Category: Birdies

Film Tests

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I have been burning through some film stock, trying to see what’s what in negative film. The recent tests have been on Portra 160, Ektar, and PanF 50.

I originally thought to just try one black and white and one color film, and chose Ektar and Ilford XP2 to start with. The Ilford was chosen at random as a 400 speed black and white that has been around forever, so I figured it was a standard. The Ektar because I saw some great landscape images on the website of a photographer I like1. Both are reputed to be forgiving, so I got a box of each.

But I ended up with a large variety before I even shot my first frame. The gentleman I bought the camera from said he’d toss in a “couple rolls of film to get me started,” which I thought was awesome. But his definition of “couple” was quite expansive. He actually gave me a two boxes of Portra 160 as well as a bunch of Ilford black and white including PanF 50, Delta 100, and Delta 3200. Quite a variety!

Ektar is supposedly the more saturated negative film, and I’d thought to do some saturated landscapes when I decided to try film. The first rolls I shot that came out showed that it is, in fact, super saturated. Enough that skin tones get a little ruddy and golden sunlight gets a touch of red in it. The roll I got back today, however, was shot into a sunset with wild colors reflecting on calm water and it was beautiful.

This shot was the last frame of Ektar I had — I took three shots, the other two as lovely but I like the ducks in this one. I shot Portra before this for comparison, and was about ready to pack up and head back to the truck, but this was a sunset that never wanted to give up and a few minutes after I ran out of Ektar every cloud lit up an amazing pink, and even the ones overhead were reflected on the still water in front of me, so I slapped on the back with Portra 160 and gave it a go.

In all cases I knew the reeds in the middle were going to go black. The sky and the water only had a stop or two difference, but the reeds were several stops down, so I metered for the water and let the sky take care of itself. From what I’ve sussed about these films, you can go down a stop or two then it gets noisy, then black. You can go up way more and the highlights won’t run out of information even if they’re four stops over.

Well, the Portra definitely fits that bill. It’s amazeballs, and even the reeds in the foreground, which are down two stops, show the weird pink glow everything had in real life. The second shot is a four or eight second exposure3 and I can’t tell you how happy I am it came out like this.

Another roll of Portra had some night shots I’d done the week after Thanksgiving, including shots of Baba. The less saturated colors are even more pleasing than the slightly over-the-top Ektar shot of the same scene, and the dynamic range is beyond impressive.

Baba Coffee — shot on Portra 160
Baba Coffee — shot on Ektar 100

The same shot in Ektar is also lovely, but I’m a fan of the Portra. The colors are spot on, and the dynamic range is even better than the Ektar, which already handles the lit sign better than digital by far. Note how much more influence the streetlamp has on the color cast on Ektar as well, coming up a little green, but also note how much extra blue it adds to the sign and the umbrellas.

Even though I metered the same way, the Portra shot might be slightly more exposed. It is 160 speed film, compared to Ektar’s 100 speed, and having come only a few minutes later in the evening I’m guessing it wasn’t a whole stop darker even though I corrected up a full stop, but the highlights are still beautifully handled. The information in the dark areas is lovely, too, and you can tell the building above is a deep ruddy brown.

As for the PanF 50, I don’t know what to make of it. Every single image I took the camera barked at me4, even when I thought I was doubling the meter reading. I’ve learned two things here, first that PanF has a lot of reciprocity failure and needs quite a bit more than the meter says, and second, that the Fuji really doesn’t measure well at ASA50 so sometimes you just have to let it beep at you and tell it to suck your balls. Both of these shots were called underexposed and, though not exactly perfect, were not so dark I’d expect them to be more than two stops down.

I also took some experimental artsy5 shots of some bridge pilings where I had deep shadows and brightly lit concrete. All three had the camera beeping and flashing lights like a pissed off R2D2, yet I’m not convinced that they are too dark. The darkest one is underexposed, sure. But at very least least the brightest one has to be within two stops of adequate, regardless of the disapproving minus sign.

That said, I printed out a reciprocity chart for Ilford films and tossed a copy in each of my camera and gear bags. 50 speed film is slow even in full daylight, and the failure on these black and whites is way more than I realized. 4 seconds on the meter translates to over 7 seconds in the real world, and it gets worse from there so this stuff isn’t just meter for the shadows. It’s meter for the shadows then double it.

