Rich Steel
06-06-2009, 06:53 AM
Hi
Every year I set myself a mini challenge of trying to photograph the three summer visitors of the western oak woods of North Wales, the wood warbler, common redstart and pied flycatcher. I had managed the first two but the pied flycatcher were still to be done and my mission had failed as it had already slipped into early June. Time was running out fast for my opportunity to photograph the flycatchers as the birds completely disappear as soon as the young have fledged. So I decided to take a day off work especially for them this week and took the two hour drive out to the sessile oak woods. To say it was hard work is an understatement. It was a two hour wait tucked into the undergrowth, feeding the local midge population before I started getting some photos. At the moment I am completely covered in some very itchy midge bites. The other problem were some very tricky light conditions with the constantly changing sunlight filtering through the tree canopy and trying to get good exposure on the black and white males. Despite all that I had a great time as they really are wonderful little birds to photograph.
http://i89.photobucket.com/albums/k217/squidfish_2006/piedfly10200906.jpg
Taken with 1Dmk3 and 500mm lens on a monopod. Taken with evaluative metering at ISO 400 F5.6 -0.33 EV at 1/320 s
Cheers
Rich
Every year I set myself a mini challenge of trying to photograph the three summer visitors of the western oak woods of North Wales, the wood warbler, common redstart and pied flycatcher. I had managed the first two but the pied flycatcher were still to be done and my mission had failed as it had already slipped into early June. Time was running out fast for my opportunity to photograph the flycatchers as the birds completely disappear as soon as the young have fledged. So I decided to take a day off work especially for them this week and took the two hour drive out to the sessile oak woods. To say it was hard work is an understatement. It was a two hour wait tucked into the undergrowth, feeding the local midge population before I started getting some photos. At the moment I am completely covered in some very itchy midge bites. The other problem were some very tricky light conditions with the constantly changing sunlight filtering through the tree canopy and trying to get good exposure on the black and white males. Despite all that I had a great time as they really are wonderful little birds to photograph.
http://i89.photobucket.com/albums/k217/squidfish_2006/piedfly10200906.jpg
Taken with 1Dmk3 and 500mm lens on a monopod. Taken with evaluative metering at ISO 400 F5.6 -0.33 EV at 1/320 s
Cheers
Rich