As promised, here’s a photo to kick things off. I doubt they’ll all be as good as this one, but I’m hoping to be able to do a photo a day or at least a few every week.
I took this one yesterday, second time shooting the birds with the Mark III. They came out a lot better than the first time—maybe I’ll make another trip later but I think it’s time for some new subject matter.
I’ve made wallpapers for a bunch of different resolutions, get them here.
Anyways, I have to say this is probably one of my favorite photos. If I say so myself, the subject is very good and exotic; colors turned out beautiful (thank you rainforest); sharpness and focus is pretty superb (I’m glad I had stopped down to 5.6); composition is decent considering how quickly the shot was taken (it was a burst of like 10 while I was tracking, a little more room near the top would’ve been good). My favorite part would have to be the background, though. A plain blue sky would’ve been really boring but this soft green foliage in the background blurred very nicely and really adds to the overall composition. I wonder if it would’ve been nicer at f/2.8 or something, but I would probably not have had the whole bird in focus then so it’s a good tradeoff.
The Mark III performed pretty remarkably. The 10FPS was of course helpful, and the solid AF was good too. I had all focus points enabled, which worked pretty well in most circumstances and was thrown off in a few (focusing on a fence or something). I think it’s a better option though than using the center point. The reduced shutter lag really helped a lot too, I was able to track and see the bird between actuations even while shooting at max FPS.
This was shot with the 70-200 f/2.8L IS, EXIF is as follows: 185mm, ISO400, f/5, 1/1000 sec. Here is the 100% file, processed in lightroom from the RAW.
I’ve made wallpapers for a bunch of different resolutions, get them here.
Comments
This place isn't ALL about me — just mostly.
Ash Haque
4 years, 6 months ago
Looks very sharp :)
Dennis
4 years, 6 months ago
Looks great Anand! I am sure that rig is great to work with. I hope to upgrade soon myself. I certainly agree that the DOF is very good and the foliage really pulls out the colors in the bird. Two thumbs up!
Martha
4 years, 6 months ago
Hehe… and while you’re busy shooting stuff with your camera, ill be installing wow on your mac.
Anand
4 years, 6 months ago
Hmm…
No.
Akshay
4 years, 6 months ago
Hey bro!
You def got some mad skills :) You start UCLA in the fall?
You just got a new reader/fan.
Cheers,
- A
Luke
4 years, 1 month ago
omg - that is beautiful - can i just say that when dragon labs was open i tought it was really good do you like own dragon labs or something or did they just make april zero for you.
Anand
4 years, 1 month ago
Luke: Well I used to be Dragon Labs, but thats quite old now. Soon to be dragon interactive…
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