Snowy and a minnow

[coastalconn]

The weather has been so crappy lately. I shot this yesterday before the rain came in. It was dark, gloomy and overcast. Snowy Egrets do quite the dance trying to catch their fish. I think these 3 shots were in 1/2 sec.. These are pretty aggressive crops...Comments welcome

1

No you don't said the snowy egret 1 by krisinct, on Flickr

2

No you don't said the Snowy egret 2 by krisinct, on Flickr

3

No you don't said the snowy egret 3 by krisinct, on Flickr

 

[kathyt]

I love that third shot. Hey coastalconn, what is the one bird that you have not had a chance to shoot yet that you would love to shoot?

 

[BlackSheep]

Ha that fish didn't have a chance!

Nice shots, regardless of the crappy weather.

 

[coastalconn]

I love that third shot. Hey coastalconn, what is the one bird that you have not had a chance to shoot yet that you would love to shoot?

There are many, but #1 on the list would be a Snowy Owl for sure! or even a Great Grey. I still have never gotten really close to an adult bald eagle either. I do have a juvenile flying by really close though. The list could go on and on

 

[Low_Sky]

I love that third shot. Hey coastalconn, what is the one bird that you have not had a chance to shoot yet that you would love to shoot?

There are many, but #1 on the list would be a Snowy Owl for sure! or even a Great Grey. I still have never gotten really close to an adult bald eagle either. I do have a juvenile flying by really close though. The list could go on and on

Coastalconn,

I love those pictures, and including that they were all taken within a 1/2 second really shows the speed of these birds. If you want to see eagles, you need to go to Alaska. They're like pigeons up there!

 

[DarkShadow]

I love them all but #1 is great. The capture of the minnow popping out of the water and the water drop splashes go all the way to the top of the frame can be seen clear as day.

 

[baturn]

Aggressive crops and they are still sharp and detailed! Excellent!

 

[coastalconn]

At least I consider them aggressive. The D300 Native is 4288x2848. These are cropped down between 1700-1550 x 1250 to 1150 ish. I've never payed attention to crop percentages. But I guess they end up being a 2 MP image. If anyone cares or knows, you could probably figure out the crop percentage...

 

[jedirunner]

Very nice shots, and a great set. Nicely done!

Kevin

 

[sm4him]

Yeah, #1 is my favorite--just love that fish jumping away from the Egret!

Egrets are actually one of my top "haven't gotten it yet" photos. They're around here, but I haven't yet actually found WHERE.
Owls are also way up on my list--ANY owl. Haven't seen a single one since I started doing bird photography.

Hoping to check Egrets off the list while on vacation, though. And maybe some other water birds too, like a roseate spoonbill would be cool.
Lots of ducks I still want to capture--Mergansers, Canvasbacks, Redheads...hoping those will all come this fall, now I have some better ideas about where to go to find them.

Like Kris, the list goes on and on because REALLY? For those of us who love bird photography, the one we'd most love to shoot is ANY one we haven't gotten yet!! And there are WAY fewer birds that I *do* have good shots of than ones I don't!

 

[PropilotBW]

Do you find it easier to use manual focus or auto focusing while panning your bird shots? I have found it difficult to pan and get my lens to focus quick enough to catch the shot.

 

[coastalconn]

Do you find it easier to use manual focus or auto focusing while panning your bird shots? I have found it difficult to pan and get my lens to focus quick enough to catch the shot.

I always use auto focus! I'm not old school so I use the tools that are best suited to my purpose. I always shoot in AF-C. One thing I recommend to anyone shooting birds is to use "back button focus" You can program your ae-l button to control your af-system instead of the shutter button. This gives you much more control of the AF system as you use your thumb to control AF and your finger to activate the shutter independently . I guess I use "focus bumping"... this means I don't always hold down the focus button. I "bump" it to keep the system tracking the bird that I want not something in the background... This is even more important if the bird is flying towards you...

It just takes a lot of practice. The other advantage of back button focus is you can always leave your camera in AF-C and you don't have to mess around with focus points. You can focus on your subject and recompose as if you were in AF-S mode...

 

[Michael79]

These shots are incredible, I hope to be half as good as you are one day.