EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM Review WOW!

Thanks! Is that in Steve Irwin's zoo?

Thanks for all the replies. Yes, I am so proud of her. A short while ago she wouldn't have said boo to a goose and now she's performing in front of thousands.

She lived, and studied psychology in the UK and each semester break, would come to see me here and volunteer at Australia Zoo. When she qualified, she took a break before deciding what to do next with her life, and again. came to see me and once again, volunteered at the Zoo. She was so excited and happy (as I was) when she told me that they had offered her a full-time paid position and that she was going to live in Oz. It is through her, and in particular, this thread and the lens, that I also became interested in birds.

She has come such a long way in such a short time but I'm afraid my attempts at hitting birds in flight, and producing the results that some of you have shown here, may take a bit longer

I think the bird is angry with her with all that publicity

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/xAbB​Pe

Scrumhalf wrote in post #17676830
Thanks! Is that in Steve Irwin's zoo?

Yes.

bidkev wrote in post #17676836
Yes.

I've been to the Taronga zoo in Sydney. They told us when the boats start to gather in the harbour they can't get the apes in for the night no matter what they try. Nothing, not even food works. The boats gathering usually means there will be a fireworks display.

Sorry for being off topic as I'm getting restless. I don't have a computer at the lake and I might have some decent Eagle shots to post with my 7D2 and 100-400.

So I built myself a bird table and it took about a week for the lorikeets to find it but now they have, they're back every day.

I can't do justice to them courting via photographs but anyone who's seen them "dance" knows how wonderful it is. They sway from side to side in unison. occasionaly puff out their chest feathers, and snuggle up to each other in between swaying. They must have hit it off as in the last shot he looks teed off and she's nagging him already

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/xjLB​6q

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/xz3Q​gW

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/wEmv​Yy

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/xjS2​1R

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/xjKn​L3

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/xAxb​hS

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/xjLr​mC

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/wEmF​Mw

so cool, really vibrant colour

Pondrader wrote in post #17677051
so cool, really vibrant colour

I'm trying to figure that colour out Jeff????? They are really vibrant IRL but, and more likely I'm wrong, and am imagining it, the DNG's do look a bit more vibrant than the RAWS? The only thing I've done here in ACR is +10 clarity, the same for vibrancy and tone down highlights in PS

Looks like a great set Kev. I reckon you did a pretty good job of capturing their dance.

On this monitor the colours are quite saturated. A little more than my liking but I know others like their colours well saturated, so please don't take this as criticism - everyone has different tastes. You're not over the top there IMO though.

smythie wrote in post #17677272
Looks like a great set Kev. I reckon you did a pretty good job of capturing their dance.

On this monitor the colours are quite saturated. A little more than my liking but I know others like their colours well saturated, so please don't take this as criticism - everyone has different tastes. You're not over the top there IMO though.

Monitors OK as I'm sat alongside my son's 'puter and they're identical. I don't trust that converstion to DNG as I've had a few that seem oversaturated.........​......unless God forbid! It's the camera!

...most monitors/displays come off the shelf too bright and too white, in some cases too pop consumer saturated and contrasty for proper image processing, which, of course leads to discrepancies in what people scattered all over the world see from each other, as non-calibrated monitors can be all over the map. About the only way to assure that you are seeing close to the truth of your own images is to calibrate your monitor. As for the rest of the world, if your monitor is properly calibrated, you will be playing in the same ballpark with the rest of those with calibrated monitors, and everything else is a dog chasing its tail.

Years ago, after banging heads over The Truth, I decided to buy only professional, calibrated monitors. My current set are even self-calibrating. Point is, at least I know what my images really look like, and whether I say it or not, how those of others look. Publishing to the web, of course, brings in it's own set of discrepancies, though in some places that's improving.

So Kevin, I've spent enough time in Oz over the years to have a pretty good imprint and a few pics of what a lorikeet looks like in it's natural environment. It may also be true that what you see on your monitor, after adjusting the image out of your camera, looks true to life too, and what you see you of the images you have posted on POTN, viewing on the very same monitor look right to you too, however to those viewing elsewhere on calibrated monitors, your postings appear over saturated in parts and a bit thin in other parts.

Now if I wasn't viewing on reference monitors that I have every reason to trust, I'd keep my mouth shut, but since I am viewing from a trusted reference, I'd be doing you a disservice not to share what I see with you. Hope this is of use.

bidkev wrote in post #17677042
So I built myself a bird table and it took about a week for the lorikeets to find it but now they have, they're back every day.

