The ultimate fisherman...
With about an hour to kill I decided to take a leisurely stroll around Sonstraal lake in Durbanville with my trusty Canon 7D and 70 to 300 mm lens. There is always so much to see and take pictures of at this urban retreat for our feathered friends.
I find that taking photographs of birds in flight is not for the feint of heart. It can be very tricky with fast moving, unpredictable and small bird species. So if you are starting out, try your hand at the larger birds first. The other important things when it comes to bird photography is getting close enough to the birds followed by the background. The background needs to be uncluttered and also needs to compliment the bird.
Zooming in with a wide aperture of about F5.6 or less makes sure that the background is nicely out of focus while the bird is sharp.The eye of the bird usually has to be in focus for a picture to work.
Now you might think that these pics where taken with a very expensive L lens, but you would be wrong. I used a very old Tamron AF LD 70 to 300mm F4 to F5.6 lens which is not the quickest focusing lens at all. Zooming out and framing a moving bird and then zooming in quickly enables you to focus properly with out the lens hunting and ruining the shot. I also used Photoshop to paint out any bad purple fringing on high contrast areas which these lenses are prone to.
Maybe I will do a tutorial one day on how to do this.....
I also increased contrast and sharpening where needed. You can click on an individual photograph for a larger view. Please share this post if you enjoyed it....
Regards Sean Mills
These birds are great for practicing flight pics on....
This duckling was all alone....
I used a little bi of fill flash on this picture.
This pic of a dragonfly was also taken with the 70 to 300mm Tamron lens using manual focus to get as close as possible.
Take off...
