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Ripley

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Everything posted by Ripley

  1. Or buy a book. If I want to learn something, I buy a book and study it but that's the nerd in me. I borrowed a PS book from the local library last year, liked it so much I bought it off Amazon.com. Good exchange rate with the USD now too.
  2. Sorry monah, didn't see this. I am dreadful at explaining technical stuff, so here is a cut and paste from the net, but have a google yourself and you will find much more about it. If you have a DSLR, the RAW software would have come with the camera on a disc to use. Canon's one is quite ok, but I use Photoshop CS3 RAW software to convert from RAW to JPEG and then a slight sharpen in PS to resize the picture to web size. From a photo site I just googled by way of explanation: "RAW format is often a proprietary format of a particular camera make. RAW files hold all the RAW data captured by the camera. Unlike conventional "photography where light is exposed against film with a specific chemical formulation to provide deep saturation or soft skin tones that would otherwise be automatically applied based on the type of film used, RAW digital files contain raw data that is uninterpreted and unaltered. RAW files in their simplest description can be thought of as digital negatives. They are a pre-production starting point." ETA: PossumCorner, you changed your photo! I have so much catching up to do with pics I've taken this year but here are a couple I've just processed from a local car show a few weeks ago. On opening the pics, I'm disappointed to find many humans reflected in the shiny chrome and paint of these lovely cars. f/4; 1/400; partial metering. Background darkened in Photoshop I have no idea what kind of car this is. Um, a pretty, old, red sporty kinda one. Mustangs f/4.5; 1/100 ISO 100 Polariser
  3. I did take a pic in November, on Sunday. This little guy is used to me and was singing away, sitting on the fence under a shady tree. He wasn't fazed by the camera at all. Butcherbird in the backyard, 1 Nov. Canon 30D - AV mode, Aperture f/4.0; Shutter speed: 1/200 Metering: Spot f/4; 1/100; metering: spot I'm going to Melb this weekend and will try a portrait shot. I'm sure I'll completely suck at it as I have no experience with people and this will be a child, she has no choice, I'm taking her on the plane with me.
  4. Hi Pandii. I took the pic in RAW and processed it with RAW software using CS3, but I'll stop now or I'll get labelled a purist again. eta: sometimes I do a bit in PS on dog pics, but usually not for bird pics unless exposure is really off or shadows creeping in.
  5. I took this last month but it's still practise as it was the first outing with my 1.4x teleconverter which slows down focusing I've found. I hate taking pics in middle of the day top lighting, but with wildlife unless you get up at sparrow's fart and drive somewhere out of town when they are more active, what you see out at lunchtime is pretty much all you are going to get in any weather. Superb Fairy Wren Details: Canon 30D Exposure: (1/400) Aperture: f/5.6 Focal Length: 420 mm ISO Speed: 200
  6. You can't replicate what a polariser can do in PS. Like others have said, it's probably the only one worth bothering with. It is great for those days with fluffy white clouds and blue skies and also cutting through glare on water. I had mine on my camera most of the day on a holiday this year so if you are going to a place like a tropical island, you will be glad you took it. You will lose 2 stops of light but in bright conditions that is ok. I have a ND Grad filter but not a Cokin, I don't like the purple cast it gives. I bought mine of BH New York as I've found it difficult and expensive to buy other brands apart from Cokin in Australia. Lee is supposed to be the best but expensive. I have a Hi Tech brand. You could just blend 2 exposures together in PS than use a filter. I prefer the effect the filter gives, it's up to you. eta: You can get soft (soft transition blend) and hard (better for straight horizons) ND grad filters. I have a soft one. I also have a ND filter for longer exposures but I've only used that a couple of times. Tripod - bought a Manfrotto recently with a ball head. It's a bit heavy to take hiking so I don't, but I always pack it if we are driving somewhere scenic as it doesn't take much to get it out of the car and set it up. It has a quick release and a tilt and pan option. I should use it for wildlife shots but can't be bothered, hate carrying it around.
