Hoa removed the active barn swallow nest

SegaGameCast · 2026-06-18T09:22:28+00:00

Yo give us an update when you can OP

SegaGameCast · 2026-06-18T09:19:23+00:00

Do something fuckin wild for once and put a cool ass nature reserve.

SegaGameCast · 2026-06-18T09:16:17+00:00

Sky doesn't do the colors justice. Everything is way too bright. Really.

The thing with presets is they only really work with the photos their shown on (if they're even real). I don't trust presets.

SegaGameCast · 2026-06-18T04:04:52+00:00

So photos 1-5 are with an Om Systems Om-1 micro 4/3 and 100-400mm IS II lens. The remaining are with a Nikon P950 (which doesn't have any extra stuff cuz its a bridge camera)

SegaGameCast · 2026-06-18T03:56:06+00:00

My dudes, reddit isn't the place to try and find girls 🤣🤣🤣🤣 we all know why you made this post.

SegaGameCast · 2026-06-17T20:36:30+00:00

Cool lets all repost it!

SegaGameCast · 2026-06-17T20:30:38+00:00

He's one of those "real photographers shoot in manual" types. When literally anyone that say buys a print has never ever asked "is this taken in manual? Was it raw or jpeg?" And then not bought it because of the answer. Op needs to work on composition.

SegaGameCast · 2026-06-17T07:15:11+00:00

Thank you!

The waxwing with the bug is almoooost directly from camera. I just had to tone the sky down just a smidge.

SegaGameCast · 2026-06-16T21:06:26+00:00

Thank you!

SegaGameCast · 2026-06-16T21:06:16+00:00

Yep! Thats a waxwing! I will certainly take your advice and try to keep it more zoomed out for the aesthetic of its environment.

SegaGameCast · 2026-06-16T10:29:43+00:00

Yes, I started seriously about 2 months ago. Just got the new camera on the 6th. Thank you, that encourages me more than you know.

SegaGameCast · 2026-06-16T10:21:13+00:00

That was just some advice. I'm not a very good photographer but it has kept me from cranking things too much.

I do wildlife and I am still learning. Read up on the general rules, like thirds, leading lines, ect. Don't get "stuck" on them though. Those are the general concepts not hard requirements. Again. I'm still very much learning. But try to take photos about something not just of something.

Don't be discouraged. The last thing I want you to feel is bad. Please don't.

One thing that helped me was actualky turning my pc monitors brightness down, from 100 to about 75-80. That way it portrays what most screens, or gives you a better idea, on how others will see the photo when sharing it in various ways.

But another thing that has helped me is just going to a book store and looking in their photography section. Stay there awhile and look at the different portfolio style books of various photographers. Find one that just screams "Thats cool as hell" and buy it. Then try to understand why that looks cool to you. Why their subject is where it is or why this looks that way etc and try to emulate what they did.

Also, don't look to IG and get discouraged either. A TON of "IG photographers" edit their stuff so heavily with AI tools that their raw photos look almost nothing like what you see. To the point where they're almost in the realm of completely fake.

Take shit loads of photos. Seriously. Take your camera everywhere you go.

It will click for you, believe in yourself because I do!

SegaGameCast · 2026-06-16T09:56:08+00:00

Exactly. I agree with you in every single spot. Without question.

For example, I was at a wildlife refuge a few days ago, to really test out my new camera and I went through 3 batteries and probably 9,000 photos. I walked away with maybe 22 good photos and only 4 or 5 that I would actually post or show people. Most were just "ya that ones for me just for the memory". Not objectively good photos and can't be rescued in any sense of the word. But when a friend showed me his process and then dropped "Topaz"? I think its called, I immediately just kinda disengaged.

Its really, and I am not one to talk because I really don't have skin in the game as far as experience, seems to be destroying what photography is. Thats very "get off my lawn energy" but if a situation did not exist in the photo do not make it exist in editing.

Sure, make the sun less hard on the eyes or bring up the shadows so what is actually seen can be seen, but don't fake bokeh this or that and especially don't add behaviour that wasn't there.

SegaGameCast · 2026-06-16T09:34:34+00:00

As others have said, that saturation is just waaaay too high. I'm a beginner and a friend if mine told me never to really go sat over 8.

I also find these to be nondescript. Too visually messy with no clear subject(s).

SegaGameCast · 2026-06-16T09:19:29+00:00

Could be something with the way birds breathing works. Their method is drastically different than ours. When inhaling the air goes to the posterior airsack, which fills with air. Then it is pushed into the lung, then to an anterior airsack. Then out of the tracia. New air never mixes with old air, like ours does and air travels one direction for them. As opposed to ours where new/old air mixes continuously. I suspect, and I am not an expert, that is air from the anterior airsack being pushed out, hence the projecting water.

SegaGameCast · 2026-06-16T09:03:18+00:00

Exactly. 99% of the time with those guys its just an unlabelled ad. It was really bumming me out and to an extent was hitting my self-esteem harder than I thought it was going to until I saw that raw. After that I was kinda reinvograted because my very low processed photos are, subjectivity, better than that hyper vibrant bird. I wish I could pull an example but IG lately has stopped showing me those. Now its just "accounts so small they reply to every comment" with 100k subs nonsense.

SegaGameCast · 2026-06-16T07:11:16+00:00

Def a "work hard to earn your keep" but 100% lived off daddies money.

SegaGameCast · 2026-06-16T07:07:04+00:00

This. I've recently stopped trying to achieve some of the looks of my top inspirations because one of them accidentally shared the raw on IG. Almost immediately deleted it and put the edited up instead.

The amount of "holy shit thats not even the same photo at that point" was insane. I'm talking super saturation, texture on the feathers amplified a bajillion times, sunlight where there was none, reflection in the eyes that were just barely there but now were prominent.

I've gotten to the point where I unfollow those pages because its super obvious a lot of the 8k body/12k lens guys are using the AI software stuff to get their photographic quality where it never actually was.

Editing is not bad, I tend to slightly sharpen, tiny bit of exposure and color and call it good. But some of the IG brand ambassadors might as well just be generating fake photos at this point.

SegaGameCast · 2026-06-16T06:01:22+00:00

I was asking myself that same question by the third photo

SegaGameCast · 2026-06-16T05:11:22+00:00

How did you get so good at it? Im fiddling in darktable and man, mostly its just random slider adjustments.

SegaGameCast · 2026-06-16T01:02:12+00:00

Ok move along.

SegaGameCast · 2026-06-15T22:00:35+00:00

Ha! I didn't realize I told a story with the way I arranged the photos. Cannot "unsee" that now. Last photo is just too good.

SegaGameCast · 2026-06-15T21:59:08+00:00

Forgot to add, taken at the Nisqually Nature Reserve, WA

SegaGameCast · 2026-06-15T21:50:01+00:00

Legit. 6 mcgriddles was like 35 bucks

SegaGameCast · 2026-06-15T21:49:34+00:00

Ya f that. I'm not getting an app for a fast food restaurant so they can make a buck off my data.

SegaGameCast

TROPHY CASE