Wild life, bird watching and photography

We've been mostly chasing butterflies this year:

Pearl Bordered Fritillary

Silver Studded Blue

Purple Hairsteak

This chap spent last winter on our local marsh - Glossy Ibis

It's nice to get out from the workshop from time to time - looking for wildlife gives a bit of a focus about where to go.

Rod

Raphael, there is an awful lot of rejects in the "Deleted Items" folder; It's not something I could ever have achieved with film.
It's actually quite a heavy crop, so looks OK on here, but I'm sure wouldn't stand printing.

Camera is Olympus E-M1 Mk2 and the lens 40-150mm F2.8 + MC2.0 teleconverter, set at 100mm, so giving 200mm actual focal length.
The Olympus system is a half sized sensor, so EFL is 400mm in full frame terms.

exif says 1/1000 @ F8 iso 1000. It will have been electronic shutter set at 10 frames/second, and C/AF.

I think this is one where I was practicing using the Olympus EE-1 red dot sight.

It clips onto the hot shoe mount and provides a sort of head up display with a red circle and cross hairs.
This allows you to forget the viewfinder and rear screen, and compose with both eyes, sighting through the head up display. I've only used it on Olympus cameras, but I can't see any obvious reason it wouldn't function on other brands, as there is no electrical connection to the camera.

It was processed in DxO Optics PhotoLab 4 Elite, which features something called "Deep Prime" noise reduction, something similar to Topaz, but on Olympus raw images it seems to be slightly better; I can't comment on how they perform with other manufacturers raw files.

I'll have some some fairly basic editing, as I'm no expert, but will have used a simple mask on the dragonfly and applies a bit of micro-contrast, and probably a little bit of colour boost.

If you click on the photo, it should take to a Flickr album, where the rest of the exif is available.

Bill

Raphael, I think it's a Common, rather than Southern Hawker, but I'll stand to be corrected, as I'm no expert.
May I recommend an excellent web site to aid with IDs etc.

https://www.odonata.org.uk/

Along the top menu bar is a drop down list of helpful identification guides; I've printed out, laminated and spiral bound several of them.

The same author, John Curd, is also admin of a good Facebook group, where the members are most helpful.
Just remember to add What, Where, and When (the actual date) in each post.
It's a private group, to keep out spammers, but anyone can apply to join.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/561222590593478

Bill

Bill,

I think the dragonfly pic is extraordinary, I've never managed anything approaching acceptable. Thanks for the dot sight link, very interesting.

Rod

Rod, if you have a Facebook account, try joining the group I mentioned above; you don't have to submit photos, but some of the ones on there are really excellent.

I think this one is a Southern Hawker, as opposed to the Common one posted earlier


Again heavily cropped and high ISO

Bill

Edited By peak4 on 09/09/2021 22:31:17

Here is a Regent Bowerbird at O'Reilly's, 900 metres up in the ranges behind the Gold Coast. It is a bird watching resort and as they feed the birds, they are quite tame. This was October 2019.

Thanks for the info Bill. Again great shot here, keep it coming.

Enjoyed looking at everyone photos, very informative.

Here is an in-flight photo of an Oyster Catcher I took at Winchelsea Beach.

Rod, fantastic photos of Butterflies. That Glossy Ibis is stunning, hope I will see one someday.