New birds and BIFS from central NJ

[largelylivin]

I've spent alot of time chasing eagles lately and letting everything else pile up. For your viewing pleasue and critique. All Pentax K20D with DA*300. Some with Tamron 1.4 TC.

Don't you just love GBH's? They are so photogenic and fun to watch. Courting season has started here and we're seeing 2-4 at a time. Glad they don't migrate.

http://smile-123.smugmug.com/photos/470555543_c9jpb-L.jpg

http://smile-123.smugmug.com/photos/470555676_ULR47-L.jpg


http://smile-123.smugmug.com/photos/470557195_VnyHK-L.jpg



My best GBH BIF ever.

http://smile-123.smugmug.com/photos/470559435_R2auP-L.jpg

A common merganser (male). Alot of these are around now. I never saw one before winter.

http://smile-123.smugmug.com/photos/473015560_YFznS-L.jpg

http://smile-123.smugmug.com/photos/473015319_NYtcg-L.jpg


A Red-Tailed Hawk (white phase - really!). For once, he was actually too close hence the wing clip.

http://smile-123.smugmug.com/photos/473015532_2MQVe-XL.jpg



Finally, this last one isn't my best picture ever, but it is perhaps my hardest earned. King-Fisher's are little rockets that don't fly in a straight line. Autofocus is a waste of time with these guys.

http://smile-123.smugmug.com/photos/473015206_NUG6D-L.jpg

[bfjr]

Good Stuff
and I feel your pain in the Last one :cry :rofl

[dlplumer]

I like 2. 3 and 4 the best. :thumb 5-8 have quite a bit of noise. Not sure why.

[largelylivin]

I usually shot at 400 max. 5-8 were at 800 because of the gloomy day. THe Pentax is not so great at 800 and above.

[largelylivin]

Also, the King Fisher is hugely cropped.

[Harryb]

The GBH captures are excellent especially #2 and #4 :clap

The highlights on the first GBH are blown. I would have tried a negative EV adjustment.

You have some haloing around the merganser BIF capture. Nice capture BTW. I haven't been able to get a decent BIF of one of those guys yet. That's probably due to your post sharpening . You might want to try selective sharpening (http://dgrin.smugmug.com/gallery/1205470).

With the nosie on some of the other captures you might want to apply NR to the backgrounds only.

[largelylivin]

Thanks Harry,

The halos are due to NR and sharpening. When I've got something special, i.e. art quality, I sometimes use a heavy NR on the background and lighter NR on the subject. The Merganser and Kingfisher didn't seem to warrant the effort.

I default my EV to +1/2 and set DRANGE to 200% to try and avoid the low ev noise. My problem is that I either don't have time to readjust, especially on BIFS, or I just plain forget. Still in training.