Tag Archives: Lightroom

Bird Photography with the Sony 70-200mm GM II Lens

I have continued to photograph birds that frequent our bird feeders. Since early 2022, I have used the new Sony FE 70-200mm GM II lens and the Sony FE 2x teleconverter to see how that combo performs. I’m impressed with the results so far.


Photos framed using the FrameShop script.

Equipment
Sony Alpha 1 Mirrorless Digital Camera
Sony FE 70-200mm f/2.8 GM OSS II Lens
Sony FE 2x Teleconverter
Sirui L-10 Aluminium Tilt Monopod Head
AmazonBasics Carbon Fiber Monopod
General Brand 77mm Collapsible Rubber Lens Hood
Kirk LP-65 Replacement Lens Foot
SanDisk 128GB Extreme Pro SD Card

Setup
See a previous post for a photo of the feeder setup. All photos were taken from indoors, shooting through a double-pane window, using a black cloth to conceal my location. The rubber lens hood allows the front of the lens to be close to the window and helps reduce/eliminate reflections.

Settings
P-S-A-M mode: Manual
Aperture: f/8-10
Shutter speed: 1/400 – 1/500 sec.
ISO: Auto ISO (Maximum 6400)
White balance: Auto: White
Focus mode: AF-C
Focus area: Wide
Face/Eye Priority in AF: On
Face/Eye Subject: Bird
Shutter type: Electronic Shutter
Metering mode: Multi
Drive mode: Continuous: Mid (10 images/sec.)
SteadyShot: On

Processing
Adobe Lightroom Classic and Adobe Photoshop
Topaz DeNoise AI
FrameShop script

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Bird Photography During the Pandemic – Part 5

I have continued to photograph birds that frequent our bird feeders. This will probably be my last post of the season because fewer birds are visiting the feeders as temperatures drop and the sun is very low in the sky during the day. The feeders will remain during the fall and winter for those birds that do not migrate.
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Bird Photography During the Pandemic – Part 4

I have continued, during the seemingly endless COVID-19 pandemic, to photograph birds that frequent our bird feeders. I’m now shooting with a Sony Alpha 1 (a1) mirrorless digital camera. One of the compelling features of this camera is Eye AF which enables the camera to detect and focus on the subject’s eye(s). In addition, the subject of Eye AF can be selected between Human, Animal or Bird. Obviously for these photos, I’ve selected Bird. Once the bird lands on the perch or feeder, I can half-press the shutter release, enable AF, and then shoot frames at a fast frame rate with the bird’s eye perfectly in focus. It’s almost too easy.
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Photographing Butterflies with the Sony a7R II

During the hot months of July and August, I usually struggle to find subjects in nature to photograph. This summer I turned my attention to something new for me – macro photography. Specifically, I concentrated on photographing butterflies and other flying insects literally in my own (or my neighbor’s) backyard. I’ve got two reasons for writing this article. First, to encourage dormant photographers to get out and explore their immediate environs, and perhaps as important, to demonstrate that the Sony a7R II camera is a very capable tool for photographing [some] wildlife and for butterfly photography in particular.I didn’t have any difficulty finding willing subjects.

The Eastern tiger swallowtail (Papilio glaucus), the state butterfly of North Carolina, is a plentiful species in central North Carolina and a good starting point for honing macro photography technique.

ILCE-7RM2 | Lens: FE 90mm F2.8 Macro G OSS | Focal length: 90 mm | Shutter speed: ¹⁄₅₀₀ sec | Aperture: ƒ / 8.0 | ISO: 6400 | Exposure bias: 0 EV

ILCE-7RM2 | Lens: FE 90mm F2.8 Macro G OSS | Focal length: 90 mm | Shutter speed: ¹⁄₅₀₀ sec | Aperture: ƒ / 8.0 | ISO: 6400 | Exposure bias: 0 EV

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Adding EXIF with Adobe® Lightroom® 3 and LR/Mogrify 2

In a post about two years ago, I wrote a tutorial on the use of Adobe Lightroom 2 and Timothy Armes’ LR2/Mogrify plug-in to add EXIF information to an image processed for the Web. Since that tutorial was written, Lightroom has been updated to Lightroom 3 and LR2/Mogrify has been updated to LR/Mogrify 2.

This tutorial is an update, providing complete illustrated instructions for using Lightroom 3 and LR/Mogrify 2 to add EXIF data to an image processed for the Web. LR/Mogrify 2 works on both PCs and Macs, but on a PC, you must install ImageMagick first. These instructions are written from the perspective of a Mac user, but the PC process is almost identical. For those who would prefer to use Adobe Photoshop to perform this function, the PrintEXIF and FrameShop scripts, available free on this website, are good alternatives.

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