New Lens

[Yoyo_Jo]

I bought a new lens yesterday. 150 - 500 mm.

Pine Siskin at a feeder in my bark yard

Bee on the Bee Balm...

 

[Yoyo_Jo]

Some bird shots from Fish Creek Provincial Park

Thanks for looking!

 

[JeanLux]

Cool pics Joanne!!!! That must be quite a monster! Do you use a tripod ? Jean

 

[abax]

Nice shots, Joanne. I really like the Double Duck photo.

 

[Erythrone]

Nice pics!

 

[Clark]

Congrats Joanne on your new toy!
One really has to go out of their way to get Pine Siskens around here.

Are those Willets?

 

[Yoyo_Jo]

Thanks guys! Jean, the first three shots were hand-held, the last three were on my tripod.

Clark, I think those are "Yellow Legs" or "Lesser Yellow Legs". I can get within 3 or 4 feet of the Pine Siskins when they're stuffing their faces at our feeders. They're quite fearless.

 

[Clark]

My wife thinks they are Yellowlegs also.

I respectfully disagree.

 

[cnycharles]

Pine Siskin at a feeder in my bark yard

I'm surprised that the siskens show up with all the barking that you do in your yard? ... or maybe it's where you store the cork mounts for your orchids

just kidding, nice pics! the one duck looks like it's reveling in it's reflection

 

[KyushuCalanthe]

Have fun Joanne - new toys can be a blast. I can't tell you how many times I've wanted a tele-zoom despite their size and weight. I'm guessing you got the Sigma 150-500 F5-6.3 APO DG OS HSM?

 

[Yoyo_Jo]

Geez, bark yard. LOL. Can't even blame auto-correct for that one.

Yup, that's the Sigma lens. I was looking at the Canon 100 - 400 mm and the sales guy talked me into the Sigma lens. Glad he did; much cheaper for one thing. Now I just need to learn how to use it.


Another Pine Siskin for you Clark

 

[cnycharles]

one thing I remember about long lenses (actually any lens), and something that clark told me on one of our trips to see the eagles was that if you have your lens zoomed at 150mm, then to get good stopped action you should have your shutter speed set to 1/150 th of a second. if you zoom the lens up to 500mm, then you would want to have the shutter at 1/500 , and maybe even for each case have it set a little 'faster'. if your lens is at 150mm for example, you might want to set to 1/175 (or similar) and at 500mm you might want to go to 1/600 , just as an example. you of course have to have your depth of field set so that what you want to be in focus is inside the range, so adjusting to have a greater depth of field means you need more light to get the right exposure. if your camera says there isn't enough light when you set the shutter to 1/500 or something like that, then you'd need to change your iso higher, so your camera becomes 'faster'. apologies if this is all common knowledge

 

[SlipperFan]

Nice lens, Joanne. You are making good use of it.

 

[Clark]

Well, thank you!

I noticed that Alberta is listed.
Have gotten some good stuff from this listing over the years.

http://birding.aba.org/

 

[Clark]

Just got back from Bombay Hook and some other shore areas.

Maybe the ladies are right. Could very well be Greater Yellowlegs.

 

[Yoyo_Jo]

This is another Greater Yellow Legs from a different part of the park this past Monday.

 

[Yoyo_Jo]

Looking forward to seeing your photos of Bombay Hook, btw...

 

[Clark]

Nice! These Yellowlegs are a bit stand offish here.

Joanne, Bombay Hook was not good for photos.
Very cloudy, high winds, subjects were far.
Great place to see lots of birds though, binoculars worked best.

Florida spoiled us. Images are easy to come by.