Goosander chicks, River Aire at Cononley West Yorks
Found on an evening stroll along the river. The adult female was with about 8 young, I was using the 400 straight but she got a bit upset (made a sort of barking sound) at my too close approach, so I added the x2 and moved further back and everyone was happy and I had pics for the next 50 minutes or so until I had to leave for my train home.
Normally I only use the x2 with a tripod, but a couple of times recently I have used it handheld and the results have been better than expected. The main difficulty is getting accurate MF at the wide open aperture of F11, but with some subjects it is feasible, such as here where the chicks have plenty of quite coarse detail to focus on.
Techs
20D 400mm 5.6L x2, 500th F13 ISO 1600 (1 stop under so effectively 3200) handheld. 50% of the frame. Cleaned with neatimage and removed a bit of poo. Contrast and sharpening in PS.
So neat to have hand holdable 800mm. Hope you having fun out there today, make sure you wear a hat, you must be the only man to have suffered heat stroke in Yorkshire!
Nice shot
Remarkable result considering the techs.... a fine trio of chicks, I have no idea whether a lower viewpoint was possible or not but if it was then that would have been nice, also I would prefer not to have cut slightly into the centre chicks foot, i.e more room on the bottom with less up top..
Discussion
6 repliesFound on an evening stroll along the river. The adult female was with about 8 young, I was using the 400 straight but she got a bit upset (made a sort of barking sound) at my too close approach, so I added the x2 and moved further back and everyone was happy and I had pics for the next 50 minutes or so until I had to leave for my train home.
Normally I only use the x2 with a tripod, but a couple of times recently I have used it handheld and the results have been better than expected. The main difficulty is getting accurate MF at the wide open aperture of F11, but with some subjects it is feasible, such as here where the chicks have plenty of quite coarse detail to focus on.
Techs
20D 400mm 5.6L x2, 500th F13 ISO 1600 (1 stop under so effectively 3200) handheld. 50% of the frame. Cleaned with neatimage and removed a bit of poo. Contrast and sharpening in PS.
By for now John
nice and cute and very sharp. gooseander in my territory are just laying up.
John
Aberdeen
Nice shot
Tim
Very nice to see these...
Lovely image of this young family. Would agree with Phil re composition. Still, lovely and sharp with great colours.
Regards
Rob