Yes the photographer could have done a much better job at this...but in my defence I usually shoot these handheld but this was gimbal on monopod and my stance wasn't great having my torso twisted for the latter half of the sequence.
A1, 600GM, 147 frames at 30FPS. Wide Area AF (non-tracking), AF Sensitivity 1. Release Priority.
Mainly posting this just to show that despite the erratic nature of the bird and the photographer's panning (or lack there of) that the A1 does not get distracted by all the other crap in the scene.
SouthFla wrote:
Absolutely most fun and capable camera I’ve ever used. Good birding day out w/my son, a1 and FE200-600; Birds are cool and all, but man I can’t WAIT for Air Show Season!!!
arbitrage wrote:
Yes the photographer could have done a much better job at this...but in my defence I usually shoot these handheld but this was gimbal on monopod and my stance wasn't great having my torso twisted for the latter half of the sequence.
A1, 600GM, 147 frames at 30FPS. Wide Area AF (non-tracking), AF Sensitivity 1. Release Priority.
Mainly posting this just to show that despite the erratic nature of the bird and the photographer's panning (or lack there of) that the A1 does not get distracted by all the other crap in the scene.
Kudo's for keeping him in the frame, it is remarkably difficult not to lose them when they suddenly depart. I too find the A1 has an uncanny ability to track against backgrounds where I usually can't even make out the subject.
Sometimes the a1 seems to struggle with white subjects - the eagle sequence is incomplete btw, I had already deleted most of the frames.
I was trying to hold focus as it came past but the a1 would not lock on. It started off in focus but I don’t think the camera had recognised the eagle as the subject and was simply focussing on the tree it was in. Usually a quick press of the focus button and the camera will quickly acquire focus but not this time.
I think maybe it though it was part of the background (sky) which was rather bright, in any event I was rather surprised (lots of frantic press/release of the af button made no difference)
Also the bird stayed right against the trees which I wasn’t expecting (no doubt it has seen me) but the a1 has no problems with much smaller ducks in the exact same location. Perhaps more tuned for dark subjects.
A bit of a stress test yesterday for the a1 200-600 1.4TC autofocus. I had to add some canvas to the right as the bird came in a bit too close as I was in a hide/blind.
And that was about it for the day as far as ducks went, one pass, 10 frames in 0.3 seconds !
duncang wrote:
A bit of a stress test yesterday for the a1 200-600 1.4TC autofocus. I had to add some canvas to the right as the bird came in a bit too close as I was in a hide/blind.
And that was about it for the day as far as ducks went, one pass, 10 frames in 0.3 seconds !
Nice sequence, though. Nicely sharp, too, at least at the resolution here. How much was that cropped? When I crop my 200-600+TC the way I crop the naked lens, it's visibly softer than naked.
duncang wrote:
Sometimes the a1 seems to struggle with white subjects - the eagle sequence is incomplete btw, I had already deleted most of the frames.
I was trying to hold focus as it came past but the a1 would not lock on. It started off in focus but I don’t think the camera had recognised the eagle as the subject and was simply focussing on the tree it was in. Usually a quick press of the focus button and the camera will quickly acquire focus but not this time.
I think maybe it though it was part of the background (sky) which was rather bright, in any event I was rather surprised (lots of frantic press/release of the af button made no difference)
Also the bird stayed right against the trees which I wasn’t expecting (no doubt it has seen me) but the a1 has no problems with much smaller ducks in the exact same location. Perhaps more tuned for dark subjects. ...Show more →
The eagle sequence seems to have less distance from eagle to trees (relative to shooting distance). More relevant perhaps it seems way worse in terms of haze.
Thanks! They are very hard to get close to down here, and skittish at best and not particularly common so it's a thrill when we can get this close! Best, John
Love these...I have a question about the Northern Shrike, ours always seem to be gray & white, the brown looks more like an Asian variety.
Edit: looked it up, brown is 1st year bird
mogul wrote:
Love these...I have a question about the Northern Shrike, ours always seem to be gray & white, the brown looks more like an Asian variety.
Edit: looked it up, brown is 1st year bird
Yeah, I had wondered about that but forgot to look it up when I got home. It seemed it had that typical young feather pattern you see in a lot of birds. Probably why he didn't care about landing 8ft from me
A little something I put together this morning. We visited the Whitewater Draw Wildlife Area just south of Tucson. The weather was amazing and the birds were in mass. The video is a little shaky at the start... hand-held the 200-600 as I wasn't really prepared to shoot video. It's wild how loud these birds can be when you get a few thousand together in one spot. lol
There's a slideshow of images in the video as well... I'll post some more shots shortly.
Daran wrote:
Nice sequence, though. Nicely sharp, too, at least at the resolution here. How much was that cropped? When I crop my 200-600+TC the way I crop the naked lens, it's visibly softer than naked.
I had to add some canvas to the front of the images but the final size is 7800px wide so a very slight crop.