  7. Thought you might like that one, kja. He almost ended up like Johah in the whale it sounds!
  8. I absolutely love this photo. Killer in the Mist by Stefano Unterthiner "Animals in their Environment - Highly Commended" "The picture was taken in a torrential rainstorm on Possession Island in the sub-Antarctic Crozet Archipelago. A killer whale family was hunting king penguins and southern elephant seals just off a nearby beach. ‘Over four months, this was the first time,’ says Stefano, ‘that I saw killer whales so close to shore or to the king penguin rookery.’ The penguins were in a terrible panic, he says. ‘The drama was intense, what with the enormous male, its dorsal fin slicing through the grey water, and the simply terrible weather.’ Stefano spotted the killer whales from the cliff overlooking the beach and then spent more than three hours photographing them in whipping rain. ‘It’s one of the most unforgettable moments of my life.’ Nikon D2X + Nikon 70-200mm lens; 1/500 sec at f7.1; ISO 250. "One Earth Award - Stalking the tiger by Andy Rouse Andy and his guide Dicky Singh followed the fresh pug marks down the track. When they caught up with the tiger, they discovered it was Machali, a female very familiar to Dicky. Indeed, she’s something of a local celebrity in Ranthambore National Park. It wasn’t long before jeep-loads of tourists drew up to admire her. The drivers kept a respectful distance, but Machali is well used to such attention from the wildlife paparazzi. It has been suggested that Machali has contributed about $10 million to the local economy. Andy believes that ‘if we are to save this wonderful cat, then it has to have an economic value to a local community, and that’s what I wanted to show with this picture.’ Nikon D3 + Nikon 70-200mm lens; 1/250 sec at f5.6; ISO 800.
  9. Here are a few more winners Winner - Urban Wildlife "One of the most extraordinary pictures at the exhibition is a picture showing a cat squaring up to a fox three times her size. It belongs to Russian photographer Igor Shpilenok who took her with him on a four-month trip deep into an icy nature reserve. 'If you spend four months in a cabin you need some company so I took my cat Ryska with me to talk to,' he told MailOnline. 'It's funny because she is so shy in the city, but when I was out there she would stand up to foxes, wolverines and even bears! 'She was brave because she knew I was standing behind her. Once a bear tried to swipe at her and she rushed up to me and climbed onto my shoulder.' Winner - Underwater "Doug was on Golden Gate Bank off the southern tip of Baja California, Mexico, to photograph striped marlin feeding on shoaling sardines. Hunting cooperatively, the marlin herded the fish into baitballs and up towards the surface. When the marlin suddenly made a sharp exit, Doug had an ominous feeling that something was up. And that ‘something’ was a 10-metre (33-foot) ‘high-speed missile blasting through the baitball’: a Bryde’s whale. ‘Just before reaching the sardines,’ Doug says, ‘the whale opened its jaws impossibly wide and the throat pleats expanded to take in water and fish.’ And nearly Doug, too: he narrowly missed the open mouth, bouncing off the whale’s lower lip and the side of the throat pleats. The huge gulp complete, the whale’s jaws closed and the accordion-like pleats forced the water out through the baleen hanging from the upper jaw, trapping the sardines on the inside. Taking no notice of the human presence, the whale repeated its transformation from torpedo to big-mouth enough times for Doug to capture the action. Canon EOS 40D + Tokina 10-17mm lens at 10mm; 1/640 sec at f5.6; ISO 640; Subal C40 housing.
