Sony RX10 mk IV share your thoughts, interest, images.

bartheil wrote in post #19391814
That's a great shot DocRoger!

Thanks, I was lucky to get access to a really nice nest in someone's backyard.

El Capitain - Yosemite National Park.
The climbers are a 100% crop from a photo taken at 600mm eq. The overview photo is taken from roughly the same spot and the climbers are on the ridge in the middle.
This is why I love the RX10iv!

Experimenting a lot with the build-in HDR function +/- 2EV is great for photos in the middle of the day. (I can't escape a lot in the early morning/evening on a family vacation with one car.)

What I feel is that the HDR images give me a lot more wiggle room in Apple Photos (my lazy photo editor for non-printed pics) especially in highlight recovery.
Since I barely print, the loss of RAW versions isn't the end of the world.

Hauser Lake, Montana @ July 4th holiday and a shot from the car on the way there. In-camera HDR (±2 stops) + edited to paste in Apple Photos.

First go at a Moon shot with my Sony a7RIV and 100-400mm Sony lens. Picture is cropped to 50% because even 400mm's doesn't bring the Moon in close enough.
Suggestions for camera settings would be helpful. ߙ

Montana bumble bee. I don't know the plant it's on. It's a purple something that was next to my father-in-law's front porch.
Cropped and adjusted to tase in Apple Photos.

RUGBY VIRGIN SPORTS SHOOT!
Well, I shall admit here and now that, at almost 70, until today I have have never attended a live rugby game: which, for someone living in rugby-mad NZ is a terrible admission. Mind you, I have spent a good chunk of my life elsewhere. I have, of course, seen games on the TV, but since I got a free game pass to the Auckland Rugby Assoc., I thought it would be a good chance to visit and to try my hand!

Nor have I done much sports photography: my preferred genres are wildlife, scenery and travel. So, this was a novel situation in many respects. Also, I shoot predominantly Canon, Nikon and Fuji - in that order, and this time I was shooting Sony...

I realized that they are pretty picky about people taking images of the games with serious gear, so I decided to avoid the large cameras and lenses in my inventory, and instead go with my Sony RX-10 which, with a 1" sensor, allows me to have an equivalent FoV of 24-600mm. Further more, with a feature known as Zoom Boost, I can push it to 1200mm equivalent if necessary.

I had to spend some time trying to figure out how to get all this to work with the IS, face tracking, zoom focus etc. but seemed to get the hang of it just in time for the last half of the women's game.

The main event was the end of series match between local clubs Manukau and Ponsonby for the Gallaher Shield, so a fairly big deal. I had positioned myself a couple of seats up from the lowest level close to the try line at one end, hoping to get oblique shots of tries being scored. Of course the action went went all over the field, requiring some shots to be taken at up to 150m away from where I was seated.

So, here are a couple of results. With the small sensor and dim lighting (the game started at 4:30pm with sunset an hour later), the field was in shadow quite a bit of the time, so these are not suitable for pixel peeping! To catch the action I used Shutter priority, set in the main to 1/1000sec, and left the ISO on auto up to 6400. I was using high speed continuous shutter - which in the Sony is a massive 24 FPS!!!

Keeping the thread alive. (As I still love shooting with this camera!)

Sea gull and Buoy - Waddenzee, Netherlands. While in Holland to see family, we took a short trip to Texel and the Waddenzee to watch seals etc. It was the middle of the afternoon so very contrasty.

3 min. ago | #7487
Gobsmacked...

I went to shoot the full moon for a second night, loaded for bear with the Canon EOS 5DsR+Sigma 60-600+1.4 Canon MkIII extender and using the 1.6crop. Then there was the Canon EOS R5 with the RF100-500 lens. But the surprise of the night was the Sony RX-10 MkIV, shooting in JPGs to get the 2x boost to the 24-600 lens, thus providing an equivalent FoV of 1200mm - and hand-held to boot!!!

Photo from Tronhard's gallery.
Image hosted by forum (1173191)

Photo from Tronhard's gallery.
Image hosted by forum (1173192)

Early morning beach walk in Dubai.

