Kingfisher needs aqua net

[MARINERMAGNUM]

After making snowmen,blasting through every drift in sight on the 4 wheeler-with both kids aboard,I went out for an hour and chased a herd of Snow Buntings around-but they were too shy. This guy/girl? found some open water in a creek near our house and was fixin to dip his dinger on a minnow type unit.

I know I blew out the whites,but I only had a few seconds to shoot.

Time to get cleaned up,go out for supper,then see if the wifey will let me go on the attack.

30D,1.4x @420mm F4 TV500

Minnow master

Comb your hair you hippy!

I think he found a nut

[finnbay]

Hippie? I think he's a punker! Last one is my fave.

[JayinMN]

Nice and sharp, great job.

[Steve Foss]

Sweet captures, MM. Not easy birds to get close to without a blind, and your ability to get in there and get the images is just as impressive as these captures.

I'm reminded of the green heron images from awhile back with the 70-200. Was that you who got within 200mm range of the heron, or is my memory playing tricks?

Lenses from 500 to 800mm are great, but woodscraft is earned, crafted and honed by long hours, and cannot be purchased. The patience and knowledge of woodscraft trumps supertelephoto lenses almost every time. Congrats!

[Dbl]

They are very tough to get a photo of, you've done a good job with these!

[Birdsong]

Wow! These are really sharp.

[MARINERMAGNUM]

Quote:

I'm reminded of the green heron images from awhile back with the 70-200. Was that you who got within 200mm range of the heron, or is my memory playing tricks?

That was me/these. I still have them on flickr. 20D/70-200 2.8L

Poor Frog!

Let's go for a ride!

mmmmmmmm nummy!

Might need a Maalox!

[mmeyer]

Those are both great series MM! You must be pretty stealthy to get that close to the birds.

Thanks for sharing them both!

[MARINERMAGNUM]

When I can sneak up behind a wild turkey and jerk out one of his tail feathers-I'll be a true bird ninja.

[MN Shutterbug]

Very nice shots, but "dip his dinger"? That's got to be a new one. I'll be after King Fishers again in the spring, but I know I'll need my blind again.

[Royce Aardahl]

Very Sweet!!!!

[Jim Almquist]

Those are some really crisp shots of the backyard hippie.

[Yeti]

I am impressed with the sharpness. Are they right out of the box or did you process them? Either way...very nice!

[IceChicka]

Wow they are both great sets of pics *claps hands*

[MARINERMAGNUM]

Quote:

Are they right out of the box or did you process them?

Basically right out of the camera. In camera sharpening was set at 3. It's hard to tell how much to sharpen-everyone sets the sharpness of their LCD at different levels. Raw converted to jpg in DPP,changed WB to daylight in lieu of auto WB. Crop and resized for web. I know very,very little in way of Photoshop,so I try to get the best shot I can "in camera" which is just the way I learned.

It's hard to describe how much better they look when viewed in the Raw format-probably 25-30% better than what you see here.

I may be all wet on this,but from my experience a well exposed Raw image represents what your final print will look like-prints always look better than jpegs displayed on the web.

Thanks for all the comments!

[MN Shutterbug]

I was under the assumption that setting your sharpness on the camera has no effect when shooting RAW, the same as other camera settings.

[Steve Foss]

I was under the assumption that setting your sharpness on the camera has no effect when shooting RAW.

Correct. Canon's in-camera "picture style" settings that alter sharpness, contrast and saturation apply only to jpeg captures. I'm assuming the same is true of other camera makers as well.

As for the sharpness of these, the 70-200 is Canon's sharpest zoom series, and is well know for this type of IQ. Not to mention MM has the technique to let the lens shine.

[MARINERMAGNUM]

I was under the assumption that setting your sharpness on the camera has no effect when shooting RAW, the same as other camera settings.

You and Steve are correct....well,kind of.

Your camera settings are not set in stone when shooting Raw,but when you open the image in Canon's DPP,[Canon's Raw processor] whatever your camera settings are, that's what the settings in DPP will be-and you can manipulate from there.

So if say I had in camera settings at sharpness+2 contrast-1 saturation+1 and so on,when I open it in DPP,that's where all the sliders will be-it will match your camera settings.

I know about where I like to start with the settings so I set it all in camera so I am close when I first open the image up on the puter. I am probably in the minority here,but I hate post processing!

Here is my regimen: Open the image,maybe change white balance,might add a little sharpening,crop,re-size for web-done. I could prolly make them look better if I learned more processing techniques,but I am compelled to try to get the best look I can the moment the shutter trips. That's just the way I learned. My old man really pounded the "do it right the 1st time so you don't have to do it over again!" into my head no matter what the job was. So now I suffer for it.

I shot 48 images of that Kingfisher,and after sorting at 100% 45 are sharp,in focus keepers. Most look the same,so I don't know why I shot so many. When that center focus point turns red on something I am locked in and I let 'em have it. I don't move,or breathe. Just like holding the cross hairs on a fox at 400 yards-only I don't do that anymore. Cameras are more fun......but they aren't cheaper.

[Steve Foss]

DPP can be the best of both worlds, because as mentioned it takes the picture styles settings and applies them when making the RAW conversion if you don't change those settings in DPP. Very cool for someone who doesn't want to or need to fiddle around much in Photoshop. And of course, since the RAW file is not affected at capture by in-camera picture settings, if when opening it in DPP one finds they don't like the default settings, it's easy to change them.

And perhaps the coolest thing is, DPP is free!