I can't believe how good the weather is at the moment. Day after day of sunshine. It may even last the week, though with Easter nearly upon us a change for the worse is a reasonable bet. I'm enjoying it while it's here. Today's feature animal is the rabbit, or to be precise a family of rabbits. 
Just a couple from the garden. First a pair of goldfinches caught in a brief aerial dance.
And to close, a quick update on the state of the tadpoles. "Doing well!" is the phrase, I think. 😉
Camera note: all daylight shots taken with the Canon 7D and EF 400mm f/5.6L USM lens. The tadpoles were photographed with the EF 100mm f/2.8L macro IS USM lens.
derWandersmann
27 Mar 2012:yes:
The babies are always so cute … irresistable, really.
I've got some shots of a nest of babies cowering in a hollow in the grass where mum left them, presumably to raid Farmer MacGregor's garden … They were entirely hidden by the grass, and obviously mum thought them totally safe … but that was before my SIL's wife mowed the lawn. Luckily, none of them were even touched, but they were totally exposed. They moved not so much as a whisker while I shot. In a few hours they were gone … one presumes mum came back and was appalled, and moved her residence, post-haste.
Wonderful shot of the finches!
gdare
28 Mar 2012How did you make that goldfinches in flight photo? I mean, they are so fast, properly zooming them seems impossible….
Words
28 Mar 2012dW, I got some more baby rabbits today, but in a different location. They are indeed very cute. I'm glad your babies survived the mower :yikes:
Words
28 Mar 2012Darko, they were playing/swooping around the top of a large bush so I was following their flight. This was only semi-lucky. I'd been watching so knew roughly what they would do. I then took a lot of rapid shots (8 frames a second). About three of them had goldfinches in the frame.
gdare
29 Mar 2012:up:
My camera has only 1 frame per second, no wonder I can't make any decent photo when a target is moving 😛
Words
30 Mar 2012Darko, if it's the right frame and the right second you can't go wrong. The trick is to follow the bird as it moves and keep it in focus until you are ready to take the shot. It's much easier if you have a camera which you can look through the lens. It's almost impossible using a rear screen.
gdare
30 Mar 2012Yes, I know :awww:
SittingFox
31 Mar 2012I still find catching birds in flight hard, unless they are as big as golden eagles 😉 My camera focus tends to jump a bit when the target is small.
Nice to see the rabbit kit!
Words
2 Apr 2012Adele, small is tricky, but what body are you using these days? It may just be the settings need a tweak.
Lots of rabbits around at the moment! Everywhere I go.
derWandersmann
3 Apr 2012Adele, when I'm trying for birds in flight, they are too fast for regular focusing … I set it to focus with the whole screen area, and trust to luck.
Also, many cameras nowadays have a provision for having the camera focus continuously … my Nikon can do it when the shutter button is pressed halfway, my Oly compact can do it as long as the camera is turned on … I once turned it on, set the continuous focus, and set the self-timer to fire every five seconds, hung the camera on my neck, and walked through the local supermarket. I got a bunch of random shots, but they were all in focus.
Words
5 Apr 2012For the technically inclined, I always use AI mode (tracking focus) and tend to use a centre point focus with the four cardinals active to hold the focus when I stray off centre (occasionally I use the fine point centre focus alone, but that's trickier). The other elements are that I use the rear * button to control focus and use the shutter release button just for taking the shot, which means shutter and focusing are independent of each other. This is a huge benefit in controlling and regaining focus when it strays. The camera is set to track the subject and is set to 'slow' which means that it tends to hold focus if something moves across the line of vision.