in time to catch this little guy visiting the feeder. I really liked being able to kick up the ISO to bring up the shutter speed so I could stop the wings. Unfortunately, a bright sun was coming from directly behind him, so I didn't get the color of his throat.



Paul

[pdgirl]

Sweet! So are you near the MISS or a lake?
Xmas

[Wingman]

Paul, what ISO were you using (sorry, but no Exif was available). The reason I ask is that on my monitor, the first two pictures appears to have some noise (and therefore lack sharpness). Could be my monitor?

The colors are vibrant and your compositions are flawless! The lighting on the hummer is very nice!

Jay

[vIZnquest]

The compostions and color are nice in all of them.

The first two though appear to be heavily cropped and some noise reduction used. The first one has alot of lost detail.

The hummer despite the lighting you had to work with is the best of the lot. Great freeze action of its wings.

Mahalo,

Tom

[Trojansoc]

jelpee wrote:

Paul, what ISO were you using (sorry, but no Exif was available). The reason I ask is that on my monitor, the first two pictures appears to have some noise (and therefore lack sharpness). Could be my monitor?

Jay, I agree that #1, in particular, is not as sharp as it should be, but I don't think ISO (high ISOnoise) is the culprit. On each of the first three, ISO was at 1600. (I had set the camerato maximize shutter speed for some BIF shots that didn't turn out and forgotten to reset it--thus #1 is overexposed slightly.) The hummingbird was at ISO 2500 and the noise isn't there. #1 & #3 were taken from the same spot, and the subject was approximately the same distance, but the lack of sharpness isn't so obvious. I'm suspecting the problem lies in a post-processing setting or slight shake.

Paul

[Trojansoc]

vIZnquest wrote:

The first two though appear to be heavily cropped and some noise reduction used. The first one has alot of lost detail.

#1 was a heavy crop, but #2 was not. Too much noise reduction may be the killer.

Paul

[Gumnut]

these are nice first attempts

my favourite is the second one
i like the lighting

the hummer is interesting
the wings look almost transparent
are they?

[Lyrics51]

I really like the colors on #2. sharp and well composed!

Glenn

[Trojansoc]

Gumnut wrote:

the hummer is interesting
the wings look almost transparent
are they?

Gumnut, thanks for the comments. The hummingbird's wings are almost transparent, and when you more often see them as almost a blur because they beat so fast as they hover, as in this photo.



On this shot, you can see a bit of the irridescent red coloring on the throat that will almost glow when the sun strikes it right. These birds are extremely small, only about two-three inches long.

Paul