New Camera

There's a local birder who has a pretty decent camera and some of his images are sickeningly good. I've kinda had my eye on a similar model for myself. Problem is, the one he owns cost him fifteen hundred quid, and I wasn't hugely keen on that sort of a price tag. However, after a further eighteen months of looking at his images and comparing them with my own dismal digi-binned efforts, I decided enough was enough and bit the bullet. Last week I found myself holding a pre-owned Sony RX10 IV and planned to put it to use just as soon as the rain stopped.

And then my car's exhaust system decided that it was fed up with life and promptly committed harakiri. I know a guy who tinkers with cars and he managed to successfully resuscitate it from death, though a major organ transplant is required later this week. For the moment my car is driveable once more, providing I keep the revs at a painfully low level. Hence the Sony finally got its first outing this afternoon. 

First attempt, totally uncropped and straight off the card

Agreed, it's a very mediocre image but not too bad for first press of the button. Pale birds on a dark background in grey weather was never going to be the easiest of subject matters, I have a lot to learn with this camera!

Crop from above image. Passable as a 'record shot', should I ever need to submit a pic of a rarity

Oh dear, two shots in and he's trying to be all arty n' stuff...

I quite like this pic of a Curlew

Like I said, I have a lot to learn regards using this camera. Fingers crossed my images will start to improve before too much longer. I'm hoping it will work well as a macro lens too, inverts and plants being my other main area of photographic interest. I don't have any kind of post-production editing software, but I think I'd rather just learn to use the camera rather than rely on fixing crap imagery after the event. 

Way out on the shore I spotted what appeared to be a Carrion Crow alongside a Hoodie. Carrion Crow is an absolute Mega here on Skye. I only know of one that has turned up since I moved here in 2016 (and yep, I twitched it!) So to possibly have one in front of me now was rather exciting. Through my 10x bins, I couldn't really be certain if it was a Carrion Crow or a young Rook. The distance was just a bit too far to clinch details. I wondered if the camera could do any better.

I had more magnification at full zoom than I could achieve with my binoculars!

Slightly higher elevation to get above the foreground vegetation 

At this point I was starting to think it was more likely to be a young Rook, though this is the first time I've ever seen a Rook on the foreshore here. I took a few more images and then decided to zoom in, see what, if anything, I could discern.

Clinched

So there you have it. I strongly suspected I was looking at a Carrion Crow, which is an exceptional find on Skye, and the camera proved otherwise. This bird is a young Rook, hanging around with a Hoodie on a beach where I've never before seen a Rook. The camera, on its very first outing, has proven invaluable and saved me from looking like a complete noob in front of Skye's (very small) birding circle. Happy days!

I anticipate pointing the Sony at many more birds over the next few months, seeing as invert and plant action will be taking something of a backseat until the weather warms up again next year. I might even manage images of things like Grey Seals and Otters with luck. Pity I didn't have this camera whilst watching the Sperm Whale earlier this year. 

And just in case Skev stills reads this tosh....