This spring we moved our bird bath to a much better location. I have been cleaning it out and putting fresh water in it almost daily, but I had never seen a bird using it. I could tell they were using it because I would find droppings on it. I have wanted to set up my camera, and take a series of shots throughout the day to see who my visitors were. Today I finally had the chance. I hooked my camera to my PC and set it to take a photo every 5 seconds. Due to the time it took to save the image to the PC, it turned out to be 10 seconds between shots instead of five. (Note to self: Use smaller image size next time.) I set the camera to f/8 and used aperture priority mode and just let it go for about 4 1/2 hours. I used my 100mm f/2.8 macro lens. It took 1565 photos in that time. Here are a few of the visitors that I captured. I also had some blue jays. I will use a wider lens next time so I don't cut off the larger birds. Only PP done is a little sharpening.

Nice use of the timed/PC shooting feature.

It is interesting to see what we miss during the day.

Thanks for your efforts and sharing these!

That's a great idea!!!!!

Thanks Loupey and Paul.

I set my camera and PC up again today knowing that I wasn't going to be out and about shooting. This time I used my 50mm f/1.8 set to f/10. I had to add another rock to the bird bath because there was a bad glare on the water messing with my exposure. I also found out that even by setting my camera to the lowest quality jpegs, I still end up with 10 seconds between shots. I will have to try writing to the card first to see if that speeds things up.

I checked some of the photos after a couple hours, and noticed that the focus had shifted. I thought I forgot to refocus after moving the camera, so I adjusted it, and reset it. After a while, I checked it again, and noticed that the focus had shifted again. So I turned the AF on, and left it. It worked fine but it drained the batteries much faster. Next time I will put a piece of tape on the focus ring to keep it in place. Notice how the cardinal and the pair of house finches are OOF. :( The lone female house finch must be a model. She hung around for more than 60 photos!