Picture Of The Day

SET Man · « **Reply #480 on:** 9 Jun 2008, 07:18 pm »

Quote from: PhilNYC on 9 Jun 2008, 05:28 pm

Yeah, the sun and shadows were playing havoc with my exposures and composition. Anyways, here's one taken an hour or two later, with some better lighting. Apparently, there are 4 baby birds (robins) in the nest:

Hey!

Very cute Phil.

Yes, this one is better than the previous one.

Phil, it would be super cool to see the mommy bird coming back with food and feeding these chicks

Take care,
Buddy

ipy · « **Reply #481 on:** 9 Jun 2008, 07:51 pm »

Buthanese kids we met during our recent visit. My wife took this shot while I was showing them the picture I took of them earlier. Their face expressions alone made our day.....

This was the picture taken of them......

PhilNYC · « **Reply #482 on:** 9 Jun 2008, 07:53 pm »

Quote from: SET Man on 9 Jun 2008, 07:18 pm

Very cute Phil.

Yes, this one is better than the previous one.

Phil, it would be super cool to see the mommy bird coming back with food and feeding these chicks

Take care,
Buddy

It just goes to show you how important the lighting is! The first shot was taken at around 9am, with the tree in the shadow cast by my house. The second shot was taken at 11am, just as the sun was high enough for the light to hit the tree. The last shot was taken at 1pm with a lot of the light being filtered thru the tree's leaves.

And yes...the mommy bird is actually there quite a bit, but flies away every time I try to get close for a picture. I actually got to see her feed them what looked like a bee of some kind! And I wasn't quite fast enough, but I did have my camera aimed on one of the babies when an ant climbed onto the nest and very nearly into the baby's mouth...tried to get the shot, but the baby had eaten the ant by the time I snapped it...

Also btw - the nest is just high up enough where I need to stand on a chair and raise my arms up with my camera to get these shots. So here's a big thumbs-up for Live-View and a tilting LCD on my Sony DSLR...!

SET Man · « **Reply #483 on:** 9 Jun 2008, 08:06 pm »

Quote from: PhilNYC on 9 Jun 2008, 07:53 pm

It just goes to show you how important the lighting is!

Hey!

Yup, photography is pretty much all about lighting.

Photography came from Greek of which mean "painting with light" or "drawing with light"

Well, good luck catching the mommy bird... maybe you need a longer telephoto lens for this

Take care,
Buddy

ipy · « **Reply #484 on:** 9 Jun 2008, 08:10 pm »

Quote from: SET Man on 9 Jun 2008, 08:06 pm

Quote from: PhilNYC on 9 Jun 2008, 07:53 pm

It just goes to show you how important the lighting is!

Hey!

Yup, photography is pretty much all about lighting.

Photography came from Greek of which mean "painting with light" or "drawing with light"

Well, good luck catching the mommy bird... maybe you need a longer telephoto lens for this

Take care,
Buddy

or trying some artificial lightning ie: flash - not direct/harsh but rather bounce flash.

nathanm · « **Reply #485 on:** 9 Jun 2008, 08:54 pm »

Two ants conversing:

"Hey Tony, did you hear the news?"

"No, what?"

"Jimbo got eaten today. Waked right into a robin's mouth!"

"You're kidding! I mean, that guy wasn't the smartest ant in the colony, but damn that's just plain stupid!"

"I know! I saw the whole thing! Robins are there, cheeping away, looking for dinner and along comes Jimbo and walks right into its damn mouth. What a fackin' moron!"

"He should definitely get a Darwin Award for that one!"

"You got that right!"

Bob in St. Louis · « **Reply #486 on:** 10 Jun 2008, 10:57 am »

"What a fackin' moron!" Sounds like Robert Deniro playing an ant from Jersey.

PhilNYC · « **Reply #487 on:** 13 Jun 2008, 12:23 am »

I don't want to turn this into the "baby robins" thread

...but I've been facinated watching these babies over the last few days. One strange thing just happened. My daughter and I watched with great anticipation from our window as we saw the mommy robin approach with some kind of large bug in its mouth. It hopped from branch to branch, finally landing on the nest. The 4 babies opened their mouths with great anticipation, and suddenly the mommy basically slam-dunked the bug into one of the babies' mouth. I felt bad for the other three, who obviously looked hungry. Here's the strange part...after about 10 seconds, while the mommy bird hopped over to another branch, *another* robin landed on the nest with bug-in-mouth and fed another one of the baby robins! Both robins looked identical, so I assume they were both female...is this normal behavior for robins? To share a nest? Are they each the mother of 2 of the 4 babies? Or is one the mother of all 4 and the other female just helping out?

SET Man · « **Reply #488 on:** 13 Jun 2008, 12:54 am »

Hey!

Phil, could it be that the other bird is the father of these chicks?

I wish I had this kind of thing to watch from my apartment here in Queens.

Would love to see when the mother and maybe father also feeding those chicks. Too bad you are not near by I could lend you my Tokina 70-200mm f2.8 Than maybe you could catch them during feeding time without getting too close to them.

