Thanks! Interesting insight, as I still have near to zero knowledge on any wildlife I encounter, particularly birds ;)

He thinks he’s fancy, for sure!

Ahah, thanks :)

Your first point is the key. On your suggestion, trimming the bottom would put the reflection out of the middle - which I didn’t like - and the darker color I thought helped “hiding” it a bit and balance the brighter sky. I tried vignette on this other shot, while in the post photo I didn’t want to darken the sky (I’m really not a fan of adding artificial vignetting):

I’ll for sure work on this perspective with the 45mm and longer lenses, taking into account the feedback I got here :)

Thanks for your feedback :)

I wanted to achieve the dreamiest effect possible, then I thought of cropping the very blurry bottom part by going 3:4 instead of 2:3 but didn’t like it as much.

Yep, was my first outing with the RF 45mm F1.2

Bigger beard than Santa! 🎅

I’m grown to hate them honestly: since weeks, bigger and bigger flocks dominate the skies around my home, going tree to tree like locusts. I bet they are the reason why I don’t see many other birds around - but I might be wrong and don’t know anything about seasonal and avian fauna behaviors…

I’ll have to read more about them, but it is indeed the only one I saw and recognized since starting photographing birds (around 1 year ago).

Thanks for the heads up, I also see it and it’s added automatically when I share a PixelFed link through Mlem on iOS… I’ll maybe look into it but the Fediverse is really messy sometimes 😆

Don’t get me wrong, I’m very fond of this picture (I wouldn’t have posted it otherwise), but the couple of thin branches directly behind the bird break its silouhette a bit. The rest is 100% to my liking.

This is one of the reasons I love wildlife photography: some of these creatures are so tiny and fast, that appreciating their colors and patterns with the naked eye is really challenging. With a big telephoto and if you get close enough though, you can pick out all the tiny details of these awesome chirping fluffy things :)

Awesome pictures!

I’m seeing a bit of LoCA (longitudinal chromatic aberration): maybe something you can try to work on with Darktable. Stacking should also get rid of it.

Please take it as constructive as possible, the photos are really nice :)

EDIT: sorry for commenting a 1 month old post :D

Near the Ammersee (Lake Ammer) in Bavaria, Germany. There is a region where these harriers gather for communal roosting in winter - I found this out only thanks to some explanation boards at the place and after I got some shots of what I thought was a much more common buzzard :)

Glad you like it, thanks!

Nice hues, beautiful portrait!

Thanks :) Nice, but I want a full lit round moon at least one time! Will closely monitor the next phases and the sky.

Camera: Canon EOS R6 Mark II

Lens: Canon RF 200-800 F6.3-9

Shot on a tripod: 800mm 1/200s F10 ISO100

Sharpest RAW image of a few RAW processed in Nitro (curves, sharpen, crop)

White balance set to Daylight: do you have opinions on how to set it for the moon? I like it a bit warm, as it’s sunlit, but we perceive it more neutral white with our eyes maybe?

Oh thanks!

Well, busted!! The autofocus mode reads AI servo. It is all just a big lie.

Glad you like it!

Thanks! Yes they are fascinating. This one gulped a pretty sizable frog or fish moments before I got out the camera, unfortunately for me and for its prey.

Thanks :)

It was really close, to take that profile full-figure shot I had to back up to the side several meters and hold the camera as low as possible in the ditch. That is taken at 400mm.

At 800mm I got very personal with it: