300mm are not enough - Cranes in the swamp

LaFoto

Just Corinna in real life
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On Sunday, we went to explore this large swamp area, which is a nature reserve so that normally you can only walk into it as far as the watch tower, but no further.

So I tried to zoom in onto the cranes of which there were many far, far away (they were no more but tiny dots to my eyes).

I have come to the conclusion that a normal 300mm lens is too little ... :(

tisterbauernmoor01.jpg

Two new arrivals

tisterbauernmoor02.jpg

The osprey causing a bit of commotion among the cranes (can you spot it? I would never have seen it with my eyes only!)

Thankfully this Canada goose flew across the water a bit closer to where I was than where the cranes were put:

tisterbauernmoor03.jpg


Still: far from being a "close-up" (and this is a 70% crop!!!)

Hmmmmmmmmmm! :scratch:
Something must change in my equipment bag, I think! ;)

Ah! And the sun was right against me, shining out of a hazy sky. Didn't make things easier...
 
you have a 1.6 crop as we already discussed .. hence you are really talking of effective 1.6x300mm :p Just be glad you do not shoot full frame ... ;)

this way the images give a lot of the context, which is unusual and not a bad thing in itself. they are more moody than close ups would have been.
 
You may be right, but I was still disappointed to see that I couldn't really take any "Lostprophet"-like photos, or "doenoe"-like ones ...

Can you spot the osprey?
Now think about how some other members on here have managed to photograph ospreys before!

:grumpy: (<- Well, not really ... )
 
often they are taken at zoos and similar places.

to get wild animals in nature (a friend of mine does), you might need to spend days in your tent, silent, waiting, with a 500-600mm lens. He spends many weeks each year in Scandinavia doing this, and in some years he only manages a couple of usable shots. In some other years he is pretty successful.
 
some of us have never even seen an Osprey


anyway I love #3
 
Being restricted to how close you can get makes it very difficult. I work hard to get my shots and employ all available means to get closer. The three big things I've learned are camoflauge, stealth and patience. I will crawl on my belly, wade through the marshes in chestwaders, and stalk slowly through the brush sometimes only making a 100 meters over an hours time.

My working focal lengths are from 70mm to 560mm with use of a teleconverter add in the 1.6 crop factor and my longest effective length is equivelent to 1000mm. You always will want more reach;)

Being in the right spot at the right time when in a blind is part luck and part research. I probably get one great shot for evry 100 hours of field time.

For every good shot taken I have witnessed dozens of events that make the time invested priceless and every once in a while you get it recorded.

Keep at it and don't be afraid to do what it takes to get closer.

After saying all that . I like your photos above it's not always about how close you can get but about the story your pics convey.
 
I went this past Sunday into the swamp that joins the family property. I only went in a little way by john boat (14' - 4.25M flat bottom powered by oar) to where the herons nest and hang out. I had a Nikon D300, 300mm f/4 with a 1.7 TC and I was disgusted with the entire lot of them.

What is the trick with BIF to not get the blur? I'm guessing a steadier hand and a faster shutter speed. I counted it as a trial run only. Next time!

I do like what you caught Corrina. Thanks for sharing.
 
I went this past Sunday into the swamp that joins the family property. I only went in a little way by john boat (14' - 4.25M flat bottom powered by oar) to where the herons nest and hang out. I had a Nikon D300, 300mm f/4 with a 1.7 TC and I was disgusted with the entire lot of them.

What is the trick with BIF to not get the blur? I'm guessing a steadier hand and a faster shutter speed. I counted it as a trial run only. Next time!

I do like what you caught Corrina. Thanks for sharing.

I like to get the shutter speed up to 1/1000th or better and I like to keep the ISO as low as possible 400 or under 800 max.
Of course IS or VR is a big ,big plus. I never get any good handhelds of BIF's with a TC. Panning and camera control come with practice. Keep trying and you can get shots like this
Hawk038_edited-1.jpg
 
^^ A beaut for sure. Thanks for the info.
 
great shots corinna, i like the 3rd one best. And if i have to guess what the osprey is, im going for the black silhouete on the rightside of the pic.
 
Nice shot of the goose.
I find that with 300mm you need to be less than 10m away for a nice closeup.

Dani.
 
Oh... the cranes were at least 300 metres away, I would guess even further! The goose flew past at about --- think-think-think --- 150 metres. But the more I think about it, the more I remember that the Nature Reserve Club sometimes organise guided excursions into the swamp. And sometimes also photo excursions. That could be my chance to get further into the swamp than only to the watch tower, and to maybe see (and capture with my lens) some more, and some better photos.

Daan, you are right, and I only ever saw that I had captured it when I loaded the pics into my computer. I could neither see it in the viewfinder, nor on the little camera display. And I doubt my husband ever realised it was there since he only looked with his eyes. Everything was just too, too far away. Must find a GoogleEarth pic of this swamp area!
 
Here's a GoogleEarth image ("doctored" by myself) and the indicated viewing direction is about Photo 2 here.

googlemapvommoor.jpg
 

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