March 25, 20196 yr Tried to capture some sheet/spider lightning we had tonight. This was just from my driveway with minimal trial and error, and I missed focus, but I tried. There was some really good stuff before this but I was too slow getting the camera out.
March 25, 20196 yr Damn those are cool Anton. What lens were you using? Edited March 25, 20196 yr by Lhorn
March 25, 20196 yr Damn those are cool Anton. What lens were you using?Thanks! It was my Canon 24-105 II.
March 29, 20196 yr My birding and photo activity has been largely curtailed by other priorities this month. But I managed to get to the lake yesterday and watched a bunch of buzzards engaging in all kinds of debauchery. Black vultures outnumbered the turkey vultures 4 to 1, but the turkey buzzards held their own in squabbles. Black vultures were the clear leaders in debauchery, didn't even leave a single beer for the turkey buzzards. Edited March 29, 20196 yr by DougO
March 29, 20196 yr Author Amazing shots Doug. Love the in flight ones especially. Like you, life has gotten in the way of shooting. Tomorrow I am hoping to change that.
March 29, 20196 yr I'm thinking maybe tomorrow I'll venture out of the house to play with the camera. I live in the middle of a concrete island, not shit to really work with as far as photo ops. Downtown with the proximity to the river, the Silos area and Cameron Park should provide some opportunities that are all within walking distance of each other. I still haven't explored any software for post processing but still have some questions to pose to you guys. I'll post a pic once I get home later today but basically my example picture is typical of what I get from shooting in the aquarium; some really brightly lit area along with deep shadows. The bright areas are kinda blown out and the shaded areas are, well, dark.
March 29, 20196 yr I'm thinking the aquarium shots are probably not the best examples of testing your camera
March 30, 20196 yr 1 hour ago, naija said: I'm thinking the aquarium shots are probably not the best examples of testing your camera Lighting is lighting and how those issues are resolved are probably the same across the board, no? Metering, exposure etc... all have to be accounted for and I would think that lessons learned, however they might be learned, could be applied to other situations. Anyway, here's a sample picture. Original is in RAW format. In post processing what is the, element(?) ( not even sure of the nomenclature...) that would need to be adjusted to bring out the fish that is in the shadows?
March 30, 20196 yr Author I had big hopes for today, drove a ton and managed to only get a few photos I am happy with. One snake I had never caught before got away before I could get a photo (as soon as I put him down, he was gone). Another big and very nicely colored Rat Snake was dead in the road. The abandoned spots I went to were not accessible. It was mostly a let down. But I did finally get to photograph a Great Horned Owl. Here are a few from today and one from yesterday.
March 30, 20196 yr 20 minutes ago, El Diablo said: Lighting is lighting and how those issues are resolved are probably the same across the board, no? Metering, exposure etc... all have to be accounted for and I would think that lessons learned, however they might be learned, could be applied to other situations. Anyway, here's a sample picture. Original is in RAW format. In post processing what is the, element(?) ( not even sure of the nomenclature...) that would need to be adjusted to bring out the fish that is in the shadows? You are shooting across glass. I'm not saying not to do it, but don't think of it as a true representation of what your system is capable of. If you are using Lightroom, you would move the Shadow slider to the right
March 30, 20196 yr 2 minutes ago, naija said: You are shooting across glass. I'm not saying not to do it, but don't think of it as a true representation of what your system is capable of. If you are using Lightroom, you would move the Shadow slider to the right Shooting across glass I'm sure makes a difference, you're right about that. I'm doing this basically in the dark so that the only light is coming from inside the glass box (aquarium). With Lightroom would you be able to apply that Shadow reduction(?) to just that area?
March 30, 20196 yr Shooting across glass I'm sure makes a difference, you're right about that. I'm doing this basically in the dark so that the only light is coming from inside the glass box (aquarium). With Lightroom would you be able to apply that Shadow reduction(?) to just that area?Yes. LR is pretty powerful am can do local adjustments with masks.
March 30, 20196 yr Stellar owl, PS. On my bucket list, super tough bird to grab in daylight. I doubt I'll ever get one that good.
March 30, 20196 yr I saw a great horned owl just before sunset a few nights ago while I was working my ass off building fence. I saw it land in a tree and as soon as we made eye contact it was gone. Edited March 30, 20196 yr by DougO
March 30, 20196 yr Author 15 hours ago, DougO said: Stellar owl, PS. On my bucket list, super tough bird to grab in daylight. I doubt I'll ever get one that good. Thanks. Well, it is a long drive for you, but I can tell you exactly where a baby and mating pair of owls are at in Brazos Bend State Park. And if you have never been there, I think you would like it. A lot of birds and alligators (the photo of one above was not at the park though). Here is the baby owl. There were two, not sure what happened to the other.
March 30, 20196 yr Man, I need me a zoom. I still don’t have anything over 105mm which is a bit embarrassing. Need a 70-200 soon.
March 30, 20196 yr Author I have a 100-400 which is great. For those shots of the owls I was borrowing a 1.4x and a 2x. The quality is ok, but definitely a drop off from just the lens alone. I had to do a bit more editing than usual to get the images to look like that. Well, of the adult owl, I let it ride with the baby owl image as the shake reduction was too harsh.
