Some Love for the Little Guys - Share your Songbird/Warblers/Wrens....

If you would like to post, you'll need to register. Note that if you have a BCG store account, you'll need a new, separate account here (we keep the two sites separate for security purposes).

Thanks for searching the answer. I use iBird on my Phone and the pictures are sometimes not as useful.
No problemo, I am not 100% sure but that is my best guess. I have definitely been wrong a few times identifying birds. 😎
Love them all
 
FWIW, I have been using Merlin Bird ID app from Cornell Lab of Ornithology for quite some time. I feel it is fairly accurate using the regional downloads.
Nice to have it my pocket with me all the time rather than a field guide
 
This is from my Arizona collection; along the Salt River north of Mesa. I believe this one is a Lesser Goldfinch.
D700 Nikon AF-S VR Nikkor 300mm f/2.8G IF-ED II + 2.0 TC, ISO 400, F/8, 1/4000 sec
20160313 Gold Finch-136.jpg
You can only see EXIF info for this image if you are logged in.
 
Was eating dinner out on the front porch with my wife last night when this little Wilson's Warbler flew in and started hunting bugs in the bushes. Had the camera nearby and was able to get quite a few shots as he quickly jumped around. There wasn't much light to work so I was pretty happy with the way this one turned out.

Nikon D5, 500mm PF @f/5.6, 1/800", ISO 10,000 (with some help from Topaz DeNoise)
D51_6553-Edit.jpg
You can only see EXIF info for this image if you are logged in.
 
I am impressed by the sharpness of the bird, despite the high ISO; do you think that in such situation, instead of using post processing, a fill flash will be the other solution to get such result?
 
I am impressed by the sharpness of the bird, despite the high ISO; do you think that in such situation, instead of using post processing, a fill flash will be the other solution to get such result?
That's exactly the approach I would have taken several years ago and was my go-to for bird portraits in low light. It would have really been a key flash situation more than fill flash as dark as it was. There are downsides to the flash approach besides the extra gear like a flash bracket to get the flash off camera and a Better Beamer to increase flash effective flash power allowing for shorter flash durations and quicker recycle times. For starters unless you run in a high speed synch mode the shutter speed is limited to around 1/250" when shooting flash and the other big one is the background would go jet black if I'd relied completely on flash or worse there would be harsh flash induced shadows from any branches and leaves in the path of the flash's light.

I'm still amazed at what modern sensors coupled with modern post processing can allow in terms of high ISO performance. I never would even have tried this shot hand held with my D2X, D200 or D1H much less film cameras. Actually I probably wouldn't have tried this till I switched to Manual Exposure/Auto ISO mode as if I had to manually dial in ISO 10,000 I probably wouldn't even have tried for the shot :)

I'll also say Topaz Denoise is pretty amazing in what it can do though it takes a fair amount of processing power and time to pull it off. FWIW, here's the image out of the D5 prior to running it through Topaz Denoise:
D51_6553.jpg
You can only see EXIF info for this image if you are logged in.


Definitely more noise but with a pretty reasonable film grain sort of texture straight out of camera.
 
Back
Top