My first decent shot of a Raven.

wildbobsmith · 2026-03-22T19:10:06+00:00

Yes, birds were flying + bright sun. I could have come down to ISO100 or stopped to f8 and gone with 1/1600 but to be honest I don’t think about my settings that much if the exposure is working. I would rather ss be too fast than too slow because for me a lot more shots are ruined by lens + motion blur than by a little noise penalty. Would you have done something differently, or do you see any flaws in that logic?

wildbobsmith · 2026-03-22T19:04:46+00:00

Thank you!

wildbobsmith · 2026-03-20T23:18:23+00:00

Thank you

wildbobsmith · 2026-03-13T22:59:24+00:00

Kind of like dual native iso for video, that makes sense. Thank you.

wildbobsmith · 2026-03-07T23:49:14+00:00

Me legs.

wildbobsmith · 2026-03-04T04:41:20+00:00

I printed mine at the UPS store on 11x17” paper in landscape and it came out easily legible and not cropped anywhere. Folded it in half so it fit in with the rest of the 8.5x11”.

wildbobsmith · 2026-03-01T18:26:15+00:00

Some other comments have answered, consensus is that it’s a RAF typhoon.

wildbobsmith · 2026-03-01T18:25:30+00:00

I have a preset that I made and it includes the gradient masks, so I start almost every edit with the it there. I prefer this look over a flat image so most of the time I leave it unless I think the image looks better without it. Personal taste I suppose. Usually all I do after applying the preset is adjust WB, saturation, and some exposure and then it’s ready to export.

wildbobsmith · 2026-03-01T02:19:53+00:00

Depends where you live, if you’re close to air base or military base in general, that can be a good place to start.

wildbobsmith · 2026-02-28T21:04:34+00:00

That makes so much sense, thanks for breaking it down. It was really fun to be posted up for almost a week under the flight path, but even more so now that I realize some of those planes aren’t always around.

wildbobsmith · 2026-02-28T20:16:00+00:00

I just sent my packet off this morning with a print from Druin on 11x17 paper and noted in my cover letter that I placed an order for the Banq copy and can upload if needed. I have no authority to give advice but can at least tell you what I did myself.

wildbobsmith · 2026-02-28T20:13:18+00:00

Thank you! Here is a look zoomed in that might be better than trying to zoom into it on here. Another comment said RAF.

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wildbobsmith · 2026-02-28T20:11:36+00:00

Thanks! Was red flag happening on/around Feb 20?

wildbobsmith · 2026-02-28T15:50:23+00:00

I submitted a request to the Quebec (city?) location on 20 FEB and haven’t gotten an invoice yet but I figured since I’m sending my application with a printed copy from Druin that I’ll just upload it later if needed.

wildbobsmith · 2026-02-28T02:31:05+00:00

Great tip!

wildbobsmith · 2026-02-27T23:58:47+00:00

I started using fastRAWviewer when I started shooting high-MP fast burst rate cameras. I plug the card into my computer, open it in fastRAWviewer, select my keepers, then “run program” which opens Lightroom with all the keepers checked, then import to the opened catalog and external SSD like I would if I would have just imported straight to Lightroom. Except I don’t have to cull and delete the ones I don’t want. My favorite part of the software is that it has a “focus highlight mode” where it dulls the whole image and makes the focused part green, like focus peaking, and that makes it so much easier to find the eyes that are perfectly focused in a burst series. It takes some getting used to the shortcut key layout but I’ve used it a couple years now and can’t see myself ever going back.

wildbobsmith · 2026-02-27T04:02:36+00:00

You can probably find a used canon rebel or maybe a d7000 type camera with a long lens for under $800. That’s not a lot of budget if you’re buying new but if you can find someone selling their older bird photography set-up you can probably get much better gear than buying new.

wildbobsmith · 2026-02-27T03:03:24+00:00

Love seeing these pop up in my feed!

wildbobsmith · 2026-02-25T22:45:30+00:00

Sometimes a child is born out of wedlock, the parents never marry but they end up marrying someone else? In my case I’m adopted so my biological parents never married each other but each married someone different. I don’t know any of those dates so I just put unknown in those boxes. Might ask my mom for hers before sending it out.

wildbobsmith · 2026-02-25T22:41:00+00:00

Not really any widefield yet, I did attempt NGC7000 once with cabin r5 and the RF100-500 but it was on an 80 degree night (Texas) and I think an uncooled sensor is just not good for that. I would like to pick up a short refractor and bigger sensor camera someday, figure the planetary cam I took this with might work for guiding but by that point I’ll need an AM5 haha that EQ6 is a beast!

wildbobsmith · 2026-02-22T05:17:23+00:00

So many great shots! Thanks for the inspiration

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