DM: Herdsman Lake Dyxum Meetup

I had the pleasure of meeting Polyglot (William) on Wednesday for the first time since he moved to Perth. I suggested we go and do a bird shoot (what else is there to shoot? ). Anyway, we met up nice and early at Herdsman Lake. My friend Pat came along with his Canon gear as well.

It was good to compare notes with a fellow Alpha shooter. I've started this thread with the view to posting a whole bunch of images over the next few days. I've invited William to post his shots here too. I'm looking forward to seeing your shots William. Even though we were shooting side by side, we were often shooting in different directions when the action was hotting up.

We explored a part of the lake that I've not been to before, and got some really nice photo opportunities. Here is the first set (all taken with A700 + 300/4 + 1.4TC):

1. Room for one more? (Egret and Spoonbill)


2. How about another?,..... Hmmmmm I guess not.


3. Look - I know you were here first, but it's a big lake.


4. No - I'm not leaving!


5. Yes you are!


More to come......

William - please join in.


Frank

Nice set William. I'm impressed by the IQ of the Siggie. It's certainly got the sharpness, and pulls up a lot of detail. I think that the two fighting raptors are a whistling kite (smaller) and swamp harrier (larger). I've sent off an email to Birds Australia for confirmation.

You've got some excellent images from the outing. Another victim of the birding bug!

Anyway, I've got heaps more to process. Again, I took far too many shots.

Frank

Great work guys
All show great detail and it looks like the light was just rightlooking forward to seeing more.

Despite just under 500 actuations, I actually don't have a lot more that aren't very very similar to what I've already posted. Here are a few more though:

16; Kamikaze:


17; Poseurs:


18; Flying Under the Radar:


19; To demonstrate the 300G's focus speed, here is a random shot of a swallow that I got first try (Frank went to get his hat, I stole his lens). 100% crop and perfectly focused on a very quickly moving target (the noise was my fault):


I know Frank's got some good shots of the Grebes having a heated discussion in there somewhere.

Edit: added #19.

Edited by polyglot - 04 April 2009 at 10:48

thanks Pat - have you got a gallery of yours up somewhere? You showed me a few excellent ones on your LCD at various points.

Thanks guys. I've been slowly working my way through editing.... in between doing other (boring) stuff around the house.

This is a Great Egret flight sequence that I captured. In all, 19 shots in the sequence. One slightly out of focus, the rest all good. Here's four of them:

1


2


3


4


And I quite liked this other egret shot from another sequence:

5


And the spoonbills were friendly too:

6.


7.


8.


That's enough for now. I'm getting tired of editing. It's like coming home from a great day's fishing - gotta clean the fish!

Frank

Bygum (Pat) is a shooting companion of Frank and is posting his Canon shots here because he went on this same shoot with Frank and polyglot. They give a point of comparison. -- brettania

A good morning was the order of the day and disapointed we was not.

Kite



In for the kill.


Grebe.



Egret flypast



Wait for me






Edited by brettania - 04 April 2009 at 12:54