In-camera HDR gone wrong? - Find the xxx differences
One image is the in-Camera HDR and the other one is the middle image that is saved alongside it.

I don't remember if I used a tripod. I was helping my daughter with her photography class and got to hold my own camera myself for a few seconds too!

Tiritiri Island Open Scientific Sanctuary

The island of Tiritiri Matangi is an open scientific reserve. It is located in the Auckland Hauaraki Gulf, about an hour's ferry trip from downtown. It was originally native bush before being cleared for farming, but in the 1970's was taken over by the NZ Dept of Conservation and, with the help of volunteers, a massive replanting program saw the island's native bush returned. The island was turned into a research facility and wildlife reserve to help bring back from the brink species that are seriously threatened with extinction.

To learn more about the sanctuary see:https://www.tiritirima​tangi.org.nz/

Among animals there are the Takahi, a swamp and open country species, of which there are only 350 left in the world. They are bred on the island and released into their normal habitat in Fiordland and other locations. Another animal of note is the Tuatara lizard, unique to NZ, which predates the dinosaur at over 250 million years. One of the interesting things about this creature is that the young have a third pro-eye, located above and between their normal eyes, believed to be to detect the presence of predating birds above them. They proto-eye is absorbed when the animals mature.

There is a bunkhouse at which scientists and volunteers can stay. Supporters can also stay there for a small fee and sometimes get a deal on the ferry costs, which are not inconsiderable, at around $80 return. I managed to get a deal of 50% discount on both and stayed for four days, 3 nights towards the end of September. I used the time to volunteer and to go out in the morning and evening when the birds are at their most active for some photographs.

Photographing these birds is challenging as they like to stay in the dark recesses of the bush, and while they are not afraid of humans, they are wary of each other, as some species, especially the large Tui predate on the smaller ones.

Apart from the amazing bird image opportunities, the island is slowly regaining the dawn chorus: the sound of birds that was so loud it was said that in the morning and evening early explosers could hear the sounds of the birds before one saw the shore. Listen to it, recorded this: https://1drv.ms …jnLiWLl2F_Pe3mB​c?e=xEzrrY

The Tui is one of the largest birds and monsters many of the smaller species, sometimes predating on them. Still, they are beautiful birds

Solar Electricity

I've been too busy to take the RX10iv out lately but yesterday was a great sunset.

Time with the Korimako on Tiritiri

I just spent a few days as a volunteer on the open scientific sanctuary of Tiritiri Matangi, in Auckland's Hauraki Gulf. It has been a trail blazer in an alliance between the NZ Govt Dept. of Conservation, Academic institutions, and the community (including the indigenous Maori) to return a farmed island back to its original native bush state, and to make it a home to breed and study endangered species of both flora and fauna. The island's population of wildlife included the native Takahe, a native dweller of tussock lands of which there are barely birds 360 left; Tuatara a reptile that dates barck 250 million years and precedes the dinosaurs and a lot of other endangered and threatened species.

A lot of these birds live in deep bush, and are coloured to blend into it, so they are hard to isolate and get a decent image of. Here are a couple of images of the Korimako or Bell Bird. They are very small, move erratically and continuously and stick to deep cover generally. On this occasion, I was monitoring the behaviour of the NZ native Korimako (Bell Bird), which has a wonderful melodic sound.

If you open the following link and click on the sound symbol, you will hear an example. When they sing together, they are amazing. https://www.nzbirdsonl​​ine.org.nz/species/be​l​lbird# (external link)

All images hand-held, available light

Interloper: the eternal love triangle inaction, as two males (left) vie for the female on the right. The middle one was successful as the two went off together

Photo from Tronhard's gallery.
Image hosted by forum (1189287)

Photo from Tronhard's gallery.
Image hosted by forum (1189288)

Photo from Tronhard's gallery.
Image hosted by forum (1189289)

Happy Early New Year everyone.
We're off for some camping in the mountains of Oman.
The goats we encountered on our Thanksgiving trip.