Flogging Kevin

I’ve been following the Birds As Art site by Arthur Morris for a while now. It has lots of good technical information covering exposure and careful technique to create stunning images in nature with (usually) available light. So, I finally went shooting with the express purpose of shooting birds and trying to put this new information to work. With the most common local bird being the infestation of Canadian geese, I didn’t expect much.

For the most part, my images were not up to par. There was one moment which was an interteresting challenge. While walking along the shore, two geese took off flying low across the water. I whipped up my camera, zoomed out to the maximum length, and tried my best to focus and trip the shutter gently.

Other than the birds flying away from me, I think my biggest mistake was having too low an ISO (160) which caused the Aperture Priority mode to use a very slow shutter speed with this slow lens (70-300/4.5-5.6 @ f/8.0). I didn’t have time to think about all that, so I’m somewhat pleased, but it seemed obvious what I did wrong. Do you agree?

I would like to try more bird photography, but good images really need longer, faster glass to get breathtaking shots. That kind of hardware won’t be in my hands any time soon.