More fliers from the 400 5.6L

The Imperial-Pigeon is just awesome. Check out the colours on its wings...

They are all excellent.

do you take any bad pics,,, just wondering

Excellent, Romy ... impressive set!

There's always bad pics, Romy just has the knowledge, skills and equipment to nail enough good ones to share with us I'm sure these images are not the results of a single weekend shooting, probably the best of from the last year or two...it takes dedication aswell...

I've never had a telephoto lens nor shot birds at all but I know these are excellent, on my screen the colours look natural, exposure looks even, there's no haloing from too much USM. Just well executed images, great light, clean backgrounds, focussed perfectly and nice and close with the 400 so the detail is superb.

As for Photoshop, isn't everyone versed enough with digital to understand that images from DSLR's are meant to be processed, no different to work performed in the darkroom. This isn't aimmed at Petkal but I'm a little tired of people thinking that post processing is the difference between their work and that of others....

The true difference is that sometimes they are simply better photographers/artists, no amount of gear can replace a good eye. The ability to look at a scene and see it processed hanging as a print on the wall. POst processing isn't a recipe either, you can learn all the techniques but if you haven't the eye you'll still be battling. Consistantly good photos IMO are the result of conscious thinking, not photoshop and shooting as many frames as you can in the field.

I agree with Petkal totally about the lack of constructive critique, I don't post images here for that reason. Despite what most would think, a page of superlatives like 'great shot' 'wow, excellent shot' doesn't really help after your first month of photography. I can only speak for myself but I don't want to think 'wow I'm really good at this now'. What I want to think is 'ok, what can I do better.....how can I improve' or 'why do viewers feel my image works' We never stop learning.

Everytime I go out to bird, I'll be very happy to bring home one keeper (sharp, good light/exposure and decent BG) after shooting a thousand pics....

The nice thing with digital is one can shoot a lot without worrying about film cost. And at fliers, quantity does increase the chances of getting a good one.

Regards,

Romy

Petkal wrote:
Listen Romy, I feel you should be banished from this Forum.....and while you are leaving, please take Dimitri with you. The reason being that your photos make the rest of us mishappen saps (really, I can only speak for miself with conviction) look like camera obscura dilettantes.

Seriously, heaping compliments does not cut it any more, it's getting oversaturated.
So how about some sincere critique ?
I am an absolute Photoshop ignoramus, but these shots appear to be over-done wrt sharpness and colouring......mind you, it must have been done extremely skillfully...yet, perhaps so much so that the images lose some of plausibility (reality) in my eyes. I hope this will make some sense to you.

Lol.... thanks, Petkal. I've printed similarly processed versions of these pics to 12x15 and the colors in the print are faithful to those in my CRT monitor.
Well, this is according to my "color consultant" (my wife), as I'm acutely color-blind.....

Fellow birders who have seen the prints are of the opinion that the colors are just right too.

On the sharpness, I'm a bit more aggressive in sharpening web images, as compared to prints. In my experience, photopaper can resolve more detail than CRT or LCD monitors, hence I can cut back on sharpening and still show a lot of details (more natural looking than over-sharpened ones).

Regards,

Romy

JakeC wrote:
There's always bad pics, Romy just has the knowledge, skills and equipment to nail enough good ones to share with us I'm sure these images are not the results of a single weekend shooting, probably the best of from the last year or two...it takes dedication aswell...

I've never had a telephoto lens nor shot birds at all but I know these are excellent, on my screen the colours look natural, exposure looks even, there's no haloing from too much USM. Just well executed images, great light, clean backgrounds, focussed perfectly and nice and close with the 400 so the detail is superb.

As for Photoshop, isn't everyone versed enough with digital to understand that images from DSLR's are meant to be processed, no different to work performed in the darkroom. This isn't aimmed at Petkal but I'm a little tired of people thinking that post processing is the difference between their work and that of others....

The true difference is that sometimes they are simply better photographers/artists, no amount of gear can replace a good eye. The ability to look at a scene and see it processed hanging as a print on the wall. POst processing isn't a recipe either, you can learn all the techniques but if you haven't the eye you'll still be battling. Consistantly good photos IMO are the result of conscious thinking, not photoshop and shooting as many frames as you can in the field.

I agree with Petkal totally about the lack of constructive critique, I don't post images here for that reason. Despite what most would think, a page of superlatives like 'great shot' 'wow, excellent shot' doesn't really help after your first month of photography. I can only speak for myself but I don't want to think 'wow I'm really good at this now'. What I want to think is 'ok, what can I do better.....how can I improve' or 'why do viewers feel my image works' We never stop learning.

Thanks, Jake, for the kind comments. I agree with most points you have said.

Romy

Wow,superb shots.