Show your Bird Portraits

A bearded vulture from our local zoo.
They are the parents of young birds that are returned to the wild in the Bavarian Alps.

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Nice shot there. We have had a couple of wild birds visit the UK in the last year or two. They caused quite a stir for a while with photographers and birders travelling all over the place to see them. I was fortunate that one passed by locally to me. I never realised just how big they are until a buzzard flew near it. Very impressive bird.
 
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Taken a while back in Buckinghamshire, UK this bird flew down from a tree to nab some grubs. The sun was very bright on the bird so I had to dial in some - exposure comp very quickly. As the background was woodland in shadow it threw it into darkness. Only had a few seconds to get the shot. I had wanted to get down low but the bird had landed so close I had already zoomed out to get a full body shot then back to 400mm for the portrait. I feared had I move much more I would have spooked the kestrel. So I was content to get this shot.

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I took out the old DSLR a couple of days ago, wound it up and it still worked. Unusually, I saw a couple of small birds: a Bluetit had bathed and was preening itself, looking a real mess, and my first Brambling for a very long time - I am not limited by gear but the availability of birds at present.

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Taken a while back in Buckinghamshire, UK this bird flew down from a tree to nab some grubs. The sun was very bright on the bird so I had to dial in some - exposure comp very quickly. As the background was woodland in shadow it threw it into darkness. Only had a few seconds to get the shot. I had wanted to get down low but the bird had landed so close I had already zoomed out to get a full body shot then back to 400mm for the portrait. I feared had I move much more I would have spooked the kestrel. So I was content to get this shot.

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OK - one more of yours very "Distinctly average" shots:D! If these are your average shots I really would like to see the extraordinary one!
 
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Took out the RF 100-400mm on the R5 for this afternoon's walk. It's such a pleasure carrying so light a camera and lens. Don't believe what TDP writes about its sharpness - look at this (Eurasian) Robin.

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Took out the RF 100-400mm on the R5 for this afternoon's walk. It's such a pleasure carrying so light a camera and lens. Don't believe what TDP writes about its sharpness - look at this (Eurasian) Robin.

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I read the TDP review of this lens. I thought that it was a good review of it, stating that it was a good lens for the money. It even has nano-AF motors and 0.41x max magnification which is really great (especially at such a low price for Canon). I think your photo is excellent, AlanF. This lens looks like a superb small & light 100-400 zoom for Canon!
 
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I read the TDP review of this lens. I thought that it was a good review of it, stating that it was a good lens for the money. It even has nano-AF motors and 0.41x max magnification which is really great (especially at such a low price for Canon). I think your photo is excellent, AlanF. This lens looks like a superb small & light 100-400 zoom for Canon!
The TDP image quality chart shows it as soft at 400mm. i find it to be as sharp in the centre as the EF100-400mm II, and Canon’s MTF charts, which are reliable, show it to be a sharp lens. TDP gets these image quality charts wrong on occasion - one glaring example is the 400 mm DO II being softer than the 100-400mm II.
 
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Taken a while back in Buckinghamshire, UK this bird flew down from a tree to nab some grubs. The sun was very bright on the bird so I had to dial in some - exposure comp very quickly. As the background was woodland in shadow it threw it into darkness. Only had a few seconds to get the shot. I had wanted to get down low but the bird had landed so close I had already zoomed out to get a full body shot then back to 400mm for the portrait. I feared had I move much more I would have spooked the kestrel. So I was content to get this shot.

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Cool shot. I feel like I'm right there having a conversation with him!
 
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Hi, got a chance to take some close-ups portraits and In-Flight shots of various Raptors at the end of last week.
Mainly R5 with EF 70-200 MK2 and EF 100-400 MK2. They start here on Flickr!


Also got to test an RF100-500, unfortunately not on any Birds.

Cheers Brian
Thanks for all the "Likes", I took too many shots that day and have nearly finished sorting them.
The final results are now in two Albums on flickr:


Some of the more interesting Birds were nackered out by the Friday so they were rested, despite that, still great to spend a day
amongst such incredible Birds. I have had a few Birds in my garden that would react to a whistle and take food of my hands. Its
not such a common sight to have a bird flying straight towards you, same here, the Falconers did whatever we asked them to do,
and repeated it until we had the shots. The light was maybe too hard, but the autumn colours were great.

Cheers Brian
 
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A bearded vulture from our local zoo.
They are the parents of young birds that are returned to the wild in the Bavarian Alps.

View attachment 201100
Eagle World near the north tip of Denmark has one that does a mean flying display, unfortunately it has a crush
on this Falconer . No other people or Birds are allowed near him when its around. I'd love to see one in the wild in Germany.

Bearded Vulture by Diane and Brian Dorling, auf Flickr

Cheers Brian
 
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