FUCKS

[TVC15]

I mean ducks!

I was out being gay again today and I ran into ducks.  In fucking January!  Fucking ducks!  I am still going through pictures.  This is the first usable one.  That head needs some post-processing, I guess.



FUCKS

[MCD]

beautiful.

[TakingBackSunday]

ducks are pretty much the coolest thing ever

[TVC15]

There were two of them except they kept diving to get food or some shit.  So I hit one with a half empty 24 ounce can of Olde English.  Then it fuckin started paying attention.  But it kept lookin at me like I was some kind of freak.

[TVC15]

Here's the other duck.  This is the one that I did not throw garbage at.  I had to post-process the eyes a little bit because I either blurred it or god just made this duck's face really ugly with big blurry black spots.  I think the brownies are the women, so it might make sense if god made it hideous.  Oh well, don't worry, it's dead now.

[Fragamemnon]

Duck-watching season is at its peak in Jan.-Feb. or so. You get a lot of the really cool arctic ducks further south, and the males are usually already in their pretty breeding plumage.

Last time my wife and I were in Seattle/Puget Sound area we saw all sorts of awesome rarities-Eurasian Widgeon and a King Eider, in addition to the usual badass stuff like the three scoter species, the amazing Harlequin Duck and Hooded Merganser, and the usual rafts of Brandt geese, goldeneyes, and pintails.

So yeah ducks are awesome, and it's the perfect time to be out looking at them too.

BTW, your first pic is a Mallard drake and the second one is indeed a female.

[CurseoftheGods]

Aw. Nice pics, TVC. 

[TVC15]

Wow imageshack has new features:





Hey Frag.  In the spring and summer, this particular pond is duck central.  I think I said last week that this pond isn't even usually here at this time of year, for whatever reason.  It's the rainy season, so you'd think the pond would be going on now, but for whatever reason, it seems to only be a pond int he spring and summer.  I guess that means it is probably some sort of controlled reservoir-y type of thing.  Whatever the source, the water is always clean, and reflects a mirror image, making it perfect for all sorts of cool pictures.  There are usually ducks in it all the time when it is around.  I was kind of surprised to see them here in January though.  Just two of them

I should have more pictures of them, not as zoomed in.  I pulled out my telephoto for those.  I was actually about 20ish feet away from them.  And that lens doesn't have image stabilization, so it is a bitch to get good pictures without either steady hands or a tripod, neither of which I had at the time.

[MCD]

furfag 

[TVC15]

I was using this lens:



It weighs like as much as my laptop, so keeping it steady is kinda difficult.  I am surprised I got more than one usable pic at all.

[MCD]

Apple 

[Madrun Badrun]

Were you and Drinky feeding them bits of bread?  I hear old people do that. 

O and do you always take a nice camera out with you when your "out being gay"? 

[TVC15]

Apple 

That router is dead!  That is like 2-3 routers ago, actually, lol.

Here's when they first made their entrance.  Or when I first noticed them.  I was trying to get the reflections on the water with natural lighting, but it was a shitty time of day, and shitty weather for that.

[CurseoftheGods]

That's a beautiful picture, but is it just my shitty eye-sight or does it look a bit fuzzy/blurry?

[MCD]

crysis looks better than that shit

real life 

[Madrun Badrun]

That's a beautiful picture, but is it just my shitty eye-sight or does it look a bit fuzzy/blurry?

There is a bit of blur. 

[TVC15]

That's a beautiful picture, but is it just my shitty eye-sight or does it look a bit fuzzy/blurry?

Yeah, it does.  I can probably clean it up a bit if I wanted to put time into it.  This is at a bus stop, and when I am at bus stops, I tend to fuck around and fiddle with settings.  Oddly enough, interesting picture opportunities tend to happen at the bus stop rather frequently, and since time is of the essence, I sometimes get stuck like, trying to shoot full manual with a giant telephoto lens on with no mounting.

The culprit right there is probably that I had it set to focus on an object, not take a landscape shot.  So since there was no obvious focus, it kinda crapped the whole thing.

[Madrun Badrun]

You take that giant lens with you on the bus?  Shit.  Next time can you take some pics of hot girls for me PD. I He needs them as I he doesn't see many girls in real life.  WOMEN!

