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Taken today at Banyule Flats. Went back there hoping the Sacred Kingfisher that I saw there yesterday would return but no luck. I might have to venture out further and see if I can find him/her. Anyway I setup at a swamp where I'd seen these Robins flying around yesterday and they were quite inquisitive then. Today there were four of them flying around the swamp and I found a nice perch that I saw them frequently flying to so I set myself up on the hill near it. Shortly after setting up they came and investigated what I was doing and put on a bit of a show. Filled roughly 1x512mb card

Nikon D70, TC1.4, 500AFSII, SB800 + BB
1/125 @ F10, ISO400, Matrix Metering (for a change), iTTL BL (Auto -3EV)

great shot Darryl

The 500 is already being put to good use.

interested if you have compared the reach with and without the beamer??

Think I need one now for the reasons discussed last night.

Steve

Hi Daryl,

Well done. Sharp and spot on. Would be perfect if the tail is sharp too.

regards,

Arthur

Lovely shot Darryl. I certainly can't give any advice - it looks perfect to me! Any chance you could cast your eye over my Regent Bowerbird shot and give me the benefit of your expert opinion?

Sure thing Manta after I have some dinner.

Arthur, I'm still trying to figure out this beast. As of yesterday I went from F8 to F10 and I still can't render the whole bird sharp. Maybe I was focussed on the eye when I should of been focused a little further back (eg. DOF is lost in front of the yeye)?

Very nice kipper, very nice

kipper wrote:Arthur, I'm still trying to figure out this beast. As of yesterday I went from F8 to F10 and I still can't render the whole bird sharp. Maybe I was focussed on the eye when I should of been focused a little further back (eg. DOF is lost in front of the yeye)?

Hi Daryl,

You are doing wonderfully fine. I am sure you will soon master the lens. You can use the DOF button to check.

regards,

Arthur

I usually don't have time to use the DOF button because by the time I've managed to locate the OOF bird and focussed and take a shot he's gone
Sometimes I don't even get a shot off!

Secondly, that's what I hate about the DOF button on the D70. Sure you can sort of see that the background is in focus or out of focus. But weather you can tell a certain feature of a subject is, is another matter.

Daryll, you are getting your moneys worth out of the 500. Nice

Nice sharp shot!!

Was there much PP done?

Just a little. There was an annoying branch below the main perch. Plus a few background diagonal lines above the bird where the flash (or the sun) was hitting some of the gum trees that were in the swamp.

I did have a spot where I wanted the bird to land which was clear both above/below and no distracting lines. However they didn't want to play ball and decided to go 2M to the right.

Also cloned out the catchlight that my flash caused and left the natural catchlight of the sun in.

Very nice kipper.

I hope to get out this weekend (Monday and Tuesday for me) with my big gun and take some small birds.

I don't think I'll be posting any if you're going to keep this up though.

Great use of flash. That is something I want learn how to do effectivly. A BB is on my shopping list.

Paul

Arthur, after talking to a bird photographer in Sydney I asked him about aperture and DOF and he said at this aperture I should have sharp DOF across the bird. Even if I aim at the birds eye. So the only thing I can think of is perhaps the bird was twitching it's tail?

Hey Daryl - Professional quality image there mate. Top work. Like it a lot.

Cheers Chris, Glen, Arthur, and everyone else that has posted. I remember back in May when I first posted a photo of this species and I really loved the photo back then (even though I would have loved more pixel detail). Now with the 500 all I can say is that I'm absolutely stoked with it. I still have a lot to learn though. I was trying to shoot at 1/125 - 1/160 for these shots at ISO 400. As a rule I don't like to go past ISO 400 with the D70 as I find it has too much noise. Also I wasn't locking the axis on the Wimberley (not sure if you have to yet) and some of the shots aren't 100% tack sharp. I didn't want to limit myself to zero movement as the birds were moving about. Hopefully I'll get some answers on what is the correct method from some of the guys on NSN.

