D300 Does Egret

[wowzer]

I think my best to date. What a difference a little upgrade of equipment makes!

[laarree]

Beautiful! The D300 is a marvelous camera. I bought one in early February--
it's the first camera body I've used which doesn't seem compromised in any
significant way.

That shot seems sharper than many other I've seen you post -- is this with your
Bigma? Did the D300 help with image quality?

[kj4btkljv]

Nice photo!

You should Photoshop a jumbo jet into the background. Make the Egret look really massive...

Jeff

[voodoopenguin]

Lovely shot. I wish I had the ability to capture pictures like that but I have to make do with things that stay still.

[mattkime]

but what lens?

ans what equipment were you using before?

[vision63]

"You" did the Egret wonderfully. The D300 helped.

[hal]

where are you taking these pics?

[wowzer]

Just got the D300.

I was using the Bigma (sigma 50-500).

The real trouble with the Bigma in the past was the fact that my D50 couldn't AF fast enough for 500mm...slow things like birds about to takeoff was okay, but anything fast and close (i.e. birds flying overhead near me) the D50's AF would not achieve focus.

When I got the D300, initially I had a lot of trouble focusing because now any camera shake is magnified by the smaller pixels (please feel free to correct me if I am wrong). Technique also helps--the bigma needs a tripod at 500mm. I also used a shutter speed of 1/2500 (IIRC). With the D50, I was able to get away with a monopod. The extra pixels of the D300 requires better technique.

[OWC Jamie]

I was going to guess a new faster lens.

I imagine sunny day helped.


I have a helicopter pic like that.
1/8000th of a second and a fast lens to stop the blades.
By hand.
Waiting a couple days to develope the film to see if you got what you think you did, and absolutely no one was impressed.

[hal]

well I can understand that - your amazing picture and one of a stationary heli would look exactly the same...