Lotherton Bird Garden

Went to the above. It's a great place for a few hours on a nice sunny day. Not a massive place, and forget the deer park, unless you own the Bigma. The bird garden contains some beautiful specimens though. A lot are in cages and the wire presents some difficulty when shooting. I took the Sigma 70-200 F2.8 out, and used manual focus a lot of the time.

Shot through the wire.



This was shot in the large walk through avery.



Another through the wire.
[img]http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5147/5662230556_de92ae9a82_z.jpg[/img
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This really was a stunning bird.



A very elegant stork, or crane?



Really is quite a sharp lens at around F4 the sigma.

Don't know why the third isn't showing, her's the link.

Oh and here's a duck too.

Number 4 and the duck are my favourites

Number 4 almost feels like it needs some water in front of the bird

I think you've done well with throwing the cages out of focus Stephen, these are quite nice although the whites looks to be a bit blown, not easy with white plumage, personally I think the K5 has problems with whites and retaining detail, I had situations where I've really had to underexpose to get the whites right, that Egret in the tree image for instance is spot on apart from the bird, getting him right would really underexpose the rest.

I'm seriously thinking of doing some like for like comparison shots with the K5 V K10D, if I find the K5 to be way off then it might be having a holiday

SnappyChap - I think this is your missing photo.




Very good - seemed a shame to lose it.

Nice shots, wouldn't have realized they were taken through mesh.
The colours of the last bird (posted by Oggy) are like an
artists palette

Thank,s for that Oggy.