This next post takes place over two days at the same location. First trip I went in the early early morning on a Saturday. Then again a few days later in the evening of a workday.
It was a place near me that I found on google maps looking for big open areas, fields, bodies of water. Etc. Next to a park trail was this large lot of marshland. Body of water running through the middle, big tall grass. But not a lot of trees, perfect to spot some birds in flight. And that’s what I started the day out with, the first picture I have in this folder is a group of mallards after they took off from the water.
Canon 5D Mark II w/ Tamron 150-600mm @450 + Vivitar 2x Teleconverter =900mm equivalent - 1/800 Sec - F13 - ISO 6400
My goal here was to try out the new teleconverter I had purchased. Even though I had read what people were saying about image quality degradation, I took a gamble on a cheap 2x. The results are less than thrilling. But a lesson learned for sure.
I settled in with my folding chair as far out as I could go, there was a good bit of water in front of me before the plants took over. I was positioned right next to what could have been part of a dam, with all the logs and rocks that were there. Then I noticed, practically in front of my nose, something that made me jump.
Canon 5D Mark II w/Tamron 150-600mm @364 - 1/800 Sec - F11 - ISO 6400
A deer skull.
What the fuck was this doing here? Obviously human involvement. But it was just so strange to see this in the rocks and tree branches. A bit unsettling for sure. As far as I could tell it was real, I didn’t mess with it. There was definitely deer in this area so I supposed it’s possible someone came across this in the woods and brought it out near the water, as I mentioned it was right next to the trail of a very busy park. People are weird.
Back to bird watching.
Canon 5D Mark II w/ Tamron 150-600mm @600 + Vivitar 2x Teleconverter =1200mm equivalent - 1/1000 Sec - F13 - ISO 6400
Although I didn’t identify this particular bird back in the day, having done my research now when writing this I can say for sure it’s a Common Grackle. A purple Grackle to be precise, which is native to the southeast.
I watched this guy flit back and forth around these reeds, digging for bugs I assume.
And that concluded the trip for Saturday. Several hours spent but not a lot to show for it. The other images I took were shakey, blurry out of focus, etc. The teleconverter had me manually focusing of course. As auto focus has no chance at that range. I did learn quite a bit about trying to get a fast moving subject like a bird in flight is extremely difficult with manual focus.
I tried again a few days later with a bit more success.
Canon 5D Mark II w/ Tamron 150-600 @300mm - 1/2000 Sec - F11 - ISO 2500
That evening I was out in a different spot, one that was off any sort of trail and through the woods into the marsh. While I set up the tripod and stood on top of logs and dead reeds I was in the middle of some waist high grass and weeds. Nervously jumping at each sound because quite frankly I had no idea what was in those weeds. And being this close to water I was expecting something slithering that would frighten the shit out of me.
Thankfully nothing like that happened, and in hour or two of sunlight I had left I did manage to watch a pair of Red Winged Blackbirds fly back and forth across this wide open area. There were several dead trees that had tall reaching branches or limbs that were perfect for the birds to land on for a bit. And excellent for me to be able to focus on preparing for a takeoff shot.
It took a while, I have quite a lot of picturing of a blurry bird just starting to move, or one of just a tree with no bird in the frame at all.
But eventually I managed to get what I wanted.
Canon 5D Mark II w/ Tamron 150-600mm @400 + Vivitar 2x Teleconverter =800mm equivalent - 1/2000 Sec - F13 - ISO 2000
In the midst of all the black of the bird that flash of reddish orange was like a light to a moth. I was absolutely thrilled to see it when I watched it flying around. I’d never seen one before, and out there to the naked eye and through my camera it looked awful orange to me. Orange is one of my favorite colors and I hope to find more orange birds in the future.
But I wanted more, more reach. Closer images of the birds. I still want that to this day, truly what I would like is full detailed close up images of birds. But that isn’t quite how it works. They don’t really take kindly to you getting close to them, so big long lenses are needed. And those cost a LOT.
I knew my old camera had a bit more reach, kind of, through the crop factor. So when a hawk appeared and was riding the thermals around I switched bodies so I could try and get as close as I could from the ground.
Canon Rebel T3i (1.6x crop factor) w/ Tamron 150-600mm @600 + Vivitar 2x Teleconverter =1920 equivalent - 1/3200 Sec - F13 - ISO 4000
Blech.
Maybe all that reach did come at a price. A pixelated blurry mess.
I did try one other thing with the T3i though, and that was a shot of the moon that had risen while I was out there. And although it also isn’t the clearest sharpest picture I’ve taken. The detail you can see is remarkable.
Canon Rebel T3i (1.6x crop factor) w/ Tamron 150-600mm @600 + Vivitar 2x Teleconverter =1920 equivalent - 1/1000 Sec - F13 - ISO 2000