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[casper]

My wife spotted a bee hive in the back yard today, a welcome excuse for me to get the camera out and take a walk around the yard. All taken with Canon 7D, hand held. I have cropped, done a few minor adjustments, and resized. All C & C most welcome.
Bee hive – EF 17-85mm F4-F5.6 IS USM: F5.6, 1/13s, ISO 200 (I realise I should have increased ISO to get shutter up to hand held speed)


Wood Pile – same lens: F5.6, 1/100s – ISO 400. This dead gum tree was felled a few weeks ago. Kookaburras are territorial. I am now wondering if this may have been his former home.


Brown cuckoo dove - EF 70-300 F4-F5.6 IS USM: F5.6, 1/40s, ISO 640. Our property adjoins a National Park -we get visits from many lovely doves not seen in the suburbs, also including wonga, white head, and bronze wing pigeons - I will try to collect shots of these to post for the birders. Thanks for looking
- Noel

[gcowan]

My wife spotted a bee hive in the back yard today, a welcome excuse for me to get the camera out and take a walk around the yard. All taken with Canon 7D, hand held. I have cropped, done a few minor adjustments, and resized. All C & C most welcome.
Bee hive – EF 17-85mm F4-F5.6 IS USM: F5.6, 1/13s, ISO 200 (I realise I should have increased ISO to get shutter up to hand held speed)


Wood Pile – same lens: F5.6, 1/100s – ISO 400. This dead gum tree was felled a few weeks ago. Kookaburras are territorial. I am now wondering if this may have been his former home.


Brown cuckoo dove - EF 70-300 F4-F5.6 IS USM: F5.6, 1/40s, ISO 640. Our property adjoins a National Park -we get visits from many lovely doves not seen in the suburbs, also including wonga, white head, and bronze wing pigeons - I will try to collect shots of these to post for the birders. Thanks for looking
- Noel

Hi Noel,
Very interesting shots.

We have lots of bees hanging around our tea trees but thankfully no nests. It is a pity that the shutter speed was low, as I presume you were reluctant to poke your lens in really close for more detail, and it looks too soft to crop and re-size.

It appears to me that the focus point may be in the wrong place on the dove. Did you use auto focus? I did a Canon workshop earlier this year to teach us Canon users how to focus with these high pixel sensors. It was suggested that we re-configured the auto focus away from the shutter release and to the AF On button, put the focus on the central point and use servo focus. Since I did this I have been able to use AF rather than my usual manual focus and get really precise results. A couple of hours with the manual looking through the special functions codes will tell you how to do this. The technique is press the button with your thumb release and frame. Then shoot, the lens doesn't re-focus when you press the shutter. You can hold the shutter down to the half way point to lock the exposure at any time as well without interferring with your focus point.

We had to cut down a 30 metre high Sydney Blue gum recently and I fear we have lost our magpie family and a very beautiful green tree snake. Hopefully your Kookaburra has a home nearby. For some reason we are not getting crested pigeons or peaceful doves these days either.

I will look forward to seeing more of the birds.

Graham

[casper]

hi Graham,
Was looking forward to trying again today, only to find the "hive" gone. I checked Wikipedia, and learnt that it was actually a swarm - after leaving an old hive the bees cluster around the queen (usually not far from the hive) while "scouts" determine the best location for the new hive. They then move on.
I did use AF one shot mode, but was focused on the dove's left chest They don't stay still very long, so servo may have been a better option. I think I understand what you mean about remapping the AF fn. Thanks for the tip. I usually half press, hold and recompose, or lock exposure, release shutter, recompose, and refocus. I will look into the technique you suggest. Thanks again.
regards, Noel.

[gcowan]

hi Graham,
Was looking forward to trying again today, only to find the "hive" gone. I checked Wikipedia, and learnt that it was actually a swarm - after leaving an old hive the bees cluster around the queen (usually not far from the hive) while "scouts" determine the best location for the new hive. They then move on.
I did use AF one shot mode, but was focused on the dove's left chest They don't stay still very long, so servo may have been a better option. I think I understand what you mean about remapping the AF fn. Thanks for the tip. I usually half press, hold and recompose, or lock exposure, release shutter, recompose, and refocus. I will look into the technique you suggest. Thanks again.
regards, Noel.

The photographer who ran the workshop was Nick Rains. His work is stunning.

It was organised by Canon EOS. They may have some notes on their site, or Nick may have some on his site. It is really worth a look anyway. It is clearly a problem for lots of us, because the camera will re-focus and make its own choice of focus point.

I am glad your swarm didn't come my way.
Graham