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you have been warned

well having slept a few hours after partying the night earlier i decided to still attend the field trip to the wtp for photos, if you wondering why i havn't posted anything since yetersday, i just got up, hehehe


they're look like they're having heaps of fun




this shot was good until i realised it had half a door window in it


supposely this lake it called swan lake, i wonder why?




this scene reminds me from the hero when nameless see a bunch of arrows fly towards him, although when they flew pass us i though a hail storm of droppings would follow.








probaby would have helped if i had a ladder and a incident spot metered the body for a reading. or used a fill-flash but i reckon it would have spooked many of the birds.

want more photos look in here!
http://www.pixspot.com/thumbnails.php?album=486

Don't be scared of using fill flash dude. I use it all the time, and I've been to Banyule Flats with a fill flash standing right up close to a fantail just shooting heaps of shots at it. I think some of the small birds are facinated by the flashes of light. The reason for thinking this is, when I've been shooting them they sort of look at you and tilt the head to the side. Probably thinking to themselves "what on earth is he doing?". I think getting out of the car spooks them more than flashes

Nice shots there. Just goes to show how many birds there were. I really like the one with the Ibis and the different colour grass. A really flattering photo. I was obviously disgusted at the photo Darryl had just taken.

redline. No angle shots This is an interesting group of pics. The thing that jumps out at me most is that you need a lens with more reach. The two with all the birds are amazing. There's obviously a LOT of wildlife there.

redline wrote:this shot was good until i realised it had half a door window in it

i know how you feel i have plenty of shots of lions walking next to the car only to relise my GF is winding up the wondow

A very nice collection of shots there redline - just one thought - maybe your imprimatur should be changed to TT2005

There's some great shots in there mate. Also an amazing amount of birds. The mass-bird photos are great.

Stubbsy, Thai had the most focal length out of all of us.

A 300mm with 1.4x

kipper wrote:Stubbsy, Thai had the most focal length out of all of us.

A 300mm with 1.4x

Guess the little buggers don't get as close as you'd like then

cough cough !!! wow he does know how to hold the camera straight.LOL
Hey Thai, good shots mate, doesn't it feel good to do something different?
Glad you enjoyed the trip.
Cheers
John

I"ll better change the pre-batching setting on the ps to tt2005

Thanks for the all your comments ppl. its nice to do something different, i hope you enjoy the pics.

There are plenty of birds there. But I also noticed that the shots were taken from pretty far away. Was it impossible to get any nearer? What were the obstacles?

regards,

Arthur

yeocsa wrote:There are plenty of birds there. But I also noticed that the shots were taken from pretty far away. Was it impossible to get any nearer? What were the obstacles?

regards,

Arthur

obstacles? you mean the fact birds fly away the moment your spotted!

The 2nd and 3rd last ones are thethe best, great control of Depth of Field and composition and lovely colour
what lens did you use?

thanks wenedellt,
it was an old ais 300 f/2.8 prime with a 1.4 tc attached

Redline has experience my pain Arthur. Unlike Seagulls and Ducks , most of these birds fly away as Redline has said as soon as they get nervous about your presence. Next time we go out to WTP, we'll show you what it's like

Btw, not sure what's happening with Redlines photos. Seems like they're fairly uncropped. Not sure if he had issues with his lens plus vibration causing the images to be soft? I know mine even at 1/1000th with VR on were a bit soft when in a car with a running engine  PS, you should of seen us. We were trying to a Darb capturing a shot of a Whistling Kite. There was this one to the right of us flying parralel to the car at car height and swooping something running in a ditch. Nicole was driving with no hands on the wheel with the 80-400VR in hand. I grabbed the wheel and steered while she was shooting. Plus we had no seatbelts on!

kipper wrote:Redline has experience my pain Arthur. Unlike Seagulls and Ducks , most of these birds fly away as Redline has said as soon as they get nervous about your presence. Next time we go out to WTP, we'll show you what it's like

Btw, not sure what's happening with Redlines photos. Seems like they're fairly uncropped. Not sure if he had issues with his lens plus vibration causing the images to be soft? I know mine even at 1/1000th with VR on were a bit soft when in a car with a running engine  PS, you should of seen us. We were trying to a Darb capturing a shot of a Whistling Kite. There was this one to the right of us flying parralel to the car at car height and swooping something running in a ditch. Nicole was driving with no hands on the wheel with the 80-400VR in hand. I grabbed the wheel and steered while she was shooting. Plus we had no seatbelts on!

Hi Kipper,

Thanks for sharing your experience. I fully understand your pain, Kipper. How we wish that they will stay still just for a second or two.

It is so exciting to hear your accounts. But please in future, don't drive with no hands! You would want to keep alive for more and better future opportunities.

Yes, the running engine can cause pic to be soft. But i would think that the softness comes from the fact that redline is handholding a heavy lens. 300f2.8 + TC1.4 is a receipe for soft pictures. Even with VR, you can get soft pics - esp when you trip the shutter and when the VR has not completed the adjustments.

I am already looking forward to the next WTP outing.

regards,

Arthur

yeah most of the time, all the cars shots were done using the window as a bipod but with the engine running you needed something like 1/1250 to cut out the huge vibrations on such a small degree of view. however it did effect one shot very badly DSC_7880.jpg i think it was either me shooting thru the half window causing the multi-exp or i shot while the engine was still running. in future i might bring a pillow to absorb the vibrations.
I think the softness in my pics are due to the crappy jpeg downsizing.