Take care,
Buddy

lonewolfny42 · « **Reply #489 on:** 13 Jun 2008, 10:24 am »

Quote from: PhilNYC on 13 Jun 2008, 12:23 am

I don't want to turn this into the "baby robins" thread ...but I've been facinated watching these babies over the last few days. One strange thing just happened. My daughter and I watched with great anticipation from our window as we saw the mommy robin approach with some kind of large bug in its mouth. It hopped from branch to branch, finally landing on the nest. The 4 babies opened their mouths with great anticipation, and suddenly the mommy basically slam-dunked the bug into one of the babies' mouth. I felt bad for the other three, who obviously looked hungry. Here's the strange part...after about 10 seconds, while the mommy bird hopped over to another branch, *another* robin landed on the nest with bug-in-mouth and fed another one of the baby robins! Both robins looked identical, so I assume they were both female...is this normal behavior for robins? To share a nest? Are they each the mother of 2 of the 4 babies? Or is one the mother of all 4 and the other female just helping out?

It takes a village......link here......and....here...

PhilNYC · « **Reply #490 on:** 13 Jun 2008, 11:52 am »

Quote from: lonewolfny42 on 13 Jun 2008, 10:24 am

It takes a village......link here......and....here...

Wow...according to this, both of the adult robins that I saw were male...

Bob in St. Louis · « **Reply #491 on:** 13 Jun 2008, 03:27 pm »

Must be some a' 'dos NYC birds.
We ain't got nuttin' round these parts like 'dat.

Bob

PhilNYC · « **Reply #492 on:** 13 Jun 2008, 09:24 pm »

Ok, so I finally got ahold of my father-in-law's Maxxum lenses to use with my new Sony A350 DSLR. Among the lenses is a 100-300mm f4.5-5.6 zoom lens. So I put it on and tried it out...and here's daddy!:

some young guy · « **Reply #493 on:** 13 Jun 2008, 09:54 pm »

This is the first bloom of the year in my yard. Can anyone give a little advice/critique for taking better still shots like this?

SET Man · « **Reply #494 on:** 13 Jun 2008, 11:39 pm »

Quote from: PhilNYC on 13 Jun 2008, 09:24 pm

Ok, so I finally got ahold of my father-in-law's Maxxum lenses to use with my new Sony A350 DSLR. Among the lenses is a 100-300mm f4.5-5.6 zoom lens. So I put it on and tried it out...and here's daddy!:

Hey!

Cool!

And he's looking at you!

BTW... is your 100-300mm zoom happen to be a later APO version?

Take care,
Buddy

nathanm · « **Reply #495 on:** 16 Jun 2008, 04:39 pm »

Looks good to me, Some Young Guy, all Georgia O'Keeffey 'n stuff. I dunno, it's hard to take a bad flower shot as long as you've got a decent flower, IMO. Maybe I would retouch out that white line and speck on the frontmost petal. Then if you want to get creative I'd clone out that white\grey bokeh in the lower right so that it matches with the blue\green bokeh on the other corners. But for the most part it's all good.

I dunno guys…baby birds, flowers, cute kids…where's the testosterone here? I think we need a shot of a greasy engine or something to cleanse the palette!

Although that adult robin looks pretty tough.

drphoto · « **Reply #496 on:** 16 Jun 2008, 05:23 pm »

SYG. Try to position yourself so that you shoot against the light. In your shot, the light source appears to be coming from 7:00. It might be more interesting if it came in from 11. When you shoot against the light, you have to guard against lens flare (which is why pro's use lens shades) and you might have to hold up a white card to bounce a little fill light into the shadows.

If the light rakes across an object, you get more texture and tone. It's all subjective of course.

some young guy · « **Reply #497 on:** 16 Jun 2008, 06:47 pm »

Excellent sugestions guys... Thanks! That's just what I'm looking for.

This one is a little less flowery...

...any thoughts?

ipy · « **Reply #498 on:** 16 Jun 2008, 07:14 pm »

Quote from: nathanm on 16 Jun 2008, 04:39 pm

...I dunno guys…baby birds, flowers, cute kids…where's the testosterone here? I think we need a shot of a greasy engine or something to cleanse the palette! Although that adult robin looks pretty tough.

No greasy stuff but hopefully this rock the boat, a close up shot of a Bolder modded SB3 playing a track

.....

nathanm · « **Reply #499 on:** 16 Jun 2008, 07:19 pm »

SYG: The flower is improved with the lower right cloned. It might be better if it was slightly wider so that the edges of the petals weren't cut off. It's kind of halfway inbetween being a real tight closeup and a view of the entire flower, so having those little bits clipped off seems "wrong". But this is nitpicking I suppose.

The boat? I don't think she's sea-worthy.

No seriously…a 16x9 crop might serve you well here. Make sure to always straighten the horizon. The contrast is realistic for a cloudy day, but nobody wants realism in B&W, you can make it look however you want. I'd goose it so there's more tonal separation between the water and the sky. Make one darker or lighter than the other. Then enhance the sky contrast so the clouds pop out a bit more. Otherwise I like it, things that are busted and tattered always look good in photos IMO.