Mixed Bag at Juanita Bay Park - 04/22/2005 - Little Birdies

[Retief]

Figured I'd better post something or some folks would think my "shutter finger" was broken :lol: .

Even Little Birdies this time...

As we all know by now, there is always something to find at Juanita Bay Park.

Female Red-Winged Blackbird:

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Male Red-Winged Blackbird:

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Tree Swallow, singing to the world, or maybe telling us what he thinks of us:

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The Beav!...was so close, this is uncropped, head-shot for his portfolio:

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Cormorant, who refused to eat:

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And then had the audacity to leave:

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As usual, D2H plus Sigma 500 f4.5 HSM and the trust Nikon TC-14E. I was planning to ship my D2H back to Nikon, 3rd time in 18 months, but decided that it was such a nice day I'd shoot this afternoon and ship it in the morning. Nikon gets it on Monday, either way.

Let me know what you think, the lighting was pretty intriguing late in the day today.

 

[Flew]

What can I say Bill. Great series.... :wink:

I'm about to head out to the duck pond to shoot with Greg G and Patrick. If we're lucky. we'll get a few Mallards and maybe some geese. :? Wish we had the target-rich environment that you have. :lol:

Regards,

Frank

 

[TOLady]

Fabulous shots, esp that little swallow... beautiful bokeh on that lens. Funny thing tho, my FujiS3 records in mm the lens plus the TC14EII to give me a full measurement, looks like the D2H isn't recognizing the converter being on for recording mm??
Looks like it's taking the higher ISO's with no problems, this certainly helps with birding. Great shots! thanks for sharing them

 

[Retief]

What can I say Bill. Great series.... :wink:

I'm about to head out to the duck pond to shoot with Greg G and Patrick. If we're lucky. we'll get a few Mallards and maybe some geese. :? Wish we had the target-rich environment that you have. :lol:

Regards,

Frank

I'm afraid every time you go to that "Duck Pond". Those ducks you have do some very strange things when you are around...... :roll: :roll:

I really hate missing you folks in June, I couldn't get the NIFL to reschedule the game for June 5th in Miami :lol: , hopefully I can get one of the other Floridians to show me around on the 11th or so. That is a "target-rich" environment. We were actually expecting feeding cormorants and GBH at that time of day. A friend of mine got this great series last week of a Cormormant eating a great big catfish. But yesterday? As the T-Shirt's say, "I went to Juanita and all I got was this little Pied-Grebe way in the distance with a little fish" . Oh, yeah, and the GBH that we saw, 30 ft away, feeding like mad. Problem was all the weeds and brush in the way, and no brush-cutter at hand. This is why I still think those Florida folks have trained all the birds, and then they put non-Floridians under NDA when they come to shoot so the rest of the world won't know the truth.......

Thanks for the comments, we had some birds very close. The first shot of the Female RRB is a full-frame.

 

[Retief]

Fabulous shots, esp that little swallow... beautiful bokeh on that lens. Funny thing tho, my FujiS3 records in mm the lens plus the TC14EII to give me a full measurement, looks like the D2H isn't recognizing the converter being on for recording mm??
Looks like it's taking the higher ISO's with no problems, this certainly helps with birding. Great shots! thanks for sharing them

Thanks much. Those little swallows are all over the place. We saw this elderly couple, people not birds :wink: , near us watching the swallows fly. Two swallows flew right into them, it was pretty funny.

The whole deal with the TC and the Sigma lenses is rather funny. Whatever it is that gets delivered to the Nikon TC to enable it to report the "multiplied" focal length is obviously not passed by the Sigma lens, something they didn't figure out how to reverse engineer I guess. What is stranger to me is that when I put a Sigma 1.4TC on the same lens it won't AF. Obviously this is somehow "built-in" since the aperture would be the same between the two. The Sigma works great on my Sigma 120-300 f2.8 however. Small price to pay for the convenience however.

The bokeh of this Sigma lens is interesting, and I generally like it. As to the ISO, my D2H is one of the "good ones", and it is really nice to be able to shoot this way, especially in the conditions at the beginning and end of the day. I really blew some male RRB shots because I didn't watch the light. I had been shooting up into some very well lit trees and then turned around to see the RRBs about 15-20 feet away. Started to fire away, noticed how underexposed I was, they flew away, I kicked myself . Just a normal day for me

 

[greyflash]

Really nice images Bill. Looks like that Sigma lens is doing well by you.

 

[Retief]

Really nice images Bill. Looks like that Sigma lens is doing well by you.

Thanks, the only problem I have with this lens is that I can't acquire the darned birds fast enough. Then again, I have that problem with all lenses this long. I think that is one of the great challenges, and where the D2X can help with more resolution and the ability to shoot "looser". But it sure a heck of a lot of fun trying, isn't it?

My budget was such that paying double for the Nikon was not doable. I could have gotten a non-AFS version for a bit more than the Sigma but the AF, even on the D2H, was still much slower. Having those internal motors really helps. But all in all I think the value is good. I'd like to have that extra .5 from f4 to f4.5, but I'm not sure it matters all that much. And, of course, it is still black so nobody knows until they get real close anyway :lol: .

 

[PhotoDawg]

Good shots Bill. I especially enjoyed your last shot. Great action!!

 

[Greg]

very nice. I especially like the rim of the cormorant eye.

 

[mike mac]

Nice series the swallows are interesting birds they dart around like mad.

 

[Retief]

Good shots Bill. I especially enjoyed your last shot. Great action!!

Thanks Mr. Dawg :wink:

Funny thing is that the bird was so close catching it as if flew was tough. Totally blew the first couple trying to catch up with it. So, here I am, I complaing when they are too far away, complain when they are too close, just never satisfied. I need some of those trained birds like the Floridians have :lol: :lol:

 

[Retief]

very nice. I especially like the rim of the cormorant eye.

Thanks, Greg. I never realized just how bizarre those eyes look until I saw them "close-up" like this. There must be some reason for the markings and colorings, but they do make for a grand image don't they?

 

[Retief]

Nice series the swallows are interesting birds they dart around like mad.

Thanks, Mike. You should have seen the older couple when 2 of the swallows flew into them. I think that if there weren't railings on the viewing platform they may have gotten quite wet :lol: :lol:

I keep trying to catch them "in-flight" and I am beginng to think that the only way is with a movie camera. Those little buggers aren't just fast, they are REALLY FAST :!: :!: