BRRRRRRRD BRRRRRRRRRRRRRD

Me in enemy helicopter: ooooohhhh elephants, let's get in for a closer look!

Thank you.

No method really. I used to take my camera almost everywhere I thought I might see wildlife. Now days I'm a little pickier, especially if the light is poor. Occasionally I'll see something and think "if only I had my camera" but not that often. I've taken 100s of thousands of photos and almost all are garbage as photography goes, but it's nice to have a record of what you've seen. and it's good practice for when the moment arrives.

In this case I was walking the dogs by our local river. It was early evening, the sun was low in the sky and with only a little cloud the light was warm and strong. I was watching the kite skirting over the reeds. They used to be very rare here, so I was pleased to see it. Kites are good to photograph in flight as they are big, contrasty and relatively slow moving, and they like to turn with their primaries well spread. I saw it dive into the reeds and then come out with a big fish carcass that fell apart as it took off. leaving it with the head. The crow came out of the willows on the opposite bank and chased it for a good few minutes before the kite dropped the head in the river, so no one got it in the end. They were at the right height for the sun to be almost level with them, which really helped pick the feathers out on the crow. I'd say they were 50ft away at closest. The difference good light made here was being able to push the shutter speed and aperture. That lens is noticeably sharper at f/7.1 than f/5.6 and 1/1600s was really useful in pinning the shot. I probably took 50 shots and it was just one of those moments where they almost all had something of interest in them. Right place, right time.

Looks like everything is back 😀

You're too kind, but thank you.

We get goldfinches but no chaffinches or greenfinches. I don't think there is enough woodland for them, mostly farmland, but there are a lot of teasles, which the goldfinches love for their seeds.

I would love to see any pictures you have of the greenfinches, they are such beautiful birds.

Glad you like it 😊

Thank you 😊

Tldr: yes and no, because I shoot in RAW.

I shoot in RAW so I have an import profile I use in lightroom for all my bird photos that's basically balancing the exposure, shadows and highlights with some noise reduction and sharpening. I don't apply any colour correction.

I then mess around with the ones I want to make a tiff from or on rare occasions print. I usually end up making it worse lol

This one was a bit different, in that the bird was well lit and I was happy with everything but the leaves were really blue as they were in deep shade. I looked at changing the white balance to bring the greens out or messing with the channels, but in the end I left it pretty much alone.

When I started digital photography I found it difficult to deal with everyone's opinions on the look and feel of my images. I have a taste but it's not to everyone's liking. This many years later I have kind of decided you can't please everyone but I am really glad you like it.

I have a couple of others I think you will like if you like this one. I'll post them up over the next few days.

You honour me Lunch ☺️

Tldr: Sleepy Eel, very fast and agile bird = dead fish

The big Eels are predators themselves. And if angling is anything to go by then they hunt at night, as that is when they are most often caught. That would suggest that during the day they are probably holed up dozing on or near the bottom of the river in the plants and rocks. Also, at this point of the river, there is a large weir and boat lock, with an eel stair. This allows them to migrate around the man-made obstruction. So they may also be a number of them shoaled up waiting to migrate past the weir. Add this to the fact that cormorants are very fast swimmers, and incredibly agile. That long neck and hooked beak can get in nooks and crannies and latch onto almost anything edible. They are quite capable of catching sea fish in open water. The Eels advantage, if it had one, is they are incredibly slimy and seem to be able to produce additional mucus when threatened. The cormorant lost its grip a few times as it thrashed the eel like a whip trying to subdued it.

Wow, those parakeets get everywhere! How far North in Europe are you? We get them occasionally in East Anglia but with greater frequency. In London I can show you dozens in some of the parks. They have even been seen as far North as Durham.

Lovely photos by the way 👍

Pretty much, if I was shooting this with my D850 and 200-500mm at 500mm and f/7.2 and the owl was 20ft away the total depth of field would be 2.3 inches 5.8cm. That's half that in front of the plane of focus and half behind. That's about as shallow as I would want to go and so looking at that image I think it's shot at maybe 300mm

I'm glad you like it ☺️

That's really interesting, thanks Drempels.

London is 51.5° North and Düsseldorf is 51.2° so basically the same, but your winters are a lot colder than ours I imagine, meaning our parakeets can live in places further North, like Durham.

There are many rumours about how they got loose in the UK. One is a music video/film with Jimmy Hendrix at Elstree studios in Borehamwood where they were released as part of the production. There are quite a lot of them in that area so it may be true 🫨

https://lemmy.world/post/11444745

Yes, they do have an air of self confidence for ones so small, a bit like my chihuahua lol

Thanks 😊

I have had the pleasure....terror...of being in the middle of a fog-filled fen when two bitterns started booming. Even when you know they are there it's pretty freaky.

It's a lovely place to visit and if you go at the right time of year you may see the peregrines that nest on the cathedral.

Tldr: 51.6 MB on the D850 and 28.5 MB on the D7200.

The D850 sensor is a full frame 35.9mm x 23.9mm with 46.9 million pixels. The files are 51.6 MB in 14 bit lossless compression format.

The D7200 I also use has an APS-C sensor 23.5mm x 15.6mm with 24 million pixels. 14 bit lossless compression gives 28.5 MB files.

You can shoot the D850 in crop mode which makes it essential like a D500 which is the best APS-C Nikon do (at least with a mirror) and you will get D7200 comparative files. I don't use it like that as I want ALL the pixels lol Mostly for the fact I want as much freedom to locate the subject in the final image as I can.

I use a Sony XQD 120 GB 440 mb/s primary card in the D850 with a SanDisk extreme pro UHS-II as roll over storage, unless I need a backup for an important event and then I duplicate across both cards. I use 2 of the SanDisk cards in the D7200.

You can get about 2300 D850 14 bit lossless compressed RAW files on the Sony card.

😂

Cheers. To be fair I'd been out photoing all day and seen plenty of them out of range, so I wasn't hugely surprised when he popped up.