Bird spotting

This morning's walk in the woods bagged a 'Bellbird' and a 'Silver eye' (sometimes known as a 'Wax eye'). There were also some lovely 'Fan tails' but they were moving so fast that I didn't manage to lock on for a good shot.

With the D80 I was never able to get close enough to these small birds to get a decent quality picture. Now, with the increased resolution and high ISO capabilities of the D600, I've been able to get the shots without too much difficulty (300mm lens + 1.4 tele-converter).

Jonathan Livingston Seagull

"Most gulls don't bother to learn more than the simplest facts of flight - how to get from shore to food and back again. For most gulls, it is not flying that matters, but eating. For this gull, though, it was not eating that mattered, but flight. More than anything else, Jonathan Livingston Seagull loved to fly."
(Richard Bach)

Don't delete - ever

Digital photographs are easy to accumulate in vast numbers. Some photographers recommend deleting anything that isn't perfect - as soon as possible, preferably before it leaves the camera. I don't subscribe to that philosophy and keep everything I shoot unless its absolutely awful.

I have a folder structure that allows good stuff to 'bubble' to the surface while all the raw material (usually RAW material) sits in a series of basement folders called 'Originals'. When I need to try out some new software or attempt a new processing approach I dig into my 'Originals' folders to find something to practice on. Case in point is the picture below - what I wanted to try didn't work out but, in the process, I discovered the original reason I took the shot - the light - buried beneath a rather dull and uninteresting set of RAW files.

"Evening light - Canterbury High Country" - camera Nikon D80, 28mm, ISO100, 1/15sec, f11 (9 frames)

So, tonight I feel vindicated and confirmed in my old hoarder ways :-)

Boulders and Penguins

Fresh back from the North Otago coast, as promissed we have boulders and penguins. The boulders are the "Moeraki Boulders" - see the Wikepedia article at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moeraki_Boulders. Unfortunately, we had cloudy dawns while we were there so never got the best light to photograph them.

The penguins were the "Yellow-eyed penguins" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow-eyed_Penguin). Usually a timid bird, this adult and juvenile seemed quite content to watch me photograph them over several minutes. The nest was on the top of a high cliff with a very nasty climb down to the beach below - I am not sure how flightless birds manage that!