Australian Botanical Gardens, Mount Annan 21/02/2015
This weeks blog is a walk through of todays shoot in the Australian Botanical Gardens, mount Annan. This was my second week out with my new Sigma 150-600mm f/5-6.3 DG OS HSM Sports Lens. Still loving this one, the amazing clarity it produces is still exciting me when I view the shots on the 5K iMac.
From the shots you’ll see below you’ll see some of the clarity again, but the speed it autofocuses on the 7dmk2 also helps out. Today I managed quite a few shots of swallows in flight as they skim over the grass, One shot even capturing a swallow as its about to feed on the wing. The weight is certainly noticeable and I’ll certainly be looking for a new camera strap in the coming weeks, but other than that really happy with it. I was aware of the weight and thats not working me but certainly you know about it carrying it around.
Any way on with todays shoot more details as I go.
Today was looking a lot like rain and I started off having breakfast with my wife in the restaurant in the gardens. So first up food :-). After that My wife headed back home and I grabbed my gear and headed into the connections gardens.
The first thing I found was a large mushroom this one was well into the garden bed and the gardens have signs up everywhere to keep of the gardens, Which I follow. So no flash used on this one, Since it was so far in I thought I’d give he big Sigma a go instead of the normal 100mm Macro. the results are pretty good, would have liked to hit it a bit with flash to give some directional lighting but the detail and texture certainly shows up really well. This one was tripod mounted.
After that I walked through the connections gardens and found two more groups of mushrooms this tome right against the path so out came the flashes and these two shots were set up, both of these were with the 60D and 100mm F2,8 L macro Canon lens. The 60D has the wild screen which I love for the low shots.
A little bit further along I came across a few Superb wrens and got a few shots, nothing to exciting there but while shooting these I saw a dragon fly and gave that a go with the 7d and Sigma 150-600, This was where I found one limitation of the lens the minimum focusing distance, but still a lens of that length, 2m minimum focusing distance I can live with, So this was the result, still happy with the clarity at the shorted focusing distance. Theres plenty of details in the wings on this one all crystal clear. Would have liked to have seen the eye segments but still happy.
Then a Sulphur Crested Cockatoo flew over I didn’t have much time for this shot, but the autofocus locked in and I managed two shots of this bird as it flow over. Again nice and clear. (Hand held.)
From there I walked down to the lakes and found the swallows skimming the grass so thought that was a good time to practice taking birds in flight, If I can get these at the speed the dart around Its good practice for any others I come to later. I usually am luck to get one or two shots that are close to anything and the birds are usually so small as to have no detail. But today with the extra reach it gave the body something to lock on to and I managed these shots, loads of detail this time.
This one I managed to capture the moment the swallow was about to feed on an insect above the grass.
On the other side of the lake a royal spoonbill was feeding So this one was taken form the other side of the lake maybe 150m across (Best brought guess) but the details there to see the drop of water on its bill and the the patterning to its bill as well.
Lastly I went to the next lake and found this Little Pied Cormorant in a tree on the island in the middle of the lake. So I set up and got this shot, It wasn’t till I got home that I realised that there was an insect shell under the branch on the left just below the branch the cormorant is sitting it. Live the details in the feathers and its feet, all so clear. The small specks in the shot around the bird are insects in spider webs in the sounding trees. So the lens is picking up things at times I’d prefer it didn’t but again shots how clear it is.
From there the rain came andI decided that was it for the day, So no more shots for the day.
So in summary the Sigma 150 to 600mm f/5-6.3 DG OS HSM Sports Lens goes great with the Canon 7dmk2 all the swallow shots were hand held, so certainly possible just be prepared for the extra weight as that will certainly effect some people. I’m certainly happy with the results of the combination and glad I bought both.
Thanks for dropping by.
Glenn.
Australian Botanical Gardens, Mount Annan 14/02/2015
This weeks Blog is again going ver the shots taken in the Australian Botanical Gardens, Mount Annan. The day started off good as i finally managed to pick up my long awaited Sigma 150-600 sports Zoom Lens. Wow is it good. I took it out today and gave it a going over and was very happy with th shots i got and when I brought them home and down loaded them onto the iMac 27” 5K screen they didn't disappoint. So happy with this for a first day tryout. Most of my bird shots in the past I’ve had to heavily crop into to get something close to what I want but a lot of these are uncropped. So all the details still there and no noise from cropping in.