This was a fun bunch of data. Not in the least because I am still very uncertain about how to meter for a lot of situations and having a few frames come back nice, not just recoverable, is quite a relief.

The next batch will be both better and worse. I tried some crazy long exposures, which I’m almost certain won’t be good but will give me data on how far off my assumptions are. And I shot some tonight that included a spectacular sky and some pretty reasonable subjects, so I’m confident the incident metering in conjunction with Portra’s dynamic range should give me a usable shot or two.

1. alexburkephoto.com — I don’t know the cat, he just posts beautiful landscapes and explains things like metering and filters in a way that I find very easy to understand.

2. After carefully exposing several shots, bracketing the meter, and recording my settings for test purposes, I pulled this roll out of the camera and dropped it, at which point it sprung open and ruined the whole roll. I now keep a rubber band in my pocket to put on exposed film and keep it from unrolling, just in case.

3. It was very dark and I had put my notepad away already, so I don’t remember exactly. Which is foolish, as the whole reason for this was to test film and practice exposure in challenging conditions.

4. Being state of the art in 1997, this camera does metering through the lens. But only while you’re taking the picture, not before hand. If it doesn’t think it got enough light, or got too much light, during your exposure it will beep annoyingly and flash all the LCD screens in a fit of disapproval. Strangely, it makes it extra satisfying when it doesn’t beep and the “EXP” is shown on the screen instead of the flashing lights and a + or – sign showing that you over or underexposed that last shot.

5. This just means they’re crap shots. But if you act like they’re great art filled with hidden meaning and anyone who doesn’t understand them just doesn’t get it, maybe you’re avant-garde.

Random sunset shots

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Went to the cold water jetty as there were clouds all day but they started to break right around 3:30 or 4. I expected the view to the south to be good, as that’s where it has been the last few times I’ve been out on days like this, so I climbed out on the south jetty and pointed toward the surfers and the power plant.

I was wrong. It just kept getting more socked in south, but north it was opening up so I took shots of the north jetty, and the sky did not disappoint. Alas, I should have been on top of the seawall behind me, so I could get the surfers and both jetties in the frame, but I was really there for the film camera, the digital was just an afterthought.

Here was the view south that I began with.

I got a couple with people riding waves as well, but as the light died off I had to turn around and set everything up facing the other way:

I have NO idea if any of those film shots came out. My Z6 was routinely telling me a way faster shutter speed than my light meter. so while I guessed exposure trusting the meter, I have no confidence.

Meanwhile, while I was setting up the film camera I had the digital on an intervalometer, so I wouldn’t miss the sunset to my left, which did not disappoint. The gentleman in these shots had a brand new Panasonic Lumix camera with him he was learning to use, his daughter had less patience and was doing a lot more running around. She was strangely fascinated by my messing with the film camera, it seems. But this is common, children often stare. Byproduct of being weird looking, I guess, but Cats and children have always flocked to me, though I much prefer dogs to either one.

I had framed the sunset and the boat, and the people sort of came along later. Asked if they were in the way and I just said “Nah, go out there. It’ll make the pictures better.” I just framed it then set it to fire shots every 15 second and see what I got, then when it was done zoomed in and did it again. I didn’t want to pay too much attention to the digital, since my real attention was needed elsewhere. They are nice snapshots I guess. I like the one with the bird the best.

Sunset kept going to well after dark. At one point it just lit up like fire for a minute or two. Then ten minutes later the clouds got tinged with pink in the deepest dark of blue hour and I did a few 15-30 second exposures to see what would happen. Did 3 long exposures on film, too, as well as two that are guaranteed black since I didn’t understand how the bulb mode worked on the camera. Sometimes you learn the hard way.

I’ll see how the film shots come back later in the week. Not sanguine that I captured the deep reds after dark, though. I went out there looking for a challenging light situation to practice metering, but this is still a little over my head. The Z6 does a lot of the heavy lifting for me, exposure wise.

The Eagle and the Crows

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Sounds like a parable of some kind. I should write it. But mostly there was a big friggen red tailed hawk on the telephone pole out front and the neighborhood crows don’t cotton to that, so they were divebombing him attempting to chase him away.

