IMPORTANT!! Dont post too much in the next three days

[Blakamin]

No spell checker for 3 days,I'll be abel to get awhay with merder!

don t taht juzt suk tehn?

[LB]

.
.Being the quiet shy virtual type that I am in real life (all the Wgtn boys will vouch for that), I only ever post things when I have something important to say, and then it's very succinct and not at all verbose or longwinded or rabbiting-on.

Hope your field trip went well.
.
.

[Posh Tourer :P]

Brilliant Thanks guys.....

Only 1235 new posts on 6 pages this morning......

Velox/Merv/Lynda:
I was on Tiritiri Matangi Is for 3 days on a Uni animal behaivour field trip. Got to run around chasing birds and observing Great fun. Also got some good pictures, which I will post up here soon.....I dont know how people survive without 10x optical zoom.... I was 2m away from these things and still needed all my zoom.... Yes it was great fun, saw almost everything on there, did some mist-netting and banding, and lots of crashing round in the bush...

[Posh Tourer :P]

Some piccies I took while I was there:

[Posh Tourer :P]

And some more

My camera work isnt always great, but I'm just learning how to do this stuff properly, with tripod and all...

I dont think these are too bad, but I took about 200 photos all up.....

[Ms Piggy]

Some great pics there PT - thanks!

[jrandom]

I tried cooking a pukeko once, but I can't recommend them.

Wood pigeons, now, are a much better feed.

[LB]

..
.
Great piccies PT, specially the tui in the kowhai.
..
.

[bluninja]

I guess pictures of attractive birds au naturel is de riguer for this site....but where's the motorbike piccies?

[SPORK]

I tried cooking a pukeko once, but I can't recommend them.

Wood pigeons, now, are a much better feed.

Hahah!

How is your Mosin-Nagant going?

[jrandom]

Hahah!

How is your Mosin-Nagant going?

Like a charm. Haven't had a shoot of it for a while, though. Can't get hold of surplus FMJ ammo, and the only stuff in the shops is $1.50 a round.

[riffer]

And some more

My camera work isnt always great, but I'm just learning how to do this stuff properly, with tripod and all...

I dont think these are too bad, but I took about 200 photos all up.....

If I can offer some photography advice PT:

Small animals like birds and children tend to move quite quickly.
Try opening up your aperture more and use a faster shutter speed.

Then (hopefully) what you will get is a much sharper view of the bird, and your background will tend to get knocked more out of focus.

While your framing is good you seem to have a lot of visual clutter in the picture which is detracting from the main point of interest. Making the background blurrier will bring your object of interest more tightly into focus.

What's the speed of your zoom lens? I have a Tamron 200/3.5 which I use on my OM-2N and OM-1 which is quite good. Although not fabulous length it is reasonably fast and provided I can get very close I can get very pleasing results. I also have a 300/5.6 which is a bit too slow for my liking but I just can't afford an Olympus 350/2.8 which would be my dream lens

The trouble with a lot of digital cameras and such, as opposed to film is that the lenses are not very fast. Your average digital P&S will be lucky to have an aperture faster than 5.6, which makes it a bit difficult to knock out the background. Also, their lenses are susceptible to flair, and produce awful bokeh. I much prefer film as I can't afford a really good SLR digital.

[Posh Tourer :P]

If I can offer some photography advice PT:

Go ahead Always happy to learn - I need as much advice as possible

Small animals like birds and children tend to move quite quickly.
Try opening up your aperture more and use a faster shutter speed.

Greater f-stop value? Ok I can do that. I havent really used it in manual mode much because I dont understand how to do it. Is there any way of telling what shutter speed I should be using without having a lux meter?

Then (hopefully) what you will get is a much sharper view of the bird, and your background will tend to get knocked more out of focus.

Indeed... Well, that is what I'd be aiming for....

While your framing is good

Thankyou

you seem to have a lot of visual clutter in the picture which is detracting from the main point of interest. Making the background blurrier will bring your object of interest more tightly into focus.

What's the speed of your zoom lens? I have a Tamron 200/3.5 which I use on my OM-2N and OM-1 which is quite good. Although not fabulous length it is reasonably fast and provided I can get very close I can get very pleasing results. I also have a 300/5.6 which is a bit too slow for my liking but I just can't afford an Olympus 350/2.8 which would be my dream lens

I have the Kodak DX6490
Ah the good old OM-1. I have heard that one being bandied about quite regularly...

The trouble with a lot of digital cameras and such, as opposed to film is that the lenses are not very fast. Your average digital P&S will be lucky to have an aperture faster than 5.6, which makes it a bit difficult to knock out the background. Also, their lenses are susceptible to flair, and produce awful bokeh. I much prefer film as I can't afford a really good SLR digital.

I spent about $1000 on my setup, including 256MB memory card, tripod, case, spare batteries, etc etc. I think it was worth it seeing what I can do with that 10x zoom lens. I wanted the Olympus C-740/C-750, but ended up with this instead.
Hopefully I have something better than your average point and shoot, but still convenient enough for a non-photographer in terms of the advantages of Digital cameras ie snap away and throw out the bad ones, no film developing time etc.

[riffer]

Greater f-stop value? Ok I can do that. I havent really used it in manual mode much because I dont understand how to do it. Is there any way of telling what shutter speed I should be using without having a lux meter?

Not too sure with your particular model of digital. With digital you can easily compensate for being a stop over or a stop under by tweaking in Photoshop.

Your best bet might be learning how Aperture priority and Shutter priority work.

As you know, Aperture is related to Shutter speed.

To put it simply, reduce the aperture a stop, the light is halved. Therefore you need a shutter speed twice as long. The converse is true as well, if you reduce the time the shutter is open for (Shutter speed increase) the more light is needed, therefore the greater the aperture.

Using aperture priority mode, you are concentrating on depth of field. The camera will automatically work out the shutter speed for you.

Using shutter priority mode, you are concentrating on freezing action using a smaller shutter speed. The camera automatically works out how wide an aperture you need.

After a while though, you can get a feel for these things. I like my OM-1 'cause all it has is a match needle. Play with the settings all you want, and if the match needle is in the middle of the two points the shot will come out. True artistic expression.

Read as much as you can on photography. Then decide what you like, and do that.

BTW Henri Cartier-Bresson never used a zoom lens at all. He just got closer.