Of course I did go out more with the new Nikon D500 camera, to see what it can do.To summarize my findings so far: the autofocus is really very fast, but the pictures are not all as sharp as I had hoped.  That said, I did make progress with the flying swallows.  ISO 200 can very close to pixel-sharp and while even 400 ISO images are not noise free, a 10,000 ISO image can be made presentable.

You can click on the pictures in the post to show them in the 800×533 resolution that I exported them with.

Birds in flight

First another Northern Lapwing (Kievit), with spot metering.  1/4000sec, f/5.6, ISO 400, taken with a 300mm F2.8 lens.  The crop that I created the JPG from was 1268×846 pixels out of 5568×3712.

Northern Lapwing (Kievit)

Next a Common Buzzard (Buizerd), also with spot metering.  This picture is taken with the new 80-400 zoom lens at 400mm F5.6.  ISO 200 and 1/1600 second.  View NXi shows that the focus point is not exactly on the bird, although I am not sure that makes too much of difference.

Common Buzzerd (Buizerd)

Finally Barn Swallow (Boerenzwaluw), a picture I would never have been able to make with the D7100 and the 80-400mm.  Also with spot metering, 1/2000 sec f/5.6, ISO 200 at 400mm.   Unlike the Lapwing and the Buzzerd, this swallow is a very fast moving bird!

Barn Swallow (Boerenzwaluw)

None of these pictures would make it to the www.birdpix.nl site, but it is progress as compared to day 1.   The Nikon D500 does have more options with respect to the autofocus, it is quite possible that more experience and patience will give sharper pictures.

Very low light

The Nikon D500 is advertised to have good low light capabilities, so let me show an example of that too.  Below a Mandarin Duck (mandarijneend) taken with the 300mm F2.8 lens  The settings were 1/500sec, f/5.6, ISO 11400.  This is based on a crop of 1598×1064 pixels.  Given the ISO, it is actually pretty impressive what the camera and Lightroom can make of this picture.  Before Adobe Lightroom, it did not look as impressive.  The camera has a tendency to overexpose it seems.

Mandarin Duck(Mandarijneend)

Optimal conditions

Finally some pictures from this morning, with very good light.   Taken with the 300mm F2.8 lens, 1/500sec, f/5.6, ISO 200.  The first picture is a bit light (highlights have been dimmed a bit), but certainly sharp.

Great Crested Grebe (Fuut)

To show the sharpness that can be reached a crop from just the Grebe’s head.  This is a crop in actual pixels (if you click the image), so no size reduction was done.  Also f/5.6, ISO 200, this one 1/640 sec.

1:1 Crop (Click Photo)

Also another bird in flight: a Black-headed Gull (kokmeeuw) crossing the trail I walked.  So this bird was very close, the crop is 1405×935 pixels.  ISO 200, 1/2500sec, f/5.6 with the 300mm F2.8 lens.

Black-headed Gull (Kokmeeuw)

With excellent light like this, the D500 is almost a point-and-click camera for birding.  The 300mm F2.8 lens probably also helped, as compared to the 80-400mm F5.6 that I used for the other pictures.  A duck that flew just in front of me came out pretty decent too.  That would have been impossible with the D7100.

Processing the raw images

View NXi is the current version of the Nikon photo viewer.  It is View NX with some updates.  It is still a good viewer.  View NXi is needed to interpret Nikon specific data, like seeing the autofocus points.  I could not yet find an Adobe Lightroom plugin to show the focus points for the D500 raw files.

Capture NX-D is the replacement product for Capture NX2, but I did not like it.  So I am learning to use Adobe Lightroom 6 now.  Version 6 is needed to get Nikon D500 support.  Adobe did actually have a reasonably priced upgrade from my Version 5 product, so I did not have buy the subscription (yet).  Some Capture NX2 like functions are available in the Google NIK toolset that integrates in Lightroom.  This is now a free download.

Adobe Lightroom does not update the raw files.  In a way that is a good thing, but for the software I wrote to create my birding website I need the metadata (bird name and location) in the raw and JPG files.   I see two options: use View NXi for the tagging like before, and/or use EXIFTOOL and some scripted code to copy the metadata from the Adobe XMP sidecar in the raw and JPG files.  I tried a few simple cases, and that works conceptually. I just need to do some coding around it.

All the JPGs in this post are exports from Adobe Lightroom.   Sharpening is typically set around 5, radius at 1.1-1.2 and detail between 25 and 35.  Where possible, I used masking to avoid sharpening the noise in the background.

Bij de Oesterdam zitten bij elke winter sneeuwgorzen, schrijft Chiel Jacobusse in zijn stukje over de Witkopgors in de PZC.  Inderdaad staan ze nog dagelijks op waarneming.nl, dus ik ga ook maar eens kijken.

Samen met mijn zus loop ik naar de locatie van de waarnemingen.  Na een half uurtje ziet ze de gorzen als groepje neerstrijken vlak bij ons.  Veel dichter bij het water dan ik had gedacht, ze zitten zelfs ook op het slik.

Op de ruwe stenen van de zeewering levert het mooie foto’s op.

