BH Gulls (in flight) & Duck

Shot with my 5d MKII and 400mm f5.6 L for a change rather than using my 50d.

1)f6.3, 1/800sec, ISO200

2)F6.3, 1/800SEC, ISO320

3)f5.6, 1/800, ISO160

Gorgeous photos! Really love that first one. What lovely lighting!

xx

Great as ever DJ

Certainly no noise issues this time although at those ISOs you wouldn't expect it. 1/800 at 400mm (twice the speed of the length) is pretty good. Could you do still do that at a lower ISO in this light ?

Love the duck picture - the way the blue wing feathers match the water and I like the way the second gull only has the water for a backdrop.

Nice shots DJ!

Thanks everyone


Thanks Phil. Yes, I could have manually set the ISO at 100 or even 50, as it was, the ISO was set on auto so the camera chose the ISO and aperture while I controlled the shutter speed. The highest ISO setting the camera chose was 320 for the Duck shot, I could have reduced the shutter speed by half or less for this shot and still got it very sharp. I have custom functions set up on this cam (C1 and C2) and have C1 setup for action shooting eg large aperture, auto ISO, A1 servo, (continuous focus tracking) hi-speed drive mode, AF button used for focussing/tracking and shutter button used for metering at the capture moment. C2 is setup for my landscape shooting the settings on this are of course entirely differant from c1

forgot to add, the noise from my other image/bird post were from the 50d and large crops

3 cracking shots there Grant.

Well, yes, these are OK I guess, if you like that sort of thing.

Stupid envy talking. Love them. The two flying are excellent, something I can never get even close to. Did you use a swivel head on a tripod to get the flying shots? When I have tried this (unsucessfully) I have gone with ISO 400, 1/1250 or even 1600, f as deep as I can push it (higher ISO to push the s/s up, but this is with a 400 zoom) so it's interesting to see that the 1/800 freezes so effectively. Lovely shots, DJ

Thanks Sam. I only shoot hand held with my 400mm f5.6 L except if I'm shooting long exposure astro images and even then I have it mounted on a telescope which is on my HEQ5 PRO mount and tripod.
I use A1 servo and use the middle focus point or all of them depending on the background. I also use high-speed drive/shooting mode and fire off about 2 or 3 shots at the right moment rather than use it like a machine gun.

When I know I have focus locked on I just track and pan with the subject and fire at the moment I want captured. For smaller birds I would use a much faster shutter speed even if they are perched on a branch but would use a different focussing method.

Really love these! Fantastic