maybie my first ever decent bird shot!!

[bmxphotographer]

Howdy all,
My family was at a friends house on sunday and i was getting a little bored and luckly I had my camera in the car. I got it out and was taking some photos of there golden retriver when i heard a mob of kookaburras laughing. ( If you have never seen or heard a Kookaburra which most of you probably haven't because they live only in Australia they have a very distinct call which sounds like they are laughing. Its a very cool noise lol ) so I walked around trying to find them and i found this fella. He was very calm and let me take about 10 pics of him before he decided he got sick of me. I was about 20 meters away from him and my camera was at full zoom (10 times) this was the only one that turned out. the rest were out of focus or the white feathers on his belly were very over exposed. I am pleased with this photo but any suggestions on how i could have improved it would be appriciated
Cheers Dillon :-P
exif info
ISO: 100
shutter speed: 1/125
f/4.5
thanks for looking
enjoy :-D
http://www.photozo.com/album/data/504/dillon_pics_029_-_Copy.JPG

[Onesimus]

Being an Aussie myself, I know what a kookaburra is and how they laugh. Your shot is great! The only thing I would have said is try to get up closer - but, in my experience in photographing rainbow lorikeets, this isn't always easy even at full zoom as you have seen! Another thing I would suggest is to photograph in portrait view (camera on its side) rather than in landscape mode as you have done. This gets rid of unnecessary detail which tends to make the main subject smaller than you would like it to be. Alternatively, try cropping the image in the editing stage, as I have done with your image. I hope you don't mind, Dillon!

http://www.photozo.com/album/data/500/Kookaburra.jpg

Onesimus

[Jan]

Dillon a nice catch, I was also going to suggest you crop to portrait type pic. You managed a good dark background to show the kookaburra of well. Nice one!

[Skippy]

Nice catch Dillon, to crop would have been my suggestion too. Why didn't the others come out?

I think there is a kid's song about kookaburra. Can't remember quite how it goes now. Now I know what looks like.

Skippy

[Bishop]

Great shot!
I have never seen a kookaburra but I can tell you I know by heart a song about them. We sang this as kids in the Girl Scouts.

Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree
Counting all the monkeys he can see
Laugh Kookaburra, Laugh Kookaburra
That's not a monkey, it's me!

[bmxphotographer]

^^ ha ha I know that song as well (but of course i didnt learn it at girl scouts)
thanks for the comments guys

Onesimus- thanks for the crit i really appriciate it and i will shoot in portrait next time and thanks for the crop to.

Jan- thanks I had to have a dark backgound because i had to under expose the photo other wise the white on his belly was blown out and looked shocking but i was pleased with the way the photo turned out

Skippy- see my reply to jan about why the others didnt come out ^^^ thanks for the kind comment

Linda- thanks that is a good song here is a couple of different versions(sung by the same tune)

Kookaburra sits in an old gum tree,
merry merry king of the bush is he,
laugh kookaburra laugh kookaburra,
how gay your life must be. lol

kokaburra sits on an electric wire,
jumping up and down with his pants on fire,
laugh kookaburra laugh kookaburra :-P
and i forget the rest

thanks guys :-)

[Skippy]

Great verses. I think your verse Dillon is the one they sing on Barney.

Skippy

[Ron77]

Nice shot and what a cool bird to even just see, let alone getting a good photo of him :-)

[bmxphotographer]

yeah there very cool birds. there very common around my area. thanks for the nice comment