All quiet on the western front - PM 2023

[pedro maia]

BIF44 Pied wagtail (Motacilla alba)

 

 

Tottally missed this one. 

[pedro maia]

BIF45 Yellow wagtail (Motacilla flava)

 

 

[pedro maia]

BIF46 European bee-eater (Merops apiaster)

[pedro maia]

BIF47 Black kite (Milvus migrans)

 

I´m yet to take a nice photo of a Black kite

[pedro maia]

BIF48 Booted eagle (Hieraaetus pennatus)

 

The same with the Booted eagle

[pedro maia]

BIF49 Cattle egret (Bubulcus ibis)

 

[pedro maia]

BIF50 Greater flamingo (Phoenicopterus roseus)

 

[pedro maia]

BIF51 White stork (Ciconia ciconia)

 

[pedro maia]

BIF52 Common shelduck (Tadorna tadorna)

 

[pedro maia]

BIF53 Little tern (Sternula albifrons)

 

[pedro maia]

BIF53 Little tern (Sternula albifrons)

[pedro maia]

BIF54 Black-headed gull (Chroicocephalus ridibundus)

Edited July 9, 2023 by pedro maia

[pedro maia]

BIF55 Dunlin (Calidris alpina)

 

[pedro maia]

BIF56 Common redshank (Tringa totanus)

 

 

[pedro maia]

BIF57 Common sandpiper (Actitis hypoleucos)

These guys are fast...

[pedro maia]

BIF58 Pied avocet (Recurvirostra avosetta)

 

Edited July 9, 2023 by pedro maia

[pedro maia]

BIF59 Black-tailed godwit (Limosa limosa)

 

 

 

 

[PeterHG]

59 Bif species is quite an accomplishment! I do recognize your remarks about the small birds, but you still managed to catch some really good ones. For take-offs, my OM-1 camera has a special feature where it buffers shots in the camera as long as you half-press the shutter button. When the bird takes off, you fully press the shutter and it has also kept the previous 10-15 frames, so even if your reaction is too slow (mine usually is) the camera has still captured the actual take-off moment. It’s a very good feature but even then the bird of takes off in the wrong direction a lot of times. But it does help!

[Galana]

Lots of hard work on show here. Too right it's the little uns that cause the biggest problems. Your Black Redstart is very good though. The colours really stand out.

Some nice ones in the larger category too.

Keep on practising.

I am with Tony and try to get some background to focus on and then hope for the best. Depth of field then comes to your assistance with a small f.stop.

(This talk is getting too technical for me!!)

[pedro maia]

2 hours ago, PeterHG said:

59 Bif species is quite an accomplishment! I do recognize your remarks about the small birds, but you still managed to catch some really good ones. For take-offs, my OM-1 camera has a special feature where it buffers shots in the camera as long as you half-press the shutter button. When the bird takes off, you fully press the shutter and it has also kept the previous 10-15 frames, so even if your reaction is too slow (mine usually is) the camera has still captured the actual take-off moment. It’s a very good feature but even then the bird of takes off in the wrong direction a lot of times. But it does help!

I think my camera has a similar feature, I’m going to check it as it may help solving that issue, thanks for the tip.

 

Even if I don’t have any goals besides improving the quality of my pictures, reaching 100 BIF species shouldn’t be too hard, but I will have to go other areas, in 2 weeks I’l be in the Algarve, that will help.

[pedro maia]

2 hours ago, Galana said:

Lots of hard work on show here. Too right it's the little uns that cause the biggest problems. Your Black Redstart is very good though. The colours really stand out.

Some nice ones in the larger category too.

Keep on practising.

I am with Tony and try to get some background to focus on and then hope for the best. Depth of field then comes to your assistance with a small f.stop.

(This talk is getting too technical for me!!)

Too technical for me too.

 

Small birds in the sky are still too difficult for me.

[TonyQ]

I think you are too harsh on yourself.

You are getting some really good shots here.

I think everyone gets loads of poor shots, but generally people only show the good ones

I would be delighted to get so many good BIFs!

The R7 does have the pre capture feature, but I haven’t tried it yet.

I will be interested to hear how it goes

[PeterHG]

5 hours ago, TonyQ said:

I think everyone gets loads of poor shots, but generally people only show the good ones

Definitely! 

[pedro maia]

5 hours ago, TonyQ said:

I think you are too harsh on yourself.

You are getting some really good shots here.

I think everyone gets loads of poor shots, but generally people only show the good ones

I would be delighted to get so many good BIFs!

The R7 does have the pre capture feature, but I haven’t tried it yet.

I will be interested to hear how it goes

 

I will try that feature soon, even if it means taking pictures in RAW, which I´m not doing (yet) and 30fpf , this will help me, I think https://snapshot.canon-asia.com/article/eng/camera-faq-what-are-raw-burst-and-pre-shooting.

 

I´ll have to download the Digital Photo Professional 4 (DPP) software. to extract the RAW burst images, I hope it´s user friendly.

[Dave Williams]

I think you are doing really well Pedro. You have chosen to start with the most difficult of subjects, small birds in flight, so don't expect miracles straight away.

DPP is very good as a way of looking at your photos and deciding which to keep. I give them a grade as I go through them then use the sort tool and delete in a batch. 30fps is a beast though. I waste too much time deleting at 20fps!

 

I would highly recommend using your shutter button to both take shots and to AF using a single AF point. Set up your rear AF-on to animal eye detect ( Orange menu, page three "customise buttons")

Pre-focus with a half press of the shutter button as Tony described then when you have the range press the AF-on button at the same time as pressing the shutter button and the bird should easily be tracked so all you have to do is keep it in the frame.