Birds

[Bobarian65]

I went to the zoo a couple days ago and took the following shots. What do you think about them?

1. http://i328.photobucket.com/albums/l341/Bobarian65/Bird.jpg

2. Saw this one perched on top of a rock in the Baboon habitat. I know the upward angle is not optimal, but I wanted to capture it fluttering it's wings.
http://i328.photobucket.com/albums/l341/Bobarian65/Seagull-WingsSpread.jpg

All C&C welcome.

[Bobarian65]

Here is one more i forgot to include in the prior post. I thought it looked as though the penguin was smiling.

http://i328.photobucket.com/albums/l341/Bobarian65/Penguin.jpg

[pprice]

Nice pictures!

I am a noob, so I hope you don't mind me asking you a question.

Why did you set your ISO so high on the first and third pictures?

IS it because you were holding the camera and did not want to slow the shutter speed down anymore? I am assuming you used the 70-200 with the IS?

Once again, I hope you don't mind me asking as I am just trying to figure out why people do what they do in different situations :) .

[Bobarian65]

I don't mind you asking. Exactly - hand holding the camera indoors with low light, zoomed in with wide open aperature. Had the ISO been any lower, the pics would would have been blurred - either by me or by the animals motion. I didn't want to use flash and disturb the animals. Also, in the back of my mind I was probably trying to test the limits of the lens - I've only had it a couple of weeks.

[Flo]

I hand hold the camera in all my photos, and rarely go higher than 400..its pretty much set at 400 all the time...no noise.

[Bobarian65]

I know. This is the first time I've used an ISO this high. Usually I don't go over 400 either (on the rare occasion I have used 800), but 1600 was the only way I could capture these without blur. I probably still need to work on my low light camera holding technique. Next time I'll use flash if the subject isn't too far. Live and learn.

[pprice]

Bobarian65, Thanks for explaining! The only way I will learn is to ask :) .

[Sorarse]

They all look a little soft to me. Have you done any PP sharpening?

[Bobarian65]

Sorarse, Thanks for the suggestion. I just tried to sharpen them using PS Elements. The sharpening increased the noise in all pics. In the first two, there didn't seem to be any appreciable difference in sharpness. The third one did sharpen some, but I'm not sure I like the results. It could also be I don't know the program well enough to do justice to the images.

If anyone wants to try to improve on them, then post the results, I'd appreciate it.

[aram535]

The first one looks soft and OOF to me, but I really like the open beak. The second one is a little dark.

With #3, is it cropped? If not you can probably get a really nice crop of the head/eyes out of it without going below 100%.