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Dumb struck for a decent comment. Will just note down the settings

Thank you all for your very kind comments.

This is a Common Whimbrel as shot over the sand flats at Geelbek hide in the West Coast National Park. If you get your timing right with the incoming or outgoing tide in the early morning, you will be treated to many waders doing fly-bys so you can practice your bird in flight shots to your hearts content. In all the shots you will find a few keepers as I do. Early morning is the best time for this hide as the sun rises from behind the hide. The lighting in the image is not great as we had an overcast day, but you get the idea.



Canon 1D MKIV
Canon 500mm
1/1250
F/4.0
ISO 200

The depth of field on the 500mm is very shallow, meaning that the total focal distance is short, so for objects close to you, you need to increase the F value from F/4.0 upwards. For large birds that would fill your viewfinder, I would normally use a value of around f/8.0. At a longer distance such as this image above a lower value of f/4.0 works well.

On a visit to the Abrahamskraal hide in the WCNP last week we had a visit again from the European Bee-eaters. I was lucky to get this one in focus. They were speeding by and acquiring focus was a challenge. The background and high ISO is unfortunate but beggars can't be choosers

Canon 1D MK IV
Canon 500mm f/4.0
1/1600
F/8.0
ISO 1600



What I would do differently? Keep the shutter speed at 1/1600, go to f/4.0 in order to reduce the ISO to 800 or below.

Beautiful

Hi T

Thanks for the photos and info. I am a very keen follower of this thread of yours.

Just a comment on your comment ( ) - what was the distance between you and the Eurp bee-eater? Wouldn't you be struggling to keep both wingtips in focus if you've changed from f8 to f4? As it is right now, both wingtips look great.

@WillemK. Thanks for following this thread. Your questions have given me a bit of work and I have learnt a few things in the process. According to the EXIF information in Lightroom 3 the distance was 25.2 meters. So at f/8.0 at 25.2 meters the Depth of Field for the Canon 500mm lens is 1.1 meters.

So yes you could reduce the DoF easily to f/4.0 and you would still get the bird in focus, wing tips and all. In a perfect world. However, I chose f/8.0 to give me the chance of getting the bird in focus as it was diving into the water and darting around.

Thanks for the question, I appreciate the lesson I had to give myself

Here is a little Kittlitz's Plover shot outside the See Berg hide in the West Coast National Park. For this one I was on my stomach to get a nice low angle. As it was early morning the light was favorable.

1/1250
F/8.0
ISO 250
500mm plus 1.4 ext (700mm)

Distance 12.1 meter

Touareg,this is fantastic.Thank you for sharing it .

It was absolutely worth to get on your stomach for this great pic

Stunning pics on this thread - real eye candy!

On recent trip to the See Berg hide in the WNP I saw this Malachite Sunbird. It was flying around picking off spiders and bugs. In this shot it flew straight at me and I managed to get 2 frames in focus. When I saw the bird the first time it was very close so I increased the Dof to f/9.0.

1D MKiv
Canon 500 mm
1/2000
F/9.0
ISO 640
Distance 10.1 meters (DoF is around 16cm)

Never saw a pic of a Malachite Sunbird in flight!! Well done

Brilliant pic, Touareg!