Again Thanks to Nicole for organising the trip

Redline, I meant to bring a towel with me.

And thanks Nicole.

Hi

Sorry, mate. Towels, pillows, beanbags - won't help. Best to turn off the car engine. Then use beanbag or tripod (for car). The noise from the car engine could frighten the birds away anyway. The plus side is that the car acts as a hide. Birds are not as afraid of cars as they with humans.

regards,

Arthur

I think the car engine was turned off a bit due to constant stalling. But yes in future the engine should be turned off all the time. I don't think the engine starting back up should scare them. Surely they would be used to the noise from the works around the plant.

No problems guys. Thanks for the thankyou. Always nice.

Yeosca, we were edging forwards each time. We'd take shots, move foward, take shots. If it flew away each time we tried to get closer we'd have the previous location shots. Stopping and turning the engine off meant starting the engine would scare the bird. I guess we could try next time to get close as possible and turn the engine off.

As Kipper explained, we use the "stop, shoot and 1st gear " technique.
however whenever we spotted a bird within a 5meter radius of the car. We would ready our cameras, Nicole would switch off the engine and if the bird didn't leave once the engine was switched off, we would shoot.

Nicole wrote:I think the car engine was turned off a bit due to constant stalling. But yes in future the engine should be turned off all the time. I don't think the engine starting back up should scare them. Surely they would be used to the noise from the works around the plant.

No problems guys. Thanks for the thankyou. Always nice.

Hi

That's multi-tasking. Looking out the subjects, readying your camera and driving the manual car! That takes alot of concentration, Nicole. Not everyone can do that.

I am grateful to all of you for your candid sharing. They really helped me to appreciate all the efforts and circumstance that have been put in. I comment you for all that.

The raptors have super sharp eye sight and hearing. It is no surprise that they would have spotted you guys miles away.

I will contact my friends on their experience in photographing these raptors and report back to you.

Meanwhile, there's a very interesting writeup of a recent trip.

http://www.naturephotosociety.org.sg/AS ... =5/11/2005

An extract as follows:-
"While observing these juveniles, we took our time to let them get used to our presence. In the first few days, we kept our distance.
We noticed that they were more interested in eating when they had some catch and took the opportunity to move closer when they were devouring their prey. Usually, they would just stop and glance at us and we would then make slow movements to avoid spooking them.

We learned that they were very accommodating if we had some eye contact with them, moved slowly and in the open in full view of them worked best.

Trying to hide and stalk them from cover of bush usually ended up in spooking them at some time as they “suddenly” realize how close we really are.

After 2 weeks of visiting them every day, we slowly worked to cut our distance between them to within 12~15metres

Sometimes it was fun to be within such close proximity and when they were observing us, we would make some cat calling noises and they would look hard in our direction to check if what made the sound or more appropriately, if what made the sound could be eaten. I guess at some point in time, they must have learned that we were not really suited to their taste buds."

I hope this helps. I will try to find out more and try them out in the field.



regards,

Arthur

Hi Nicole, Kipper and Redline,

The following was what had been done to photograph and study the kites in the wild.



Extact from Part 1 of the article:

"Carrying almost everything except the kitchen sink, we hauled the heavy gear to our location as quickly as we could to set up the hide and be ready before the sun rose. Our gear included a hide, groundsheets and a fourth tripod for the Swarovski scope.

By the time we reached our location, I was almost drenched in my own perspiration from hauling the heavy gear and walking briskly. We began to set up with first assembling the hide, this took us about 10mins. Next came the camera and lenses. Flash was not used as the distances to the subject made the flash quite useless. By 7.15am, just before the sun broke the horizon, we were all set up. Now all we had to do was wait for the action to begin.

This hauling of gear in, shooting, hauling gear out repeated itself over the next 3 weekends.

Shooting Tactics Learned and Developed

In order to accumulate the necessary number and variety of shots, the 3 of us (Vincent, Graeme and I) decided to divide and conquer. Here are some of the things we did:

1. We came to shoot whenever we could, either in two’s or three’s or solo. This way we could make our observations at different times of the day and as well as different days.

2. When all 3 of us were shooting, we located at 3 separate locations. No point all of us shoot from the same locations and ending up with the same pictures. This also allowed us to also warn each other as the kite approaches each of our shooting locations. This also enabled us as a team to get a variety of shots of the kites behavior at various locations, hence increasing the chance of getting a larger pool of shots.

3. Move slowly and quietly, even squatting if you have too. These kites only allow you within a certain range before they fly of. Crouching low and moving slow allows you a higher percentage of luck that it would allow you closer. Notice I said LUCK.

4. Whenever we approached the nesting tree, we always approached in full view. This allowed the adults to know we were in the vicinity and not have them be surprised at our sudden appearance.

5. In the early days of the chicks(the first 3 weeks), we shot from the hide so as to minimise any distress on the family. As after the 3rd week or so, the adult kites did not seem to be bothered as we walked around in the open slowly. They continued about their business feeding the chicks. From then on, the hide was not used anymore."


regards,

Arthur