Hey all, I just starting to get into wildlife photography and was down at Bolsa Chica last weekend to try and work on my tracking and shooting of some BIF's. I'm usually just a lurker here but I finally decided to post something up. My longest lens right now is a 70-200 but I hope to pick up a 400 5.6 in the near future. All the photos were shot with a MKIII paired with the 70-200 and any comments or critique is appreciated. Also if you've got any tips on what CF's to use as far as autofocus goes or any other tips in general I'd appreciate that too!

1.

3 is magnificent.

What ever you did in #3....keep on doin' that! Great 1st post, Kimsua...we welcome more of your work.

2 and 3 are wonderful. You might want to try a TC rather than a new lens. I shoot Nikon so I can’t help with the auto focus settings.

Morris

Welcome to the forum, you have a real nice set here. As noted 3 is a wonderful shot. If you get the 400 5.6 you will love it. The focus on that baby is FAST.

Tim

Welcome to the forum Looks as you have the concept in good grasp! Plenty of sharp ones and good exposures for this kind of light. Your tracking looks good so settings in MKIII must be good but I don't have one to elaborate on best settings.

The 400 5.6L is ultra fast focusing and a wonderful birding lens especially for IF shooting, that would be a nice choice! Keep them coming, nice shooting

Karl

Great shots...your copy of the 70-200 is quite sharp..as posters already commented..you will enjoy the 400 f5.6..its a fabulous economical daytime prime for birding and sports.

Thanks everyone. My first attempt at birding didn't go over so well when I was attempting to track some skimmers and fosters terns. I think I had about 4 or 5 keepers out of hundreds of photos. I realized that I also had the wrong settings with my CF's and well, it was my first time. I'll try to post up those photos in a few days when I get the chance. In the meantime, I'll try keep doing whatever I did in # 3 and hopefully can save up for a 400 5.6 before I move back to Colorado!

Morris: I'll take a look into the TC. I wanted to pick one up for my 135L but I wasn't sure how well it would work for tracking birds in flight.

Btw, I forgot to ask. I've got my tracking set to it's slowest setting but was wondering if people any of the MKIII shooters out there use any of the AF expansion points or just leave it as it?

Valjr: Yeah the sharpness of the 70-200 was better than what I expected. These shots were stopped down between 5.6-7.1 but they were also heavily cropped in some cases so I'm really pleased with how sharp they are at 100%

Welcome to the posting side, great start.

Rob

Sweet start!
Welcome,

Howard

A big welcome to the forum and keep up the good work! Especially like #3.

Welcome, very nice pics and a great start!
Keep it up
Martin

Welcome, welcome, welcome.
Looks like your tracking skills are in good working order as all four of these are nice and sharp.
I actually like #2 best... great composition and I really like the back lit wings of the diving Pelican.
Well done and keep posting.

Kirk

Thanks everyone. What sucks is we're probably going to be moving from SoCal to Denver here in two months so I won't get too many more chances to head out to BC and shoot!

Kirkb, I also like # 2 for that same reason but it's a tie between 2 and 3.

i like the backlit wings on #2. keep shooting and posting.

- hung

Welcome to the Nature boards from a fellow newbie - these are great! #3 is fantastic, those outstretched beckoning wings! great light for all of them...looking forward to your future posts.

Nice shots. I like the two birds in #2.