Caged

FUJIFILM X-E1, f/4.8 @ 200 mm, 1/100, ISO 800, No Flash

Swan Portrait

Canon EOS 5D Mark III, f/2 @ 135 mm, 1/4000, ISO 100, No Flash

Feathered friend coming in to land...

Canon EOS 5D Mark II, f/4 @ 300 mm, 1/2000, ISO 200

 

Who's a pretty boy then?

My fisheye has gone to pastures new to make way for this beast - the Sigma 35mm f/1.4 DG HSM

I reckoned that the 35mm would get more use. I have owned the Canon 35mm f/1.4 L in the past and this new lens appears to be far superior. It is very sharp wide open (as the shot below demonstrates) and renders out of focus areas beautifully.

In the shot below the focus point is on the eye. This is a fairly heavy crop. Viewing the original at 100% shows the eye to be silly-sharp! The Canon's 35mm f/1.4 is a great lens, but not ideal wide open unlike the Sigma. (Bob L - just order one!)

Canon EOS 5D Mark II, f/1.4 @ 35 mm, 1/200, ISO 400, Flash

That'll be my crumb...

Canon EOS-1Ds Mark III, f/1.2 @ 85 mm, 1/1000, ISO 100, No Flash

Hand Feeding the pigeons

In the park today - the intention was to feed some squirrels (you can see one disappearing in the background) but the pigeons were too good at getting there first!

This is a crop from a 15mm fisheye frame.

Canon EOS 5D Mark II, f/4 @ 15 mm, 1/200, ISO 400, No Flash

Pheasant

Just a dash of fill flash here!

Canon EOS-1D Mark III, f/3.5 @ 102 mm, 1/640, ISO 100, Flash

I've got my eye on you!

A particularly tame thrush taken at very close range with my 70-200mm. I'm pleased I managed to nail the focus on the eye.

Canon EOS-1D Mark III, f/2.8 @ 200 mm, 1/200, ISO 200, No Flash

Gannet in flight

This was taken with the Canon 70-200mm f/2.8 MKII with a Canon 2x MKII extender attached.

It was a little tricky tracking this fast-moving gannet across the sky whilst in a boat rocking on the sea! The 1DIII's Servo tracking did a great job, however and despite being a little small in the frame due to how high it was flying, the bird is nice and sharp!

Canon EOS-1D Mark III, f/5.6 @ 400 mm, 1/4000, ISO 400

Grey parrot at the Souk

Doha's Souk has a street full of pet shops, mostly selling birds - here is a parrot on a perch outside one such shop.

FUJIFILM FinePix X100, f/2.8 @ 23 mm, 1/640, ISO 200, No Flash

Tit in winter sun.

I love shooting in winter sun - you get a lovely warm quality to the light. This was taken handheld with the Canon 70-200 f/2.8 MKII and a Canon 2x II Extender. This is a great combination for getting decent reach with decent quality without having to buy a huge lens!

Canon EOS-1D Mark III, f/6.3 @ 400 mm, 1/400, ISO 800, No Flash

Flying Swan

I don't do lots of bird photography and hence have not invested in any of the longer lenses. For this shot I used my Canon 70-200 f/2.8 L IS MKII with a Canon 2x MKII extender. The combination is surprisingly sharp (in my opinion the MKI version of this lens was terrible with the 2x extender) and is perfect for my occasional wildlife shots.

I liked the late afternoon winter sunlight in this shot.

Canon EOS-1D Mark III, f/6.3 @ 400 mm, 1/1600, ISO 800

Garden visitor

I love goldfinches and I'm delighted that we have had two regularly and sometimes three of them this year. They seem to love the niger seeds.

I don't own any really long lenses so I stretched the 70-200 with the 1.4x extender and cropped heavily for this shot. I was pleased with the sharpness of the results despite the crop!

EXIF Canon EOS-1D Mark III, f/4 @ 280 mm, 1/1000, ISO 400

Alone amongst the ripples

I liked the negative space around the subject in this shot. Focal length was 280 because I used the long end of the 70-200 with a 1.4x converter on it.

EXIF Canon EOS-1D Mark III, f/5 @ 280 mm, 1/200, ISO 400

Gull in flight

I really liked the wing position on this shot. The 1D Mark III is notorious both for excellent servo AF and also very inconsistent autofocus. Top tip, put tracking speed on slowest! I took a load of bird in flight shots today with this setting using the 70-200 f/2.8 IS L II with the 1.4x II converter fitted. Correctly focussed shots over 90% of the time!

Canon EOS-1D Mark III, f/5.6 @ 280 mm, 1/1000, ISO 400

Duck Portrait

I took this shot while testing the focussing accuracy of a lens. You can tell how thin the plane of focus is - only the eye & beak are sharp.

I loved the rich greens in this shot and the smoothly blurred background.

1DMKIII, Sigma 85mm f/1.4 @ f/1.4, 1/3200s, ISO400 with a dash of flash. You can see that the flash has given a highlight in the duck's eye.

Thanks for looking!

Phil

Swan at sunset

A swan captured in the golden light of the falling sun.

With this shot I wanted to contrast a sharply focused swan with the gently blurred sunset catching on the ripples. I needed to avoid the swan becoming a silhouette against the back lighting so I used a flash.

Kit was 1D3, 135mm f/2 wide open @ 1/5000s, ISO400. In the past flashguns would not sync at such fast a shutter speed, the 580EXII pulses the flash to allow higher syncing.

A little lightening of the swan was done in Lightroom.

Thanks for looking - any questions, please ask!

Phil

Cockerel Portrait

A portrait of a cockerel in the afternoon sun.

1DIII and 24-105 @ 105mm f/4 wide open. Polariser to deepen the colours and fill flash to give a sparkle to the eye and lighten shadows. 1/125s @ ISO 200.