You didn't think I'd do it, did you? But I was finally brave enough to order a Canon EOS 7D with Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 L IS USM Lens. It's a monster!
Here are my first photos. I am a very slow learner, so don't expect anything great for a few years. At the moment we have rolling, unpredictable showers, but luckily we got a new patio last year and I can stand under it and photograph the lorikeets in my bottlebrush, which has just started flowering (lucky me). I can also take photos of the gum tree, banksia and grevilleas from under cover, but have a horrid white sky most of the time. These are large jpegs. THey have just been cropped, but had no other processing. I took some photos in RAW, but they were too big to upload to flickr
Its always exciting playing with a new toy isn't it. And you are off to a great start. Looking forward to more of your shots with the new gear.
I was born to live and I live to die.
Wow really nice photos Birdgirl. Ha ha I would not say that you are such a slow learner.
Wooooohoooo Birdgirl, good onya mate. Your first shots with it are nice.
Nice bit of gear to, very happy for you.
Woohoo indeed!!!! Well done you..... I am now going to slash my wrists with jealousy! :'}
Looks like you are off to a good start, and I know your stuff will be fabulous as you are already doing so well with what you have :)
You have now got my ideal kit so we will be expecting lots of outings from you . Nothing like a "L" lens to get your excitement up with your photos. Love the way that scaly has popped its head up to see what you are up to !
You need to get some software to handle the raw stuff if you haven't already. I have been struggling to do it all without any and it is a pain .
Good luck with it and happy shooting!
Sunshine Coast Queensland
Hi everyone - I'm glad lots of you are on here at the moment so I can share my excitement and first baby steps. These are just taken in full auto, but I am already wanting my spot focus.
I'm so lucky to be in parrot heaven. I haven't done much work today because I keep going outside when I hear lorikeets. I hadn't realised the scalies were visiting - I'll have to keep an eye out for musks as well. We have also had eastern rosellas, galahs and little and long-billed corellas today.
Tassie I remember when you got your gear not too long ago - it's pretty exciting isn't it?
birdie I was going to email you to tell you in case you didn't come on for a while but you beat me to it. Don't be green (unless you are turning into a catbird). I will probably go backwards before I go forwards. There are a few CDs in the box. One has software and one has manuals to help me along. I haven't used raw before, so I might stick with jpeg for a while until I work out aperture and shutter priority.
I can't take it anywhere with the rain - lucky I can stand here under cover and get some terrific birds. I also haven't got a case yet (and it's going to need to be big).
Here are some more:
Juvenile rainbow lorikeet - look a tthe pretty underwing
Rainbow lorikeet - they almost melt into the flowers
Scaly-breasted lorikeet - doesn't the green plumage and red eye look fab in the bottlebrush?
I am so excited for you,Birdgirl!! The colours are just fabulous! Amazing how the birds have adapted their colours over thousands of years, to blend into the trees they feed off. I often wonder, what those colours look like to a bird? Do we know a lot about , how bird's colour vision? Are all those photos taken on Auto? That's fantastic,that means, even "someone like me" could take good photos? (....if I had the money!That will never happen!I remember when you told me, a camera was more important then a vacuum cleaner? Well, I got a new vac.LOL Now I will have to wait for..Santa?)
M-L
Absolutely Birdgirl! The green and red are beautiful...love the matching eye ring :)
Feel free to email me and scream with joy LOL I won't mind :)
Sunshine Coast Queensland
I wish my wife would get as excited about a big lens as you girls are lol. *sigh* My budget would be bigger too then.
Those are pretty good shots Birdgirl on AUTO mode. Try aperture priority mode next with a smaller F stop like 5.6 and see how that comes out.
And for the first time I am seeing the colour of the rainbow lorikeet wings. They seem to have a black colour with a big yellow splash through it. Very nice. I wonder why evolution decided the underwing colour to be that. I can understand the outside as they blend so well to the vegetation they feed on.
I was born to live and I live to die.
