Tuesday 13 April 2010

Great Tit


Great Tit, originally uploaded by DrFireball.

Just to show that I don't just do portrait type stuff.

This was an interesting shoot. I set up about 30 feet or so away from a tree that had a lot of small birds in it. I sprinkled some sunflower seeds (that I use as filler in my bean bag camera support) on a tree stump, in the snow so that I could not see them from my position. The birds then took it in turns to visit the stump.

I sat with my 500mmf4 on a tripod and behind my camo bag hide and aimed to take photos as the birds took off. Small birds are so fast that I typically only got 1-2 shots even with the 8fps of the canon 7d. The sun was setting camera left and so I had nothing to meter unless a bird was there - so I constantly adjusted things manually as the sun fell lower and lower. Focussing was a bit of an issue as the birds in flight were too fast for the servo to follow - a bit hit and miss therefore!

Took a few hundred and this is the best - but have a few other in the almost category.

Love it

DrF

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