You get them all over the UK but I have had my best sightings in East Anglia. I've seen them in the reed beds of Cambridgeshire and Norfolk, but they do seem to like leafy, deciduous woodland near water. In the spring and early summer they will dance through the canopy looking for insects.
Yes, they do have an air of self confidence for ones so small, a bit like my chihuahua lol
Thank you 😊
Tldr: yes and no, because I shoot in RAW.
I shoot in RAW so I have an import profile I use in lightroom for all my bird photos that's basically balancing the exposure, shadows and highlights with some noise reduction and sharpening. I don't apply any colour correction.
I then mess around with the ones I want to make a tiff from or on rare occasions print. I usually end up making it worse lol
This one was a bit different, in that the bird was well lit and I was happy with everything but the leaves were really blue as they were in deep shade. I looked at changing the white balance to bring the greens out or messing with the channels, but in the end I left it pretty much alone.
When I started digital photography I found it difficult to deal with everyone's opinions on the look and feel of my images. I have a taste but it's not to everyone's liking. This many years later I have kind of decided you can't please everyone but I am really glad you like it.
I have a couple of others I think you will like if you like this one. I'll post them up over the next few days.
I took a fishing chair to a fen once. I sat down and all four legs disappeared into the peat, essentially leaving me sat on the ground 🤣
I used NX Studio from Nikon when I first started on digital, which is free, but I found it less capable than I needed. I might go back and have another look. I really like Fast Raw Viewer. It makes it really easy to cull my shots down before importing them.
In lightroom I'll do a general first pass process on import and then if there's something I really like I'll take my time ruining it lol TBH most of anything I do after the first pass is just cropping for layout.
I also have topaz denoise, sharpener and gigapixel for doing large prints and a Spyder for screen calibration. I don't think calibration is really worth it if you're only doing digital images, because unless the person looking at the photo has an identical screen and calibration it's never going to look the same, but it's a noticeable improvement when printing.
My day job is running a blackops rendition site, photography is just a hobby 😉
Or it's the name of one of my cats, who is genuinely evil.
I ended up feeling the same way about monopods. I did try a gitzo pod which was able to expand to nearly 6' 4". With a head and the camera mounted it was actually pretty comfortable for me at 6' 1". But I found it was just one more thing to think about and get tangled in my legs lol.
I shoot in manual mode but that's for no other reason than I really struggled with semi automatic modes (dealing with exposure comp and floating variables like ISO) when I first started digital photography. I honestly almost quit after using aperture priority and ending up with loads of pics at 1/8000s and ISO 12800 😆 I then had to figure out how to lock down the max iso and shutter speed and that became another thing to remember as it was always buried in a menu somewhere. I just found it all so frustrating that going manual was actually a relief. The ergonomics on the Nikons, especially the more capable ones, makes it really easy to manage on the fly so to speak. The main thing was practicing on things I didn't mind not capturing, garden birds, ducks on the river. I still mess it up but my lightroom skills have improved no end 😄
Ha, yes this is true. Always keeping my eyes open.
You could try a monopod, something light in carbon fibre would help take the weight. It's a bit trickier than a tripod at first but more portable.
That said I found regular use of heavier gear gets you used to the weight. Controlled breathing can also help stabilise your upper body and by locking your elbows into your torso the weight can be transferred into your body rather than being supported by your shoulders alone. Apologies if you already know this.
At 800mm you're at f/9 which is going to make your autofocus work harder if the light isn't great, especially on moving subjects.
@EvilTed
@lemmy.world