Tried to get some decent pictures, but pictures of a static hawk and a dive-bombing crow turn out to be damned hard to capture. This is about all of the drama I was able to get in the frame before the hawk decided to fly away, chased by a handful of zealous black shadows.

Maybe there are more stills worth bouncing to jpg. Check back later and see. For now, here’s a couple of the hawk, himself.

Rose Finches

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Just a couple of studies of the finches that occasionally feed on the berry bush by the driveway. They’ll hang out atop the avocado tree, and often there will be half a dozen in the berry bush, but they don’t stay there for long nor can I count on them every day. As I was taking these, Doug came by and startled them, and they never returned.

The first is in the berry bush, where I finally got one not obscured by the branches. This is actually only the first on the page here, as this series was what I was taking when Doug and Bootsie came through and broke up the party.

A few will pick pine nuts off the dead pine tree in the middle of the yard. The Goldfinches do this, as well, but I haven’t been able to get a really good shot of them.

And this guy spent some time atop the avocado tree. The dark streaks in the background are the power wires across the street, and I haven’t photoshopped these. I just cropped what came out of the camera.

Alas, while this perch is great in that they’ll stay there, it is still difficult to get a good angle on them as the light is from the west and the tree is right on the western edge, against the fence. Trying to get up against the fence always scares them away, but as the summer is past and the sun is moving south, it is easier to get them reasonably lit while standing in the driveway, due south of them.

So, LBBs are hard. There’s a reason for the term “flighty” and these little bastards sure are. They swoop in and swoop out, and choose a different place to perch or feed almost every evening, very seldom where I am when I have a camera in hand.

At least I’m getting some practice exposing birds. Even if I do end up deleting 100 crappy images after I’m done trying.

More 200-500 experiments

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The sun came out this afternoon and the sky was almost blue. Quite an improvement from last week’s smoke and smog. I thought it might be a good time to actually take some shots of birds and lizards with light that worked.

the littler guy is about an inch long nose to vent … and the one on the stump might be a half inch longer.

Not too many examples, but here’s the young guy from the previous post, trying to lay claim to the stump again, and a younger challenger trying to own the steps to the front porch. Note, the little guy on the bricks is just as bombastic as the slightly larger one on the stump, he just does it to the hatchlings. I actually have some video of him showing off for one so small it probably hasn’t even molted yet. A 6 week old bossing around a 4 week old, bossing around a 2 week old. I guess this is the lizard version of shit flowing downhill.

Video later. For now some sample stills. One each, cropped to show how sharp I can get when the sun is shining, and one uncropped to show how much of the lizard actually fills the frame. Remember, the littler guy is about an inch long nose to vent — that brick is only 4 inches wide — and the one on the stump might be a half inch longer.

The one on the stump molted the day after I took the last pictures. So he’s out today in brand new skin and it looks to me like the color around his eye is getting more brilliant. The fact that you can see that with this lens kind of blows my mind. 500mm is quite the reach.

After more pics and videos of the baby dragons I waited a bit for the birds to come out. They like to feed on the berry bushes at the end of the yard nearest the street so I can find them there some evenings. I went out when I heard them chattering to get some shots.

At first I got one or two in the yard, hanging out on the wire above the berry bush and cactus along the fence. I was having issues exposing properly, getting the background more than the bird, but he flew off to argue with his finchy friends before I could switch to spot and try again. There were bluebirds and a goldfinch in the red berry bush so I thought to get into position to see them when all the birds in all the bushes flew away. Dammit!

I took a few pictures of birds on the wires, and even tried to get some in flight, but never got another shot of them in amongst the foliage with the nice green backdrop. Oh well. Here are some samples.

The reason they all bolted? Well, Creamsicle had to take a shit. He was walking up behind me and, though he’s a ridiculously lazy cat who doesn’t hunt much, the birds don’t know that. Lucy is the real hunter and, though I have never seen her take a bird, she has gotten mice, gophers, and more than a few lizard tails.

I think I might back up a bit here. Creamsicle is the orange and white cat that’s always in the yard. Unlike Lucy, who has the black cat habit of thinking I’m her very best friend, Creamsicle has never wanted anything to do with me. He used to see me and run away, in fact, but for the last six months I get his attention when he’s in the yard then just ignore him. Now he knows I’m not going to bother with him so he doesn’t run away. He doesn’t even look at me, in fact, just going about his business. And his business, in this case, is both metaphorical and, well, also metphorical, but in the more scatological sense.

