Royal spoonbills in early morning light to be picked and plucked.

[Gordon]

I am posting these images as I would like to hear a few comments about them.

Two of them were slightly cropped the 3rd is full frame, they have all had a little Auto tone in LR.

LR adjusted them all around -.4

They were all taken in Portrait format rather than landscape.

[sejac]

No takers yet? Still arguing over RAW V jpeg!! I know, I'm not helping much there. I know how to set people off!

These are beautiful shots. The color, focus, the backgrounds and foregrounds are top shelf. Crisp and sharp where they should be. 600mm? You are doing something right big time.

It's in the area of composition that I would have a slight quibble. Not enough space in front of the beak in #1 and #2. Especially in #2 where the bird is walking into the edge of the frame. For that matter, I always feel portrait mode is trick in shots like this.

#3 is tight but not really a problem. The bird is looking into a space bigger (slightly) in front than the space behind.

Others will disagree most likely.

By the way, the you can easily put a bit more space on the canvas in PP. It's been known to happen, so I've heard. From others.

[loose cannon]

These are fantastic images Gordon!

All would benefit from a straighter horizon and with the first two I'd be tempted to crop from the bottom to remove some of the blurry foreground. Just a whisker from the first and a slightly more heavy handed approach with the second.

Also, in the first two the bird is a little too close to the rhs (more so with #2) and if there's no more room available to recrop I'd suggest adding some canvas. It's a fiddly little procedure but one well worth mastering.

I'm not very good at adding canvas but might try and put together a basic tutorial later. It's not too hard but involves quite a few steps to get a good result on some images. For now google is your friend

I like the pose in #1 and the loose feather is a nice touch. This is the strongest of the three images imo.

[Gordon]

Thank you both for your comments.

Greatly appreciated.

I agree with what you are both saying about the cropping factors, at this point I wasn't too worried about the composition, but thanks for your comments all the same.

[Gordon]

All would benefit from a straighter horizon and with the first two I'd be tempted to crop from the bottom to remove some of the blurry foreground. Just a whisker from the first and a slightly more heavy handed approach with the second..

Thanks Mick the second one is the full frame shot with no cropping at all, which is why the foreground is a bit blurry and could do with cropping back more heavily. The shots were all taken at ground level, which is why I have a blurry DOF foreground. At 6 inches of the floor its a bit difficult to have no foreground at all.

[seaslug]

I like number one, but like Mick, I noticed the slant of the water level (read horizon). Lovely shots though of a regal bird.

[Alan]

Nice work with exposure - others seem to have covered everything. A straight horizon and looser framing (if it was possible), would lift them even further imho - love that feather

[Gordon]

Thanks Guys for your comments.

I posted these 3 shots because I was experimenting with a new lens,I wanted an unbiased opinion of the shots before saying what I had been doing, sorry for being a little devious.

I already had a 2x converter which I used on the 300 f2.8.

I used to have a 100-400 Canon which was substandard if I used it with the 2x converter, couldn't use AF and the images were a bit on the soft side when I used the Converter, so I sold the 100-400 lens.

I already had a 70-200 f2.8 so I thought I would buy myself a 1.4 Extender off Ebay, picked one up for $250.00, brand new they are around $500.00 which I thought would fill the gap between the 100-400 and my 300 f2.8.

This morning I got up early to catch the light and took the 1.4, and the 2x and 300 f2.8 and put them altogether.

So then I had the 300 f2.8 + 2x = 600 + 1.4 converter which gave me in theory 840mm out of my 300. f2.8

I started off really early and first shots were on the soft side, the ISO shot up the 25000 on the 5DMk3, with the camera set on AV priority
and I was shooting at 1/200 @f5.6 not a good result.

I had the camera set on Auto ISO and AV Priority and as the light got better the ISO dropped back from 25000 to 3200 and finally down to 2500 ISO. and I was shooting at 1/500 @f5.6.

I had been told having the 2 converters piggy backed together wouldn't work and it would push the f stop back too far, but amazingly the camera set the f stop at 5.6 even with the 2 converters. The other funny thing the camera didn't recognise the second converter in the Metadata it still read 600mm and not the increased figure of 840.

Yesterday talking to a bloke in Garricks Camerahouse in Townsville he said he tried using the system with a 7D and it wasn't successful the AF system was slow to respond. I found the AF hunted a bit on the MK3 but once I manually focused on the focal distance I didn't have any problems following the birds. I was amazed at the difference in focal length the 1.4 made over the 2x as well.

I am now wondering if I could tempt providence and buy myself a second 2x converter and push the 300 out to 1200mm with 2 x 2x behind it. I tried using the same piggy back system on the 5Dmk2 and it wasn't as successful, the mk2 was a lot slower focusing.

Using the piggy back system on the 70-200 f2.8 worked with the mk3 but didn't work with the MK2,so its not a technique that can be used with all cameras, and Canon say that the converters only work on the faster lens, if its a f4. lens the AF doesn't work which is the problem I had with my 100 -400.

Hope this bit of trivia may help a few other members.

Thanks for your comments and input.

[Gordon]

I like number one, but like Mick, I noticed the slant of the water level (read horizon). Lovely shots though of a regal bird.

Well water does run down hill.

[seaslug]

Well water does run down hill.

Good for water skiing!

[Phoenix]

I checked out the images, formulated my feedback read Micks and found he had everything I was going to say already said.
Background gorgeous colours
DOF great
Subject...wonderful poses
Portrait - good choice for bird shape
Horizon a little tilted
Positioning of subject..squished in 1 and 2

Visually these are very nice images to look at.