Male purple Martin #2

[dankearl]

D500, 700mm (500pf w/ 1.4), f8, 1/4000, iso2800
If you practice with this combo, it gets better and better for flight.
Martins have incredible flight poses.....
MM6BP2.jpg (http://www.birdphotographers.net/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=186629&stc=1&d=1590705130)

[Brian Sump]

Dan, feel as though I liked the first a little better. The head on this one looks molded, maybe that's just how they look.

That said, do you ever have issues with the D500 adjusting AF on birds coming at you fairly quickly?

[dankearl]

Thanks, Brian
Purple Martin Males do look plastically, the head is sharp here, everything else
is not.
I don't use other cameras, so I cannot say, but this is flying right at me
at Purple Martin speed off a nest box with an extender on an f5.6 lens.
I do not know how any other camera could do better.
I get 4 of 10 sharp shots of these birds flying with an extender on my 500pf.
I can get 8 of 10 sharp with my 300 f2.8 lens and extender.
So I am happy with the D500.

[Brian Sump]

Thanks, Brian
Purple Martin Males do look plastically, the head is sharp here, everything else
is not.
I don't use other cameras, so I cannot say, but this is flying right at me
at Purple Martin speed off a nest box with an extender on an f5.6 lens.
I do not know how any other camera could do better.
I get 4 of 10 sharp shots of these birds flying with an extender on my 500pf.
I can get 8 of 10 sharp with my 300 f2.8 lens and extender.
So I am happy with the D500.

Good stuff. I have been getting used to the 850 but I think I'm going to get the 500 back out for smaller BIF. I just cant get the 850 to focus quickly, even with red winged blackbirds coming toward, and they're not the fastest in the world.

[dankearl]

Brian, I have friends with the D850, a great camera, but they stand next to me,
(well today, 20 feet apart), it has the same AF system, but for birds like Martins
the frame rate is just too slow.
The birds are out of the frame by the second click even on a full frame.
At 10fps, they are tough to keep in the frame.

[arash_hazeghi]

very cool Dan, although I like the other pose you posted with wings up better still would love to have this one myself. you did manage to get a bit of blue iridescence in the feathers

Having a D850, D500 and a D5 my pick for this frame would be the D5, D500 and then the D850. As Dan mentioned the D850's frame rate falls a bit short for back to back action like this. Overall the 500PF + 1.4X TC is slow to focus on both D850 and D500. The trick here, which Dan has demonstrated nicely, is to pre-focus in order to shorten the initial acquisition time. If a martin pops out of the blue and your lens is not pre focused pretty close to where he is the PF + TC combo is pretty much hopeless to nail it. So this is a case of the technique making up for the lens+TC's slow AF speed.

[William Dickson]

Not as good as your previous one....but very well done, especially against a coloured BG.

Will

[John Mack]

The pose is great. I would loosen the crop some.