On 24th March I had a short session with the new camera at Calke Park. Being in the hide gave me a good variety of lighting conditions and background situations, plus an almost endless stream of birds, enabling me to get in some much-needed practice with the new equipment. I was delighted with the results, although some problems were discovered, and later resolved.
The owl sculpture just before the hide at Calke Explore, although a little on the naive side, is weathering nicely. I just managed to squeze it all in with the lens wound back to 100mm and turning the camera into portrait orientation - something that I don't think I've done for many years.
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Owl Sculpture - Calke Explore
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I was fortunate to find a space in the hide, and that someone had had the foresight to bring some suet pellets with them, as it seems that the feeders in front of the hide are not being replenished at the moment.
There were a few Reed Buntings in the area, both male and female, and these were not too difficult to photograph. The female, in the first image, was quite close to the hide, but the male in the second image was way behind.
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| Reed Bunting (Emberiza schoeniclus) (female) - Calke Park |
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| Reed Bunting (Emberiza schoeniclus) (male) - Calke Park |
There were also a few Nuthatches to keep me entertained, but they were not so easy to photograph as they habitually zoom in, grab food and then zoom away again. One did, however, briefly stop quite close!
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Nuthatch (Sitta europaea) - Calke Park
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During the next five minutes, I took some more shots, two of which I offer below.
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| Coal Tit (Periparus ater) - Calk Park |
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| Reed Bunting (Emberiza schoeniclus) (female) - Calke Park |
It was then that a minor calamity struck. A Water Rail - always exciting to see - wandered into view and I started firing off shots, only to find that my camera suddenly stopped and refused to take any more shots. There was a message to say that the card was full. This puzzled me as the camera has two card slots and I thought that I had set it up so that it automatically switched to the second card. By the time I found a workaround, the Water Rail had gone. I had, however, managed a few shots before I hit the stops.
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Water Rail (Rallus aquaticus) - Calke Park
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I managed to sort out the problem when I got home again.
After this, I stayed a while longer, hoping for the Water Rail to return, but it didn't. Here are some more shots of some of the birds photographed during this session. With the objective of getting to know the camera better, I was trying for shots in a variety of situations, rather than a variety of birds, so the subject matter might seem a little repetitive.
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| Dunnock (Prunella modularis) - Calke Park |
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| Reed Bunting (Emberiza schoeniclus) (male) - Calke Park |
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| Nuthatch (Sitta europaea) - Calke Park |
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Blue Tit (Cyanistes caeruleus) - Calke Park
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One small negative aspect of the new camera set-up came to light during this session, and it was one that I had not considered. My old Sigma 50-500 offered maximum appertures of f4.5 at 50mm and f6.3 at 500mm. The new 100-400 lens is f5.6 at 100mm and f8.0 at 400mm. This makes it a little more difficult to lose busy and confusing backgrounds behind the main subject.
I also have another minor problem, and that is that I had the camera set up to give a gentle 'beep' when focus was achieved. Since updating the firmware a few days ago, this 'beep' no longer happens. The camera beeps OK when I select it during the 'set up' process, but fails to carry it through to when the camera is in use. I am waiting for Canon to come back to me on this one.
Overall, however, I'm delighted to have made the switch.
I shall close now, and hope to be back with another post in, as usual, about a week's time.
In the meantime, please take good care of yourselves and Nature. Thank you for dropping by - - - Richard
