Shitting birds, for n00bs, using camera

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > Creative Convention > The Dorkroom > Shitting birds, for n00bs, using camera

Helen Highwater: Feb 19, 2014; And furthermore; Grimey Drawer

Low passes at a falconry demonstration.

IMG_2615.jpg by Iain Compton, on Flickr

IMG_2737.jpg by Iain Compton, on Flickr

IMG_2419.jpg by Iain Compton, on Flickr

# ¿ Oct 2, 2016 16:49

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# ¿ May 10, 2024 04:30

Helen Highwater: Feb 19, 2014; And furthermore; Grimey Drawer

ExecuDork posted:

500mm f-4.5 (1 of 2) by Martin Brummell, on Flickr

Is that some weird lighting artifact that makes it look gold or do you actually have a blinged up Pentax?

# ¿ Nov 15, 2016 21:49

Helen Highwater: Feb 19, 2014; And furthermore; Grimey Drawer

Rodatose posted:

I'm looking for a new dslr camera/setup to replace my panasonic fz70 lumix (which I foolishly took apart to try to clean a lens and broke one of the electonic ribbons). What's a good setup someone here would recommend, preferably under $1000, for good bird pics (especially faraway bird pics)? I'd want one with video-shooting ability too.

Here's a cardinal I took: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_p3EBlZ91I

Zenit 12 Fotosnaiper, a box of Provia and a subscription to your local gym to work on arms and shoulders.

# ¿ Dec 5, 2016 23:20

Helen Highwater: Feb 19, 2014; And furthermore; Grimey Drawer

I was in Stockholm last week and watched this coot systematically make a number of different swans his personal bitches. My 80kg dog is scared of swans but this 400g bird gives no fucks.

IMG_4963.jpg by Iain Compton, on Flickr

# ¿ Feb 19, 2017 23:04

Helen Highwater: Feb 19, 2014; And furthermore; Grimey Drawer

There's a Nikon 100-300 f/5.6 which is out of production now but readily available on your second hand gear site of choice. It won't be as good as a 400mm prime but it will poo poo all over your 55-200.

# ¿ Jul 6, 2017 13:47

Helen Highwater: Feb 19, 2014; And furthermore; Grimey Drawer

Skutter posted:

Kelda 420-800mm F/8.3-16 manual lens

I had no idea this lens existed. I looked it up (it's a generic made under various brand names - Opteka Top-Max, Kelda,, etc) and wow, it's super, super cheap for any photo gear, let along a lens with that kind of reach. It's cheap for a reason though, firstly the optics aren't great, lots of chromatic aberation, very soft even at small apertures. And there's no iris. The lens has a fixed aperture at each focal range. f/8.3 is slow enough, I can't imagine trying to get good exposures at f/16 unless the bird is in a studio surrounded by strobes.

As for understanding exposure, it's a relatively simple concept once you get your head around what is actually happening. There are three elements to exposure (which is why you'll see it referred to as the 'exposure triangle'). Adjusting any of the three has the same effect to your exposure but does different things to the image.

- Aperture is the size of the hole that the light comes through to get to your sensor. A larger aperture means more light. Aperture is given as a fraction (e.g. f/4) so a smaller number represents a larger hole (because 1/4 is bigger than 1/8). You probably noticed that the aperture numbers on your lenses aren't usually nice round numbers. Instead they are numbers like 6.3 or 5.6. That's because the numbers are calculated for each of those stops to be exactly double the area of the next smallest and half the area of the next largest. Because the aperture is a circle, the area is calculated using π^2 which is why you get weird looking numbers. Changing the aperture affects the amount of the picture that will be in focus. A large aperture (small number) will have a very thin slice of the image in focus, while a small aperture (large number) lets you get more of the image in focus. Having a narrow area of focus (called 'depth of field') is great for portraits and for birds because it lets you get the subject in focus but make the background blurry. Usually for landscape photos, you want to get as much of the image as possible in focus so you would use a smaller aperture.

