Larks, Dragons, and some garden mammals…

A few pictures from today, first of some of the smaller birds…
Skylark, this morning

Skylark hovering over a field (the distant blobs are sheep)

A pair of skylarks hovering just above their landing site

And a couple of shots that I finally managed to snare today…
A male broad bodied chaser on the wing (just!)

An emperor dragonfly on the wing (more than 'just')

Swallow swooping over a pond

I used the EF 400mm f/5.6L USM prime lens for all the above. What it lacks in flexibility compared with the 100-400 zoom it makes up in general sharpness and (essential for these shots) the ease of manually adjusting the focus. Good as autofocus is, catching a small moving object against a complex background is as near impossible as it gets. A slight movement and the focus is lost. The prime lens has a huge focusing ring and once I was roughly in range I'd follow the movement of the bird/dragonfly making small adjustments. I missed a lot of the time, but not always. It helps that I've disabled focusing via the shutter release, preferring a separate focusing button on the rear of the camera. The shots aren't perfect, but are a big improvement on what I've managed in the past (especially the dragonflies).

This evening I switched lenses and headed for the garden. A hedgehog was the first to make an appearance.
Hedgehog out for a stroll

And the young male cub came out to see what was going on.
Young fox
Nature Blog Network
Camera note: all daylight shots taken with the EF 400mm f/5.6L USM lens. The hedgehog and fox were taken with the EF70-300mm 4.5-5.6 DO IS lens.

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This Post Has 13 Comments

  1. Vulpes vulpes

    29 Jun 2010

    Lovely selection! Interesting reading on the lens technical side. :up:

  2. RobinL

    29 Jun 2010

    Words, thanks for the tips on in flight shots. I'll definitely be trying the manual focus. I haven't had much luck with inflights yet!

  3. RobinL

    29 Jun 2010

    By the way, great shots!

  4. Words

    30 Jun 2010

    Vulpes, thanks! I more or less stumbled on the benefits of the prime for these shots. You can do the same with the 100-400 but the focusing ring is much smaller and far less smooth.

  5. Words

    30 Jun 2010

    Robin, the key thing with most in-flight shots is to slightly over expose to avoid silhouetting (the sky can fool the exposure meter). I usually set the camera to about +2/3rds. Then the trick is to stay focused. With larger birds against the sky I use the autofocus in Canon's AI mode (focusing is continually adjusted automatically) and let the camera sort out the exposure. It's trickier against a mixed background (dark/light) so I tend to lock the shutter speed as well for those shots.

  6. Words

    30 Jun 2010

    Erwin, thanks!

  7. SittingFox

    30 Jun 2010

    Lark flying before the sheep – that's an unusual shot :up: I still struggle with in-flight shots. Well, for anything smaller than an eagle :whistle:

  8. Words

    1 Jul 2010

    Adele, I miss with plenty of them, especially the smaller birds. If they are lcose enough for decent shot they are too close to keep in frame. Kestrel… that's another matter. Why can't all birds keep stock-still in the air. It would make photography so much easier 😉

    Just seen your eagle shot. Nice :up:

  9. cakkleberrylane

    3 Jul 2010

    A wonderful variety of great shots!

  10. Words

    3 Jul 2010

    Thanks Lois!

  11. Ukwildlife

    6 Jul 2010

    Great stuff. Emperors in flight take some doing, love the hedgie too

  12. Words

    6 Jul 2010

    Neil, thanks! Lots of patience needed for the emperor shot. It was a more or less a matter of judging when it would cross in front of the lens, trying to stay with it and frantically adjusting the focus.

  13. Wulpen

    19 Oct 2012

    Very Great shots

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