[TVC15]

Hey, resident duck expert Frag, git in here.  What is up with this:



The heads are blurred because they are diving for worms or Olde English or whatever, but what makes it so the rest of their bodies look so painted?  You can see that in the closeups, too.  It looks like somebody PAINTED the fucking ducks in the picture, just by the color of their feathers.  It's a pretty cool effect.  Makes it look like a painting.  Probably helps that I wasn't using flash at all, though.

Sorry for the size on that one.  I wanted to preserve as much quality as possible.  That's not touched up, outside of resizing.

[Ichirou]

I used to have a duck as a pet.  Filthy animals, lemme tell ya.

[Fragamemnon]

The heads are blurred because they are diving for worms or Olde English or whatever, but what makes it so the rest of their bodies look so painted?  You can see that in the closeups, too.  It looks like somebody PAINTED the fucking ducks in the picture, just by the color of their feathers.  It's a pretty cool effect.  Makes it look like a painting.  Probably helps that I wasn't using flash at all, though.

All ducks have an oil gland near their rump that they rub their heads and bill in and then distribute the oil to their feathers. They also are constantly preening their feathers to make sure they are free of any parasites or dirt and to remove any scales from newly formed feathers. The net result is that a duck is essentially waterproof-if you lightly poured water on the duck, the water would run right off it.

That's why they look so painted-they are super-clean (they have to be, in order to keep from getting waterlogged) and they have a sheen of oil on their feathers.

[TVC15]

The heads are blurred because they are diving for worms or Olde English or whatever, but what makes it so the rest of their bodies look so painted?  You can see that in the closeups, too.  It looks like somebody PAINTED the fucking ducks in the picture, just by the color of their feathers.  It's a pretty cool effect.  Makes it look like a painting.  Probably helps that I wasn't using flash at all, though.

All ducks have an oil gland near their rump that they rub their heads and bill in and then distribute the oil to their feathers. They also are constantly preening their feathers to make sure they are free of any parasites or dirt and to remove any scales from newly formed feathers. The net result is that a duck is essentially waterproof-if you lightly poured water on the duck, the water would run right off it.

That's why they look so painted-they are super-clean (they have to be, in order to keep from getting waterlogged) and they have a sheen of oil on their feathers.

That's neat.  They look really cool, but I have to say I was mildly pissed because it makes it look like I applied a bunch of shitty PS filters to the poor ducks.  That's just how they look!

[xnikki118x]

You're right, the brown one is a female and the one with the green head is a male. They're mallard ducks.

[Eel O'Brian]

invest in a monopod, they're very handy for quick image stabilization, and are compact enough to carry around with you.

[TVC15]

invest in a monopod, they're very handy for quick image stabilization, and are compact enough to carry around with you.

I've invested enough in stabilization gear.  Fact is that I like to shoot with my hands.  I just need to spill the gill for an IS telephoto lens.

[Eel O'Brian]

I like shooting with my hands, too

do you tuck your elbows?

[TVC15]

I like shooting with my hands, too

do you tuck your elbows?

I have no idea.  When it comes to technique, I am self-taught, and a creature of instinct.  I generally do try to ball up my whole body, and use my elbows as instruments of stabilization either against my legs or my knees, although I am not sure if I would use the word "tuck" in regards to my behavior. I kind of do my own thing that I have figured out.

But the telephoto shots here happened fast.  I had no time for getting into proper positions, or waiting for shots.  I was stuck making do with however still I could keep my hands.  My bus was minutes away.

[Eel O'Brian]

the shots look fine to me

i think you're being too self-critical

a certain amount of blur is unavoidable unless you have one of those national geographic rigs, and jesus you could buy a car with that kind of money

[Eel O'Brian]

and doesn't image stabilization introduce a lot of grain?

[Eel O'Brian]

I have this camera:



it's got an image stabilization setting, but i never use it because all it does is up the iso to ridiculous levels and is too grainy

i love the camera, though - it does decent night shots, and the 10x zoom works well

i'd like to buy some lenses, but there aren't a whole lot available for it

for a $200 camera, though, it's great

[TVC15]

and doesn't image stabilization introduce a lot of grain?

IS introduces some problems, but the problem it fixes is significantly bigger than any problem it causes, at least in the telephoto realm.

Basically and arguably, of course.  being an art cigarillo discipline, I am sure you can find people to say whatever you want.

To me, personally, the biggest downside to IS is that you are (effectively) stuck using autofocus, which is something of a limiting factor (but I would like that if I were in a significantly limited shot).