Nikond600

@withoutaleaf heading off to work the whole night through. Night shoots are pretty brutal. We’re finally getting some rain and cold weather after our Indian summer. It was beautiful yesterday when I went to vote 30 years after my and South Africa’s first time voting in a democratic election. While we have many political problems, our electoral system isn’t one of them - it’s far more robust than those in many lauded democracies. Hopefully its strengths will eventually lead to better governance. ...

Another one. Can’t get over how sharp this Nikon 1.4x teleconverter is on the 200-500mm. This is a heavy crop (I didn’t get any stunners today) and I could have gone further because all the detail is there.

Today was another perfect winter’s day in Cape Town. The end of May had absolutely no business being this hot and sunny. My dad and I went to Kirstenbosch for lunch and lugged big lenses to photograph sunbirds because - to top it off - the aloes were flowering in blazing Technicolor, making a feast for the wee nectar suckers. It was simply too hot… in May… to stay long photographing them in the sun. ...

Ham and cheese please. Last night’s @krakatoa_band practice we were graced with the presence of l’organiste, @jason66c - here adopting a classic Tintin style panel impersonation. #hawaiifiveo is sounding absolutely amazing with Alex on the drums. We’ll be playing sometime in June.

More jpeg experiments. I’ve loved “blue hour” since before I knew it was called that. But this is the first time I think I’ve ever photographed it. I just used to think of it as that time when the interior lights matched the intensity of the ambient light. Per my previous post, I backed off the saturation on the “Vivid” Nikon picture control setting from 3 to 2 - although the full kazoo might have worked here. It’s really only on green foliage that I find it too lurid to stand.

I’m getting to grips with the Nikon D600. It’s criminal how little I knew about this camera before. So now I’m trying to really learn it to get the most out of it. One thing that involves is setting up a hybrid jpeg/raw approach where I have useable jpegs like I do for my Fuji - that require little to no editing for sanity and quick sharing. Here I’m experimenting with the jpeg at max saturation. Probably ott but I’m not ruling it out for wildlife and some landscapes and architecture. ...

We have a number of large herons in South Africa. As a rule they’re pretty shy. But for some reason yesterday morning we kept coming across Black Headed Herons that were close to the road or even had to be persuaded to move.

Then there was this mystery buzzard. Common Buzzard? Something more unusual. I dunno. Will update.

Morning flamingos. 🦩 @millar6300 @joydemillar and I went to Strandfontein and started seeing big flocks of greater flamingos straight away in the early light.

This young guy has been going through some exciting times. It’s wonderful watching him and his sister growing into kind and passionate young adults.