Bird Watching a Relaxing Hobby

[wotan]

Like I have mentioned before we have a river running through our property so we get a fair selection of ducks. Here is a selection of our baby album.

Mallards



Megansers



Wood ducks



and Dad



We have some ring necked ducks this year but I haven't got a photo yet.

John

[Lee Drennen]

John thanks for sharing your pics with o could get a closer shot of the baby one I took the other day.

[wotan]

Hi Lee

I have a 500 mm lens that I use to get close. As long as you can hold it still it works well.

John

[Lee Drennen]

Hi Lee

I have a 500 mm lens that I use to get close. As long as you can hold it still it works well.

John

Sounds like the perfect Camera for Bird Watching or catching natural at its best. Thanks for the info John.

[Tim Marlow]

A 500mm must have some heft to it John. I used to use a 300mm prime with a 1.4 converter and that was pretty heavy. Now use a 100-400 zoom because it has a faster and more responsive autofocus. The best way to get good shots is get in closer, but that’s the bit I’m not so good at Long lenses work well, but heat haze reduces quality in the summer. The combination of heat haze and long lens compression can turn out interesting landscape shots though, they look like paintings.

[wotan]

Tim

You are completely correct. Long lenses, particularly the cheaper ones like mine, do not allow fast shutter speeds and are always tough to hold very still so take lots of blurred shots. Occasionally I get a decent one. I also use a 70-300 which is a little easier to handle.

John

[Tim Marlow]

I have a Canon system John and the lens anti shake adds about three stops of relative speed......wish it added about six though.....the 300 prime was an early lens so only added about one and a half, another reason for swapping it on.

[tigersteve]

Fish Eagle, photographed a few years ago in Malaysia

[Tim Marlow]

Handsome beast isn’t he....

[Lee Drennen]

Steve. That a beautiful bird and you took some great shots. Thanks for sharing. Yesterday there was a Coopers Hawk flying above me in the Barn lot I didn’t get my phone out in time to take a pic till it was to late.

[tigersteve]

I went to the beach this morning at 05.00 to see the sunrise in Amble, Northumberland.
Nice watching the Oyster Catchers.

[GerryW]

Our regular woodpecker

[spanner570]

Great thread Lee, and equally great pictures from members.

Plenty of nesting/feeding activity going on in our garden, so hopefully some young will be spotted soon.

...three more.

Our 'Tame' Wood Pigeons.


A Gold Finch


....and a chancer!


Cheers.
Ron

[spanner570]

Off on slight tangent. Sorry Lee, but on reading the discussion about lens's, I thought the following might be of interest to someone....

I'm an opportunist, point and click merchant and know nothing about camera settings, except where the 'Auto Option' is on the dial thingy.

However, I've always wanted a camera with a good zoom, compact enough to go into a jacket or rucksack pocket. I certainly didn't want to lug around those huge and clumbersome lens's. My son bought this camera and suggested it might fit the bill - And How!

It's a Sony DSC-H400. It has a 63X Optical zoom and goes up to 126X digital. Expensive? Nah, there is a second hand one running on eBay as I type for less than £50. (New, around the £150/ £170 mark.




I took these images this morning. We have a plastic owl on a wall to deter hawks etc. (As much use as a tit on a bull!)

No tripod. I wedged the camera against a tree trunk.

The owl on the wall.



Here it is at 63X optical.


....and 126X digital.


So if anyone on here wants a nice, reasonably priced compact zoom camera, this Sony might just fit the bill - It does for me.

Once again, sorry for the slight diversion, Lee.

Ron

[Tim Marlow]

Nice one Ron. The optical zoom on that is pretty good. It would be even better on a bright day.