Another birding session with my A700..
 

Not much to say; managed some extra time to go birding a bit more, and managed to get some nice ones. Of course, here are the results.. :)

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2021/...57be95bf2b.jpg

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2165/...92e8c8573a.jpg

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2299/...b5326c4041.jpg

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2154/...623997c3e6.jpg

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2223/...2167370e03.jpg

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2332/...d86d02c351.jpg

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2395/...b482a24bf5.jpg

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2196/...0a0e0dd7cd.jpg

Comments are always welcome. :)

That's truly a nice and sharp lens you've got there. Pretty good composition in the pics too. Some blown out highlights in some of them but it's pretty hard not to get them with dark foreground and bright background.

Those look amazing...I'm always stunned to see what really good cameras can do in the right hands.

[thumbup]

Thanks! As for the highlights - it was either keep em and lose the bird, or vice versa. I obviously went with the bird. [thumbup]

Thanks! I don't know how much of the right hands i am right now, but I am working on learning.. :)

Very nice shots again - although some of them look a little oversharpened (there are some sharpening halos on a couple of the shots)

Have you tried doing selective sharpening? What you do is as follows (in Photoshop).

1. Duplicate your image to a new layer.

2. On the bottom layer, applying sharpening so that your subject is sharpened to the correct level. DON'T worry if if the background or other non subject objects then look shaper than you would like (or if you have sharpening halos), this will be fixed in step 3.

3. Now switch on the top (second layer), and switch off the bottom layer you just sharpened. With the top layer selected, erase away your subject (you'll see a checkerboard pattern appear where you erase). Don't forget to change brush sizes for the edges of your subject and other fine details.

4. Once step 3 is done, swich back on the bottom layer - and if you are happy with the results, flatten the image.

What you've done is effectively just sharpen your subject, without that sharpening "leaking" to the surrounding area, or resulting in the surrounding areas being sharpened to the point it distracts from the subject. Often with this method you'll need to use less sharpening overall, as it will be easier to pull your subject from its surroundings.

Just be careful not to overdo it. Your eye expects to see everything on the same plane in roughly the same degree of focus - so remember not to make things look artificial. You might also need to erase through the branch that a bird is sitting on for example, if its the same distance from your camera as the subject.

I agree with Chris on the the sharpening (I think we all get carried away with chasing sharp, noise-free images at times though), but I think a factor in that may be the harsh backlighting, especially on the latter half of the images.

I like the wonderfully diffused background on number two; it's just so smooth, not to mention the fact that the bird's wing is down and his head is turned towards the camera, nice timing.

My only complaint for most of these is that the backlighting really makes it difficult to get these birds in the context of their environments. That aside, they're great, and I hope you're still liking the new lens.