My afternoon walk 180920

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As the day was ideal for a few shots I headed out to a couple of the local spots I check regularly.
I found that I was not really up to the quality of light with my camera settings for some reason today.
I did however get some shots but they are only just passable.
All these shots are all new species for me to photograph, so it was a matter of get something as they were new species for me.
I did see an Australasian pipit (Anthus novaeseelandiae) 160 - 190mm as well but I could not get close enough for a photo that is presentable.

The Great Egret (Ardea alba) 800 to 1040mm.
The bird took flight after a canoeist came too close to get a look!

Great egret - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

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Pallid Cuckoo (Cacomantis pallidus) 280 - 330mm

Pallid cuckoo - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

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Dusky Woodswallow (Artamus cyanopterus)

Dusky woodswallow - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

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Thought I would add a stitched shot of the Great Egret from today.
Still not the best quality but this does show how one can stitch together two shots of a tall bird to give an image that you could not easily do with just one shot.

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Result

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[Callie]

Nicely stitched! LOVE them wood swallows! AND the cuckoo!

 

[gaknott]

Nice shots! I love shooting the egret and herons, especially catching the egret taking off or landing.

 

[gordon_g]

Nicely stitched! LOVE them wood swallows! AND the cuckoo!

X2 very nicely done on the stitched photo.

 

[DRwyoming]

Great images!

 

[Oztours]

Jolly good show old chap, that is very well done.

 

[soundbyte]

Thanks everyone for your comments.

I thought that I should mention that I used Microsoft ICE 1.4.4 to do the stitching.
There is a newer ICE version to be found here http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/redmond/projects/ice/
ICE will accept input for many file formats and does allow .NEF file direct input so no need to convert before inputting.

 

[Kathy G]

Wonderful series Soundbyte

 

[Yezdi]

Nice post processing job. Final image is a beauty

 

[soundbyte]

Nice post processing job. Final image is a beauty

Thanks @Yezdi .

Not much to the post processing job was very minimal, which I prefer.
Display images I wanted to stitch, copy raw files into Microsoft ICE, crop, export the resultant stitch, crop, watermark, resize, post to BCG.
Sounds like a lot but it only takes a minute or two.

 

[Yezdi]

Thanks @Yezdi .

Not much to the post processing job was very minimal, which I prefer.
Display images I wanted to stitch, copy raw files into Microsoft ICE, crop, export the resultant stitch, crop, watermark, resize, post to BCG.
Sounds like a lot but it only takes a minute or two.

Need to check out Microsoft ICE and how it works. Thanks for the explanation