Baby coot

[RonReznick]

These guys are old coots when they start out in life

300mm, 1/250 @ f/4, 50% resized

[Lin Evans]

They do rather look like baby "grandpa" with baldness and unruly whiskers!

Nice catch - I've never seen a baby coot in the wild!

Best regards,

Lin

[icarus]

Ron, wonderful shot! I never have been able to get close to them.

[RonReznick]

There were two groups of babies at Echo Park (I went to see the Lotus which are blossoming right now -- it's the largest lotus bed in the USA).
One of the groups had six babies, and I caught them during feeding. Butt-ugly and hellaciously cute 300mm, 1/500 @ f/7.1



[Edited on 6-24-2002 by RonReznick]

[SueO]

Cute AND ugly... of course the parents aren't exactly models of elegance.

Terrific photos. I seem to recall you traded your D1X for a D1h; is that what you used for these? Was the trade a good one?

[B.J.]

Excellent pictures even though the babies might not win the Gerber baby contest.

[RonReznick]

Yes, Sue... the trade was a very good one. The D1h offers a cleaner image re: noise, better edges and less color aliasing as well as little in the way of interpolation artifacts. It holds image quality to ISO 800 with proper exposure, and does a darned good job at 1600. It's lots faster, shoots long sequences without making you wait, and has a faster frame rate too. The only detraction is the pixel dimensions, and the quality of the image offsets that nicely for the most part as the 1:1 image is cleaner than a D1x shot at 50%-resize. I'm glad I did it. Very.

They are pretty ugly aren't they?

[Kevin G]

Nice catches Kiddo!! BTW, saw some nice comments RE: your teaching ability, over at Phil's. When can we expect your first video??

[RonReznick]

Kevin, unless someone actually commissions a project of that sort I have no way to devote the time... and I am not set up for shooting video here (or in the field). It would be a significant project to do right, requiring a field-video team for acquisition training as well as indoor work for processing-training, and the time and expense required to shoot and edit the video(s) would be significant.

I can't take that sort of thing on without a commission or a partner. Interested in co-producing a set of videos, Kevin?

[Kevin G]

I don't know how that would work with us being on opposite coasts and all .
But if you buy the corporate jet I'll fly it!!

Almost forgot, going off on a 10 day or so trip, should get to the National Aviary in Pittsburgh along with some other scenic stuff on the way out and back from Indy.