Two breeding pairs today, both males fishing for their mates who are on eggs

  • Tempus Fugit
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    3 months ago

    Awesome shot. No, I haven’t invested much into camouflaging my yak yet. It has a camo pattern already, but I doubt that helps much.

    I assume you used a pre-shot feature to get that diving shot? What shutter speed did you use?

    • tankplankerOP
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      3 months ago

      Yeah camo netting is my next purchase, anything to break up my person shape.

      That one is manual focus using focus lock so the camera does the hard work focusing and i get to stop it refocusing and missing shots when shootingwith burst. I focused on the branch as thats roughly in the same focal plane as the kingfisher likes to dive.

      Its not going to work everytime but it works more than it doesn’t for fast shots. Issue with this one is i just wasn’t fast enough panning down with my gimbal, kingfishers are so fast.

      A jump to a xh2 would help as that has nearly double the mechanical shutter shots per second on my xt50, 15 vs. 8. I don’t trust the electronic shutter at higher speeds as it can roll so I can’t go higher for burst mode.

      Shot was at 4000th, f5, ISO8000. I would have liked at least f8 if not f11 to increase the area in focus even more but there just wasn’t enough light.

      • Tempus Fugit
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        3 months ago

        I actually do have some camo netting. Does it help that much to break up our outline? I’ll look like a fool to get good shots.

        Focusing on the branch makes sense. You had a most excellent angle for the lighting too. It’s interesting that the kingfisher stays within that focal plane while diving. That’s actually amazing.

        I feel completely out of my league when you start talking about panning for kingfishers, ha.

        Dang, 1/4000s is fast and at f/5 is wild. You must have been pretty close, no?

        • tankplankerOP
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          3 months ago

          I hear you with camo, one of those things you only want on for the shortest amount of time.

          The netting is meant to if you are sitting or crouching, similar profile to one of those pop up camo tents. Its not going to help with a super cautious bird but its enough to stop a chunk of them worrying.

          I was about 8 to 10m away, so pretty close. If i had a second body I could have had that with my 50-150mm less than half that distance and used my remote shutter for the diving shots while I did the close ups remotely. Needs two of you really, as you need one to hold a long stick (tripod is good backup) and the other to do the manual focusing lock on the camera.

          It would have been too close if I sat there with the camera, would have scared them off completely.

          Panning is easy with a good gimbal, has to be if I can do it.

          • Tempus Fugit
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            3 months ago

            This is good info thanks. I’m going to have to try some of this stuff.