More photos (a story)

[pecunium]

One, "shoots" photographs. In a lot of ways it's nothing like using a rifle (and in no way is it like using a pistol, or a bow).

Yes, one can make grab shots; and sometimes one gets lucky, but if one want's to put food on the table, it takes planning, and patience; knowledge of the subject and an idea of what one wants.

Birds. Birds are fun. They move, they are colorful, and they have habits.

Ducks have some very predictable habits. They are heavy, as a result they tend to take off, and land with the wind in their face (taking off is more variable... scare them from the upwind side, and they will take off with the wind behind them, but they don't like it).

That's a real benefit if one want's to get shots of them on the wing.

Downleg Turn



Line up



On Final



Stalling down



To be honest, I cheated with this series. It's two separate ducks. That's where the consistency of their behavior (and knowing about it... Fortune favors the prepared mind), helps.

Comments

[michiexile]

Whoa!

They look like paintings. So. Cool. Pictures.

[tlatoani.livejournal.com]

Wow. Those are amazing.

What kind of lens are you using?

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

Depends on what I'm shooting (I have a lot of lenses, probably too many; but getting rid of them is hard).

For this it was either a Tamron 35-300 f3.5-5.6, or the Nikon 75-300 3.5-5.6.

For some reason the Exif information is missing from these files, so I'm not certain. Probably, it was the Nikon. The Tamron is a little soft, and I pretty much only carry it when I have weight/space/time constraints.

I don't think I took these afte the tripod fell, and broke that Tamron (which I replaced with a 28-300 f3.5-5.6).

[shunra.livejournal.com]

I love them! Bird toes... oooh! And that feather-action in the wings... ...ooh-ooh-ooh!

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

I like the lift on the mid-wing feathers in "On Final", you can see the lower pressure behind/above the wing.

[tenderberry.livejournal.com]

Ducks have some very predictable habits. They are heavy, as a result they tend to take off, and land with the wind in their face (taking off is more variable... scare them from the upwind side, and they will take off with the wind behind them, but they don't like it).
I had no idea - thanks for the education -

and I must say, the mallards look like they were painted - such richness of color -

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

That's a function of something I didn't mention... the light.

I set myself so the light would be behind my left shoulder, and the ducks would thus be descending into it, which 1: picks up the color, and 2: sets them off from the background.

[tenderberry.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the tip about lighting - didn't learn that in the 2 photo classes I took at SMC a gazillion years ago -

[thrrrnbush.livejournal.com]

I love a good duck pic. I also love the bite-sized photography classes you slip into your blog. I'm taking notes.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

The notes are the excuse for flooding people with photos. I really need to remember to tag the photo-posts, so people can find them.

[ammitbeast.livejournal.com]

Excellent pix!

[spiritualmonkey.livejournal.com]

lexica510 & I are quite fond of feeding the geese and ducks and gulls at Lake Merritt. Watching a flight of Canada geese on final approach for a water landing is hella cool.

Ducks

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

Nice.

How long a lens?

B

Re: Ducks

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty sure I was using the 75-300 AF f3.5-56.

Most of those are in the 200-300 range, which means it was effectively 300-400 because of the difference in format.