Venison or Duck?

[JohnMurphy]

A couple of shots from this weekend. On Saturday I went down to Ballsbridge to pick up my son who was at a music fair. I cut through Herbert Park and was surprised to see a collection of Mandarin Ducks - about five pairs and juveniles. On Sunday I escaped for a few hours up the Wicklow Mountains tracking a Sika Stag.

Mandarin Duck (Aix galericulata) by John C. Murphy, on Flickr

Wild Sika Stag 1 by John C. Murphy, on Flickr

Wild Sika Stag 3 by John C. Murphy, on Flickr

[markt]

Very, very good shots John.  What glass were you using?

[JohnC]

Wonderful photos, John. The mandarin looks painted doesn't it - nature's  a wonderful  thing. You always get great deer photos too, you have a good population of  Sika round there. I checked them out and they originally came from east Asia and the word Sika is Japanese for ...er... deer. Lol.  In NI they are most common in the counties of Fermanagh and Tyrone - is that where you were ?

[rjgjr]

The duck has such beautiful colors, and the Stag is in such a striking pose. Great shots John!

[JohnMurphy]

Mark - the glass is a Sigma 150-500 F5-6.3 APO DG OS (its welded on at this stage).

JohnC - The shots were taken in the Dublin/Wicklow Mountains.

I'm not happy with the deer shots - lighting was very difficult (bright light and deep shade), and there is a lot of moiré, caused by the background and the lighting conditions I think (a gaussian blur would relieve it but the shots not worth the effort). Most importantly they are not pin sharp.

[JohnC]

Just checked out the word moire. (I don't know how to put an acute accent over the  e ) ...I haven't come across it before. There was something about the background which I noticed was different to bokeh but put it down to halfway bokeh but I've now seen examples of moire  and for others on here who aren't aware of it I found a good explanation. 

'The pattern isn't what's actually in the foliage but created by the  light pattern. When light hits it in a certain way a moire pattern emerges  because the light is alternating with shadow,where the effect isn't apparent  it's because the light isn't bouncing off in the same way. A good example is if someone on the tv is wearing a shirt with tight checkerboard patterns, it will appear to shimmer and move - an optical illusion'

I put the 'softness ' in  the photos  down to movement because  they're such scatty  and nervous creatures  - the deer in photo 2 looks vey nervous and  is already on the move. I  don't know how you go about getting your deer shots,John  but I think the only way is to be 'in the very close proximity, hidden,even camouflaged maybe. I still think you get excellent  deer photos even if on this occasion you're  disappointed.,

Of course, the Wicklow mountains..Dublin, I'll say an expression that Richard will recognise..'my bad'.

[JohnMurphy]

John - thanks for the moiré info.
Moiré can be caused by a number of things. Sensor resolution is one (not the case here as I'm at 15Mp). Lighting and repetitive patterns (In this case it is a contributory factor). The main reason for Moiré here I think is a combination of the background pattern and the blades on the Iris of the lens. The best lenses will have lots of circular blades and produce an almost circular opening. The Canon L series 70-200 has 8 circular blades. My (relatively) cheap Sigma 150-500 has 9 diaphragm blades so it shouldn't be such a problem. Therefore the main reason must be the patterns caused by the lighting conditions in the background. Its not too often you run up against this one, so I'm not going to worry about it for now.

B.T.W. hold down CTRL and ALT then press the letter to get an acute. e.g. áéíóú 

[Conor McDonald]

excellent shots, lovely and clean and i never knew where that meat came from, until now

[JohnC]

Cheers, John-especially for the last bit  re.  CTRL and ALT. I'll probably forget that by the time I need to use it again Lol.

[martinastro]

Great captures John, I love the Stag images, especially the first!. I think you are a great photographer and also a perfectionist, the image looks fantastic to me although I'm no expert on wild life photography. The light is great and the scene really says something special to the viewer, it's the 'rite moment' kind of shot and you where there to get it. I've learned something new from this thread - moiré being the main one, very educational. The shallow DOF really addes to the atmosphere. Keep them coming John. 

Incidentally has anyone seen the new photography series on channel 5 called 'How to take stunning photographs'?...presented by Sue from the Gadget Show, it's worth checking out, nothing we all don't already know however it's fun to watch.

[Danny Power]

Excellent images

I saw a duck just like that on the leeds to liverpool canal last year, never saw it after that.