scrappydoggy
Osprey Rises
Canon 5D Mark III, Canon 500mm f/4L IS, Canon Extender 1.4x III. Taken along the Madison River in Yellowstone.
My experience at Yellowstone taught me that to nail birds in action, you need as much shutter speed as you can get and you need a stable platform. This was shot at 1/400 second and it was not nearly enough (despite having good light and shooting wide open and at 1600 ISO). A gimbal head and stable tripod are critical when using big lenses like a 500mm f/4. Getting closer to the action can result in greater detail, but it becomes increasingly more difficult to track the animals in the very narrow field of view. I did not nail this entire sequence because the bird was moving so quickly and my camera lost target acquisition multiple times, despite have a large zone AF system.
Osprey Rises
Canon 5D Mark III, Canon 500mm f/4L IS, Canon Extender 1.4x III. Taken along the Madison River in Yellowstone.
My experience at Yellowstone taught me that to nail birds in action, you need as much shutter speed as you can get and you need a stable platform. This was shot at 1/400 second and it was not nearly enough (despite having good light and shooting wide open and at 1600 ISO). A gimbal head and stable tripod are critical when using big lenses like a 500mm f/4. Getting closer to the action can result in greater detail, but it becomes increasingly more difficult to track the animals in the very narrow field of view. I did not nail this entire sequence because the bird was moving so quickly and my camera lost target acquisition multiple times, despite have a large zone AF system.