Nikon P510 Offers Highest Zoom Ratio Ever Seen in a Compact Camera

PETAPIXEL ^ | Feb 03, 2012 | swampsniper

[rustbucket]

There is a feature in Photoshop Elements 9 that lets you very easily lighten dark areas (or darken the lightest areas) without affecting the rest of the picture. Their software must be programmed to adjust the tone curves just so. You can probably achieve that in Digital Photo Professional by trial and error, but it is done with simple slider bars in PE9 to control the amount of adjustment you want.

Your eagle and hawk pictures are great. The eagle pictures might benefit by lightening the dark areas of the birds some, at least the wings, with the slider bars in PE9.

The only eagle pictures I have were taken at Merritt Island NWR last year. I say a distant bird flying and took its picture. I did not realize it was a bald eagle or that it was carrying a fish until I dowloaded the picture on my computer at home. Here is that picture:

After processing the picture with Digital Photo Professional last spring, the wings of this bird were dark. I just now lightened the wings with PE9 without affecting the rest of the picture. Now I can see that the wings are brown. This is a crop from the original picture. The bird was so far away, I did not realize it was an eagle until I saw the white tail on the computer.

[Bigun]

Just bought an S8200. 16.1 MP, 14X optical zoom, fits in a shirt pocket. AWESOME!

[Yaelle]

What do you think of the Sony NEXs? I’m trying to save up for a NEX 5n plus the new not out yet portrait lens. I’m not a photog though I love it, and my subjects are my kids, at rest and at sports.

[SWAMPSNIPER]

The Nex cameras are excellent. For what I do I prefer more camera, I need a big handle for my old lenses.

[Yaelle]

Oh, thank you for saying that! I want good easy portraiture of my little ones in daily life, with something I could keep in the diaper bag, and also to be able to capture both stills and hd vid of my big athletes. I respect your recommendation. :). I keep saving up for them, then using the $ for something else!

The new lens comes out this month.

[SWAMPSNIPER]

The Nex will be very much better than a consumer point and shoot. You will get better low light response, you'll be able to control depth of field effects and you'll have the versatility of additional lenses.

[rustbucket]

Gatorland just south of Orlando is a good place to stop for the obvious reptiles but birds also abound there.

Thanks for your list of good birding places in Florida. From what I could tell on the web, Gatorland is similar in concept to the St. Augustine Alligator Farm. Gatorland appears from the Google Maps satellite view to have a trail and lake that are at least twice the size of those at the Alligator Farm.

Alligators enable waterbird rookeries like those at the two parks and those in nature to exist. Without the gators prowling the waters below rookery trees, raccoons and other predators would climb the trees and eat eggs and perhaps chicks.

There is a huge rookery in Lake Martin south of Breaux Bridge, Louisiana. It contains many, many thousands of birds in a concentrated area. It is one of the largest water bird rookeries in the country. When drought dropped the water level in Lake Martin five or six years ago, a large area of the rookery no longer had water underneath the rookery trees and thus no alligator protection. The birds quickly left the dry area of the rookery. The water level has returned in recent years, and the birds have been coming back.