{"id":1360,"date":"2009-04-09T23:04:47","date_gmt":"2009-04-09T22:04:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/archives\/1360"},"modified":"2013-11-14T22:29:44","modified_gmt":"2013-11-14T22:29:44","slug":"some-garden-birds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/some-garden-birds\/","title":{"rendered":"Some Garden Birds"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n<p><!--more-->As ever, the Bank Holiday weekend looks like it will be a time for warm coats and rain hats. The forecast for Good Friday is poor, and this morning we were again shrouded in mists. Again. The day did brighten up by mid afternoon, which gave me the chance to try a few shots of the garden birds with my latest lens, the EF 400mm f\/5.6L USM. This is my first long prime (i.e. it&#39;s a fixed length lens). I decided to go for this because it should be a little sharper than the 100-400 zoom (and may take an extender rather better, though I&#39;ll still need bright days to use that combination). Although it doesn&#39;t give me more &#39;reach&#39; than the 100-400 and lacks image stabilization, it has a good reputation as a &#39;birding&#39; lens. Most of the reviews also suggested it outperforms the Sigma 50-500 and 150-500 zooms (which are the same price band). The 500mm Canon is well beyond me (roughly the price of a small car).<\/p>\n<p>First impressions are good. It locks on to the subject very quickly, and because it holds its sharpness with a wide aperture I was able to get faster shutter speeds with lower ISO (and theoretically less noise) than I&#39;m used to, even going down to ISO 200 for some shots (including the wood pigeon below).<\/p>\n<p>The slightly unexpected star showing for this workout were the collared doves. Although regular visitors, they are usually outnumbered by the pigeons, gulls and starlings. <\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/04\/collared_dove_0904093922.jpg\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/04\/collared_dove_0904093922.jpg\" width=\"600\" height=\"400\" alt=\"collared dove\" \/><span class=\"aligncenter\">Collared dove<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/04\/collared_dove_0904093977.jpg\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/04\/collared_dove_0904093977.jpg\" width=\"600\" height=\"400\" alt=\"collared dove\" \/><span class=\"aligncenter\">In flight<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The starlings stayed in the distance for most of the time, but the pigeons did put in an appearance (two species, the feral and the wood).<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/04\/pigeon_0904093968.jpg\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/04\/pigeon_0904093968.jpg\" width=\"600\" height=\"400\" alt=\"feral pigeon\" \/><span class=\"aligncenter\">Feral pigeon<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/04\/pigeon_0904093946.jpg\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/04\/pigeon_0904093946.jpg\" width=\"600\" height=\"400\" alt=\"wood pigeon\" \/><span class=\"aligncenter\">Wood pigeon<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<p>And yes, I did take some shots of the gulls as they circled around. They&#39;re easily the largest of the local birds, and the most vocal (though starlings compete through sheer weight of number at certain times of the year). <\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/04\/gull_0904094030.jpg\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/04\/gull_0904094030.jpg\" width=\"600\" height=\"400\" alt=\"herring gull\" \/><span class=\"aligncenter\">Herring gull<\/span><\/a><br \/><span class=\"aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/natureblognetwork.com\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/natureblognetwork.com\/button.php?u=Words\" width=\"0\" height=\"0\" alt=\"Nature Blog Network\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a><\/span><br \/><i>Camera note: all shots taken with the EF 400mm f\/5.6L USM lens.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[980],"tags":[33],"class_list":["post-1360","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-birds-2","tag-birds","entry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1360","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1360"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1360\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1360"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1360"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1360"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}