Couple of lift off's

[Knight]

Was just fooling around at my feeders today to see if i could get some stop wing action shots, well its much harder than i tought lol . Heres a few of my misses Couple of Chickadee's and a Male Junco .

[Eric D]

Very Nice!! That first shot really looks cool with the light on the wings!! You can see the right thru them!!

[scott-devon]

Those are neat shots Knight. Looks like fun.

[AgingEyes]

Knight, looks like you used flash, did you?

Yep, it's tough to do but that's what makes it addictive It happens so fast I can't see it with my naked aging eyes

[Knight]

thanks Eric and Scott , AgingEyes your right about using flash . I was using a 170-500mm , i think i will have better luck using my 70-300mm and if that does not work i have a 2.8 105mm Sigma that i can try as a last resort lol but all i know is that im gonna keep trying till i get a good one lol
Another thing is that, i have had this SB600 for over a year & have never used it , so im trying to learn flash also. If i get anything better ill post it up here and if anyone else has any that they want to post feel free to do so

[Loupey]

Nice job, Knight. Isn't it a great feeling to try something new?

[AgingEyes]

if anyone else has any that they want to post feel free to do so

Yes, sir

One of my attempts:




No flash though. To freeze the wings of the chickadee while it takes off, even 1/8000 sec may not be enough. This one is 1/5000 sec.

[Knight]

WOW AgingEyes in think your almost there I have to get my speed up some way .Today with flash again i could not get my S setting up higher than 1/200sec .

[Corvus corax]

Take a look at the Strobist website. Somewhere up there thay have an article on tricking the camera into high speed synch.

[Loupey]

With the Canon equipment, there is a high-synch mode to use unlimited shutter speeds. I would think Nikon has a similar feature.

If not, I suggest you shoot when it is fairly dark so that the flash can overpower and freeze the motion while minimizing the effect of the slower shutter speed.

[Knight]

Ok thanks Corvus ,Loupey i found this.

High-Speed flash synchronization at your camera’s highest shutter speed is
now possible. In this mode, the Auto FP High-Speed Sync mode is
automatically set when the shutter speed exceeds the camera’s sync shutter
speed. This is useful when you want to use a wider aperture to achieve shallow
depth of field to blur the background.
• Available with compatible cameras. You cannot set the Auto FP High-Speed sync mode
on the SB-600 directly, but must set it on the camera.
• When set on the camera, the Kindicator appears on the LCD panel.
• High-speed flash synchronization is possible exceeding your camera’s sync shutter
speed up to your camera’s highest shutter speed.
• Auto FP High-Speed sync also operates in the Advanced Wireless Lighting mode.
• Available flash modes are i-TTL and Manual flash.

Ill have to try it on the weekend, Thanks for now.

[Loupey]

Hey, Knight, here is a high-synch shot I did a few years ago.

Shot at 1/1000s so the wings are still blurred despite the flash. I could have gone faster but I didn't want to lose the background completely.

[Knight]

I remember this one , liked it then and still do

[AgingEyes]

Hey, Knight, here is a high-synch shot I did a few years ago.

IMO, Loupey, your older shots like this one have richer colors than your recent ones.

[Loupey]

Knight - thanks

AE - my colors recently are still all over the place. Unfortunately, I post so much here that very few will ever get printed - so I can't finalize the colors on a vast majority.

It is interesting that my problems started at about the same time I started using the 40D. I think the expanded dynamic range and the 14 bit color depth simply requires more "compression" to get the richer colors. This new laptop compounds my problems. I think I will start up the old laptop next week and see if I notice anything. Thanks for the feedback!

[Loupey]

Hey, Knight, I just noticed that your title was for "lift offs" and not landings - whoops.


Here is one taking off. Shot without flash and at 1/2000s. Landings are much easier than take offs. Those leaps into the air can be so fast and so easy to miss. Through the viewfinder, it's like they simply vanish into thin air.

Larger birds make it a little easier. I can't get images like these with the full-frame 5D. The lag due to the larger mirror is just too much.

[Knight]

They truly are fast critters another good one Loupey

[AgingEyes]

Some more behavior shots.

I use a different approach: all natural light. That means high ISO and shutter speed of 1/5000 sec fast. And LUCK.

[AgingEyes]

Zoom

[Knight]

Good one AgingEyes, what kind of bird is the last one ?

[neusphotography]

wow the one zoom above looks nice

[AgingEyes]

Good one AgingEyes, what kind of bird is the last one ?

I think it's a towhee. I could be wrong though; I suck big time id'ing birds :blush2:

[paulnj]

great images everyone