A few years ago

[John Allen]

I was living in Mississippi. How I got there is a long story, but it can definitely wait for a different time. This part of the story, however is much shorter. One of my neighbors was a biology teacher at the nearby high school. He had a beautiful macaw as a housemate. During the day, the macaw, Louie, would spend all day outside. This made for some great photo opportunities in natural settings. Here's one of my favorites. It was taken with an Olympus SP550UZ ultra-zoom camera. That was a really nice camera, as long as I shot it at ISO 50.

The bokeh is pretty bad, but there's not much that can be done with that other than using a different camera/lens.

 

[Rob MacKillop]

No bokeh to speak of, as you say, but the colours are fantastic. Warm and beautiful. What's not to like?

 

[Ivar Dahl-Larsen]

Well since I have a liking to birds, I must say I like it, but feel John that a little more contrast would do fine. Never mind the background. No offence mate.

 

[John Allen]

Well since I have a liking to birds, I must say I like it, but feel John that a little more contrast would do fine. Never mind the background. No offence mate.

Our monitors are definitely not calibrated to each others. I actually think it is right at the limit for contrast and any more would be too much. Obviously, we aren't seeing the same thing. That's the biggest problem with digital images. No two devices can be counted on to show the same image.

 

[Ivar Dahl-Larsen]

You are quite right, it looks more vivid on my pad.

 

[Rense Haveman]

Our monitors are definitely not calibrated to each others. I actually think it is right at the limit for contrast and any more would be too much. Obviously, we aren't seeing the same thing. That's the biggest problem with digital images. No two devices can be counted on to show the same image.

I do definitely not (I say NOT) agree! I just love this photo, nice elephant!

 

[John Allen]

I do definitely not (I say NOT) agree! I just love this photo, nice elephant!

 

[John Holland]

I think I spotted the lizard in Ivar's post "Walking By", but I can't find the elephant in this one.

 

[Pete Askew]

A gorgeous shot, John and the canopy has provided superb lighting for it. Soft, gentle and engaging.

 

[John Allen]

Thanks, Pete. This shot was made possible by the incredible zooming capability in the Olympus super zoom camera I used. It zoomed out to the equivalent of an 800mm+. I didn't have to get so close that he got uncomfortable, but there are always compromises so the images are lacking in some areas. One thing that wasn't compromised was the color capability Olympus managed to get with all of their digital cameras. This one was no different. I was really disappointed when Olympus committed to the Micro 4/3's format, because I knew they were limiting their cameras when it comes to DOF and sensor noise. I ended up going with Nikon instead and really miss using an Olympus camera.