In Flight

[Darrell1]

These were difficult to get. My exposure was a bit off, so Photoshop levels blew out my whites a bit. I'll try again tomorrow.





This is why he has a bug in his mouth:





Darrell

[eric s]

Wow, that third picture really grabs you, huh? How I see why they keep feeding them!

And I like the first, even if its a little off. It looks like its just hovering there for me. Very nice.

Eric

[Falcor200]

wow great pics!

[photosbyvito]

i'm liking the second the best....i like the first a lot but the missing wing takes away from it a bit....

and the third one is crazy....wat the heck is that in his mouth? lol...i did well in science...but that doesn't ring a bell! lol

nice shots dude!

Vito

[photo_mage]

Wow! Fantastic pictures of a very difficult shot. Looks like it's modeling for you. Hmmm. Strange, the third pic makes me want to gofind an insect and feed it to my screen. :-)

[Normcar]

Darrell, Darrell, Darrell, where have you been? It's about time you arrived! Excellent impressions!

Keep them coming!

[geoffs]

Just superlative photos Darrell. I echo Norm's thoughts... "keep 'em coming!"

BTW, were you using specialized equipment for these shots? As in, special trip sensors to trigger your camera and flash?

[Darrell1]

geoffs wrote:

Just superlative photos Darrell. I echo Norm's thoughts... "keep 'em coming!"

BTW, were you using specialized equipment for these shots? As in, special trip sensors to trigger your camera and flash?

Wow! Thanks for all the nice comments. It is really nice to show photos to others with the same interest. Normally I just email them to my family members.

I am just using a Sony 717 camera. I have a wired remote for it to trip the shutter. With a few Radio Shack parts, I extended the cord on the remote to about 20 feet. I sit back and wait for the bird to fly up and feed the young ones. For the above pictures, the camera was only about 6 inches from the hole to the bird house. I rarely use a flash, but for the above pictures I did and I really like the results. The flash did not bother the bird at all! I was amazed.

After many attempts at stopping the action, I finally wised up and closed down my aperature. This gave me a dark background (and dark bird during the time my shutter was open) and the flash was able to stop the action.

Darrell

[geoffs]

Thanks for describing your technique, Darrell!

Let me get this straight... You have a remote for the camera which is wired (ie: not IR) and you extended its length so you can sit a distance away from where the camera is mounted. Therefore, although you are triggering the shutter and flash using the remote, the actual decision to do so is completely manual via when you push the button. Right?

With this technique, what's the ratio of times you trigger a photo where the birds are actually wholely in the FOV versus not in the FOV? It's gotta take some practice, that's for sure; especially with the lag in time from when you push the remote button to when the shutter and flash trip. I'm assuming you've already prefocused and locked the focus...

[Darrell1]

geoffs wrote:

You have a remote for the camera which is wired (ie: not IR) and you extended its length so you can sit a distance away from where the camera is mounted. Therefore, although you are triggering the shutter and flash using the remote, the actual decision to do so is completely manual via when you push the button. Right?

With this technique, what's the ratio of times you trigger a photo where the birds are actually wholely in the FOV versus not in the FOV? It's gotta take some practice, that's for sure; especially with the lag in time from when you push the remote button to when the shutter and flash trip. I'm assuming you've already prefocused and locked the focus...

Yes, a wired remote. I manually push the button to take the image. The remote that I use can be seen on the bottom of this page: http://www.steves-digicams.com/2002_.../f717_pg2.html

I manually focus the camera and manually set the exposure. Then, there are few decisions for the camera to make. The bird will usually "scope out" the area around the house to make sure it is safebefore hedelivers the food. I've noticed that most of the time, he flies in from the same direction. When I see that he is back with food, I press my shutter release half way down and get ready (because my focus and exposure is already manually set, I'm not sure if this step does any good), but as I see the bird fly to the house, I just press the rest of the way. There is ALMOST NO DELAY. Out of only about 10 shots of him in flight, I was able to get the above two. When he is actually feeding the little ones, I am just snapping away as quickly as possible. His head is often in the way, young ones not in view, etc.

Thank goodness digital film is free. I could not imagine doing this with 35mm!

Darrell