I have brought out the old 300D (a.k.a. KISS, Digital Rebel) in all it's 6.3MP glory to have another go at birds in the garden. Here is some from the last couple of outings. 430EX II just showed up @ my front door... 70-200mm @ f/2.8 ISO 100 Going to get out the polarizer and have another go at it. Starting to like the detail, especially in the Nuthatch shot.
Thanks for the comments! Focus has been a challenge while shooting @ f/2.8. Unless the bird's body is parallel to the focal plane it is nearly impossible to get sharp image. Even more challenging, I am also finding that the birds will not stay still very long and the fastest shutter speeds at low ISO is nearly impossible. Most of the "Pro" shots I have looked at on the web are usually up around f/8 and using ISO of 400-800. I assume they are using fill-flash even during the daytime. This is without the 2X converter. I did play around with the new flash but have some learning to do. Fun Fun Fun!
Yeah, so f2.8 is not really necessary unless you want better focusing or if you use 2x teleconverter. You can also consider 300 f4 or 400 f5.6 as cheap long lens alternatives.
Hmm.. The focus seems to be a tad off, I think. It's on the ground in the first picture and on the tree in the second one. BTW, why use f/2.8? For the extra bokeh? I find it hard to use f/2.8 outdoors especially when it's bright. There's just too much light sometimes.
Initially I went with 2.8 to help stop all of the motion and blur. Even so I can only get 1/100 sec exposures. Now with flash, I will try smaller aperture and see what speeds I can get.
Can take a perfect picture of something light years away, but cannot focus on a bird 20 yards away... JK