The Birds

Here are some birds I shot in the back yard. I never realized just how challenging could be to take bird photos. Even with the 300mm focal length it's hard to get close enough. All of these images were cropped between 30 and 60 percent. The overcast sky forced me to shoot at ISO 400 and at times I had to under expose a bit to get the shot. That combination made for a lot of noise.


This Northern Flicker Wood Pecker was about 30 yards away in thick brush. I was only able to get off one shot before he disappeared from view.



This is a male Cardinal that was no more than 10 yards away. I really wish I would have had time to get the ISO down to 100. The noise destroyed a lot of the detail.



This Nuthatch was only 5 yards away and was approximately 4 inches long. Just as this little bird landed, the sun came out from behind the clouds for just a few seconds. The exposure was better which did away with some of the noise but I yet again did not have time to switch to 100 ISO.

I now understand why folks use AV (aperture priority) when shooting wildlife. The speed with which the light conditions change and the speed that the animals move, makes it nearly impossible to get the shutter speed correct and still compose the shot. Now that I have my 300mm, I am looking forward to spending some more time shooting wildlife. The patience required reminds me of fishing with my grandpa. The cool part is that you don't have to clean the fish afterwards.