Btw, Birddog's comment about handholding this beast is semi correct. In low light conditions forget trying to handhold, a tripod + wimberley is a must. I know I mentioned in the past a guy on NSN who handholds a Canon but I'm about 99% sure he does so in really good light and only of large birds.

kipper wrote:Btw, Birddog's comment about handholding this beast is semi correct. In low light conditions forget trying to handhold, a tripod + wimberley is a must. I know I mentioned in the past a guy on NSN who handholds a Canon but I'm about 99% sure he does so in really good light and only of large birds.

I know who you mean, and I think you'll find he does it in good light and using the 500/4 IS. BTW, good work with these recent images!

DaveB, yes I'm talking about Jim Nieger. While he has an IS lens, I'm not sure how much it would help him with panning as I know the Nikon VR works great for single shot panning but multi it sucks. Having said that he does seen to produce a lot of good shots in good light.
Btw, cheers

Also, I'm still trying to figure out the flash plus extender. I've been trying lower focal lengths (eg. 50MM) as you suggested as you said the BB has an inverse relationship with focal length (eg. lower focal length = greater coverage).

Lovely crisp image where it counts Kipper. Sat and listenedto a bird photographer from england (Frank Harrison/Harsomething really fantastic images of wildlife, birds in particular) last night at the Cairns Photographic Society meeting and he stressed how important it was to get the eye/s sharp if nothing else. You have done that and more - the image works for me, particularly the muted complementary tone as background really isolates the bird. Well done! Great piece of glass to do it with.
cheers
marco

Marco, if you could find out the name it'd be great, or atleast a website.
Thanks for the praise.

Will do Kipper. He's got into the finals of British Gas Wildlife Comp on several ocassions. His specialty is owls and he's a zoologist.

Interestingly he's just switched to canon after getting sick of waiting for nikon to bring out a 500f4 IS lens, his main stay lens but, get this, he still uses nikon (sorry Ny-kon ) macro gear. He says canon flash system sucks in comparison. Very interesting and unassuming gentleman. He showed us some remarkable captures of rare birds and emphasised the fact that he specialises in behavioural wildlife shots and tries to avoid the cliched shots.

He mentioned that science journals and european and american trends are toward those behavioural shots with expression. He showed us one of his biggest selling images 2 owls on a perch and one had one of its talons extended out directly toward the camera intently looking at its foot with this exploratory gaze. The american podiatry association use the image with the caption 'have you checked your feet lately'. Go figure!
cheers
marco

Hmmm, when I read this your number of posts was exactly 3000....
Cheers!

kipper wrote:While he has an IS lens, I'm not sure how much it would help him with panning as I know the Nikon VR works great for single shot panning but multi it sucks.

The IS system in Mode 2 works great for multi-shot panning sequences.
It's not my intent to disrupt your thread with images, but for illustration here's an example I took a while back with an EOS 10D and 100-400mm IS lens (standing on the back of a fishing boat while the albatross flew past me: this is part of a sequence during the pan).


Maybe I'm trying to get over my jealousy of you having your monster lens: I'm considering renting one for Africa next year.
Of course, the other requirement for handholding a 500mm/4 is weight training!

Also, I'm still trying to figure out the flash plus extender. I've been trying lower focal lengths (eg. 50MM) as you suggested as you said the BB has an inverse relationship with focal length (eg. lower focal length = greater coverage).

More-accurately, the distance between the flash and the beamer lens is less than the focal length of the beamer lens and thus the effect of zooming the flash is inverted. With the beamer you may be able to use the flash at a zoom of approx 35mm with a D70 and still cover the field of view of the 500mm, but the tighter you make the flash beam the more-careful you have to be to make sure it's aligned accurately (it can get knocked easily). No point in having a tight beam if it's not doing anything useful for you!

marcotrov wrote:He says canon flash system sucks in comparison.

This is somewhat straying from the original topic (especially for the NyCon users) but what the hey...

I'm not saying he's wrong at all, just making an observation.
Many people find the exposures of the Canon flash system confusing, and decide that it sucks. But once you understand what the flash metering is doing (it's amazing how many people don't!) you've got a way forward.
Just like many people said auto-exposure doesn't work (and it often needs a hand in getting it right), E-TTL (I & II) is the same. In fact, it's based on the camera's evaluative meter so the comparison is just. Once you know how to handle the meter you can use it as a tool.
Unfortunately many people just switch the flash on and expect it to get it right by itself...