March 30, 20196 yr I have used both of the I and II 100-400 Canons. They are both fantastic, I just rent from time to time since I do mostly landscapes. The IS on the II is even better and it’s not a push/pull so it’s easier to use. I’ll probably try and get a 70-200 soon though, since I can also use it for Astro work since I have an equatorial mount now.
March 30, 20196 yr 5 hours ago, Patricio Swayze said: Thanks. Well, it is a long drive for you, but I can tell you exactly where a baby and mating pair of owls are at in Brazos Bend State Park. And if you have never been there, I think you would like it. A lot of birds and alligators (the photo of one above was not at the park though). Here is the baby owl. There were two, not sure what happened to the other. That's awesome. I really need to get out that way for some coastal area type birding, but I have to find somebody to fill in for cattle feeding time and such. I had a great bald eagle connection in Waco, a guy who can get right near an active nest invited me and said call any time, a few weeks ago when I was waiting on my lens to get back from repair. But my phone died in the meantime and I lost all of my contacts and have been unable to find a contact for him. Maybe next year.
March 31, 20196 yr 7 hours ago, Anton Chigurh said: Man, I need me a zoom. I still don’t have anything over 105mm which is a bit embarrassing. Need a 70-200 soon. I don't either. I don't feel embarrassed. 😀
March 31, 20196 yr 16 hours ago, DougO said: That's awesome. I really need to get out that way for some coastal area type birding, but I have to find somebody to fill in for cattle feeding time and such. I had a great bald eagle connection in Waco, a guy who can get right near an active nest invited me and said call any time, a few weeks ago when I was waiting on my lens to get back from repair. But my phone died in the meantime and I lost all of my contacts and have been unable to find a contact for him. Maybe next year. I'm pretty sure that my buddy I mentioned to you has been out there and knows the same guy. Give me a holler if you want to get hooked up again.
April 1, 20196 yr I'm not sure what got me on this picture. Clouds, sun, or beautiful flowers. But it made me stop on the side of the road for this thread.
April 2, 20196 yr A friend let me borrow his Pentax 645Z setup for awhile. I'll have to take some portraits or something to get a better feel of the resolution and files, but the dynamic range was pretty nice here. This may be a bit of a strange tangent, but I use Capture One to import, add curves/adjustments and process my files. Capture One owns Phase camera which is a direct competitor to Pentax and therefore doesn't support the Pentax in the program (so you could never tether in the studio). You have to edit the images in Terminal to trick the program into thinking they're an IQ250 file. Even then your color temp is all wacked out. Annoying and a major hindrance to shooting this camera. Even if I had the money to spend on a Phase camera/digital back, I would never do it. Edited April 2, 20196 yr by nycHorn
April 6, 20196 yr On 3/30/2019 at 5:56 PM, DougO said: That's awesome. I really need to get out that way for some coastal area type birding, but I have to find somebody to fill in for cattle feeding time and such. I had a great bald eagle connection in Waco, a guy who can get right near an active nest invited me and said call any time, a few weeks ago when I was waiting on my lens to get back from repair. But my phone died in the meantime and I lost all of my contacts and have been unable to find a contact for him. Maybe next year. Is his name Brian? If so I can get you his contact info, just let me know. The guy I know posted this picture yesterday taken at Lake Waco. Edited April 6, 20196 yr by El Diablo
April 6, 20196 yr SXSW: Last night on Dirty 6th Street. I kept trying to get a head on shot of that guy for awhile and he kept turning the dummy’s head around. Got a nice shot from the side though. Plus a couple other shots from that night.
April 14, 20196 yr Author On 4/11/2019 at 11:37 PM, Anton Chigurh said: I really dig old brickwork. Cool stuff. That's Carcosa...aka Fort Macomb. 200 Years old. Very cool and also said that Louisiana is such a fucked up and poor state that they can't maintain historical sites like this and Fort Pike. A couple from yesterday...
April 15, 20196 yr Finally got with the eagle guy earlier this week and made a trip to the nest before the young'uns are ready to fly off, which could be about any day now, so probably a one and done for me. Haven't had a lot of time for editing the mass of photos that mostly look the same. Picked out a few "highlights."
April 15, 20196 yr I missed a bunch of shots. It's like shooting baseball. Lots of waiting for something to happen, then the second your attention lapses the cool thing happens and you're too late to get a decent grab.
April 15, 20196 yr 15 hours ago, DougO said: I missed a bunch of shots. It's like shooting baseball. Lots of waiting for something to happen, then the second your attention lapses the cool thing happens and you're too late to get a decent grab. I know the feeling. I spent the afternoon down at the suspension bridge and snapped a few pictures of the ducks but nothing worth a shit. Little bastards can go fuck themselves.
April 16, 20196 yr Unusual Egyptian goose from a local park that got a lot of local birding buzz, and finally a decent flying scissor-tail shot.
April 16, 20196 yr Author Damn. Awesome as always. How hard were you panning to get that scissor tail?
April 16, 20196 yr 7 minutes ago, Patricio Swayze said: Damn. Awesome as always. How hard were you panning to get that scissor tail? It was more bouncing than panning. I set the shutter speed pretty high, 2500-3200, because it was very windy and it was bobbing all around on stuff. I started watching it when it was sitting on a fence wire, then to my delight it went to the trees and bushes around the small pond just beyond and started frittering around in the wind. It was just grabbing things and dropping them, for practice, I guess. They seem to like a bit of wind. Edited April 16, 20196 yr by DougO
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