- Shutterspeed is simply the length of time that the shutter is open for. Obviously the longer it's open, the more light can come in. Just like with aperture, each full step setting is double or half the next one. With digital cameras, you can set speeds that are between those full steps, but older mechanical cameras had fixed settings - 1/125, 1/250, 1/500, etc. Shutterspeed affects how movement is captured. A slower speed will blur movement and a faster one will freeze it.

- ISO is the sensitivity of your sensor to light. The higher the number, the more sensitive. Again, a full step is half or double the next and, again, with digital cameras you can often set partial steps. But basically if you double or halve the ISO, you get double or half the light. With higher ISO, you can shoot faster and/or with smaller apertures but you also get more noise in your images. With modern digital cameras, you can safely shoot up to about 1600 even with entry level bodies before you start to get appreciable noise,. At ISO 200 or below, there should be no noise a all.

So, you can see that each of those settings affect exposure in the same way, even though they have different effects on the image. If your camera says you are properly exposed at ISO 400, 1/200s shutterspeed and f/8. then you can change any of those settings and move one or both of the other two by the same net amount in the opposite direction and still have a correct exposure. For example if you opened up your aperture one stop to f/6.3 (letting in twice as much light) , you could halve the shutterspeed (to 1/400) or halve the ISO (to 200) and keep the same exposure. If you opened the aperture two stops instead, you could move one of the others two places or move both one step.

It's worth setting your camera to Manual for an afternoon to play with those three settings, see how they affect the image, and specifically for you to see what level of ISO provides acceptable amounts of noise. There's also this really helpful interactive site that lets you play around with the settings in a virtual camera and see how they change the image that you capture.

# ¿ Sep 29, 2017 19:14

Helen Highwater: Feb 19, 2014; And furthermore; Grimey Drawer

Birds need to use small stones and grit to help their stomach acids to break down their food. Their 'teeth' are actually further down the digestive system and take the form of strong muscles in the gizzard. These grind the food and the grit together into a paste to let it pass through the rest of the bird.

# ¿ Nov 14, 2017 12:01

Helen Highwater: Feb 19, 2014; And furthermore; Grimey Drawer

neckbeard posted:

Rough-legged Hawk by Tyler Huestis, on Flickr

I wish this hawk had landed someplace else, because all I see is the shadow of a flaccid penis.

you can fix that pretty easily in Ps. I managed to fix it in a few seconds.

# ¿ Dec 11, 2017 02:02

Helen Highwater: Feb 19, 2014; And furthermore; Grimey Drawer

PREYING MANTITS posted:

I had just finished loading my fishing gear into my car when I happened to see him standing in the middle of an access road towards a transmission tower some ospreys managed to build a nest on. He was maybe 45-50 yards away at that point. He sat there long enough for me to get my camera out and slowly creep over a bit to get a better background so by the time I got that shot I was roughly 35 yards away. He started to get jittery so I didn't want to push going closer, sat there watching for another 30 seconds or so before he took off deep into a tree line. Was pretty crazy watching him simply disappear into a row of trees despite that huge wingspan.

The best birds for that are Goshawks. Amazingly manoeuvrable creatures.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGuqAlTYw60

# ¿ Apr 28, 2018 09:22

Helen Highwater: Feb 19, 2014; And furthermore; Grimey Drawer

toggle posted:

Crows are good and stuff.

I'd like to report a murder...

# ¿ Jan 12, 2019 06:46

Helen Highwater: Feb 19, 2014; And furthermore; Grimey Drawer

This Facebook group seems like it's a good fit for this thread

Not my photo.

# ¿ Jun 21, 2019 09:52

Helen Highwater: Feb 19, 2014; And furthermore; Grimey Drawer

Oriental Magpie Robin.

IMG_0891.jpg by Iain Compton, on Flickr

Common Myna

IMG_1001.jpg by Iain Compton, on Flickr

Bathtime!

IMG_1059.jpg by Iain Compton, on Flickr

IMG_1074.jpg by Iain Compton, on Flickr

# ¿ Jul 19, 2019 14:15

Helen Highwater: Feb 19, 2014; And furthermore; Grimey Drawer

Oriental Magpie Robin

[/url
][url=https://flic.kr/p/2jnNVr4]IMG_6696.jpg by Iain Compton, on Flickr

Greater Coucal

IMG_6678.jpg by Iain Compton, on Flickr

Lesser Fantailed Drongo? Indian Roller?

