Krishnan Photography

Hit Uran again today. The tide was out but, the water was let in at places I guess. Hence, the birds were not near the road. The fishermen were in full flow early in the morning further driving the birds to the far side.

Crab Fishing :-)..Actually the guy threw away this crab since he had snagged a fish .

At the Jacana point the Juv Pheasant Tailed Jacana has grown bigger

Spent most of the time today tracking a Marsh Harrier Pair. Actually should have notched up the ISO to 400 but then I got this one Marsh Harrier sparring shot on ISO 250 . Wish I had a 600mm + TC though ! Might have filled a little more of the frame !

Few more shots from today ..click here

Getting pro gear in India is such a pain ( thats another story in itself for some other time ) but finally on 20th October 2007, I got hold of a VR 300mm F2.8G lens.

I was being told time and time again by a lot of folks that I need to upgrade from the Sigma 50-500. The Sigma 50-500 is a superb lens for the price but yes it does get a bit limiting on the AF speed and the Image Quality (IQ) if the light is not too good and especially on a D2X which exposes the lens limitations pretty quickly.

Well..to start with the 300 is a lot heavier and well a lot “Macho” to look at. The VR certainly helps and the best part is what is probably extremely understated, the ” Nikon Nano Coating ” . This one really really works and works amazingly well.

Ok now how did I get to this conclusion ? The last sunday I was shooting spoonbills with the Sigma and that too pretty much into the rising sun. All the photos were like mud and I had a real hard time with lens flare that killed the pictures and made them look like mud. Now this sunday, enter the Nano Coating on the 300mm and the results are way better in pretty much the same conditions. Just that this sunday I got no spoonbills but, greater flamingos at the same spot !!!We had seen the flock come in on the previous Sunday (14th October 2007) but the birds had been too far for any photographic efforts. The Nano Coating cuts lens flare and improves the image contrast.

A quick image comparison ( by no means scientific ) between the Sigma 50-500 and the Nikon 300mm 2.8 with TC 17.

Grey Heron ( On the left is the Sigma and on the Right is the Nikon )

I clamped on my TC 1.7 and all shots are are with the TC which gave me a reach of 510mm.

Godwit in the of Pink Dawn. A dash of fill in flash used here.

Them ‘Mingoes’. I captioned this image “Firewalk”

a few more

A Godwit in the rising sun

I then gave the VR a spin by doing hand held shots. The AF even with the TC is very good and the AF can seriously keep pace with the action. Looking very good ….the lens

A Red Avadavat foraging nesting material.

An Indian Roller Fly-by. I used the Dynamic AF here ( The second from bottom setting of the 4 level AF possibilities switch on the back of the D2X )

A Diving Tern

Well you can see all the shots from this outing here.

This is the ultimate lens for CQB ( Close Quarter Birds ) or BIF (Birds in Flight) photography and of course mammals.

After the rains in September, the Uran area pools are full of water and just perfect for the incoming migrants to stage on their way inwards from the west. The best way to capture the beauty of Uran wetland ( well I wonder how long that will remain given the rapid development activities that are starting up in the area ) is to get to Uran real early. I am usually already at Uran at dawn. Yep sleeping early and waking up at 4.15AM and a nice strong cuppa of “Kaapi” dicoction peabury coffee helps seriously !!!

“” The Bombay Bir’ Pah’ “” …exactly like they mostly sound when they say in Singapore “Bir Pah” for “Bird Park” for the Jurong Bird Park

Godwits in the morning glow…shot from the car window with a cushion as a beanbag.

Spoonbills coming in to land at the Temple Pond. Bang against the light and the Sigma isnt exactly stellar when it comes to image quality. I had to do a lot of hard work in post processing to bring out this image. The spoonbills I noticed are spooked if you get out of the car..so best is to shoot from inside the car.

The Marsh Harriers are in ….got this interesting frame of the pair playing “tag”.

And a Wood sandpiper liftoff

I tried to get an eye level shot by crawling on the ground. Even though the birds were a little distance away, I did get an interesting eye level perspective of these Ruffs. Must do more of these type of shots

A Scaley Breasted Munia

A black headed ibis and a glossy ibis together

One of my favourite shot here a trio of Marsh Sandpipers kinda marching in sync..the slight panning helped in this shot and also shot from the car.

And when we had almost wrapped up our morning and were sipping some hot tea from the thermos we had carried along, a Jungle crow came by and perched very near on the railing at the “view point”

Click here to see all images from this outing.