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Amanda Reed
01-23-2008, 01:52 PM
D300, 1/400, f/10, ISO 200, 400 mm... Osprey photo taken in the Everglades last week. I'm a newbie and this was the first time I had seen an Osprey so it was a really exciting day for me. I look forward to your feedback.

Rosl Roessner
01-23-2008, 02:18 PM
Hi Amanda,
you managed it well, to capture the blinking yellow eyes of both of the ospeys!
The right one looks straight into your camera! That's Great!
I just think, the focus point is not at the ospreys head but at the branches or leaves at the bottom of the picture.
You should not always rely on the automatic focus-point. Often it works better to choose the focus point manually ( at the head of the osprey) and than make the image. You should achieve enough Depth of field with f 10 if you focus carefully.
In addition it would be fantastic to get your camera to eye-level of the osprey.... But I don't know how to manage that in your location....

Best Regards,
Rosl

- sorry for my broken english-

Amanda Reed
01-23-2008, 02:22 PM
Thanks for the feedback. I would have loved to be more level with the birds as it was I had to stand on the roof of my rental car... thanks Hertz!

George DeCamp
01-23-2008, 08:23 PM
Good old Hertz makes a great support for the photographer don't they! :)

Good job getting both looking, looks like a nice day you had and productive! I agree with Rosl above and would add that it would be good to clone out that stick to the left side of the image sticking straight up....and also the ones to the side of it.

More important though is was was said above, the focus point needs to be a little better. On your D300 (a great camera) you could have gone up to ISO 400 here to get that shutter speed up as well, the 1/400 with a 400mm lens could have caused some blur. At ISO 400 you could have used 1/800 with same aperture and had less camera shake, although it looks like you did pretty well with sharpness in most areas so probably not too much camera shake.

Which lens? Was it a 80-400 or a 400f4?

Keep them coming, you are on the right track for sure.

Judd Patterson
01-24-2008, 02:24 AM
A couple of beautiful birds, Amanda. Looks like you had some fun in the Everglades...great! I agree that this could be stronger if both Osprey heads were in sharp focus. I think that was quite possible at f/10 with a 400mm lens...with care to ensure good placement of the focus point(s). Take advantage of that nice screen on the D300 and zoom in to quickly check both heads while you are still in the field. Hope to see more of your Everglades work!

Amanda Reed
01-24-2008, 11:40 AM
Thanks Rosl, George and Judd for you very helpful feedback. I just got the D300 and it is way smarter than I am... so lots of cool stuff to learn... thanks for the camera tips. The lens is the 80 - 400. Here is another shot of the two birds. Is this better? The bird on the right is not sharp but I was focussed (I hope :) ) on the one on the left. Thanks

Amanda Reed
01-24-2008, 11:40 AM
oops forgot the image :-)

Amanda Reed
01-24-2008, 11:41 AM
Here is the new image.