IMG_6740.jpg by Iain Compton, on Flickr

Javan Pond Heron

IMG_6730.jpg by Iain Compton, on Flickr

# ¿ Jul 20, 2020 04:59

Helen Highwater: Feb 19, 2014; And furthermore; Grimey Drawer

BeastOfExmoor posted:

Someone tell me where to find the bird in this photo, because I'm totally missing it.

Just below dead centre of the frame. It has its back to the camera and it's almost the same colour as the leaves. You can see the tail sticking out slightly to the right.

# ¿ Oct 15, 2020 08:17

Helen Highwater: Feb 19, 2014; And furthermore; Grimey Drawer

That gull hates you, it hates your family, it hates everything that you stand for, and it will see all of it burn.

# ¿ May 31, 2022 16:50

Helen Highwater: Feb 19, 2014; And furthermore; Grimey Drawer

Cormorant on the way in

IMG_0093-Edit.jpg by Iain Compton, on Flickr

Grey Heron Touch and Go

IMG_0081-Edit.jpg by Iain Compton, on Flickr

Kingfisher

IMG_0132-Edit.jpg by Iain Compton, on Flickr

# ¿ Jun 30, 2022 21:48

Helen Highwater: Feb 19, 2014; And furthermore; Grimey Drawer

Raikyn posted:

Been a couple of years since I tried swallows. First 15 minutes I got nothing, everything was out of frame or focus.
Managed to get back in the rhythm again and managed to get a few decent shots in

Swallow feeding by Marc, on Flickr

This is a great shot. I have swallows buzzing aroudn my apartment all the time as I liove right on the river. I am also shooting with a 5Div, could you share how you manage to track these and get focus on them?

# ¿ Jul 24, 2022 22:31

Helen Highwater: Feb 19, 2014; And furthermore; Grimey Drawer

IMG_0559.jpg by Iain Compton, on Flickr

Grey Heron

# ¿ Sep 23, 2022 14:46

Helen Highwater: Feb 19, 2014; And furthermore; Grimey Drawer

This Jay came and chilled on a roadsign outside my home office the other day.

IMG_0730-Edit.jpg by Iain Compton, on Flickr

IMG_0731-Edit-2.jpg by Iain Compton, on Flickr

# ¿ Oct 23, 2022 14:19

Helen Highwater: Feb 19, 2014; And furthermore; Grimey Drawer

Birds from my home office window.

IMG_3299-Edit.jpg by Iain Compton, on Flickr

IMG_2633-Edit-Edit.jpg by Iain Compton, on Flickr

IMG_2428-Edit-Edit.jpg by Iain Compton, on Flickr

# ¿ Apr 28, 2023 23:05

Helen Highwater: Feb 19, 2014; And furthermore; Grimey Drawer

Having a home office that has busy trees outside the window is bad for my productivity.

Now the goldfinches have learned there are free peanuts on my porch.

IMG_3517-Edit.jpg by Iain Compton, on Flickr

IMG_3526-Edit.jpg by Iain Compton, on Flickr

Very scrufffy great tit demolishing one of said peanuts.

IMG_3543-Edit.jpg by Iain Compton, on Flickr

Helen Highwater fucked around with this message at 19:01 on May 17, 2023

# ¿ May 17, 2023 10:59

Helen Highwater: Feb 19, 2014; And furthermore; Grimey Drawer

IMG_3785-Edit.jpg by Iain Compton, on Flickr

IMG_3579-Edit.jpg by Iain Compton, on Flickr

Male ducks are just horrible to female ducks, ducklings, and pretty much everything else. Mama duck on the defence here.

IMG_3819-Edit.jpg by Iain Compton, on Flickr

# ¿ May 26, 2023 23:35

Helen Highwater: Feb 19, 2014; And furthermore; Grimey Drawer

I had a pigeon nesting on my balcony last month. I set up a camera in my living room pointing out of the door so I could capture the growth of the chicks without disturbing them.