Pied Imperial Pigeon (Ducula bicolor spilorrhoa) – The Great Aviary, Melbourne Zoo
And to give you an idea of how far away this lovely white Pigeon is from my camera……………..it’s located in the bottom right hand quadrant of the frame.
I really should give you a photo of the cage or enclosure of these zoo birds and animals. It might help you imagine yourself on the photography excursion with me. These images were taken on Australia Day (26th January – my Birthday) and the perfect way to spend one’s Birthday – visiting Melbourne Zoo for a photography excursion.
Many thanks, as usual. Great to see the whole aviary. Belated HAPPY BIRTHDAY for the 26th.
Thank you for the belated Birthday Wishes, Carolyn – the older I get, the less I celebrate Birthdays.
While I’ve posted images of the whole aviary before, it’s worth posting again for any new followers who don’t know where I take many of the bird images on my blog.
such tall trees in the aviary.. lovely place!!
It’s a favourite place of mine, Lisaman – mostly cool and with a water course (or stream) running right through it (ending in a pond), it brings many of the birdlife down to the ground. Of course with those tall trees, it also sends many birds to the top of the branches making nests beneath the aviary roof as well. It can be a challenge to find some of the smaller birds to photograph.
Happy Belated Birthday!
I’m amazed at the detail and clarity that was retained when cropping in that closely! (At least I’m guessing you cropped it that much given how far away the bird was from you.)
Thank you Fergiemoto.
Not it wasn’t cropped in terms of bird size at all – that’s how far my 18-200mm lens reaches at full zoom (of 200mm). It was originally ‘landscape’ size and I cut off about 25% of the right hand side which was just dark leaf shadow and superfluous, and about 15% of the left hand side (which was distracting branches). But that didn’t alter the bird’s size in the (now), relatively square-shaped photo.
The whole aviary shot was at 24mm with my 18-200mm (i.e. almost fully closed).
As long as I’m not breathing heavily from walking, or the hot day, I can hold the DSLR very, very still (without a tripod) most of the time now.
Just arrived home and will be interesting to see how my afternoon’s shooting turned out today. I took several photos at ISO 1600 in the deep shade. Hope they’re not too ‘grainy’.
That shot of the pigeon is stunning – so sharp!
I admit I have sharpened the focus very slightly and increased the mid tones slightly in iPhoto editing, Lorri. You couldn’t see the texture of those upper chest/neck feathers until I did that. It’s quite hard to see all the feather detail in a white bird (as opposed to a multi-coloured bird).
Depends on the light and shadow cast over the bird.
I did think this was a pretty good shot anyway, even before that tiny bit of ‘tweaking’.
I’m still trying to get a good shot of the Royal Spoonbill which is an all-white bird (like a heron). But they are always standing in the bright sunlight and every shot I’ve taken has been over-exposed and no detail of the feathers showing. I tried deliberately UNDER-exposing a photo, but it didn’t help any. I’ve photographed almost every bird in the Great Aviary, but there are at least 5-6 birds that never photograph particularly well.
It’s a real challenge. That’s why I keep going back. I want to take a good shot of every single bird if I can. I think I’d get bored at the zoo if every shot was too easy.
The giraffes and zebras are always in bright glaring sunlight too.
White birds are so tough, I have better luck with a bit of cloud cover and I often have to mess with exposure a bit to make the detail show.