  10. "Jose Luis Rodriguez captured the imaginations of the judges with a picture that he had planned for years, and even sketched out on a piece of paper. I wanted to capture a photo in which you would see a wolf in an act of hunting - or predation - but without blood," he told BBC News. "I didn't want a cruel image." With a great deal of patience and careful observation of the wolves' movements, he succeeded in taking the award-winning photograph. Mr Rodriguez used a custom-built infrared trap to snap the wolf as it leapt into the air. The WPY competition, now in its 45th year, is owned by BBC Wildlife Magazine and London's Natural History Museum. The panel of judges looked through more than 43,000 entries to this year's competition. This is the fifth year that wildlife photographer Mark Carwardine has been on the judging panel. He said of the winning photo: "It's captured thousands of years of human-wolf interaction in just one moment." Hasselblad 503CW with a 6x6 Fujichrome backing + Planar 80mm lens; 1/30 sec at f11; ISO 50; purpose-made Ficap infrared camera trap It was taken on film and I think it was taken with a remote trigger device like last year's winning shot, which caused a lot of debate as the photographer wasn't there when it was taken, instead the wild snow leopard tripped the cable and was bombarded with several DSLRs and flashes going off around him. Other stunning images that won different categories here http://www.nhm.ac.uk/visit-us/whats-on/tem...roup.do?group=1 My favourite is this image, "Puffin in the snow" but mostly because they are my favourite bird. http://www.nhm.ac.uk/visit-us/whats-on/tem...y=7&group=1
  11. I went through a stage of just photographing Highland Cows for a few weeks. I just love them. A friend said they look like a golden retriever crossed with a cow.
  12. Beautiful light in the photos on post #18, TD. I always love opening up anything you put up here
  13. I used to have the 70-200 f/4 non IS L but no more and now have a 300mm f/4 IS L (prime). I've found it pretty sharp and still sharp enough with the 1.4 teleconverter, but not so great to track birds in flight when the teleconverter is attached, it clunks and doesn't lock focus as well, but on its own without the teleconverter (also an L, wouldn't put anything else on it), it's great. Love it. eta: I've only tried it once on birds in flight with a teleconverter so I'll have to try it again when we next get out and about.
  14. Just a question, are prime lenses sharpen than zooms - L ones I mean.
  15. No If you want to learn more about this, you can buy various books, Amazon.com is good atm due to the strong AUD or go to the library and borrow any number of books on photography. Explanations here for Canon http://www.slrphotographyguide.com/camera/...ring-mode.shtml
  16. OK, a few DOlers have the 100-400, I can't help you then.
  17. I have a Canon 300mm - do you mean prime or zoom? The 300mm I have is a prime. I have only used it twice and mostly with a teleconverter which drops the aperture down to 5.6. It's a f/4 with IS in it. It's very sharp and I've managed a sharp enough shot hand holding it at 1/30 of a second (that wasn't intentional, I had left the settings on for a shot in good light and it was a grab shot). My pics are at home on the portable drive, I might be able to post one up tonight if you do mean the 300mm L prime and not a zoom.
  18. I am pretty sure the baby here is a koel after googling your site. It would make sense. The male appears around Sept each year, I spotted the baby in December. His parents were dashing across the road and getting insects for their monster adopted baby. I wish I had more time to photograph him but he flew off when he spotted me (I also had my dog with me at the time!). If the weather fines up this weekend, I'll take a stroll around the neighbourhood. I have a 300mm lens now so might stalk this adult male hanging around my street. eta: I read that the juvenile koel makes the long flight back to Asia later on, when it is old enough. How fascinating. How does it know to fly that way? There is no parent to teach it. Aren't birds amazing.
  19. I took a pic of a red wattle bird feeding a giant cuckoo baby last year, can't remember what I've done with the pics now. The coo-ee bird (koel) is back in my street this year. He makes an appearance every year, travelling from way up north or maybe even as far as PNG or Asia. I heard him this morning, he was in a nearby tree. Typically, as soon as I brought my camera downstairs, he had vanished. They are shy but I'm going to keep my eyes peeled for him as last year I spotted him on top of a nearby roof. He's glossy black with ruby red eyes.
  20. Neither is the 30D if you blow up the shot. Hence why I rarely use over 400.
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