Wildlife Photography across the Water: Sunday Quickie

Sunday 20 February 2011

Sunday Quickie

Just back from shopping in Solihull and Birmingham - seemed like a good idea on a crappy horrible grey light day....again. We certainly are having a poor run of light here in the UK, or at least wherever I seem to be at weekends anyway.

That's now 5 out of the last 6 weekend days for me that have not been any good, so I was pleased I did get out to Slimbridge last Saturday as you will have seen from the Lesser Scaup images I posted on Friday.

Bird activity in the garden is picking up and it was fantastic last weekend to see both male Siskins and a Male Brambling on consecutive days. I haven't seen any for the last three years so it was a welcome bit of news.

A quick look out first thing saw 13 species within five minutes and included our regular female Blackcap (Browncap?)

I am expecting the pond to burst into life very soon as after a heavy shower of rain last weekend, I found a frog hopping around. With the flora, many of the hedgerow plants are just about to burst into leaf, and the Bluebell stalks look like they are starting to show as well.

Well I think we have done pretty well on the blog this week for images with a lot of fantastic stuff from Dave from Japan, plus lots of Barn Owls and the Lesser Scaup from me.

In my next posting, I will bring you some test shots from the 5Dmk2 when compared with the 7D. My thoughts on the first result?s - inconclusive in terms of any significant differences - other than the crop factor, for the type of shots I used it in. Which is good to be honest. Consistency is a nice thing to have, and with the common-ing up on those platforms I now only have to worry about one battery type, and one menu system. With the previous mix of 1Dmk3, 5D and 7D I was on three different battery systems and three different menu systems. With the C1 to C3 settings, I have also set the 5D2 up in the same way as the 7D, as far as is possible to do of course, as the 7D AF system has a lot more options to it.

The other main change is the need for bigger cards. I guess I already knew that with the 7D but the 5Dmk2 just confirms it even more. On previous bodies, I tended to stick to 4gig Sandisk Extreme 111 cards, but the 7D was challenging them in terms of numbers of images. The 5D just makes it worse, so I have started to transition to the 8 gig versions as my first choice card now. It still only gets 237 RAW images on it when set to ISO400.

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.