Posted by Larry Corbett on November 6, 2006 at 5:40 AM
I see there's a nice article in the current RSPB Birds magazine on photographing garden birds featuring Nigel Blake, nice one Nigel, some good tips there, and some super photo's
Posted by Rob Ashton on November 6, 2006 at 10:13 AM
Yep, good article. Now all I need is a garden
Rob
Posted by Larry Corbett on November 6, 2006 at 10:41 AM
You could always borrow someone elses..like Nigel seem to have done.
You're welcome to use mine if you want..in return can you mow the lawns and do a bit of weeding..
Posted by Paul Gibbs on November 7, 2006 at 5:04 AM
I know how you feel rob, i live in a flat atm... but then again i should have a house by december! Up in the pennines! YAY! :)
Posted by Nigel Blake on November 8, 2006 at 11:34 AM
Had'nt spotted this thread earlier, many thanks for the kind comments.
I don't have a garden either, and quite honestly I would'nt want all the work that goes with having one. I have now done two big garden feeder catalogue shoots for the RSPB, just finished another, the difficult shots were (as it was October) of nest boxes with birds visiting them, but a good supply of mealworms and careful baiting got around that.
I really enjoyed the discipline/challenge of getting some of the images that were to quite specific briefs, but some days were very frustrating, one shot that was required was of a Robin on the curl of a wrought iron gate, position/composition and background colour were to match a sketch as the image is to be used as a poster with wording on, in 196 visits the Robin only landed in the right place and in the right posture once, I got six frames, only to get a card error.
Fortunately I managed to retreive the shots with image recovery but they came up as .tif files and not .CR2 and I could only view the thumbs but not convert in all the various software, It was only the old D30 software that wanted to convert the files and they took 40 minutes each, however they were OK and it possibly would have taken lots longer to reshoot them.
I should also add that the mealworms were in little containers that were taped to various props, and not as it implies in the article taped directly onto anything.
Discussion
4 repliesRob
You're welcome to use mine if you want..in return can you mow the lawns and do a bit of weeding..
I don't have a garden either, and quite honestly I would'nt want all the work that goes with having one. I have now done two big garden feeder catalogue shoots for the RSPB, just finished another, the difficult shots were (as it was October) of nest boxes with birds visiting them, but a good supply of mealworms and careful baiting got around that.
I really enjoyed the discipline/challenge of getting some of the images that were to quite specific briefs, but some days were very frustrating, one shot that was required was of a Robin on the curl of a wrought iron gate, position/composition and background colour were to match a sketch as the image is to be used as a poster with wording on, in 196 visits the Robin only landed in the right place and in the right posture once, I got six frames, only to get a card error.
Fortunately I managed to retreive the shots with image recovery but they came up as .tif files and not .CR2 and I could only view the thumbs but not convert in all the various software, It was only the old D30 software that wanted to convert the files and they took 40 minutes each, however they were OK and it possibly would have taken lots longer to reshoot them.
I should also add that the mealworms were in little containers that were taped to various props, and not as it implies in the article taped directly onto anything.