What bemused you today?

[Oldboy]

Fancy a job photographing a family on holiday then read this: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-6466675/Family-hiring-photographer-travel-world-80k-salary.html 

[Jediboy]

Wow. What a job. I'm looking for a change of career but not sure I'm what they are after.

[SimonW]

Today is "Big Garden Birdwatch" day. I had hoped at least a few of our birds would have returned since the sparrowhawk's visit. Sure enough, two sparrows and a bluetit were hiding in the honeysuckle. Then this arrived:




It chased and caught one of our birds, the other rapidly disappeared in the opposite direction. I can't decide whether I should be pleased to see the sparrowhawk again or very sad for our birds.

Simon

[SimonW]

Sparrowhawk dived on a sparrow. Chased and caught it - too far away for another photo.



I know it's blurred but I rather liked this action shot.

Simon

(Wanted to upload it yesterday with the others but the site suddenly developed a problem).

[Hinfrance]

Had an email from 500px advising that they had sold a licence for one of my pictures - grand total of $22.06. There were about 20 pages of IRS forms to fill in, including them wanting my French tax account number. Smelling a very large and quite probably mephitic can of worms about to be opened, I have asked them to donate they payment to charity. 

[Jediboy]

Had an email from 500px advising that they had sold a licence for one of my pictures - grand total of $22.06. There were about 20 pages of IRS forms to fill in, including them wanting my French tax account number. Smelling a very large and quite probably mephitic can of worms about to be opened, I have asked them to donate they payment to charity. 

For the sake of $22 probably a wise move.

[Oldboy]

This should make you smile! https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6677469/Mongoose-pup-makes-comic-attempt-playing-dead-confronted-huge-bird.html

[anglefire]

Actually a couple of days ago.

A Robin came into our back garden so I grabbed the camera (After putting the big lens on) and it flew off.
But it came back and I managed to grab a couple of shots.



But I had forgotten to reset the settings from taking some shots the other day with the flash gun.

And hence the shutter speed was a little low! Considering this was hand held, I didn't think it was too bad!

[Kerry Holt]

Actually a couple of days ago.

A Robin came into our back garden so I grabbed the camera (After putting the big lens on) and it flew off.
But it came back and I managed to grab a couple of shots.



But I had forgotten to reset the settings from taking some shots the other day with the flash gun

And hence the shutter speed was a little low! Considering this was hand held, I didn't think it was too bad!

I'd say that's a good shot too for hand held👌🏻👍🏻

[anglefire]

Thanks Kerry, but its not as sharp as I would have liked - the reduction in size for here does mask it a little!

But it is a cracking lens - absolutely love it!

[Jediboy]

You should be pleased with that. For hand held its really good.
I've been caught out many times by grabbing my camera quickly and forgetting to change the settings. 

Just out of interest, how often do we get an image as sharp as we would like?
I often look at my photos thinking this. I find than manual focus helps, but rarely can I say that I'm 100% happy.

[anglefire]

I would say I mostly get good sharp images - the ones that I keep anyway (I say keep, process, I rarely delete even the one a bit off - I really must do so as I have several Tb of stuff that I could reduce by at least half - time.....)

I rarely manual focus - only when on a tripod if at all as I find the AF on the 1Dx very good - the Dx if you put auto ISO on (Which I do 99% of the time) tries to get the shutter speed to at least 1/focal length if in Av mode. does mean the ISO can go pretty high at times 25600 is remarkably usable if the subject is the right one.

A friend of mine (Unfortunately he died a couple of years ago of complications during his cancer treatment) used to be able to manually focus stooping falcons - and could ID pretty much any bird when I couldn't even see it! In fact he rarely used any of the auto features of the camera- except the 1Dx he bought - but that was mostly because his eyes were giving out before another op he had so sort his vision out.

[Oldboy]

This might impress anglefire:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6772805/Photographer-climbs-700ft-Welsh-mountain-snap-picture-airman-staring-camera.html

[anglefire]

Yes that will be Cad West/East or the Bwlch (Or similar) - The UK forces are currently "banned" from flying through at the moment due to some comments by someone (Couldn't make it up!)

I've been there once - and bugger all came through - until we came down. I have meant to go back, but time has been lacking!

[anglefire]

London yesterday - left the house at 5:30am got home at 6:45pm
London today - left the house at 5:30am got home at 7:45pm
Going to london tomorrow - will leave home at 5:30am and will get back about 12:15pm as I am taking my youngest on a Uni visit to Nottingham.

All by train apart from the 10-15minute drive to the station - so I also work on the train for a couple of hours.

So, I've worked far too many hours already this week - and only get paid for 40. Not that I'm taking any holiday tomorrow.....