Birds have a built-in radar to warn them if you are closer than 500mm, and if you are they will take off! When I shot with my old Canon 100-400mm on my 5D i.e. max reach of 400mm - the birds would not allow me to get in a little closer. Each time I try they will take off ... while my friends with their 500 and 600mm lenses had no trouble at all!
Wilbus wrote:
Think one can afford but can't really justify is a very good description
FM and internet all together makes GAS go hay wire!
It's like you say, experience and knowing the gear is far better then getting new gear that you never really learn.
I'll try and spend some more time in the kayak instead and see how close I can get to birds without scaring them, maybe I can live without the 300mm?
bobbytan wrote:
Birds have a built-in radar to warn them if you are closer than 500mm, and if you are they will take off! When I shot with my old Canon 100-400mm on my 5D i.e. max reach of 400mm - the birds would not allow me to get in a little closer. Each time I try they will take off ... while my friends with their 500 and 600mm lenses had no trouble at all!
HAHA! Funnily enough this is exactly what I experienced today while trying to sneak up on some birds from my kayak! Thought I'd try it like that rather then on foot but NOPE! It's really like you say, 500mm or longer would have been fine! But 420mm (40-150 + TC) was a NO NO for the most part. This will take some more experimentation and perhaps a 300mm
I set out kayaking around 5:30 PM and the sun sets around 6:50 PM at the moment so thought I had an hour of daylight and good light. My hopes were wrong of course, 5 minutes after settling in the kayak clouds moved in on the horizon completely covering the sun and that was that as far as good light, or even light, went. Had to bump ISO more and more, these are two quite early on before the ISO got way higher.
Lessons learned.
I thought I would get closer to the birds then I did using the kayak. I could have used the 300mm lens rather then then 40-150 and TC. Wish I had it, I think I would have gotten more keepers without scaring them away. Part of fun is getting them during take off though so at least some good things about a shorter lens.
Shutter speeds need to be faster then 1/320 in order to freeze motion with birds, 1/320 does give the ability to freeze some motion though and have some (such as wings) with motion blur. However, most of those were not keeps and as such I will try to use faster shutter speeds next time.
C-AF works much better then I had previously thought, it will take a lot of learning and testing but even on the E-M1 it works. Would be nice to try the Mark II against it. Biggest problem was getting the first lock on as the camera had a tendency to focus hunt even against a grey sky in the background.
In the cameras defence though, I was getting very low on light so will try it again in good light.
I seriously need a sea kayak with rudder. As soon as I stopped paddeling the wind which was more then I would have prefered for photogrpahy, made my kayak turn one way or the other forcing me to twist my body before ultimatley surrendering and take control again. A rudder would have helped with course stability.
Second, even very small waves, like 10cm (4 inches) cause huge problems when zoomed in tight with the 40-150 so preferably next time I try to stay on flat water.
I very much enjoyed the short experience though!
Both shot with C-AF even though stationary. Mostly for practicing and seeing how C-AF works with the E-M1.
Continuation of my C-AF testing with the E-M1 and 40-150, this time with TC1.4.
C-Af works better then I thought, I think it would better still if I had a longer lens so I could isolate my subject easier. All following shots are crops or heavy crops and as such the lens should have more trouble staying on target. But so far I must say I am happily surprised.
I really do need the 300mm though, or maybe the 100-400 PL but not sure how well that would work with C-AF and PDAF.
C-AF, mechanical shutter, 10fps.
Two shots right after each other. The entire series was NOT in focus btw.
It's an adventure! Picked up a Tamron Adaptall 300mm f/2.8. Figured it would be fun on the A7II and E-M5. 600mm equivalent is a bit of a challenge! This was a bit lucky, I knew she was trying to catch butterflies but couldn't see the framing and the focus at the same time, but the result made this lens worth it if only for this one shot (and I'm still having fun with it.) Ordered an E-M10, it'll be interesting to see how peaking works. Also ordered the matched 1.4xTC. IQ seems great so looking forward to some 840mm shooting.