Sneewgors

De sneeuwgors is alleen in de winter hier te vinden, hij broedt in het noorden van Noorwegen, op Spitsbergen, en in het noorden van Rusland.  Als ze in Nederland zijn, zoeken ze zaden aan de vloedlijn.  Ze zijn helemaal niet schuw, wat altijd fijn is als je foto’s wilt maken.  Een paar van de close-ups hieronder.

Sneeuwgors (man)

Mannetje en vrouwtje zien er iets anders uit, het mannetje heeft meer wit op de borst.

Sneeuwgors (vrouw)

Ik had niet verwacht de vogels ook op het slik te zien, maar ze onderzoeken ook de schelpen.

Sneeuwgors

Op dezelfde plaats zijn ook strandleeuwerikken waargenomen, maar die laten zie niet zien als wij er zijn.  Een belangstellende fietser weet wel te melden dat ze gezien zijn, en dat het volgens hem nieuw is.  De sneeuwgorzen zitten er al jaren, dat is niet zo bijzonder…

Het Schorretje

Zo af en toe is een trekvogeltje helemaal de weg kwijt.  Zo ook de witkopgors die al een paar weken op een klein stukje schor aan de Oosterschelde dijk bij Wilhelminadorp bivakkeert. Het vogeltje trekt dagelijks zeker 100 vogelaars, die allemaal proberen een plaatje te maken, of in elk geval het beestje te spotten.   Best wel bijzonder dat het beestje na zo’n lange tocht dan ineens weken op een plek blijft hangen.

Als we aankomen horen we dat er maar een vogeltje in het schor zit, de witkopgors.  Zo af en toe laat hij zich even zien.  Even komt hij (of zij) aan onze kant van het hek, maar af snel is hij weer terug achter het hek.  Na een goed half uur gaat een van de vogelaars toch maar eens kijken bij hek, en inderdaad, het vogeltje zit er vlak achter.

Fotospot

Dan moet het ook mogelijk zijn om een foto te maken, dus ik ga naar het hek, op veilige afstand.  Nog steeds niet makkelijk om de vogel te vinden, maar hij zit tussen de rode handschoen de fles… Er ligt veel afval op het schorretje.

Helaas komt de witkopgors amper in vol zicht, dus het is een beetje behelpen met de foto’s.  Maar met 600mm en heel veel pixels in de camera wordt het toch nog een aardige foto.

Witkopgors

Het is geen kleurrijk vogeltje, ik zou de soort zelf nooit hebben vaststellen met mijn vogelgids.  Er zijn veel soorten gorzen die in het hoge noorden broeden en dan in de winter naar een gematigd klimaat trekken.  De witkopgors komt voor ten oosten van de Oeral, en overwintert niet westelijker dan de Kaspische Zee in Rusland.  Aldus Cheil Jacobusse van het Zeeuws Landschap.

Witkopgors

Whitewater Draw is not only about cranes.

The very first bird is a Great Horned Owl (Amerikaanse Oehoe), roosting in the covered lunch area. The Dutch bird picture site birdpix has a picture of this same bird in the same location from last year!

Great Horned Owl

There are many ducks in the area. Nothern Pintails, Shovelers and Cinnamon Teal. For me, the Cinnamon Teal (Kaneeltaling) was the most special bird, so I took his picture.

Cinnamon Teal

The white-crowned sparrow (Witkruingors) is a common bird in all of the US. On the lake shore at Whitewater Draw there were very many.

White-crowned Sparrow

There were many flycatchers too. This is a female Vermilion Flycatcher (Rode tiran), not as colorful as the red male, but still a beautiful bird.

Vermilion Flycatcher

The Common Yellowtroat (Gewone maskerzanger) looks tropical, but actually breeds in all Canada and the US. The birds winter in Central America and the southern states of the US.

Common Yellowtroat

As a leave the preserve, a group of Western Meadowlarks (Geelkaakweidespreeuw) is sitting on the fence. Unfortunately they did not wait for me to get my camera ready, so this picture is from very far and not very good. Still, it is another new species for me.

Western Meadowlark

Sandhill Cranes (Canadese kraanvogels) winter in the southern part of the US in very large groups near water. One of these wintering areas is Whitewater Draw in the Southeastern part of Arizona, about 2 hours drive from Tucson. Whitewater Draw is a nature preserve around a lake, set aside mostly to protect the Sandhill Cranes. According to the signs posted, about 80,000 crane come together in the winter in this area.

The Cranes have a very predictable daily routine: around sunrise they leave to go feed on the fields in the area. They like corn and wheat. Given the number of birds, I suspect the farmers are paid to grow the food for the cranes, but I have not been able to find information about that.

When I arrive around 8 in the morning there are no cranes at all. A lady says who is walking her dog tells me ‘you are late’. For moment I thought she meant that the cranes left for Canada, but then she says they will be back at 10:30. And indeed they are.

It is harder than I expected to get good pictures, because the cranes are pretty far from the viewing areas. As more cranes arrive, however, the later birds do come closer to the boardwalk.

Sandhill Crane

The birds gather in very large numbers. Thousands of birds that appear on the horizon like a black cloud, as if it is a group of sparrows.

Sandhill Cranes

After they arrive, they just relax.

Sandhill Crane

Or they go look for friends on the other side of the lake. Or whatever reason they have to cross the lake.

Sandhill Crane