First Birdie -- Hawaiian Ae'o

[bruder]

I took my first bird shot today. Unfortunately I had to shoot through a chain linked fence. I ended up holding the lens up to one of the holes. I had to crop a little to eliminate the fence. Any suggestions on how to deal with this situation? The other entrance to the preserve doesn't offer the same view.

These were taken at Kanaha Pond on Maui. The place is beautiful and has two rare species of Hawaiian birds -- the Ae'o, picture here, and the Coot, which I didn't see.




And here's a shot of the bird's habitat.

[penolta]

This may be the first picture of an endemicHawiian Stilt ever posted on this site, even if it is small- you are off to a good start. Nice composition on the second one, to.

As for the fence, I have always had to do what you did. The only way around that situationI can think ofwould be to find some way to shoot over it (like bringing a step-ladder with you, or standing on your car if you can drive up to the fence). If the fence is low enough, and you had a camera with a fold out viewing screen like the Sony H9, you could hold it over your head, but that would be awkward at best, particularly at maximum zoom.

I look forward to seeing more pictures of Hawiian birds from you.

[bilybianca]

Nice pictures of a bird I'll never see here.

The fence situation is too familiar to me too, but I get fairly decent results by simply holding the lens as close to the wires as possible, of course avoiding one of them in centre. With a large aperture (small f-stop number) the wires in the frame become so blurred that they are actually invisible.

Kjell

Sample:

[mtngal]

You did very well! I shoot through chain link fences every so often. My macro lens pretty much fits into the hole, so it isn't a big deal, but I'm often using my 300mm lens, with a big front element. Using a larger aperture helps, especially if the subject isn't near the fence.

[ishino]

I don't think I have ever seen one of those birds before. He looks like an interesting fellow. Hopefully you get some more closeups in the future. Thank you for sharing!

Pretty kitty too Kjell...

[bruder]

Thanks for the encouragement, I'll try to get closer in the future but the bird seemed a bit shy. I'm hoping to capture more images of this beautiful bird. I'll see if the 300/5.6 is capable of blurring out the fence.

[robar]

fences and webbing can be a problem if they are very dense. close netting or really small holes. the was shot thru 3 1/2'' webbing so i know you can get around it. the trick is to use a large aperture(smaller number).. that way the DOF cancels out the web/fence components. the light will tend to bend around the objects in the way. you can see the shadow of the netting in these but not the netting between us.
190mm/f4.5





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