Anyways, I had visited St James's earlier in my random walks around London, and wanted to come back equipped for a shoot. So why not, I won't miss my 300/4 as the light was getting low anyways.
Took the hood off, braced it against the railings and managed this peaceful shot. Went as low as I could without obstructing traffic. There is actually another duck smack dab in the middle of the frame, but it's been bokeh'ed to oblivion :P To be honest, I'm not really happy with the bokeh of this particular shot, I'm already experimenting with using Gimp and its Focus blur plugin to smooth out the out of focus areas. Been reasonably sucessful, however alot of time has to be spent cleaning up. I'll see how that goes. And yes, this particular water fowl does not have red eyes... it's my on board flash... :P
I'd taken a fair bit of water fowl shots - none of the moorhens as they tend to annoyingly shy away from lenses - but that was the only shot I liked of the day. The rest of the time I was chasing squirrels.... the above shot, again I have a love hate relationship with this sort of bokeh. I wish I could stop down to get more of the background in focus - smooth bokeh is nice, but having it all as a blob of nothingness is not what I like - but I was fighting light, or the lack of, light.
The reds here were really chasing people for food. I had several run around *on my shoes* hoping I would feed them.
100% crop. 2.8/160, ISO800 isn't too shabby.
But with proper conditions...
ISO 200, F4/500, the D200 and 70-200 can produce excellent results for all the pixel peepers in us - nb: this is with Bibble Pro's default sharpening. If I used Sean's Sharpie Pro for Bibble, I'd be able to pull out more detail. I'll definitely do that before I send for a large print.
Oh, the tiger? Not in St. James's park ok? :)
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