I was out there for about 4 and a half hours so plenty of time to feel the weight of this beast of a lens, but with my back pack of lenses plus the 60D as well as the 7Dmk2 whats another couple of kgs.
So the first shot here is of the Lens on the tripod. As you can see its quite a size, but still hand holdable as some of these shots are hand held.
The Image stabilisation is great and I even managed a shot at 1/25 of a second at 600mm reach on the crop body as a test shot mind you I was in a lounge chair but still I could never get that with the 70-200. So very happy with this one.
So on with the shots from today. As soon as I drove in to the Gardens today there was a Pacific Heron patrolling the Grass, So this was my first shots, Ok nothing to exciting yet, but a good start.
I then drove to the Stolen Generation walk and walked along the track. First I saw a pair of Lorikeets up high but the 600mm reach on this combined with the crop body of the 7D giving an effective focal length of 960mm this one was shot hand held and only 558mm effectively 892mm.
I walked a little further here I found a pair of Mistletoebird (Dicaeum hirundinaceum) birds raiding the bullrushes for their nest. This was the first wow moment with this lens, as soon as I saw these shots on the back of the LCD I was a happy camper.
I stayed around here for a while and high up in the gum trees was a Varied Sittella (Daphoenositta chrysoptera) this little one was working its way along the trunks looking for insects.
After spending a hour or so there I headed up to the Wollemi Pine Walk of Discovery To see if I could find any Mushrooms, not much luck this week and only the ones from last week there looking a little sad, so took these and headed off to the connections gardens.
This shot was from the 60d with the 100mm Macro, all the other shots here today are from the 7dmk2 with the sigma 150-600.
Here I found a family of Olive‑backed Oriole (Oriolus sagittatus) so got a few shots this was the best of these.
There was also a few Satin Bowerbird (Ptilonorhynchus violaceus) about up high, again with the new reach no problem.
So all up for a first day out with this one, very happy, still got to get use to the extra weight but that won’t be a problem if I can get these and better.
Lastly as its Valentines Day the Gardens caved these up on the hillside in full view of the main picnic area by the lakes.
So a great day all up today. Shall have to see what tomorrows like an may head out again.
Thanks for dropping by.
Glenn.
Australian Botanical Gardens, Mount Annan 7/02/2015
The weeks blog is again a walk through of the shots taken this morning in the Australian Botanical Gardens, Mount Annan.
i started out at the stollen generation walk looking for bird shots and found a few none that I was really happy with today in Bird shots.
A few Wrens, Crows and Lorikeets, the best shot here was the Eastern Yellow Robin below.
From there I drove up the the Wollemi pine walk of discovery and walked along the trail looking for mushrooms, another good week here with several to be found along the way.
The First again not that happy with he shot the depth of field was a bit off so should have used a smaller aperture to increase the depth of field, next time.
The next one was this poor half eaten one standing all alone, the rock below it made fro nice texture so was happier with this shot than the last.
The I found this little one when I got the small water spray bottle out the beg in the background showed up with all the droplets being caught so made for an interesting background to the shot. This one was a dark and moody shot. one of the better ones of the day.
While I was taking the mushroom shots the finches came down to bath, this one was of a red browed finch there was also a small group of double barred finches there as well.
The last shot for the day was actually taken in my back yard, where a mushroom has sprung up over night so I set up and managed this shot. This one with the wood lice on top and the texture of the cap amongst the grass looked good I thought. So this one may my mushroom shot of the day on my google plus post.
Thanks for dropping by.
Glenn.
Australian Botanical Gardens, Mount Annan 31/01/2015
This week I was a little short of time for my normal walk around the Australian Botanical gardens, Mount Annan so only had time for my mushroom shots this week, bit of a rushed day all round here.
Started off I had to go to the shops as it’s my Mother’s Birthday next week and a Family BBQ tomorrow, so that meant a shopping trip but I was going there any way as yesterday I got a call from the local JBHI telling me my custom iMac 5K had arrived J (At this point in time still in its box unopened that’s tonight’s fun. So I’m switching from windows PCs to a mac, we’ll see what fun that brings, but the 5K screen should be great for the photo editing, I know there was some issues with lightroom on the 5K macs but I believe that’s been fixed with an update by apple to the operating system the other week, plus a new version of lightroom coming out in March so should be screaming along by then. So after the shopping and unloading the mac I grabbed my gear and headed out only taking my Mushroom gear today as the tight schedule was still on as I’ve a room to finish prepping ready for painting, The fun never stops.
