Gentians really are eye wateringly blue. Back in film days, it used to be really difficult to capture their colour accurately, usually tending towards more magenta. Can't remember the reason now...
Gentians really are eye wateringly blue. Back in film days, it used to be really difficult to capture their colour accurately, usually tending towards more magenta. Can't remember the reason now...
@Woodsider79 has written:Brodgar
Orkney.
We rented a cottage just a short evening walk from the Ring of Brodgar, a 5000 year old neolithic 'henge', surrounded by lochs and wildflowers.Sounds and looks like my kind of country and yet another part of the UK that I didn't know existed (Brodgar, not Orkney). Nice shots, these would be my favourites, but I feel the first three above could do with just a bit of nudge on the shadow and/or black sliders if there's any extra detail to be had in those shadows. The fourth one above works well as a silhouette though.
Looking here on my phone I tend to agree. I wonder if if they look a bit darker than when I processed them on my laptop screen. Lifting the shadows much did make for a lot of noise, so I didn't push it too far. I was also aiming for a mysterious effect. I'll have another go when I get home.
@SteveMonks has written: @Fireplace33 has written:Here are some shots from our hikes in Carinthia 2-3 weeks ago
You hike in some superb locations and you've captured them well here. The blue flowers in the last one look stunning and somewhat alien compared to most of what I generally see in the English countryside (it's all green, brown, yellow and occasionally pink/red if you're lucky). Even our Bluebells tend not to be as vibrant as those.
Gentians really are eye wateringly blue. Back in film days, it used to be really difficult to capture their colour accurately, usually tending towards more magenta. Can't remember the reason now...
I think it's due to the use of yellow dye that represents blue in the negative. There's a limit to how saturated yellow dye can get, which imposes a limit on how blue the reversed image can be when printed. I imagine reversal (slide) film behaves differently.
Now a Wildlife Photographer?
The squirrel steals the show here.
Wildlife is an expensive slippery slope to go down. I once worked with a chap who was a dedicated wildlife photographer. It often involved long hours in uncomfortable hides. His photos were brilliant, but I realised I did not have the dedication for this branch of photography.
@SteveMonks has written:Now a Wildlife Photographer?
The squirrel steals the show here.
Wildlife is an expensive slippery slope to go down. I once worked with a chap who was a dedicated wildlife photographer. It often involved long hours in uncomfortable hides. His photos were brilliant, but I realised I did not have the dedication for this branch of photography.
I don't think I'd have the patience to do it properly (in this instance, I got bored before the squirrel did!), but it's fun to try something different once in a while.
Well, I did a thing last week. After many years of dithering, I went back to Nikon with a Z6iii. I started shooting with a Sony A6400 a couple of years ago as a stopgap. It was simply the cheapest way to solve autofocus issues for my dog photography. Although the autofocus was amazing, I never warmed up to the rest of the camera. At the same time, I couldn't quite warm up to what Nikon had to offer either. When the Z6iii came out, I knew that it was the goldilocks camera I had been looking for, and I bought it without hesitation. So far I am super happy with it.
Some of this week doggies ...
Don't know how I missed these. They're just lovely. Their characters really shine though. Congrats on that new camera.
Brodgar
Orkney.
We rented a cottage just a short evening walk from the Ring of Brodgar, a 5000 year old neolithic 'henge', surrounded by lochs and wildflowers.
Again, I seem to have missed a big chunk of this week's thread.
This is my fav from a very moody set.
Now a Wildlife Photographer?
No, not really, but I went out on Saturday afternoon to the nearby Yarrow Valley Park, or Birkacre as it used to be known in th'olden days before it became a local tourist spot and the only thing it was known for was a large drained, swampy lodge and a run down buildings where my dad used to buy TV spares from (this was back in the days proper recycling when people used to fix things rather than throw them away).
The squirrel shot with the feet is cute. Even thouh those little sods are ruining my garden.