I can't do justice to them courting via photographs but anyone who's seen them "dance" knows how wonderful it is. They sway from side to side in unison. occasionaly puff out their chest feathers, and snuggle up to each other in between swaying. They must have hit it off as in the last shot he looks teed off and she's nagging him already

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/xjLB​6q Rainbow Lorikeets - Courting couple by Kevin Dickinson, on Flickr

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/xz3Q​gW Rainbow Lorikeets - Courting couple Doing The Dance of Love by Kevin Dickinson, on Flickr

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/wEmv​Yy Rainbow Lorikeets - Courting couple Doing The Dance of Love by Kevin Dickinson, on Flickr

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/xjS2​1R Rainbow Lorikeets - Courting couple Doing The Dance of Love by Kevin Dickinson, on Flickr

https://flic.kr/p/xjKn​L3Rainbow Lorikeets - Courting couple Doing The Dance of Love by Kevin Dickinson, on Flickr

https://flic.kr/p/xAxb​hSRainbow Lorikeets - Courting couple Doing The Dance of Love by Kevin Dickinson, on Flickr

https://flic.kr/p/xjKn​L3Rainbow Lorikeets - Courting couple Doing The Dance of Love by Kevin Dickinson, on Flickr

https://flic.kr/p/xjLr​mCRainbow Lorikeets - Courting couple Doing The Dance of Love by Kevin Dickinson, on Flickr

https://flic.kr/p/wEmF​MwRainbow Lorikeets - Courting couple Doing The Dance of Love by Kevin Dickinson, on Flickr

As an observation, when I look at your settings, I personally would drop down from F10 to F8 or F5.6 in order to bump the SS up to 1/400th or slightly faster. It is a personal thing but I would choose slightly more sharpness over DoF.


Wonderful pictures and setup - we have no birds remotely that colourful here in Canada.

I think with the f10 Kevin was trying to cut the brightness of the sun which is super intense at this time of year. and depth of field was so necessary with the two birds. Super bright colour's on feather is really hard to control I think. I don't have kevin's problem around here with the super colourful bird's lol except for the yellow's of which I just try to get them in the shade or an overcast day. hard sun is always tough.

I just finished working with this one for the Facebook banner lol

bidkev wrote in post #17677042
So I built myself a bird table and it took about a week for the lorikeets to find it but now they have, they're back every day.

I can't do justice to them courting via photographs but anyone who's seen them "dance" knows how wonderful it is. They sway from side to side in unison. occasionaly puff out their chest feathers, and snuggle up to each other in between swaying. They must have hit it off as in the last shot he looks teed off and she's nagging him already Rainbow Lorikeets - Courting couple Doing The Dance of Love

Kevin,

I really love your Lorikeet shots, now that is some color!
The way you presented these in the "Dance of Love", but seeing the 'look' on the males face, and especially his eyes, that is really funny, it actually looks like he's being driven to the brink! heheheh
(He looks so nagged that he needs a shot of whiskey!) I just can't even imagine looking out in my yard and seeing this.

Although I have never been to Australia, and wouldn't know how bright they are, I do know that reds especially are common to over-saturate. Our Northern Cardinals here in the U.S. are really red, and there has been times that I have had to tone the color down, just slightly. Red is also the hardest color to color-correct also, if you add too much yellow, it turns an orange, and take away just a tiny bit of yellow, then it turns pink-ish. So in any conversion, this can happen very easily, so it's not horrible at all.
Your stuff doesn't look tacky at all, so don't think that, it's just maybe slightly over-saturated, but being over-saturated has its downfall, it makes it to where you can lose detail, especially in the reds. On most of my shots of anything I will bump the color up slightly to give it a little more pleasing look, for my taste, sometimes 'real-life' is not good enough for me. heheh

The way we used to have to calibrate our monitors at work (for Photoshop) would be to print out a picture, compare that printed piece to the original, then make your monitor look like your printed piece, but that was a long time ago. T.V.s are all over-saturated to sell you the idea that they are better, if we saw what a calibrated one looked like on a sales floor, we'd go somewhere else because they have us trained to want to see 'more color', so we can't hardly help to want to see more color now, it's ingrained in us.

Also, I do agree with "wallstreettoneil" said about the settings, that should help quite a bit, not with the color thing so much, not that you need anyone to tell you how to shoot, because anyone that can shoot the fish that you do, well...

Whatever the case, you are doing good, I always love your stuff, and please don't take what I am saying as anything but trying to help and complimentary.

Randy

Something else occurs to me.... perhaps Flickr's upload conversion formula adds some "warmth", "richness", "pop" or whatever, which works for the eagle and other stuff, but pushes the keets over the top.

For experiment's sake how about uploading the same keet images directly to POTN, not over Flickr, and see if they come out differently or the same?

It's only winter at the moment - the intensity is going to continually get worse for the next 3 or 4 months By that point he and the birds probably won't be wanting to spend much time out in the harsh sunlight