How to work with E-TTL has been the subject of some of my workshops: people are concerned about it enough to pay money to get an answer!

But the gentleman in question may have learnt how it works and still decided that it "sucks" for his application: who can say?

It'd be nice to have a 500VRII and I'd consider changing when it gets released. Although it'd depend on the price and what I could get back on my 500AFSII. It'd be a hard call on what to do new camera with better AF or stay with the D70 and get a 500VRII or both . Hard to tell really as I don't have a crystal ball and it probably won't get released until another year or so.

nice Shot

Marco, I was trying to get a behaviour shot as there were two of them hanging on this fallen gum tree doing a weird sort of pecking or beak rubbing against the tree. One was on one side, the other was hanging on the underside. It was funny to watch! Unfortunately there was a branch covering one of them and I didn't want to move as I would of disturbed them.

The thing that Darryl mentioned as sucking was using vr whilst panning and using continuous frames.

At least with the D70 and continuous shooting with VR is that the image jumps around in the frame BIG TIME between shots . This is a known issue.
I hear rumours that it doesnt happen in the pro bodies but havent tested.

In my own experience with VR in the nikon 80-400vr shooting continuously with VR on whilst panning borders on being un-usable.
When I first saw it I found it a tad confronting but decided on a simple test to get repeatable results:
I observe an aircraft moving at a fair distance so that the radial velocity isnt too great and the aircraft covers approx. the centre viewfinder and pan on it with VR off and shoot a sequence in continuous fire. In every case the aircraft will keep centred in the circle (assuming good panning technique)
NOW, repeat the test with vr on and you get the plane all over the place, top left, some in the centre, bottom right, all over the place. Very confronting.
Actually when panning and shooting, VR should be unnecessary because you tend to get stability due to inertia. Thank you Mr Newton.
Again the phenomenon described above is with the D70 and VR. May not happen on the D2 series but havent tested.
Steve

Dave said:

But the gentleman in question may have learnt how it works and still decided that it "sucks" for his application: who can say?

I didn't intend to create controversy. Indeed he meant this only as a relative comment and he certainly did know his 'stuff' so was well able to give an informed decision. He qualified it by saying that he just believed that the nikon flash system had more to offer and less needy when it came to human intervention. He is in fact using Eos Idmark11's. Either way he has obviously mastered the ettl of canon's as his pictures were great and terrifically sharp. He certailnly had a wonderful eye for composition and tremendous timing and not to forget patience!! Took him 2 years to get one of theshots he showed us.

Kipper said:

Marco, I was trying to get a behaviour shot as there were two of them hanging on this fallen gum tree doing a weird sort of pecking or beak rubbing against the tree. One was on one side, the other was hanging on the underside. It was funny to watch!

I think what you've done is great kipper. I was just relaying his observations about the trends in wildlife photography as he saw it and I must say you could see what he was talking about when he showed comparison shots of the same bird in a traditional pose eg the puffin with a mouthful of sand eels then a shot of a puffin with its vice like jaws fully extended.
Kipper said:

Unfortunately there was a branch covering one of them and I didn't want to move as I would of disturbed them.

I suppose that's why it took him 2 years to get a behavioural shot he was after!!

cheers
marco

David
Nice shot of the albatross. Did you use a Better Beamer flash extender for the catchlight?
cheers
marco

marcotrov wrote:Nice shot of the albatross. Did you use a Better Beamer flash extender for the catchlight?

Not on that shot, no. It was with a bare 420EX flash (I'd had to take the BB off a few minutes before as I was doing some wider-angle shots that the beamer wouldn't cover) hooked up to a belt-mounted battery for quicker recharge (this was part of a 3fps burst as it flew by).
The flash hasn't contributed much in the way of catchlight (there's a catchlight at the top of the eye, but that's from the sun) but it has helped fill in the shadows under the wing a bit.

David

Is the better beamer worth the money in your opinion? I have been thinking of purchasing one for a while.
cheers
marco

Hi Dave,

I am using my company's 20d. Having used SB800, Canon 550EX is not as straight forward. Can you enlighten me on how to use the Canon flash correctly?

regards,

Arthur

DaveB wrote:

marcotrov wrote:He says canon flash system sucks in comparison.

