Rose-ringed Parakeet

This is the most common Parakeet in the low-lands of Sri Lanka. It is one of the few birds which is not protected as it is considered an agricultural pest. More info and techs inside.

To see the techs for this shot, click here.

The Rose-ringed parakeet regularly visits gardens in urban areas, including gardens in the heart of Colombo, feeding on fruits and seeds. They feed and move around in small flocks which are often heard screeching in flight. They nest in tree burrows and compete for nest sites with Barbets. Only the males have a rose collar and their faces have a powder blue tinge.

A bird feeder which is regularly filled or some fruit trees and a little bit of luck is all that is required to attract the birds to your garden.. The Parakeets do not take flight as easily as some other birds and they can be photographed with ease using a 300mm lens. The image above was taken at 400mm but I am confident that, if required, I would have been able to move a lot closer.

Phalaenopsis

I finally got around to using my home made soft box when we bought a Phalaenopsis Orchid over the weekend. More details after the jump.

In order to make the soft box, I cut out three sides and the top of a cardboard box and covered two of the sides and the top with white tracing paper. The remaining side was left open to allow me to photograph through it. I then cut out the bottom of the box to allow me to place it over a subject, if necessary. To create a background I used a piece of black bristle board pasted on the remaining side of the box.

A single Canon 430EX speedlight was used to light the flowers from camera right. I'm not sure what the settings on the speedlight were but I think it was shot at 1/4 of a second and zoomed to 35mm. The left hand side of the flower was lit with the light reflecting off the white tracing paper on the left hand side of the box. The image was taken at 1/200th of a second at f\10.

Sydney Opera House

I had been meaning to capture this image of the Opera house for a couple of weeks but, due to bad weather, I did not get around to it until this evening. This image is a 6 image stitch, created using Hugin. More information on how I captured the images, after the jump.

I noticed the great light this evening, as I stepped out of work and decided to head down to Circular Quay to capture another image of the opera house. Thanks to daylight savings, I was able to get home, grab my gear and make it down to the opera house with about 20 minutes to spare before sunset. After scouting out a location to set up the tripod, I took a few test shots and waited around twenty minutes after sunset to capture the images.

I used a 50mm lens at f10 to ensure that the lamps and the opera house were in focus. The test shots, which I took earlier, gave me an indication of the required shutter speed. From memory, the shutter speed used to capture these images was 1.6 seconds or 2 seconds. I used auto-focus and locked focus on the centre of the Opera house, then moved into manual focus and did not change focus during the entire shoot. I also used a remote shutter release to minimise camera shake.

I then used Photoshop to process the RAW files and stitched them using Hugin.

Click here to see another shot of the opera house from a different angle.

Click here for another image of the Opera House and the CBD

Black-shouldered Kite

Images have to be viewed large.

Over the last two years I have visited several national parks in and around Sydney with the hope of capturing a decent image of this raptor. Needless to say, I have had very limited success. This weekend I finally managed to spend 45 minutes photographing these beautiful birds of prey. More photographs and info inside.

 

We spent the long weekend at a friend's farm in the northern Hunter region about 4 hours drive north west of Sydney. The area where the farm was located was quite hilly and the slopes were covered in rocky bush land. The valleys were divided into numerous paddocks which were used for grazing and to grow Lucerne. This was ideal habitat for Kites and other raptors as there was an abundance of prey.  I had noticed several Nankeen Kestrels on the drive in and couldn’t help but feel optimistic about finally getting a decent shot of a Black-shouldered Kite.

 

I made an early start on Sunday morning hoping to get an hour and a half of photography done before breakfast. While photographing Superb-fairy wrens (a future post) in a Lucerne field I noticed a white bird perched on a branch about 30 meters off the ground. Initially I thought it was a cockatoo but when I zoomed in on it I realised that it was a Black-shouldered Kite. I promptly forgot about the wrens and started taking shots of the Kite instead. Unfortunately the Kite was facing me and I was unable to get a decent side on shot of the Kites black and grey wings. However the bird was well lit as the sun was coming in over my right shoulder. Ten minutes after I started photographing the kite it was joined by a second Kite.

 

The two spent about half an hour on the branch and I was able to capture a number of images of the birds stretching and in flight. Finally, to top things off, the first bird changed positions and I was able to capture a number of images of the bird where its wings were clearly visible.

Unfortunately I was unable to photograph any Wedge-tailed eagles over the weekend. Maybe next time…