I learned recently from the lady next door, who Lucy actually lives with as opposed to just inviting herself in like she does everywhere else, that Creamsicle is a stray. He just showed up one day so she gave him some food. He comes for a meal (or two) every day now. And generous meals they are, he has gotten rather rotund in the half dozen years I have known him. Creamsicle isn’t his real name, it’s just what I call him because there have been so many cats hanging out in the yard over the years my usual moniker for the cat that is usually hanging out in my yard, “Neighbor Kitty, ” wasn’t specific enough.

In the afternoons, however, Creamsicle “does his business” in the front yard. And by that, I mean he has decided there’s a specific spot in the yard to take a shit.

I kind of wonder how it is that it is so common an occurrence the last dozen years — that a cat has taken residence in my yard — that I need monikers for them. But this has been the case ever since the original Neighbor Kitty at my place in Oceanside. I’m pretty sure they’re trying to tell me something, but I intend to ignore the message for as long as possible.

Creamsicle spends time almost every day sleeping in the back yard. He has, at various times, found a nice place atop the shed, on a rickety wooden bench, or just on a bed he has stamped out of the grass and I can generally see him out the kitchen window when I’m getting a cup of coffee. This is the busy life of a stray cat. Get breakfast, find a nice place to sleep, rinse, repeat.

In the afternoons, however, Creamsicle “does his business” in the front yard. And by that, I mean he has decided there’s a specific spot in the yard to take a shit. Why that spot, and why here, I don’t know, but after I dug up some of the weeds to plant wildflower seeds this winter he chose one of the cleared areas as his new litter box and has been visiting it a couple times a day since.

This afternoon’s visit to the gentleman’s rest facilities completely disrupted the birdwatching session as he came sauntering past me. And sauntering is all he does any more. Maybe an amble, or a trudge now and again, but now that he isn’t afraid of me he doesn’t hurry at all. He won’t even look at me.

Oh well. Birds done, cat pics on deck. I almost think I need to make him scared of me again so he’ll look my way for better photos, but with this lens I decided to get in touch with my inner Marlin Perkins and take some photos like I was watching a lion stalking on the Serengeti.

The day ended with a sunset, for the first time in weeks. These are straight out of the camera, no crop. The view from the kitchen window compressed by the 500mm perspective.

New Lens, Who Dis?

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I got my hands on a 200-500mm f/5.6 lens a few days ago. It’s heavy, and bulky, and big, and kind of enormous.1 But 500mm reach is interesting to me, and I am looking forward to experimenting with it.

I’ve almost forgotten how to deal with auto-focus, oddly, as I’ve been hand-focusing my vintage lenses all spring and summer

I have taken a few photographs to test it. The light in these will look sickly and awful, but that’s because it is. Smoke from the fires, and haze from the sea are making good old fashioned smog like nobody’s business. The air is terrible, and everything has an awful, brown tint to it. While better than it was last week, it looks gross. Like living in Delhi, or east of Los Angeles in the late 70s.

But I took pictures anyway. I’m learning to use this beast, and all of these are hand-held and auto-focused. I’ve almost forgotten how to deal with auto-focus, oddly, as I’ve been hand-focusing my vintage lenses all spring and summer, and I am finding a few quirks. It will hunt quite a bit when trying to get it to grab a lizard, going all the way out to infinity and then having to come back, which isn’t exactly fast. There’s a lockout from 6M to Infinity, I kind of wish it was 5m to closest focus!

It seems modestly sharp when I can get it in focus. The image stabilization works pretty well, allowing me to take hand-held shots at 500mm in marginal light. Alas, what I really got it for was taking pictures of birds in flight or maybe action shots of surfers, but zero visibility and smog kind of throw a kink in that plan, so dragons it is. Maybe we’ll have a blue sky next week.

Until then, behold:

The first gallery is random shots just before sunset from the day the lens arrived. Extremely low light, but you get a new lens, you take a pic. It’s the rule. The telephone pole is nearly 400 feet away, and you can read the markings clearly with a 500mm shot, handheld, in very low light. I took a picture of the sun to give an idea of just how icky it was.

