Black faced cuckoo shrike

I was a little surprised to learn that a cuckoo shrike is neither a cuckoo, nor a shrike. Maybe they started to run out of names and decided to give this bird a composite name.

Two different views of the same bird below.

The first image was shot at 1/1000 at 288mm, the second at 1/1250 at 302mm, both at 12800 ISO and f/5.6 on the 70-200mm GM II with a 2x teleconverter on the A7RV. I have run these shots through the new Adobe de-noiser to get rid of minor colour noise due to ISO 12800.

Black breasted buzzard in flight

Last time we saw this bird on the ground. I thought I’d prove that she can fly, too.

This was shot at ISO 1000 at f/5.6, 1/2000 at 400mm on the 70-200mm GM II with a 2x teleconverter – wide open and wound all the way out. Shot using bird eye AF on the A7RV.

Black breasted buzzard takes a walk

This bird spends more time on the ground than the other raptors we have been looking at. Here is one going for a brisk walk in the sunshine before a snack.

This was shot at ISO 400 at f/5.6, 1/2000 at 280mm on the 70-200mm GM II with a 1.4x teleconverter. I’m using the A7RV, and loving the powerful auto-focus. I’m processing these image using the most recent update of DxO PhotoLab version 5, but I turned off all the options so you can see the image as shot. This is a serious crop from 9505 x 6336 down to 5100 x 3400.

Gouldian finch

The image above was cropped from a 60Mpixel frame all the way down to just 6Mpixels. It’s quite clear how well the bird eye autofocus is working on the A7RV.

This was shot at ISO 4000 at f/4 at 200mm, 1/2000 using the 70-200mm GM II, without a teleconverter. I’m processing these images using the most recent update of DxO PhotoLab version 5, but the only modification I did was use DeepPrime processing to reduce some noise in the background. I was in an aviary with some light, but not a lot; that is what drove the ISO up to 4000.

You can see why these are also known as rainbow finches.

Wedge tail eagle in flight

Another image shot at Healesville Sanctuary, using the Sony 70-200mm f/2.8 GM II lens on a 1.4x teleconverter on a Sony A7RV. Last one was the smallest Australian raptor, so let’s jump up to the largest. The last image was heavily cropped, this one is barely cropped: this is a crop from 9504 pixels wide to 8000. One thing the two images do share is the excellent focus achieved by the A7RV.

This was shot at ISO 1000 at f/5.6 at 280mm (full zoom on the lens x 1.4x TC), 1/2000. I’m processing these images using the most recent update of DxO PhotoLab version 5, which is the first to support the A7RV, although I am using none of the corrections that PhotoLab provides.

Nankeen kestrel in flight

This bird in flight was captured at Healesville Sanctuary, using the Sony 70-200mm f/2.8 GM II lens on a 1.4x teleconverter on a Sony A7RV. I have shown you other birds captured using this combination, but this shot is exceptional.

The A7RV is using a much slower sensor than the A1. The A1 sensor captures an entire frame in 1/260 of a second, courtesy of its stacked design. The A7RV sensor takes about 1/10 of a second to capture an entire frame, and the A7RV is doing a lot more with the data to be able to do its subject recognition.

So clearly it is completely unreasonable to expect the A7RV to do eye auto-focus on the tiniest raptor in Australia (this is a 140g bird), moving erratically at high speed. especially when the bird is tiny in the frame – correct? Er, no… What?? I won’t tell you that every shot is like this, because they aren’t. But the fact that this camera can pull this off at all is really impressive, and this wasn’t the only one.

I cropped this image from the full 9504×6336 all the way down to 2500×1666 – I am showing you the actual pixels captured around Rusty the kestrel. I’ll show you the full frame and this massive crop below. Click on the gallery to see the images larger. Please

This was shot at ISO 640 at f/5.6 at 280mm (full zoom on the lens x 1.4x TC), 1/2000. I have done minimal editing on the image. I want you to see what I saw when I zoomed in on this.

Osprey in flight

This bird in flight was captured at Healesville Sanctuary, using the Sony 70-200mm f/2.8 GM II lens on a 1.4x teleconverter on a Sony A7RV. The lens was at f/8, and this was shot at 1/2000, ISO 800. I am still learning how to use the A7RV to photograph birds in flight – I wonder if the A1 has made my skills rusty? The A7RV’s new AF isn’t as fast as the A1, but given a little time, can be more accurate.

I cropped this image from the full 9504×6336 down to 6000×4000 (keeping 24 megapixels from the original 60). I’ll show you the full frame below. Click on the gallery to see the images larger.

Kangaroo goes “hmm”

This was taken at Healesville Sanctuary, using the Sony 70-200mm f/2.8 GM II lens wide open at 192mm on a Sony A7RV at 1/2000, ISO 800. I used the new Animal / Bird AF and I’m quite happy with the accuracy of the focus and the level of detail picked up. This image is slightly cropped.

This kangaroo seems to be thinking deep thoughts.