Asher Kelman
OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Rarely do I manage to catch any wild birds near my home. By the time the 70-200 is put on the camera they are gone and once again regret that I sold my 300 2.8 anyway! However, today, an important visitor arrived and perched on the top of a California Oak tree which is on its way out with oak root fungus.*
Anyway, today was not the day for pictures as some of you might know that my 5DII has to go to Canon CPS for bent pins and the 5D Mark One has not been returned from a loan! My Ricoh at 50 mm will not make it so I resurrected my trusty 1DII and was shocked to find that the AF doesn't work so I decided to go with MF. I added the x1.4 extender to my 70-200 2.8L IS and tried to MF on the bird. Traffic stopped to find out what was going on and then a jogger warned me to go inside since he saw someone buzzed by two of these.
Anyway, I tried my best to focus manually and now realized how I have been spoiled by the AF and also by a large LCD screen and live view in the 5DII. Today made me want to have even a Canon Rebel 550 T2i which would have given a x1.6 multiplication of the frame and put more pixels on the bird.
So this is what I got!
Asher Kelman Raptor in the hood
So who can name this raptor? Forgive me, any purist here, I admit to imperfectly removing excess twigs that bothered me! It's worth noting that if the oak tree was not ill with fungus, then the canopy of leaves would have hidden this bird. Interestingly, a hummingbird kept on fluttering around and the raptor wasn't at all disturbed!
Asher
*Something affecting about 30% of the trees in the Northern USA. With too much water the fungus thrives and the trees die.The mushroom, I'm told is delicious but I didn't dare eat it, LOL!
Anyway, today was not the day for pictures as some of you might know that my 5DII has to go to Canon CPS for bent pins and the 5D Mark One has not been returned from a loan! My Ricoh at 50 mm will not make it so I resurrected my trusty 1DII and was shocked to find that the AF doesn't work so I decided to go with MF. I added the x1.4 extender to my 70-200 2.8L IS and tried to MF on the bird. Traffic stopped to find out what was going on and then a jogger warned me to go inside since he saw someone buzzed by two of these.
Anyway, I tried my best to focus manually and now realized how I have been spoiled by the AF and also by a large LCD screen and live view in the 5DII. Today made me want to have even a Canon Rebel 550 T2i which would have given a x1.6 multiplication of the frame and put more pixels on the bird.
So this is what I got!
Asher Kelman Raptor in the hood
So who can name this raptor? Forgive me, any purist here, I admit to imperfectly removing excess twigs that bothered me! It's worth noting that if the oak tree was not ill with fungus, then the canopy of leaves would have hidden this bird. Interestingly, a hummingbird kept on fluttering around and the raptor wasn't at all disturbed!
Asher
*Something affecting about 30% of the trees in the Northern USA. With too much water the fungus thrives and the trees die.The mushroom, I'm told is delicious but I didn't dare eat it, LOL!