Tag: photography

Yet Another One

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Here is another of the four “good” bird pics I got over the weekend . . . having never been a bird watcher, once I began looking a little more closely, I really got into it.  New hobby?  Certainly a pleasant way to spend some time.

Don’t know what this fella is, so the word is out . . .

Note:  This is a young White-Crowned Sparrow, as opposed to the old ones from a few days ago.

Woodpecker

Woodpecker

Here is another bird, definitely a woodpecker!  He was about 30′ / 10m from me, and the 70-300mm lens did its magic.  As this guy was backlit, I really had to open up the exposure so we can see him.  From what I can find on the internet, this is a Nuttall’s Woodpecker, which makes sense as I am in Southern California.

Camouflage

House Finch

Today I went up to the Botanical Gardens, one thought on my mind:  to take images of birds with my 70-300mm lens on the Nikon V3.  As the V3 has a 2.7 crop factor, this makes the 70-300 the equivalent of 189-810mm.

I’ve never used this lens to specifically capture birds, but it did a pretty good job.  My technique was shutter priority, with the shutter set to 1/1000 to keep blur to the least possible amount; I also set the iso to 3200 down (priority based) and the f/stop to about 5.6 to 8.

I have absolutely no idea what these birds are, nor was I really aware of birds until I was determined to find them.  I had hoped to see a road runner – they are up there! – but I did see four distinctively different ones, which I caught.  Looking in Peterson’s Field Guide to Birds of Western North America, this looks like a wren, but what kind???

The 1 Nikon 70-300mm lens does a pretty good job overall.  It has the advantage of being lightweight with image stabilization.  Coupled with the V3, I could catch multiple images in a row, clicking away as the birds moved around, and then choosing the best of what I got.

More to follow!

Note:  A fellow on flickr says these little guys are White Crowned Sparrows!