As a long time landscape photographer, I am trying to dip my foot into birding. So I've spent a lot of time plowing through Steve's Z8/Z9 wildlife set up and Nikon AF and Birds in flight books over the past few weeks - including some back yard practicing, and then this past weekend had a chance to get some "in the field" experience. I thought I'd share some of what it was like using some of the settings and techniques he suggests whilst on a "Birding Workshop" along a tidal river and some wetlands on Sunday. The weather during the morning was ... interesting ... ranging from partly- to mostly- to completely-cloud covered. Which I think was helpful in providing some training dealing with different types of lighting.
For the most part things worked out ok - ran into some expected problems (like: I had no clue as to how close to the birds we'd get, nor what types of birds we'd see - although I had some idea having lived in this state my whole life). For the earlier parts the biggest problem was lack of reach (to be expected given a 400mm, so I pretty much had the 1.4TC glued on - and that coupled w/ DX got me a little closer). The birds were mostly gulls, geese, various duck species, and a couple of loons - which aren't too large, and since the tide was out it was hard to get close as the riverbed is rather treacherous... I was surprised at how well at times the bird detection would work at getting the bodies, but was also bothered initially when a lot of times it could not find the head/eyes. A number of those birds were black/white mixed and the heads often had black eyes in black heads and that just doesn't work. I recalled Steve mentioning that in the books, so I was often using that "trick" of using the record button to switch to (e.g.) point AF and just grabbing that. I had the camera/lens pretty much glued to a monopod the whole time and that worked well as I was teaching the muscle memory about the various dances (mostly switch AF types, moving AF points, adjusting ISO as the light changed, adjusting MF to get "near" a subject so that bird detction had a chance at getting to the primary target).
The second part of the workshop brought us into some wooded wetlands - here it was mostly small songbirds and it became harder (to find birds) and easier (bird detection worked amazingly well). We were very fortunate to have an Audubon specialist with us - she was great at finding birds both by herself and when we would point out noises and she could then help us focus in on the critters. [We also saw something that was new to her - a pair of Cormorants were circling way up high - she had never seen that activity before.] In this environment the Z9+400+1.4TC worked really well - I could often get near enough to fill a lot of the frame (some times in DX mode though). It was very lightweight and easy to hand-hold and whip about.
The last part took us to some more open wetlands - here I was able to track an Egret and a Blue Heron in flight w/ ease. Although again lack of range reared its ugly head a bit. I still filled a goodly portion of the frame w/ DX mode on again.
All in all it was a very positive experience - for sure dealing w/ song birds in the wooded wetlands went well (although I really need to work on my bird-finding skills). Steve's books (and videos) were amazing at getting me up to speed on this - there is no way I'd have been able to set up and use the Z9+400mm w/out stumbling around for quite some time.
It's also clear that if I want to get into the other situations I'll need a (much?) longer lens for that. To start I'll concentrate more on getting the most out of the 400mm near-term and start saving some bucks for an 800PF I think. ;-)
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One other thing I should mention - sometimes I would get "lost" in the dance (buttons and focus) and then whilst photographing a subject I'd keep my shutter depressed way too long. W/out the audible feedback of a shutter I ended up taking ... A LOT ... of extra images that weren't needed. Need to learn some discipline there.
For the most part things worked out ok - ran into some expected problems (like: I had no clue as to how close to the birds we'd get, nor what types of birds we'd see - although I had some idea having lived in this state my whole life). For the earlier parts the biggest problem was lack of reach (to be expected given a 400mm, so I pretty much had the 1.4TC glued on - and that coupled w/ DX got me a little closer). The birds were mostly gulls, geese, various duck species, and a couple of loons - which aren't too large, and since the tide was out it was hard to get close as the riverbed is rather treacherous... I was surprised at how well at times the bird detection would work at getting the bodies, but was also bothered initially when a lot of times it could not find the head/eyes. A number of those birds were black/white mixed and the heads often had black eyes in black heads and that just doesn't work. I recalled Steve mentioning that in the books, so I was often using that "trick" of using the record button to switch to (e.g.) point AF and just grabbing that. I had the camera/lens pretty much glued to a monopod the whole time and that worked well as I was teaching the muscle memory about the various dances (mostly switch AF types, moving AF points, adjusting ISO as the light changed, adjusting MF to get "near" a subject so that bird detction had a chance at getting to the primary target).
The second part of the workshop brought us into some wooded wetlands - here it was mostly small songbirds and it became harder (to find birds) and easier (bird detection worked amazingly well). We were very fortunate to have an Audubon specialist with us - she was great at finding birds both by herself and when we would point out noises and she could then help us focus in on the critters. [We also saw something that was new to her - a pair of Cormorants were circling way up high - she had never seen that activity before.] In this environment the Z9+400+1.4TC worked really well - I could often get near enough to fill a lot of the frame (some times in DX mode though). It was very lightweight and easy to hand-hold and whip about.
The last part took us to some more open wetlands - here I was able to track an Egret and a Blue Heron in flight w/ ease. Although again lack of range reared its ugly head a bit. I still filled a goodly portion of the frame w/ DX mode on again.
All in all it was a very positive experience - for sure dealing w/ song birds in the wooded wetlands went well (although I really need to work on my bird-finding skills). Steve's books (and videos) were amazing at getting me up to speed on this - there is no way I'd have been able to set up and use the Z9+400mm w/out stumbling around for quite some time.
It's also clear that if I want to get into the other situations I'll need a (much?) longer lens for that. To start I'll concentrate more on getting the most out of the 400mm near-term and start saving some bucks for an 800PF I think. ;-)
---
One other thing I should mention - sometimes I would get "lost" in the dance (buttons and focus) and then whilst photographing a subject I'd keep my shutter depressed way too long. W/out the audible feedback of a shutter I ended up taking ... A LOT ... of extra images that weren't needed. Need to learn some discipline there.
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