Wildlife Photography across the Water: Tips and Techniques

Friday 13 August 2010

Tips and Techniques - another use of the spirit bubble

Back in July, I posted my tip about not leaving spirit bubbles in sunlight for too long as it bleaches out the fluorescent green, as I posted here.

I also said in that post I would talk about another tip using the spirit level.

Way back when, in May to be precise, when I was on North Uist, I was finding that with the reduced field of view that you get with the 7D (1.6 crop), plus 500 + 1.4, I was finding it quite hard at times to pick some moving subjects up in the viewfinder, sometime when quite close due to the narrow field of view.

Now given that I initially pick my subject up, while panning or tracking, by looking over the camera, I set my mind to work on how to get a rifle type site to initially acquire the subject, and then get it reliably in the viewfinder.

Firstly, I realised that the knurled knob on the lens hood would be my foresight

I started off using just that initially, with the hot shoe acting as the rear sight.

Clearly the alignment was way off and the subject was out of shot. My next thought was to fashion a blob of blu tack, except I didn't have any with me at the time.

Then the penny dropped and I remembered by spirit bubble level that fits in the hot shoe.

Initially in 'low' mode, it wasn't still quite right, but turning into 'tall' mode it was just perfect.

So with that in place, the camera on the tripod and sidekick, I had some accurate top sights that gave me much greater reliability of picking up flying subjects.

Here are a few images to illustrate.

7D, 500f4L on the tripod. Bubble set 'tall'

Foresight (oof) set just a little high so that you can see it in the picture

Foresight in focus

The trick is to sit the top of the rear sight just on top of the foresight for spot on alignment

Try it some time

Martin

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Bio's

David Courtenay, a self taught wildlife and nature photographer, has been capturing images for over 30 years. He has had a passion for wildlife since early childhood and remembers being glued to the television whenever Survival, Wildlife on One and other natural history documentaries were shown. In the 2006 he swapped his established career for the life of a wildlife photographer, such a move demands a measure of uncompromising passion and commitment.

David has travelled extensively throughout Europe as well as spending more than 7 months in India working with local guides and trackers in search of Bengal Tiger, Asian One horned Rhino and Asian Elephant. He has also photographed Wildlife in Australia, Malaysia, Thailand, Sumatra, Africa, Canada and America. Working closely with Conservation companies he tries to raise funds to help Wildlife that has been put on the endangered list by poaching and habitation loss

Martin Dyer has had a passion for avian wildlife since childhood, particularly raptors. Photography was also another keen interest and it was with the specific availability and control of the whole process that digital offers that Martin was then able to combine the two in 2003. Based in the UK, Martin is a regular visitor to Scotland, specifically the Isle of Mull to watch the Eagles resident there. Other trips to Europe and around the UK are usually part of Martin’s agenda in a typical year.

However, as a firm believer on making the most of the local patch, Martin has spent a lot of time and hard work creating a wildlife garden which is reaping the rewards with many new species and varieties of wildlife. A keen member of a number of wildlife photographic groups, Martin is keen to expand his portfolio into other areas of wildlife, and has already established a wide portfolio of images of fungi.