But back todays shoot. Started out heading straight to the Wollemi pine walk of discovery as that’s where I’ve found the mushrooms of late and this week in Sydney has been wet and cooler than the over thirty Deg we’ve had for the last few weeks. As I walked in I saw a small family first up and thought that’s promising and would get them on the way back. I Walked along the track and found my second set of mushrooms, The first one was a little yellow mushroom that was by itself but in the leaf litter, but all around was these little Coral Fungi I’ve never noticed them before in the gardens, I’m sure they have always been around but it’s the first time I’d noticed them, so I set up on the yellow mushroom and took the shots, again various locations of the speed lights till I was happy.
I had a few shots of the corals and went on, I found another patch of Yellow mushrooms spouting Up guess it was yellow mushroom day today. I set to work on another nice one, but noticed there was several in various stages of just breaking the ground so I had to be careful where I moved so as not to damage them. So this was the final shot of got of the first one.
I then moved on to this one that had all but broken through the ground, still had a few pieces of dirk clinging to it. So I set up the speedlites again and took several shots again. This was the best of them.
I then started to walk back out, and as I turned I found this one actually growing on the path and somehow I missed it walking down, So again set up on this one, This one I set up the softbox to the side and then set the other speedlite to backlight it, It gave a nice orange glow to the cap from behind.
I checked my other shots on the back of the LCD and decided that I wasn’t that happy with the coral shots earlier so on the way back stopped and took another shot of them, Strange worm like Fungi with one tiny normal looking one in amount them these are only around 2mm in dia so really tiny and the little Mushroom one is even smaller, so delicate and small.
As I walked out I stopped at the set I first saw walking in and took this shot of them, they were out in the full sun and looked a little worse for wear for the heat. But made a nice shot just the same, This is the shot I’ve used for my Google plus post for the day.
So a quite day in the gardens, but still managed 152 shots this is the best of them from today.
I then went home had lunch and then spend the rest of the afternoon sanding back old paint and patching small holes in the walls etc. ready to paint, so more fun to come there. So the fun never stops. But a good day shooting this morning.
Thanks for dropping by.
Glenn
Australian Botanical Gardens, Mount Annan 23/01/2015
This week’s blog is again another walk though of today’s shots in the Australian Botanical gardens Mount Annan. Another hot day out with 30 plus Deg C. temperature in the gardens, plus high humidity so not the most pleasant of temperatures to be out walking. But still I did. I started off heading to the stolen generation memorial area where there use usually abundant bird life about as there permanent water there. As I was walking in there was a Galah working on a dead tree branch trying to make it a nesting hollow by the looks of it.
Its mate was in a nearby branch, neither shot was good really as in both cases not a clear shot of the face.
They were also hand held so not that great all round. As I got to the board walk area a few Sulphur Crested Cockatoos flew in, this time I used the Tripod so a lot cleaner shot but again not the best angle and not a clean face shot again.
An Eastern Yellow Robin was also around and I got this shot again not really a great shot but clear as shot on the tripod again.
These shots are all heavily cropped in as still no sign of the Sigma 150 to 600 hitting the shops yet L. From there I walked for about an hour and a half in the heat and humidity and really didn’t get anything much in the way of shots so good work out in the heat but no great shots. After that I headed back to the car and drove up to the Wollemi pine walk of discovery where it’s usually cooler and usually a good place to find mushrooms to shot. This week in Sydney has been warm but a few wet days as well so I thought I’d find a few mushrooms up there and I wasn’t wrong.
I managed to find four different sets of mushrooms today, three are shown below, the first one, Two mushrooms together, not that happy with could have done with more depth of field to the shot, So I’ll need to watch that in future.
The next one I shot form two angles as it was on a bit of an incline so the first one was shot straight on the next was shot from down the slope back up, looks like a totally different mushroom from the other angle. Bit happier with these two shots.
The last one again was a pair of mushrooms together, I tried these from two angles and various lighting positions including a few goes at back lighting these.
This was the best I came up with for this one, not that happy with it just the same, Need to work slower and take my time in future to get better results I think some of these should have been better than they turned out so more work needed. By now I it was getting closer to lunch time the heat was still rising and I had had enough for the day so headed home.
So that was the end of todays photowalk in the gardens.
Thanks for dropping by my blog. Back next week.
Glenn