Gigrin Farm query

Hi everyone

After seeing so many superb red kite shots from Gigrin, I thought that I'd give it a go. I was wondering if anyone had any advice for a relative beginner at this sort of thing. I'll be using a Sigma 100-300 F4 with a 1.4x converter.


Mark

You wont really need that 1.4TC as they come really close to the hides once the food goes down.Try and get yourself up in the new higher hide(which will cost you £15)as the view point is awesome upto the lower hides.

When you see all the kites fly off, you may think thats it they wont come back .What they are really doing is waiting for the crows to go back to the feeding area to see that the coast is clear.

Try and go when there is blue or really dark skys as when i went most of the afternoon it was a horrible white sky because of the cloud, which made alot of the shots that i took look like black blobs.Exposure nightmare grrrrrrrr.

Its a great place and you should come back with some great shots .

Have fun

I'd advise using manual exposure.



Paul

I'd keep the 1.4x on as 300 isn't enough for frame filling shots IMO unless you getthem close which you will do. Diving shots won't be ina 300mm range. Depends what you're after though I suppose. Exposure can be problematic when going from sky to grass, so you need to check your histogram and also be a bit selective ie. go for green BG shots and then change to sky shots. The tower hide is very good but not imperative.

Many thanks - it's much appreciated. I suspect that I'll treat the first trip as a trial run (it's bound to rain!). Unfortunately the tower hide is booked out, so I'll be down below.



Mark

One thing which is often over looked. is that if you stand by the backs of the hides, you can get some nice close over head shots, but its murder on the shoulders!