Hyperfocal Seagulls

Here's my 'hyperfocal' seagulls - taken at the top of Gibraltar late last month. I used various settings.....mainly F4.5 or F5, full optical zoom and had the camera on continuous shooting to improve my chance of getting some decent shots (and to sound like a professional in front of all of the tourists!)

I had about a 30% success rate and it was great fun.

The photos have been cropped down to approx 800x600.

Enjoy....

www.chardyboy.fotopic.​net

ChardyBoy,

Those are some nice shots of the sea gull. Nicely framed as well. Just one question....how'd you manage to take pictures of the gull from a higher elevation than the sea gulls. It seems like you were actually looking down at the birds. What? Were you on a plane or did you grow wings, too?

Some nice shots. I like the one of the seagull from above - did you jump way up high?

And...for anyone who's taken the kids to see the new "Finding Nemo" movie, this immediately made me think of the seagulls in that movie and:

"Mine?"

"Mine?!"

"Mine!"

"Mine, mine, mine, mine, mine, mine...."



Dana

The top of Gibraltar is a great place from which to take photos - you've got gulls flying/soaring above you as well as looking down on them.

If I'd spent a bit more time, I could've got photos of gulls on their nests from above.

The 'framing' was done by cropping and it makes them look more impressive than on the camera! It's all good practice at the mo.

Just posting a couple of photos of the barbary apes who also inhabit the Rock.

If ever you go to the south of Spain - take a day out to visit the Rock.

Good thing you weren't under the last one.

I like the one with the mountain behind. It looks nice and sharp. Perhaps it used a faster shutter speed than the others.

Thanks for posting.

Bruce

HAHA nice dropping on the last one!!!

Also, (I am not sure what this is called) have you tried blurring the background while keeping the subject clear and sharp?

I remember someone posting the same thing with a car, I wonder if someone knows the technique..

dana wrote:
Some nice shots. I like the one of the seagull from above - did you jump way up high?

And...for anyone who's taken the kids to see the new "Finding Nemo" movie, this immediately made me think of the seagulls in that movie and:

"Mine?"

"Mine?!"

"Mine!"

"Mine, mine, mine, mine, mine, mine...."



Dana

So that's what they were saying! Great movie!

I'm going to have to try the hyperfocusing technique for taking pictures of my kids with the G3... maybe I'll have better luck...

Victor

chardyboy, from your "spain gallery" one would thing there are only bugs here! which places did you visit?

great shots, which hiperfocal settings did you use? more specificly, which focus distance?

Crop0373.jpg is specially nice

satnitefever: you're referring to sweeping (dunno if this is the tech term in english).

You choose a moderately "slow" shutter speed (say 1/60 and lower) and follow the moving object. This produces better results when you're perpendicular to the subject movement.

The problem is that with long focal lenghts, if you shoot lower than 1/focal length you'll get a blurry shot, because camera shake is "amplificated".

Supossing the seagull flown on a straight line, it should be possible, esp. using a tripod to avoid movement on diferent axes, but guess that very difficult.

We've got a place west of Malaga/north of Marbella in Coin and we visit all around. I'd just got my close up lenses so stuck with the 'bugs'.

Hyperfocal settings?! - I think I was using f4.5-5.0, manual focus - not quite infinity, 4x optical zoom and that was that! Finger on the trigger and don't let go.

With regards to blurring the background, I'm happy to do things like that with photoshop if needed.

It was just real experimentation (and fun!) - Next time, I'll stick the 1.75x teleconverter on and see what that produces.

I would try pigeons in Trafalgar Square but Red Ken has got rid of them all!

I've just posted a couple of other Spain 2003 shots.

Thanks all for your comments and suggestions - I've learnt more about photography in the last 3months than in my last thirty blip years.

Cheers

Dave