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Newcastle Wetlands Mini-Meet pics Gallery. Only 11 pics out of the bunch.
http://killakoala.smugmug.com/gallery/404915

All shot with the Nikon 500mm F8 reflex.

Examples:

Not bad that 500mm lens.
I must say, the bird in that first shot must have been designed by a commitee.

Steve

Great captures. 11 Good shots is better than 100 bad ones.

#2 is magic - beautifully composed and nice & sharp.

I also think the windmill shot works well - a nice example of how important cropping can be.

I'm not so sure of the Royal Ibis shot - I find the large white blurry spot above it's tail very distracting - probably would be better cloned out.

And finally - showoff - each pic mentions the bird species

Surely out of a day's worth of work you got more than that? Would love to see more Killa. Did your panorama work out 0 or maybe you haven't had time to get that one done yet?

killakoala,

I admire your talent , some day I will get there

11 out of 100, is better than not putting a film in a camera .

Cheers,

Sheepie, the pano is still a 'work in progress'. I've stopped work for the night.

The windmill shot is full frame, not even cropped. I was pretty close and the 500mm took care of the rest It seemed to work well in the viewfinder.

As for naming the birds, i have a bird book by my side

(BTW the ducks in the pond were teals, which are still ducks anyway, just smaller and tastier. I am not sure of the species.)

That white blurry spot is another Ibis i think. i never even noticed it when i was PP'ing it. I must have been concentrating really hard.

With all due respect to the Nikkor 500mm - it offers great reach and renders subjects sharply, that has got to be the most horrible bokeh I have ever seen!

The egret in flight looks sharp - well captured.

Hi Steve, well most has been said and i think they are great shots, nice indeed.

Hi Steve

You made me remember that I have this lens. I bought it second-hand many years ago as an erstwhile sports photographer, but it is a bit slow for that.

I thought that I read somewhere that it was not compatible with the D70 metering. Is this the case, and if so, how have you managed to take these great pix?

Trevor

My guess would be manual mode, observing a few rules of thumb, with a fixed aperature (F8) all you can really do is fiddle with ISO and Shutterspeed to get a nice pic, a quick review of the histogram (and visual inspect on LCD) will give you some clue as to exposure.

Great shots, the bokeh doesnt actually bother me as much as some mirror lense's I have seen.

Fantastic grab mid air on the second shot.

First shot is great (and 2nd), how close were you to the bird? Ozi

Love the last one Steve. Actually the reason I don't like the others is, as Onyx alluded to, the horrible doughnut bokeh. IMHO they'd be great shots but for the bokeh!!

I agree. The bokeh of the reflex is quite annoying at times. But for 500mm at F8 for $100 is ok for me. I am quite happy to use it knowing it's deficencies. Same goes for the 70-300G. It will make do until i can afford a 70-200VR.

Cricketfan. - Yep, the D70 will not meter through this lens. I start the session by doing a few test shots and determining at around what shutter speeds i will be using. As i predominantly use ISO200, the only other thing i can play with is the shutter speed (oh and white balance). Of course the histogram is essential for getting good exposures. Sometimes it hit and miss, so NEF is handy too.

The spoonbill in mid air required some extensive post processing as it was quite a poorly focussed shot. But the time spent on it was well worth it. If you saw the original you'd wonder how on earth i did it

Killakoala wrote:The bokeh of the reflex is quite annoying at times. But for 500mm at F8 for $100 is ok for me.

Sorry, did I say the bokeh was crap? I meant what a great buy! Fair enough!

Yes, these lenses have always been criticised for their donut bokeh. We now have much better optics to lust after.

I think I bought mine in the 80s - there were quite a few around then, but you don't see them too much now. Although I haven't used it for some years, I dragged it out of the cupboard and was surprised to see that it was still in good nick.

You are managing yours very well, killa.

2nd shot is amazing capture!

Shot #2 is great! Excellent timing and if you're working with only shutter to determine exposure, you've got it well sussed...

Cheers,
Mudder

Really interesting Bokeh

how much did that one set you back (if you dont mind me asking)

Really nice shots Killa - the second one looks as if it were shot through grass or reeds and you have removed them to a certain extent.

Donuts with the mirror lens has always been a problem but as you say for what you paid WGAF

MHD - The lens cost me $100 bucks about 15 years ago. (It is manual everything) It was second hand even then so i have no idea how old it really is.

The second shot (Spoonbill in flight) did have quite extensive PP to get it that good. I wasn't happy with the original capture but i liked the look of it and saw some potential in it. Autofocus would have been nice.