The Stump Dragon was molting on Sunday. Again, light was bad, like it has been all week, but I never seem to see a molting lizard at the same time as I have a camera in hand, so I took some shots. I actually was lucky to get these as I spotted the molt Saturday, when all the scales on the front half were opaque, but it was while he was running to hide in the crack in the stump. Gone before I could retrieve a camera, alas. I would have liked to have gotten pics then, as they look almost like they are covered in fungus or something since the skin comes off of the scales rather than in one smooth shed like a snake.

In the past the lizards I spotted molting would be out of sight for a day or two and not reappear until after they’d shed. But this time I got to see stumpy here changing out of the worn out duds and putting on the Sunday Go to Meeting clothes.

My favorites are the ones facing away. You can see half the skin is old, half new.

Early this afternoon as I was headed out I caught the stump dragon showing off some. There are interlopers trying to steal the range from the stump to the chair, including a tiny but ridiculously brave male who is only three molts in and thinks he’s king of the world. So after shedding the old clothes, it was time to get out there and defend some territory.

For this and the following galleries, I have included both images cropped to refine the composition, and full sized, to give an idea of just how much of the frame these little guys are actually taking. You can get mightily close with 500mm of reach!

Also, nothing is photoshopped. Mostly I clicked “Auto” for sharpening and saturation in Nikon Capture, cropped, then dumped the file to jpg. What you see is what I got.

These first images are just after noon on the brick that sits half way between the stump and the chair — the range the Stump Dragon seems to have claimed the last week or two.

And here’s the young buck. This male has been around about two months, and is still barely more than bite sized. I’ve seen three color changes, so he may have molted three or four times, but that’s all. I actually have pics of him before the most recent molt around here somewhere, but for now the ones I took this evening.

He’s belligerent. Has been since the very beginning when he didn’t even have any color, which is kind of hilarious. Doing pushups and acting all threatening when he’s an inch long. Who knows if he’ll last long enough to make a breeding season after he matures, but for now he’s trying to make his presence known.

He’s also a special challenge as he tends to run around a try to be threatening to all of the others — the Trash Dragon, the Cardboard Dragon, and the Cactus Dragon — so he’ll sprint from one perch to the next, stopping and raising his tail or puffing up his neck before facing a different direction to try and intimidate the next guy. I get a few seconds or maybe a couple of minutes to compose and take some shots, then he’ll start sprinting around and I have to compose and focus quickly, hope I get a shot, then try to follow him to the next place he runs.

Of course, he is only running around and acting tough when Stump Dragon is elsewhere as, again, he’s literally bite sized. He wouldn’t survive an actual challenge.

My favorites are the last two, where he’s posing facing northwest, toward the Garbage Dragon. He’s saying “Rawr! I’m a Dragon! Fear me!” I don’t know if anyone else outside this territory actually cares, yet. It’s not breeding season anymore and most of the others are far more timid than they were in the late spring when they were courting. But the little guy is trying.

The ones with the neck display are facing northeast, for the benefit of the Cactus Dragon, and the ones atop the flat log are facing south, keeping an eye out for the Cardboard Dragon.

The one that DOES care is the Dragon who claims this range. After seeing the belligerent baby showing off on the stump, the full sized Stump Dragon chased him off and hung out there for a while.

Looking good with the fresh new skin! I get it. New clothes, you want to show ’em off to the world.

I also took pics of a hatchling in the evening. I think this is the one I had to escort out of the house a few times last week after a molt. This is a VERY small lizard, likely only two weeks out of the nest, and usually found hiding in the planter next to the steps to the front porch.

So, there are possibilities. It’s not exactly a carrying-around lens, or one of those innocuous do-all lenses that are great for street photography. But I bet I can get a great picture of the moon if the smoke clears out some before it is full again! And, when I get sick of lugging the extra five pounds around I’ll sell it on the e bays and find something else to play with instead.

Until then, “Rawr! I’m a Dragon!”

Rawr!

