Black swan - practicing with birds

[luenny]

Hi,
Was walking at the botanical gardens looking for subjects to shoot beside the lake when these swans swam near me. They were so near I couldn't refuse taking their beautiful photos. It's a first for me to shoot swans - furthermore black color - and I think I may have used too much flash. Don't laugh-ar.

[budak]

not bad.. big fat birds like ducks and swans are quite hard to frame properly. They should put the black and white swans together.... then shooters will really pengzzz

the botanic gardens Symphony Lake has a colony of whistling ducks (usually among the reeds on the quieter side), a couple of resident storkbilled kingfishers, little herons and water hens that allow you to get quite close, while the nearby Heliconia shrubs are full of sunbirds:

[luenny]

Nice shots Budak. Which lens do you use for the sunbird and the KF? The longest prime lens I have is 180mm and the longest zoom is 200mm.

[budak]

400mm for the KF, sunbird and water hen (the latter too close so uncropped pic couldn't fill in the feet). Ducks with Sigma 70-300mm APO Macro. But the sunbirds can let you go quite close if you still don't spook them, and the ducks too.

[ranmasatome]

If you want to shoot parrots and hornbills come to changi village in the evenings... masses of them...parrots at least.. if you're lucky, you get to shoot the pied hornbills.

[luenny]

Yeah, I saw parrots and hornbills at Changi village that time we went to Ubin too. I heard there are lots of hornbills in Ubin.

[ranmasatome]

Ubin has tonnes of birds.. ketam bike park has a host of raptors.. black shouldered kite, white bellied sea eagle, honey buzzard just to name a few.
The hornbills at ubin are doing so well they are now coming onto mainland. yay.

[trident]

Luenny,
I saw a couple hornbills at Saddle club and of course those at Changi Village.
Now planning to visit Ubin again.......soon.

[luenny]

I'm not that keen. I want to master one thing at a time. I don't think I can handle so many different subjects at once.

[trung_bmt]

Very nice pic. Last time I didn't see the black swan. There had only one white swan with small ducks. Thanks for sharing.

[luenny]

I think the white swans are in another lake. The black ones are in the Eco lake.