Show your Bird Portraits
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Valvebounce said:
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Yes, warmer weather and birds returning!
A pair of chickadees have decided to excavate what the woodpeckers started and it's got them spending hours pecking and taking the cavity down, down, down! I tried unsuccessfully to capture all this - have concluded it's next to impossible in a simple focus and shoot scenario. Any previous good shots of chickadee action I've done were with flash and a lucky snap. My conclusion is that the 1DX2 has the FPS, no problem, but the AF can't match the speed of these guys. I pushed the settings to their extreme and never got one lock-on. So, if anyone has good advice I'm listening.
I tried the highest F stop I could manage (F11) with the lowest shutter speed that had half a hope (1/3200), which still pushed me to around ISO 3200 minimum (more like 6400) and I was still slightly underexposed, and I had pretty fair sunshine. Now, if I could strobe at 14 FPS with a flash, just maybe I'd have something worth showing. Never the less, here are my efforts, dropping from 800 mm to 560.
Jack
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Hi Jack.
Nice series of action shots, I'm surprised that you weren't able to get a lock on the first one in this series in particular, apart from the speed required to freeze the wings it seems a lot like panning race cars, a feat at which these cameras usually excel. Did you prefocus and if so on what, how many AF points in use?
Cheers, Graham.
Nice series of action shots, I'm surprised that you weren't able to get a lock on the first one in this series in particular, apart from the speed required to freeze the wings it seems a lot like panning race cars, a feat at which these cameras usually excel. Did you prefocus and if so on what, how many AF points in use?
Cheers, Graham.
Jack Douglas said:
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Good photos there Jack. The Junco is looking nice and sharp - what ISO was that?
What shutter speed were you using for the chickadee? They look very similar to the tits we have in the UK and I found that on take-off I needed shutter speeds in excess of 1/1500 even to get the body sharp.
What shutter speed were you using for the chickadee? They look very similar to the tits we have in the UK and I found that on take-off I needed shutter speeds in excess of 1/1500 even to get the body sharp.
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