Figbird

[NikonUser]

Went out to the Langwarring Flora & Fauna reserve today:
D70, Nikkor 500 f4, SB800 (manual 1/8 power)
ISO 250, f4, 1/100

The flash was too hot so had to do some PP work to tone down the birds chest feathers a bit.


Was having a very hard time getting the D70 to focus tonight... It would go right past the bird, come back past the bird and then not find focus at all.... ARGH. Maybe it's Nikon's way to get me to upgrade to the D200 !!!

Also I really need a flash sync cord. With the flash in wireless mode all the extra pre-flashes were scaring off the birds and I had to switch to manual mode... not fun at all.

Anyway... still got some OK pics. I think I'm (SLOWLY) getting better.

Comments and Critques Welcome..... *puts on thick skin*

Paul

[kipper]

Paul, it's actually a White-naped Honeyeater.
I sort of had my doubts when I first saw it, and thought it looked very similar in profile to my Black-chinned Honeyeater that I posted a while back, just different colorings. then when I was looking up something myself, I saw a figbird and then checked out the honeyeaters.

Afaik, there is only one Figbird from my ID book and that's the Australasian Figbird and it's found down the in Arnheim Land/NT and then from Townsville all the way along the eastcoast to Sydney but no lower. Isn't found below Sydney (might be rare sightings on NSW/Vic border but unlikely). No know occurences in Vic/SA or WA below Broome.

[NikonUser]

Thanks kipper.

Just looked that up in the bird book and you are right.

It helps when you know what you're looking for

Paul

[kipper]

Sure is. We have a lot of Honeyeaters in Australia. There are quite a few variations but with similar markings. There are the Red Cheeked Honeyeaters, and other variations with different markings but similar body shape. Then there are the birds like this one which have the same shape but different markings. Then there are those that take on the shape of the spinebill and have curved bills.

I probably wouldn't of been doubtful of the ID if I hadn't photographed a similar honeyeater in the last 6months

[NikonUser]

Here is one with much better colours:



Only trouble is it's quite a large crop of the original. Bring on the 1.4 or 1.7 TC for christmas

Paul

[kipper]

Ok onto the critique. My biggest concern here is the softness. Now with flash, and this shutter speed you should be able to get a reasonably sharp shot if the bird sits still long enough and you have a rock solid tripod. Otherwise you might want to try a higher shutter speed around 1/250 - 1/350. Personally I would have opted for a higher ISO to get more shutter speed. You're wide open here and the D70 to me seems relatively good with noise upto 400.

[NikonUser]

I see what you mean about the sharpness....

It's a lot sharper in Photoshop at 100% than the resized version is. Maybe Photobucket has done something to the image?

Paul

[NikonUser]

Here is a 100% crop

Is that still soft? (...it's sharp for a 'Paul' photo anyway )

I appreciate your input kipper.

[kipper]

There seems to be image ghosting which I believe is from vibration from the tripod/head. I could be wrong though, but that's my guess. Bird movement wouldn't be like this from what I've encountered. You'd end up with movement in the wings or tail or something like that. What you see here is movement in the XY plane or film plane as you can see ghosting on the breast of the bird.

[NikonUser]

Hmmm... ya know I didn't even see that until you pointed it out. Darn.

Could it possibly be abberations from the lens? Hope not. Motion blur I can live with (coz I can fix it).

EDIT: It only seems to be around the areas that are overexposed. Could that be the problem?

Paul