This is somewhat straying from the original topic (especially for the NyCon users) but what the hey...

I'm not saying he's wrong at all, just making an observation.
Many people find the exposures of the Canon flash system confusing, and decide that it sucks. But once you understand what the flash metering is doing (it's amazing how many people don't!) you've got a way forward.
Just like many people said auto-exposure doesn't work (and it often needs a hand in getting it right), E-TTL (I & II) is the same. In fact, it's based on the camera's evaluative meter so the comparison is just. Once you know how to handle the meter you can use it as a tool.
Unfortunately many people just switch the flash on and expect it to get it right by itself...

How to work with E-TTL has been the subject of some of my workshops: people are concerned about it enough to pay money to get an answer!

But the gentleman in question may have learnt how it works and still decided that it "sucks" for his application: who can say?

G'day Darryl,
Just catchign up with the threads, opened this and the only word that comes to mind is "wow"... Nice sharp capture, well done... Bet you're enjoying the beast

That shot is inspiring. I am in puruit of an illusive blue wren that frequents my back yard. This shot of yours has given me hope. Little birds are fickle critters.

Peter Mc

If it's a Blue Wren and seeing you're in Sydney it's probably either a Superb Fairy Wren or the Splendid Fairy Wren.

Kipper - I only just finished abusing Manta for his bowerbird shot, and now I come to you!! Only kidding - a shot I would kill for. You guys are going to have to take me out and teach me how to shoot birds (well, with a camera anyway) !!! And then I pan down, and come to Dave's albatross shot...... maybe if I keep practising, one day I'll pull off something 'close' to either of these 2 shots.
Congrats to both of you,
from a very jealous blacknstormy

My thoughts exactly blacknstormy!

I have no excuses because I have almost the same equipment.



Paul

marcotrov wrote:Is the better beamer worth the money in your opinion? I have been thinking of purchasing one for a while.

Definitely, if you're shooting wildlife with a long lens (> 200mm on a 1.5/1.6x camera) the beamer lets you do more:

• reach further: when you're just using flash as fill it's amazing how far it reaches with a beamer
• use less power for the same illumination: thus it recharges faster, and for action this can be important

Oh, and the most important:

• Burn more marks into your flash body if you're not careful with the sun direction!

yeocsa wrote:I am using my company's 20d. Having used SB800, Canon 550EX is not as straight forward. Can you enlighten me on how to use the Canon flash correctly?

Well, it's a big subject. I'll start by giving you a few pointers:

The flash metering is independent of the ambient metering. Choosing metering mode, etc only affects the ambient.

The flash exposure is basically done using Evaluative metering (although with E-TTL II on the 20D you can select Average instead via a custom function). This means that the scene is split into 35 metered areas which are then compared to the camera's database of known scenes and exposures. For example a dark background with a light subject in the centre of the frame will probably be metered differently to the same scene with the light subject towards the edge of the frame. If you shoot in an AE mode you'll probably have become used to this, applying different amounts of exposure compensation for different scenes. Art Morris has even published a field guide specifically on this subject! Flash metering works the same way, although it's often harder to notice what's going on.

The flash metering is further modified by concentrating on the meter segments corresponding to the active focus point. Thus a white area under the active point will produce less flash than a black area under that point. Some people have had trouble shooting weddings where a slight change in composition can cause a black jacket or white shirt to be under the focus point...
On the 20D it relates to the _active_ point (on the D30/D60 it related to the _selected_ point). If you switch to MF then no point is selected or active and the flash exposure becomes more predictable. If you have AF tied to the * button then if AF is not active when the shutter is triggered then the same thing happens.

Vast differences in the flash metering are most visible when flash is your main light, but the differences are still there if you're just using it as fill. The main difference there is just that you've selected a negative flash exposure compensation, but all the same calculations are done.

That'll do to get you started (it's time I got some sleep!). I suppose we should move further discussion of this to the Canon Corral...

In a word
"Stunning"

Well done Kipper!

Awesome shot.