Wildlife Photography

[mdees88]

Got this one on the way to work this afternoon. I front focused a bit and just barely got the closest part of the eye in focus but not the rest of his head and the water droplet....

And a couple ants eating some icing....

 

[BDutch]

Snails eating chicken feed. (Easy catch)

 

[HopKat]

I've posted a few eagle pics before but I don't think I've posted these particular two....

These bald eagles are what got me serious about photography. There's a few nests in a creek I fish in and I see the eagles quite often. I pulled up one day and saw an eagle standing in the nest. I took a few pics with my cell phone but I wasn't happy with them because the eagle was so far away.

The next time I went back there was a small tour boat in the creek and they were taking pictures with big telephoto lenses. Seeing them get the shots that I wanted to get motivated me to order my first DSLR and a telephoto lens, I've been taking pics ever since.....

I went back a few weeks later with my new camera gear and was able to some pics of these eagles mating. It was pretty cool....



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Wow..amazing photos. What lens did you use to capture these eagles? Were you in a boat? Fantastic !

 

[mdees88]

Wow..amazing photos. What lens did you use to capture these eagles? Were you in a boat? Fantastic !

Thank you. Yes I was in my boat. I got them with a Canon t7i using an EF 100-400 IS II + 1.4x III extender. They were also cropped quite heavily....

 

[cherrynberry]

Got this one on the way to work this afternoon. Front focused a bit but still got the eye in focus, just not the water droplet....

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And a couple ants eating some icing....

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Do you have any social media platforms where you post these?? These are awesome shots! Bet many others would agree.

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Snails eating chicken feed. (Easy catch)

oh that’s a ton! Yuck!

 

[mdees88]

Do you have any social media platforms where you post these?? These are awesome shots! Bet many others would agree.

Thanks. Just an Instagram. @mdees88.

 

[HopKat]

Thank you. Yes I was in my boat. I got them with a Canon t7i using an EF 100-400 IS II + 1.4x III extender. They were also cropped quite heavily....

The details are so sharp. I've always been proud of my eagle picture taken from my kayak while bouncing on waves using Canon EOS R and Sigma 150-600mm. The lens is very large and heavy. Now that I've seen your photo I want to try harder. I was considering a 70-200 lens with extender thinking it might be easier to handle in the kayak.

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[mdees88]

The details are so sharp. I've always been proud of my eagle picture taken from my kayak while bouncing on waves using Canon EOS R and Sigma 150-600mm. The lens is very large and heavy. Now that I've seen your photo I want to try harder. I was considering a 70-200 lens with extender thinking it might be easier to handle in the kayak.View attachment 3172803

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Nice image. I think have you a pretty good combo there for taking eagle pics. I've always needed as much reach as possible since I can't get very close to them.

My 100-400 with the 1.4x extender equals 560mm plus the 1.6x crop factor of the t7i equals 900mm effective focal length.

You are currently at 600mm with the full frame Eos R and the sigma. The 70-200 even with a 2x extender is only 400mm. So less than half the reach that I had. Also the 70-200 + 2x iii extender weighs the same as the 150-600 so not a big advantage to switch.

Unless you are getting really close to the eagles I would continue using the 600mm or if I needed more reach I would use an aps-c sensor camera. You might could look at using a monopod to prop up the lens so you don't have to hold it the entire time. I'm not sure how well that would work I'm a kayak though....

 

[HopKat]

If I change the sensor setting in my camera menu to aps instead of full frame does that accomplish anything that I can't get by cropping a full frame shot?
Doesn't seem like I'm ever close enough to wildlife so I guess I'll deal with the big lens.
Thanks for the info! You have some beautiful shots.

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[mdees88]

If I change the sensor setting in my camera menu to aps instead of full frame does that accomplish anything that I can't get by cropping a full frame shot?
Doesn't seem like I'm ever close enough to wildlife so I guess I'll deal with the big lens.
Thanks for the info! You have some beautiful shots.

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No. Except if you do that and then a bird flys real close and you cut off its wing its gone forever, where if you were in full frame mode you would have got the whole bird in frame. It's best to leave in full frame mode and crop in post like you are doing.

High mega pixel APS-C sensors are a quick way to increase reach though. It's the reason I bought an R7. My 45mp R5 in crop mode is 17mp. An R7 is 32mp so it's putting almost twice as many pixels on the bird which means I could crop in and get almost twice the reach of the R5.