Down By The River is a lovely shot.
@SteveMonks has written:Now a Wildlife Photographer?
The squirrel steals the show here.
Wildlife is an expensive slippery slope to go down. I once worked with a chap who was a dedicated wildlife photographer. It often involved long hours in uncomfortable hides. His photos were brilliant, but I realised I did not have the dedication for this branch of photography.
Also, people don't realise how much effort goes into it just to get half-decent results.
@NCV has written: @SteveMonks has written:Now a Wildlife Photographer?
The squirrel steals the show here.
Wildlife is an expensive slippery slope to go down. I once worked with a chap who was a dedicated wildlife photographer. It often involved long hours in uncomfortable hides. His photos were brilliant, but I realised I did not have the dedication for this branch of photography.
I don't think I'd have the patience to do it properly (in this instance, I got bored before the squirrel did!), but it's fun to try something different once in a while.
I presume you never experienced that rush of adrenaline when you see animal and try to shoot it. Without blood. Well, there is sometimes blood involved, from bloody mosquitoes or from barbed wire you tripped over when chasing animal. But these rare exciting moments are well worth of long and fruitless waits.
IMO, of course 😀
I have no idea what happens in this building in Riga, nor do I want to know.
I think I've seen this one before ?
I also think that the sign says its up for sale. I won't ge putting in an offer though ;-)
Terraforming
I visited my brother during midsummer days and he took me to his previous work area. Well, he was just doing some terraforming work to change mining tailings hill into recreational area.
View from bottom. I had only 17 mm lens with my OM-5 so I could capture only part of it. Only later I recalled that OM-5 has panorama mode...
There is also way to walk to the top, starting with gravel road and then stairs. Lot of them. Total ascent was ca 70 meters. Good thing that I'm taking care of my fitness...
I like these two best :-)
Interesting place
Those stairs look endless !
When I hear the word terraforming, I usually think about changing the climate and conditions of some other planet. But you've reminded me that we have enough opportunities here on earth to do some of that here too
Summer on Lake Garda
I was near to Lake Garda for work last week. Just after I had visited the lemon greenhouses on the lake the heavens opened. This year we are having a really wet summer. Still I came back with three boxes of wine from some vineyards I know.
The cultivation of lemons was once an important industry here, before synthetic citric acid made the cultivation of lemons for industry obsolete. Just a couple of these greenhouses remain. In the winter the roof is covered and the sides closed. The Limoncino they make is quite nice.
The cathedral in Salo
3 boxes of wine and some good photos.
Sounds like a pretty good balance for the trip :-)
Kestrels
While I was out walking one evening last week, I stumbled across a family of young Kestrels. I only had the X-T50 with me, but I'd had the foresight to pack the Fujifilm 55-200 zoom, which is relatively light and takes my reach out to 300mm in full frame terms. The light was really dull so I bumped the ISO much higher than I would normally want to, hoping I'd be able to tame the noise later using Topaz. Despite bumping the ISO to 6400, I was still getting relatively slow shutter speeds for capturing flying birds, plus they were a bit too far away while in the air, so the results were better than nothing, but not great.
Guess Who's Coming To Dinner?
This was an early attempt to catch one in flight. At the time I took this, I hadn't realised she was carrying a tasty snack in the form of an unfortunate field mouse (or it might be a mole, I'm not entirely sure). This was a relatively small crop, so it's had the full gamut of what Topaz can throw at it (upscale, noise reduction and sharpening) to try and make something acceptable.
Permission to Land
This would have been a great shot if I'd had more reach and more light. Again, it's been Topaz'd to within an inch of its life.
Waiting
She stood on this post for quite a while. I was initially about 30ft away and crouching in the grass, but every so often (especially when cramp set in), I'd try to shuffle forward and get a bit closer. Eventually, I got to within about 20ft where this shot was taken. It's probably the best from that particular encounter.