1 That’s what She Said

Little Birdies

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Other than snapshots and quick street photography, I’ve actually gotten to really prefer manual focus anymore

Been taking some LBB1 pictures lately. Not because they’re particularly bright or colorful, like those Hooded Orioles were, but because they’re a bit of a challenge. Both in that they are very twitchy, so getting them sharp means fast shutters and a quick hand with the focus, and in that they never stay in the same spot for long enough to play with composition at all. Like billiards after eight beers. Or sex. It’s just point, shoot, and hope for the best.

We seem to have three or four species in the yard at the moment. Some orioles, though only females and I haven’t seen the brilliant yellow males in quite some time. Also a couple species of Finch, sparrows, and doves. There are, of course, crows and an occasional hawk, but this group of LBBs has been eating whatever the berries are on the bush next to the driveway, sitting in the pine tree behind the garage, and occasionally on the rafters and power wires.

They’re quite active mornings and evenings, so I took these shots while a pair were bickering and posturing this afternoon. This one would sit still for long enough to yell at the two smaller LBBs, so I was able to get some sharp photos, and even walk closer and take another pose.

I think the goal here was to see what composition and light can do to make a rather mundane subject look interesting. I tried a few different crops to see what I like. I won’t mention which is my favorite and which I like least, you can decide that for yourself.

Taken with a 105mm DC, manual focus, of course, the Z6 body and FTZ adapter not having the driver for the bayonette screw lenses.

Not going to complain in detail again about losing autofocus with the Z6 and my favorite legacy lenses, but I will say one thing. Other than snapshots and quick street photography, I’ve actually gotten to really prefer manual focus anymore. The autofocus is easy, but when DOF is razor thin it might not get the one bit I actually want in focus perfect. Like taking a lizard pic, to make it above and beyond you need to specifically get the eye and the nose in focus. Autofocus, even with the absolutely stellar Z lenses I have tried seems to want to get the whole lizard, and so most of the pics have blurry noses or blurry feet. Even using pinpoint focus, the pinpoint isn’t quite small enough for these guys. A quick touch of the focus ring will light up the focus peaking and let me see precisely what’s going to be sharp instead of trusting the camera and losing out on a good shot.

Not that losing out on ANOTHER lizard pic matters much. I have taken hundreds at this point. I really don’t need another.

1. Little Brown Bird. This stems from the times in the coffee shop when I got my very fist digital camera, the D70, and Jim and I would experiment, trying to take sharp pictures of sparrows that were always flitting about in the bushes behind the fire pits.

Hooded Oriole

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These ridiculously yellow birds have taken up residence in the palm trees over the house. Summertime visitors to the San Diego region, they’re called Hooded Orioles.

I think I got it from someone on photo.net fifteen years ago for $90. Very modest glass, yet… I continue to be impressed by what it can do with a little patience.

I have been seeing them regularly, but since I’ve pursued the landscape stuff the last few weeks I always have a superwide on the camera when I notice them. Today I had the 70-210 on, experimenting with the soft light from the heavy overcast, so when I heard them twittering and bickering, as they tend to do most evenings, I went out and tried to get shots.

Two things. One, shooting just before sunset with low light against a light grey overcast is just the worst possible way to get a sharp picture of these frenetic little guys. It was way darker taking these shots at 8PM than at 4:30 when I was taking lizard pics.

And, B, considering I was shooting high ISO in bad light, it’s pretty cool I was still able to get anything not completely blurry. The wind was blowing, these guys NEVER sit still, and I was hand focusing with pretty long exposure times for 200mm. Seriously, I left the exif attached, so look at the shutter speeds on the palm tree shots. This is hand held, using a 70-210 f/4-5.6 from the mid ’90s, long before things like image stabilization were thought of.

This lens really has been a workhorse for me over the years. I think I got it from someone on photo.net fifteen years ago for $90. Very modest glass, yet between the birdies and the dragons I continue to be impressed by what it can do with a little patience. I can’t imagine what the native Z lens would be capable of, considering how sharp the mirrorless lenses are and how impressive the stabilization is on the 24-70 lens is. One day. But for now this old beast is still fun.

Besides, what are these pics for? They aren’t great art. Not the sort of thing going in a book on birding, or a professional portfolio, but at least I can show people how yellow they are.

I’ll definitely have to try again one evening when the sun shines. 200mm is still a bit too short for really detailed shots, but at iso100 and with a faster shutter speed I am sure I can pull a little more color and detail out of these dudes.