I think the real bonus is the choppy water - it comes out really nicely as a background.

It would be possible to fall foul of annoying, harrassing, content-free, “Should have just hit ‘Like’”, and other such rules and conventions of the subreddit. A good starting test for your sister would be “Would I like it if every other member of it did what I was doing in my favourite subreddit?”

It sounds like the R5 MkII is a bit better behaved than the R10, but I recognise all your complaints from when the “camera is in a bad mood” (i.e. I’m not thinking through what the issue is). I’ve got about 10 modes (ah, could look at the manual, but…), selected via menus from pressing buttons rather than a dial. When using the single point or not very many points, I’m quite often deliberately selecting something at the same distance as the bird, rather than the bird, for the sort of reasons you mention.

If the “I’ve got focus” blue boxes appear around the bird (or even better when it recognises an eye), I know there’s a fair chance of an at least OK shot.

Just checking - you do have the stabilizer switch on, I take it - the beast is a nightmare without.

The bit of the lens I least value is the “loosen or tighten zoom” ring - why on earth doesn’t it have a “lock in place until I twist again” point!

One other suggestion - my lens is much better behaved when the speed is set to allow a decently low ISO to be selected by auto ISO (say, sub 2000). Of course, birds hide in shade or behind leaves so that’s another fools errand. More light helping the photo work - shocking news I know.

Yay, my life, lived by another.

You almost certainly know these things, but just for others enjoying this album who don’t:

• On the white out photo at the top - you can recover a lot of the colour of the trees, and lose the mist like effect, using Tone Curves/Luminance Histograms/whatever your software calls it, especially if you start with RAW format. But alas, not always: the sharpness of the result can be rubbish, and strange colours can creep in. Alas in this one, I suspect the bird was never in focus

• Does your camera have focus modes - tell it to focus at a particular point, or only choose focus based on an limited area, rather than “pick the closest thing in the frame to focus on”. Manual focus and birds has never (?) worked for me - I certainly haven’t even tried it for a long while. Happily, the focus modes are easy to get my fingers to on mine, and I’m forever swapping, if occasionally cursing that I’m in the wrong mode. And then the R5 MkII’s revelation - point/small area focus modes where the camera is given a little leeway to go out of those bounds if it really wants to, but not by very far at all, along with “obey me, that area alone” locked forms.

Well, you certainly triggered Pink Floyd thoughts when I saw it. I rather like the exaggerated look - but it does look rather artificial, so nothing something to do too often!

A study in materials, or did you just like all the lines. Whichever, I can see why you liked it.

So jealous - I’m told there’s otters in the Thames around here, but I’ve never seen them.

A bit scruffier than the UK equivalent (and it isn’t upside down, so clearly not a real nuthatch!) but fine photos of a fine bird!

Oh, I do have a very few “good” kingfisher shots like that (not quite as good as that, alas) - one I posted here a while ago.

But alas, this one was perching in undergrowth on the far side of a big river - I never got to see exactly where.

I always start dreaming of sharp silhouettes when that happens … and they never work.

Mostly just patience, matched to recognising flight patterns that might be fun.

But thank you

Easy to tell the difference - Coots walk on water:

Same place - and yes, similar habitats and behaviours.

A photo of interesting contrasts, if not perhaps the sort of photo I’d choose to celebrate my birthday.

Is that a Hooded Crow, leucistic crow (i.e. some of its feathers, but not all, have gone white) or something else?

Now that’s how to photo swallows.

Ack, mind reader!

I really feel “Ancient Egyptian” should really be reserved for the times before the Ptolemies - I was excited by the title until I realised it’s all Greek to me.

Thank you - rather more different to the UK’s Red Fox than I was expecting.

What even is it? It’s probably the angle of the shot but the head seems out of proportion to the body, in a weird chimera like form.

The original JPG is a terrifying 28MB, 5464x8192 pixels.

Lemmy wasn’t even prepared to play with something half that height and width, so I had to go thirds. I’m not sure if its file size or pixel dimensions (JPGs have some compression, sometimes, even at 100% quality, so a little hard to be sure).