'The Birds'

[Kaye]

I was amazed at the thousands of birds (Corellas) that flocked in certain spots each day at Lake Malwala. I took these shots around a month ago with my then new D90 whilst I was away as my first trials. I tried to capture the multitudes of birds that I viewed taking off, but I found this is not easy to capture. I was just trying to learn my settings at this stage.
Thanks for viewing, and any help would be much appreciated.

1,2 & 3. f/9, 1/800sec, ISO200, ExpBias -1, 105mm
4. f/5.6, 1/1000sec, ISO100, ExpBias -0.7, 98mm

14672 14671

These are not great quality, but I liked the synchronisation in 3 and the confusion in 4.
14673 14674


This is the shot I liked from my last thread "Corella in Flight" and really wanted to post it again for comparison to the above.

14675 5. f/5.6, 1/1000sec, ISO100, ExpBias -0.7, 98mm

[mingkywingky]

Hi Kaye, these are great. I'm imagining being there seeing all those birds. Did someone scare them off so they're flying all over?
The backgrounds of no1&2 were a bit busy though, maybe you could edit them to make the background a bit blur, if possible. But I think it's a bit hard since they're too many.
Thanks Kaye.

[Kaye]

Hi Tenny,
I really appreciate your reply thank you. There were so many birds here, I had no way of capturing them all!
I was slowly approaching hundreds of these birds on the ground, and then just one more step and they all took off! I captured what I could at the time.

These are not worth trying to edit the busy backgrounds in 1 & 2, which, as you said would be difficult.
I posted these more for learning purposes. These were also from my holiday when I had only had my camera for a couple of weeks, but I am going through my shots to compare settings and learn from the many shots I took.

[eskdalemum]

Hi Kaye
Really nice shots once again :). #1 & #2 are very busy but I think the main reason for this is the close proximity to the buildings, #3 composition is good and so is the exposure, (your newer lens may have come in handy here for closer zoom) #4 I think the picture is good just the tree down the bottom takes the focus off the birds (that my opinion). I hope you don't mind I had a play with that picture and I can post the cropped and edited version if you want?

[Kaye]

Hi Kaye
Really nice shots once again :). #1 & #2 are very busy but I think the main reason for this is the close proximity to the buildings, #3 composition is good and so is the exposure, (your newer lens may have come in handy here for closer zoom) #4 I think the picture is good just the tree down the bottom takes the focus off the birds (that my opinion). I hope you don't mind I had a play with that picture and I can post the cropped and edited version if you want?

Many thanks again Racheal for taking the time to look at these shots, and I really appreciate your help here.

1 & 2 were shots I just had to try. These were "spur of the moment" shots when the birds took off. Being reasonably close to the birds, I guessed the background would not be great, but what the heck.. I tried anyway. The birds flew very close to the buildings.
Not sure if I could have used better settings here, but did not have time anyway.

No. 3... This was one of the first Bird in Flight shots that I took. I must agree that the longer zoom of my other lens 70-300mm would be better, but it has no VR, so really need tripod with this.

No. 4... I wondered about the tree, but as the birds were landing, I thought we should see a landing place, if you get what I mean. I also did consider cropping it out as you suggested. It may perhaps look better. I did not want to crop too much and lose detail in the birds either.

No. 5... I posted this from an earlier thread for comparison, as this was taken when the birds were flying lower, so that my 18-105mm almost managed a reasonable shot.

Again, I thank you so much Racheal, and I certainly don't mind if you play around with my shots, and am most happy for you to post any edits, crops that you have done, and look forward to viewing them.

[eskdalemum]

Hi Kaye,
Here's what I did with picture #4http://www.proudphotography.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=14705&stc=1&d=1305414428 I think the only way we learn is b giving it a go and picking the camera up and taking photos

[Kaye]

Hi Racheal,
Thanks so much for your edit. I love what you have done here. I think the bush did spoil the shot, but I still sort of feel that he needs something to land on :D

I finally got around to posting some more shots of some buildings in Albury in the Urban section. Perhaps you may know the name of the tall white monument? I couldn't remember it.