A decent day for Smallies...

Follow that lil' bird..

Been working the whole morning to clean the house.
This is the only opportunity we get to mow the lawn, get rid of weeds at our yard.
I also vacuumed the carpet and mopped the floor as the standard clean-up ops.
While checking my emails on my Google Nexus 7 tablet, I saw a sparrow hopping on the yard.
We cut the grass, so, there's lots of green waste lying around.
I observed the little sparrow as it hopped around and worked on getting a shot of it with my Canon EOS7D and the trusty EF400mm F5.6L.
Its been a while since I shot any birds around the neighbourhood.

Sparrows are common lawn birds that you see everyday. 
But, capturing them in their element is another thing.
I guess I'll have plenty of time to shoot and catalog them next year...

The Olive Backed Sunbird

I went on a walkabout with my camera.
It was rigged to shoot 'smallies' (as birders would refer them) up close.
While scouring the plants at my neighbour's house, I noticed a very familiar 'chirp'.
Its a very small bird, no more than 20cm in length.
The bird has a long and sharp beak and its olive-yellow coloured.
Its also a very loud bird as it tweets non-stop.
I managed to get one in frame and fired away.
My camera's pixel sensitivity was set on auto, so, to compensate motion-blurring, the shutter speed as set at 1/1000sec with an aperture of F8.0.
This is the setting I get by mounting a 1.4x teleconverter on the EF400mm F5.6L lens.
On a cropped sensor body like the EOS7D, the total magnification is 896mm.
The wide-open aperture is reduced by one stop to F8.0 and this means that in order to get a decently exposed frame, the ISO sensitivity was sacrificed.
Even when the shot is sharp, the details are 'grainy'.
Another down-side to this is that the camera is unable to record the full exif data. 
Since a teleconverter is added, focussing has to be done manually. 
Here, I am training to shoot bigger birds..

Decent results...

Well, I must say that I am pleased with the capture I made with the rig.
There is always room for improvement and with the weak ambient light, I made good with the shots that were taken mostly hand-held.

An unexpected find..

A bird of prey that blends well with its environment..
It was a normal routine. Walk the dogs and get them worked out and at the same time, get some exercise.
My home has a simple 1.5km loop which is ideal for walking the dogs. By the time they get home, the kids would be zonked.
So, there I was, walking the Huskies and when I passed this heavily foliaged area, I noticed the outline of a large bird. 
It was perched on a branch, and the lighting conditions were extremely horrible.
Right up there in the backlight (about 50metres in distance) I noticed a raptor.
The first thing I did, was to bring the kids back, then mount on my Canon EF400mm F5.6L lens onto my full-frame Canon EOS5DmkIII body.
I also hauled along my EX430 flash gun and a 1.4x teleconverter.
This is one shot that I wouldn't want to miss.

Majestic raptor: The Crested Serpent Eagle

 There couldn't have been a better moment. 
When I got back to the spot, the raptor was still perched on the tree.
I capped off a few shots with my flash as a fill-in light.
The odds were stacking as I utilized my camera's aperture priority settings.
I knew that by stepping down the flash synch to 1/125, I would get a decent fill light.
But, with only manual focusing on hand with the 1.4x teleconverter mounted, I had a good chance of scoring a decent shot which is in focus and nail the extra details.
When I tried to move in closer, the eagle dismounted and flew off.
I had eight frames captured and had to contend with the results.
Next, I worked on the post-processing on the Adobe Lightroom 4.
The results was satisfying.
Although it could be better, that was the best I can do.
The Crested Serpent Eagle is number two on my record after capturing the Black-winged Kite in Sekinchan two weeks ago.