Post your Bird Portraits

Levina de Ruijter wrote in post #18461918
A 150=600mm lens on a gimbal takes some getting used to, I think. My longest lens is the 400/5.6, but I sometimes take the 300/4 and make it a 600mm with the 2x extender and that is a very different lens than the 400mm. Most long lens tutorials say to put your hand on top of the lens and press your face against the camera as a way to reduce or rather absorb vibration with your body. Arthur Morris however, suggests supporting the lens from below as he considers it the better technique. Here's a link to his long lens tips: https://www.outdoorpho​tographer.com …lens-tips-and-techniques/

Thank you for your input. I am still a bit tentative about my methods using the gimbal. One of the tests I should try is using the gimbal with a 300 mm and a 2x and with a 100-400. I will try those after I read the article you posted. I appreciate the help.

Levina de Ruijter wrote in post #18461918
A 150=600mm lens on a gimbal takes some getting used to, I think. My longest lens is the 400/5.6, but I sometimes take the 300/4 and make it a 600mm with the 2x extender and that is a very different lens than the 400mm. Most long lens tutorials say to put your hand on top of the lens and press your face against the camera as a way to reduce or rather absorb vibration with your body. Arthur Morris however, suggests supporting the lens from below as he considers it the better technique. Here's a link to his long lens tips: https://www.outdoorpho​tographer.com …lens-tips-and-techniques/

I recommend that everyone read the article. here is the link again, and again, thank you Levina

https://www.outdoorpho​tographer.com …-lens-tips-and-techniques

MedicineMan4040 wrote in post #18461828
Unknown bird west side of Rocky Mountain National Park last week 1/2 mile from Timber Creek Campground-

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/YSUN​jJ Uknown bird RMNP by MedicineMan4040, on Flickr

MM, your little sparrow is a Dark-eyed Junco, of the Gray-headed type, imho: https://www.allaboutbi​rds.org/guide/Dark-eyed_Junco/id

I love the colors you are getting from that Sony, btw.

Bignerd wrote in post #18461884
I have been running some experiments to deal with a lack of sharpness in my pictures. The issue at hand is working with a tamron 150-600mm which up until now has been very sharp. I have upgraded my mount to an aftermarket gimbal mount (sevenoaks gimbal). My first thought was that I was not getting good stability from the mount. I ran an experiment with the gimbal taking pictures of a power line in my back yard. I tried all combinations of iso, f stop (and shutter speed), and found the lens and gimbal to be tack sharp, down to a very low shutter speed.
I have reached the conclusion that when photographing birds in AI Servo mode, with multiple frames (very different from the power lines), the lens is slow to focus, and between shots there is enough misfocus to reduce the image quality. The other possibility is in AI servo mode, multiple frames, with my hand on the gimbal mount, I am introducing shake and reducing image quality.

I took these pictures at Baylands Park in Palo Alto. This is a marsh area, filled with water birds. There is also a small plane airport adjacent to the park that allowed me to work on panning with the planes coming in for landing. These pictures were all taken in single frame mode, some in AI servo, and some in single shot mode. My question is, has anybody else had this sort of challenge in achieving image quality?

Hello! I have a couple ideas for you, but I wanted to ask a couple of questions first please. I own both the G1 and G2 versions of the Tamron 150-600. Which version do you have? I ran into a similar situation with G1 when I moved to a gimbal mount. Haven't with the G2, but I think that's due to learning from my mistakes with the G1...
Also, have you done AFMA on the 150-600? I found that static subjetcs in Single Shot worked well, but my AI Servo stuff was better after AFMA... Odd, but it made a difference.

Mr. Turkey of Zion National Park who gobble-gobbled across a bridge I was trying to do a long exposure on and then continued on down the trail:

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/VexJ​mL

docg wrote in post #18462022
Wow! Great shot!

Thanks! Amazing what you can do shooting out the passenger window of my van

vasher wrote in post #18462313
Mr. Turkey of Zion National Park who gobble-gobbled across a bridge I was trying to do a long exposure on and then continued on down the trail:

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/VexJ​mL SW Trip tele-1295 by vashnic, on Flickr

Well executed! They wouldn't let me get that close when I was there! That in the field by the "lodge" deal they have there?

He may only be small, he may be very common, but hes got a big appetite. Blue tit sitting on a wet red apple. The small birds are tricky, you need to get pretty close shot for the detail to show.

Beautiful lighting on this turkey!

a couple of easy floating subjects.

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/Yzg8​Zw

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/YVho​eU

Might be easy floating but youve got the detail and the great light, which count for a lot.