I was reasonably pleased with the last image, particularly given the equipment I was using, but reckoned I'd be able to do better with a more appropriate camera and lens combo, so the next night I set out to the same location with the Z8 and Nikkor 100-400 f/4.5-5.6S. An extra 100mm (effectively), a less noisy sensor and a camera and lens built for speed, this was going to be so much easier.
When I reached the location, I found a nice sheltered spot, sat down and waited. And waited. And waited. After about 20 minutes of contemplation, I decided the birds were going to be a no show and decided that I'd go and have a wander in the nearby woods instead. As I started to move off I spotted not one, but two Kestrels on some distant fenceposts and began to creep closer.
The Kestrels spotted me immediately, but weren't particularly bothered as I was still far enough away from them.
Not You Again?
As I got closer one bird flew away, while the other just stood there surveying the area and occasionally giving me dirty looks. This was taken at 400mm and the original image is cropped down to 6.5MP, so it still has a decent amount of detail.
Stretch Your Wings
While she was stood there, she decided to have a little stretch, first mobilising her wings.
Leg Day
And then stretching her legs. I knew she was getting ready to take to the air, so I was primed, the camera had a good focus lock, I just needed to wait for the right moment...
And She's Off!
In an instant she opened her wings and flew from the post, naturally I tracked her smoothly, probably too smoothly as all I got was a shot of her undercarriage as seen in this uncropped shot.
World Class Tracking
As she soared into the air, I continued to track her repeatedly firing the shutter. I think I was on CL release by this point, however, my shots of the Kestrel in flight were less than impressive. This (uncropped image) would have been pretty good had it been sharp. I'm not sure if the issue here was the focus tracking had missed or I simply hadn't dialled in a high enough shutter speed. I would have thought 1/1000th of a second would have been enough, but maybe not. In the full res image you can see what look like little streaks in the air around the bird, which I guess were water droplets or midges and, as they're streaks, it does indicate motion.
Faraway Flyer
This one looks sharp, but she's a bit too far away. This is from a 5MP crop that's been run through Topaz to upscale it a bit. I'm not entirely sure that's helping. It looks a bit sharper, but also (at full res) looks a bit impressionistic.
A Sinister Glare
When she landed again I was able to get close enough to take this shot (6MP square crop). She looks so pleased to see me, either that or she's weighing up whether it's worth attacking me or not. Either way, I decided it was a good time to leave.
Conclusion
Not that anyone should be taking bird photography tips from me, but for anyone interested, I had the Z8 set to AF-C, with the largest custom focus box it would let me set, auto subject detection enabled and CL release. I was in shutter priority, with the shutter speed set to 1/1000th of a second and auto ISO enabled. I have all of this set up on a 2nd custom bank, so it's a one button job to switch between this and my typical landscape setup.
In general, the subject detection worked well, latching onto the bird accurately and even onto its eye when I was close enough. Occasionally, it refused to see the bird at all and decided a nearby lump of rock was a better target. This was annoying, because when it does that, there doesn't seem to be any way to get it to re-examine the scene or even manually set the focus lock. I've subsequently read various configuration suggestions which sacrifice a programmable button for a one button switch between focus areas or even focus modes (i.e. back to spot AF-S) to deal with these situations, so I need to play around a bit more with how I've got the camera configured.
I could have done with a bit more reach, so I may need to invest in the 1.4x teleconverter at some point as I believe this plays well with the 100-400 and it would put me roughly in the same ballpark as the 150-600 without adding much extra bulk.
Out of the two cameras, the Nikon performed much better for this use case as expected, but the little X-T50 did quite well too, in fact its subject detection seemed a bit happier to find the bird than the Nikon did, whether or not it was actually focussing on it is another matter, although considering it was somewhat hamstrung by the lens I was using it with. Fuji's 100-400 would have been a handy lens in this instance, but I no longer own one as I always found its AF to be really hit and miss when I had it with the X-H2 (from my own experience, I'm convinced a lot of the problems people have with Fuji AF are lens related). It's also nearly as heavy as the Nikon 100-400, so it's not something I'd want to be carrying around with my lightweight X-T50.
