Show us some bird shots...9

Hi all,
I take the opportunity of Brettania's advice and start a new bird thread with some herons I shot last Sunday- it's a colony pretty much innercity Vienna, and you get to see some 15-20 birds there - not even counting the newly hatched herons, which will become "airborne" soon.
A700 + 400/4.5 + 1.4 TC (some)
Anyway, here are the shots:

1 -Next generation:


2 -Fighting herons:


3 -Heron with branch:


4 -Heron landing:


5 -Heron with branch II:
   

Hope you like the shots as much as I do! ; )

Edit: oh, and here the entire gallery, so far: Herons II

best regards,
Bernd

Edited by Ausgezeichnet - 01 April 2008 at 10:07

Thanks, David! Your mallard is also very crisp!
regards,
Bernd

Nice start to the new thread gentlemen. Good work to both of you!


Edit - inspired, I walked outside and caught this little fellow enjoying the last hour of light at the end of the day:



Frank

Edited by Frankman - 01 April 2008 at 11:34

Synchronized

David - lovely egrets. Your 600mm reach is excellent - love the second one especially. As far as my shot goes, these little fellows are very common in the garden, especially in the late afternoon when they are catching insects as they fly past.

Frank

Night out

Tamron SP 28-105 at 2.8



Gr.

Hi,
well, I gladly pass on what I have learned - which is not all that much...
I think the most important "ingredient" for those kind of shots is really the quality of light. I started this particular session at 6:30 or so, so rather early.

The later you shoot, the higher the sun, so birds tend to go rather black against the sky (so, you might have to go EV + later in the day)

I use Aperture mode, matrix metering, I set EV between -0,7 and -0,3 I think (EXIF in gallery shows), mainly to preserve highlights, as the tonal range of a heron is quite big. When you shoot against the sky, that is.

When the background was dark this "receipe" did not work so well, I think I tried spot metering and tried to meter for a medium or light grey area on the heron.

SS= Shutter speed?
Well, personally I use aperture to get the highest possible speed...
If the speed is too high I just increase the aperture, works well for me.
I have seen great work by Gil over in the dpreview SONY DSLR forum with speeds around 640, 800 - so, it's really a personal preference.
Also, herons are pretty slow in flight, compared to smaller birds, so you probably can get away with slower speeds.

Hope this helps, I was also pretty puzzled when I first saw Aarif's or Gil's birds 2 years ago - but shooting birds is so addictive that you do it all the time, anyway, and get better at it.

regards,
Bernd