Tui shooting again ;-)

On the way to the Botanic Garden's Cherry Trees and Tuis.

Off to the Botanic Gardens again to see the tuis and silver eyes.  I had a really good time yesterday and was hoping to get some good shots today as most folks would be at work instead of disturbing the birds.  Sorry to say I didn't do that well with my photos.

The light was a little awkward and it was rare to get the iridescence that I saw yesterday.  Also the birds seemed pretty frisky and it was really quite difficult to frame them, focus on them and then shoot.  I was using a 70-200mm lens which is pretty quick to focus, but I still came away with quite few blurry masterpieces!  I met a lady there shooting with a 300mm lens and a teleconverter to get in excess of 500mm.  How she focussed that thing I can't imagine!  I had a look through the viewfinder and found it very difficult to even find the bird let alone focus on it!

The first image in this post is a 5 shot HDR blend of a scene in the gardens I pass on the way to the cherry trees.  This was taken with the Samyang 8mm fisheye.  I remain fascinated by this lens as I think it gives quite lovely images very rich in colour and quite detailed.

The place where the birds are!!  Look carefully and you may see a few of the tuis.

The second shot in this post shows the trees where the tuis hang out.  Click on the image to get an enlarged view and the look at the kowhai tree in the centre of the shot and you may be able to pick out a few birds.  The eagle eyed amongst you may be able to spot the odd bird in the cherry tree too.  As you can see from this shot is was a bit on the cloudy side today which made it a little awkward to capture the tui's iridescent plumage.  Perhaps I need to visit again tomorrow.

I'll close this post with a few more images of the tuis.  I think I prefer the images when they're in the yellow kowhai tree, perhaps let me know what you think?

At the gardens ...

Pretty tired after work today and, after the gloomy day we had yesterday, I was quite surprised with the clear blue sky when I arrived home.  Time for a stroll around Auckland's Botanic Gardens; get a bit of fresh air and enjoy the onset of spring.

The first shot in this post was taken this evening from one of my favourite vantage points at the Botanic Gardens.  The second shot in the post is a shot you may remember I took early one morning back in July 2004 with a little Canon A70.  If memory serves me it was a little frosty that morning!  Not at all frosty this evening; lovely and warm with well saturated colours from the setting sun.

Ah well, enough reminiscing for one post!  After visiting the lower lake we headed up towards the cherry tree avenue.  It was lovely!  Unfortunately, by the time I got there the sun was pretty low in the sky making the shot I wanted very awkward to achieve.  My best effort is the third image in the post.  What do you think?