Well done Birdgirl, a big step,sit and read that book and take photos of everything, not just birds, trying different combos of settings. I shoot jpeg and raw and have been trying to come to grips with the raw post production with Elements 9, every time I do PP a raw and compare it to a jpeg that has had some PP (normaly done in ACDSee 12) I am usually hard pressed to see much difference. I expect that is because at my age learning new things gets a bit difficult(or maybe I,m just lazy). Anyway mostly 'have fun' and don't be afraid to ask, as I know several here use similar set-ups and will be only too willing to help and maybe when I upgrade to the 7D you'll be able to help me...
Ed Townsville NQ
wow camera is looking very impressive birdgirl.
the pics look very sharp.
Cheers, Owen.
Just to clarify Alex, the widest aperture that she has is 4.5 - 5.6 so if she was to try aperture priority mode then she would be looking for a higher f stop such as f8 - 22 or whatever the smallest aperture is on that lens :) I assume you mean to increase the depth of field .
Ed I am having the same kind of thing with using raw. I am now shooting raw + jpeg so I can cover myself in case I get that really special shot and want to do something with it later. When I can afford it I will get Elements 9 but for the moment I am using whatever I can that reads Raw. The initial shock of seeing the flat and rather grey Raw image really confused me for a while. I hadn't realised that jpeg does so much in camera already .
AS Ed said just have fun, and remember that you already have a good eye so don't get distracted by too much hi tech language. Just get out there and experiment. I had a great moment with a beautiful Kooka who landed on my pool fence today he didn't flinch when I took the camera out there. Just wish I had your lens on the end of it lol
Sunshine Coast Queensland
birdie: my fault if i said widest aperture. I mean largest aperture so at 400 that would be f5.6 on her lens for a smaller depth of field, just to isolate it from the background. Ofcourse Birdgirl may not have been going after that. The bottlebrush is a nice colourfull tree when in bloom. I love all the colour mixed in with the lorikeets.
I was born to live and I live to die.
Hey Alex I thought you would know what you are talking about but it can be very confusing for those who don't know to talk about large apertures as all they think of if the largest number :') Hence my preference for the term widest aperture .
And you are right, it depends what look you are going for with depth of focus front to back. the colours are really explosive n these shots aren't they? I miss having bottlebrushes in my garden.
Oh and by the way... I wish my husband would get as excited as me about the lens! LOL It's never gonna happen though :)
Sunshine Coast Queensland
Thanks everyone
Araminta - you can get very good shots from quite a cheap camera these days. My husband got a little Lumix for a few hundred dollars and it gave very good feather detail on a kea he took photos of in New Zealand. I would still rather the camera than the vacumn - and this place shows it!
Abeleski - I hope you get your wish and get a new lens. Funnily enough my husband talked me into getting this. I never change things until I have to - I kept my first car until it was 28!
ed - I am glad to see you on here more again because I love your photos. Part of the reason I chose this was because I saw all the great photos from the Canon users. I never even thought about RAW or post production before but I have read a little bit on the professional forum and think I need to learn a bit about it. There is software with the camera, but I'll take slow steps - learning to use the camera first
owen - thanks! It has a huge amount of potential
birdie - I was so happy the bottlebrush started flowering right now. Otherwise I couldn't have taken photos of anything but the washing
Birdgirl, living up here I have learned to go out in the rain too.
Within reason that is. I use a backpack and have a bubble wrap envelope big enough to hold the camera/lens set up. (just in case I throw the bag down carelessly or trip or something) I still have a yellow garbage bag in there that I had up at Woodgate just in case it rains! I just wrap it all up and wait for it to pass :') . I don't care if I get wet or if the dog gets wet.... just the camera LOL. And of course I don't have any expensive camera back pack either I'd rather put that money towards a lens if it ever comes to that !
Sunshine Coast Queensland
Congratulations Birdgirl. That kit is great for bird photography. I have owned the same lens bolted to a Canon 40D for a couple of years and love it (many thanks to ed for his advice when I was thinking of upgrading from my Lumix FZ-50). Not an easy combo to carry airound the bush for hours, though.
Cheers,
George
Melbourne, VIC
Bugger! Forgot to add "Nice sharp and well-exposed shots."
Cheers,
George
Melbourne, VIC