also new here - hello

[agooday]

Hello there,

I'm based in London, but despite that took up wild life photography in February. Somebody should have warned me it's addictive. I've seen so much wildlife in the last few months that just would have passed me by unnoticed and spend a lot of time outdoors - such a great hobby. Learnt a lot from forums such as this.

In terms of kit, lucky enough to have a 50d and sigma 150-500. I head out with a large flipside 400 backpack and giotto tripod (went for a carbon fibre as i have no car and needs to be portable or wouldn't use).

Have used the local wwt in barnes as a sort of photography gym, moving from practicing shots of ducks (just get them in focus and sharp) to beginning to think about dof and composition. Took the camera to the US for work trip, well worth the hassle of carrying it all through customs.

I shoot almost everything at 500mm, f8 and 1/500 or faster. In flight I often add 1 to 2 exposure compensation. Seems to work most of the time.

Anyway, still getting to grips with it all - can always use blunt and direct critism, so here are some of my best shots to date. Please do let me know your thoughts

Reed Bunting

reed bunting on Flickr - Photo Sharing!

Red Kite in Flight

Red Kite on Flickr - Photo Sharing!

Heron Fishing

heron fishing on Flickr - Photo Sharing!

Parakeet

ring necked parakeet on Flickr - Photo Sharing!

[zan]

Hello and welcome to WAB

You've got some really nice shots there, I particularly like the reed bunting. One thing about this forum though is that they prefer you to upload to the WAB galleries rather than using external links because they inevitably eventually disappear and you get threads with a lot of missing images. Just a head's up!

See you around the forums!

[acherontia]

Hello! Nice sharp images there.

A warning - someone may come along and tell you you're not supposed to put external links to images on this forum.
They advise you upload them to either the Gallery or the Library. 'That's just the way it is'. (Cue song )

Acher

[agooday]

thanks

- oops, didn't see the restriction on links. Not sure WAB can really compete with dedicated photo sites in terms of capacity and 512k limit seems a bit dated. why not just remove links that produce page not found? will attempt to upload pics if i get the chance.

[Tobyh]

I can't link to your images from here at work (Media Sharing) but wanted to just say welcome to WAB, plenty like minded people here and an absolute wealth of information and experience!

TobyH

[nigel_b]

Excellent shots, I think you'll be sharing your wisdom with us as much as the other way round.

[agooday]

haha - great thanks! I have lots to learn, but knowing I don't know much is a start!

[squishy]

The Gallery file size limit is just over 1mb, which should easily be enough for any web sized image.

In realistic terms, I don't think there is a limit to how many photos you can upload into the Gallery or image library.

[Geoff F]

After having a quick flick through your Flickr site; most of your images are good. A few are slightly on the overexposed side but this can be difficult to avoid in action shots which contain both white and dark areas.

A few might benefit from a little selective sharpening of the subject, but not the background.

All in all though, they are mostly well captured.

You appear to have found the knack of using that lens. Some people struggle with it but in most cases they are working with it fully open instead of stopping down to the F8 - F11 range. And I agree with trying to keep the shutter speed reasonably high even on a tripod. With that length of lens you can easily get a bit of lens movement from wind or soft ground under the tripod legs.

Do you turn off OS on a tripod? After a few experiments, I found this usually produces sharper photos; but OS can help if you are experiencing problems with wind buffeting or other vibrations.

[agooday]

Thanks for the feedback Geoff,

I do check for over exposure with highlight alert, but in some cases (notably peregrine) couldn't avoid it as was middle of day and sun was a bit harsh and in the wrong place Also, i tend to use highlight tone priority quite a lot.

As for OS on a tripod, I do use it at a times, but my tripod isn't that sturdy. I'll aim to use remote shutter release a bit more often for still subjects, but if things are moving a shutter speed not much above 1/500 then may still help as things take about 8 seconds to steady in live view (for example) following shutter press. As for mirror lockup, only needed on slower exposures (1/100 or less) I think so not often applicable.

Selective sharpening would definitely help, but I'm keen to keep post production time to a minimum. I might use in future on my best shots.