Wildlife photography is difficult. Your results are good but I have the feeling that if you really wanted to you could perfect the choice of best gear and needed technique and deliver some
Relly excellent results :-)
Salute. I think she has a good sense of humour.
This one fits well to your style of high contrast with deep blacks and just the right amount of good light on the subject. And then taken at just the right moment :-)
Well, I did a thing last week. After many years of dithering, I went back to Nikon with a Z6iii. I started shooting with a Sony A6400 a couple of years ago as a stopgap. It was simply the cheapest way to solve autofocus issues for my dog photography. Although the autofocus was amazing, I never warmed up to the rest of the camera. At the same time, I couldn't quite warm up to what Nikon had to offer either. When the Z6iii came out, I knew that it was the goldilocks camera I had been looking for, and I bought it without hesitation. So far I am super happy with it.
Some of this week doggies ...
Quite the elegant lady in this shot!
Congrats on the new camera. It's getting lots of praise.
Definitely fun to have something new to play with. Personally, I'm waiting for a possible Z7iii, but I'm not in a real hurry :-)
Brodgar
Orkney.
We rented a cottage just a short evening walk from the Ring of Brodgar, a 5000 year old neolithic 'henge', surrounded by lochs and wildflowers.
You manage to find and stay in some great places.
Love these two shots, expecially the second one. Very atmospheric, mystical and inspiring
@Fireplace33 has written:Here are some shots from our hikes in Carinthia 2-3 weeks ago
if you open up the full res version, you can see the "Erlacher Bock Hütte" in the distance. We hiked to that mountain hut 2 days later. They serve a great "Speck Brot mit Bier" :-)
I really like this, that winding path has more emphasis and gives the eye somewhere to rest.
Thanks. It was quite a hike to get to that hut at the end of the winding path. But well worth the walk :-)
@Fireplace33 has written:Here are some shots from our hikes in Carinthia 2-3 weeks ago
if you open up the full res version, you can see the "Erlacher Bock Hütte" in the distance. We hiked to that mountain hut 2 days later. They serve a great "Speck Brot mit Bier" :-)
You hike in some superb locations and you've captured them well here.
Thanks, I feel lucky to live fairly close to these locations. Austria certainly has lots of great scenery to offer. As, of course, do many other places in the world :-)
The blue flowers in the last one look stunning and somewhat alien compared to most of what I generally see in the English countryside (it's all green, brown, yellow and occasionally pink/red if you're lucky). Even our Bluebells tend not to be as vibrant as those.
The wild flowers were especially beautiful on that hike. Higher up it's like going back 2 months in time and seeing spring flowers in the middle of summer
@Fireplace33 has written:Here are some shots from our hikes in Carinthia 2-3 weeks ago
I like the huts in shots, gives impression of scale, which otherwise would be lost.
Are these colour strips on last shot markings for trekking paths? Here we don't have mountains, instead trees are painted with stripes to designate trekking paths.
Yes, most of the paths here are marked with the painted red-white-red strips.
That's the colours of the Austrian flag.
Always reassuring to see the next marking along a hike :-)
@Vahur has written: @Fireplace33 has written:Here are some shots from our hikes in Carinthia 2-3 weeks ago
I like the huts in shots, gives impression of scale, which otherwise would be lost.
Are these colour strips on last shot markings for trekking paths? Here we don't have mountains, instead trees are painted with stripes to designate trekking paths.Yes, most of the paths here are marked with the painted red-white-red strips.
That's the colours of the Austrian flag.
Always reassuring to see the next marking along a hike :-)
We use this system too in Italy, with the same colours. Yes, it saves a lot of map reading on mountain hikes, but panic can set in when you cannot find the next one in deep woodland.