Male Eurasian Chaffinch (Fringilla coelebs)

Rutland Nature Reserve, November 2019.

Nikon D7200, Nikon 200-500mm f/5.6

f6.3, 1/40s, ISO 500, 380mm

Chaffinches are one of the most common UK small birds, but ones that don’t visit my garden. So, I am always happy to have a chance to see them when I’m out and about and will always try and take a shot if an opportunity presents itself.

This one was a tricky task as sunset in mid-November in this part of the UK is 4:15pm, and it was already 4:30pm when I found the birds.

There was still a trickle of light left in the sky, cutting through the dense but almost bare trees as the birds prepared to roost.

I quickly realised I could either push the ISO to a point where the noise would really spoil the shot or attempt to shoot at a shutter speed well below the recommended 1/focal length for a long lense and ruin it with camera shake instead.

I shortened the lens to 380mm, braced myself against a tree as firmly as I could and wound the shutter speed down, watching the exposure needle creep towards the middle of the scale. Click…click…two shots and he was gone.

I looked at the exif data on the camera and saw 1/40s. I thought, that’s probably the slowest shutter speed I have ever shot with this lens. And it was, until 10 seconds later when I got a lovely shot of a Dunnock at 1/30s.

You’ve gotta love image stabilisation!

  • AchtungDrempels@lemmy.worldEnglish
    6·
    9 months ago

    There are a bunch of them in my garden. Them, green- and goldfinches.

    Very nice photo again, thank you for sharing your process and stories with your pictures!

    • EvilTed@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      6·
      9 months ago

      We get goldfinches but no chaffinches or greenfinches. I don’t think there is enough woodland for them, mostly farmland, but there are a lot of teasles, which the goldfinches love for their seeds.

      I would love to see any pictures you have of the greenfinches, they are such beautiful birds.

      Glad you like it 😊

      • AchtungDrempels@lemmy.worldEnglish
        6·
        9 months ago

        This is the only photo i have of any of the finches, luckily it’s a green one:

        My longest lens is an old manual Nikon AI 100mm (on a m43 camera) and it’s too far away for when they’re sitting in the tree really. They don’t come to the feeder no more since i made it harder to reach for the parakeets. I am thinking about getting a longer lens though.

        *sorry i have no better photo 😅

        • EvilTed@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
          3·
          9 months ago

          You’re doing very well with that setup, I am impressed 👍 And thanks for the photo.

          I love that feeder as well, a great idea 😀 I’m not sure I wouldn’t just have a parakeet feeder if we got them regularly lol

          • AchtungDrempels@lemmy.worldEnglish
            2·
            9 months ago

            I mean… it still is a parakeet feeder, they just don’t stay longer than a couple minutes and only one at a time. Really i just don’t want to anger the people living below me with my feeders. There’s also one feeder the parakeets can reach downstairs in the garden, but i don’t think it gets refilled much since the parakeets found it.

            They still hang out in the tree right in front of me every day, last two weeks a couple’s been shagging pretty much every morning. They’re also trying to build a cave (two actually) in the insulation of a house opposite me. Now that the sun comes out sometimes, their colors really start to glow, so nice.

        • Smitty@mastodon.social
          12·
          9 months ago

          @AchtungDrempels @EvilTed too many big lenses. All bird habitats will be gone but everyone will own a 800mm $25k lens. Birding is not 100% about photography. Crazy to see hundreds of monster lenses looking at a zoo escape owl.

          • EvilTed@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
            2·
            9 months ago

            There are many habitat restoration projects where I live. You can visit hundreds of hectares of fens and woodland within a few K’s of my home, and many more are created each year. It’s not all doom. I was a birdwatcher for decades before I picked up a camera to photograph wildlife. It was a way to remember some of the beautiful things I had seen, photography for me doesn’t replace the bird watching, it’s an addendum.

  • IMALlama@lemmy.worldEnglish
    3·
    9 months ago

    Fantastic picture. Thanks for also talking about shutter speed. It’s true that your keeper rate might go down with lower shutter speeds, but IMO it’s better to try taking the photo with a slower shutter than not taking one at all.

    • EvilTed@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      2·
      9 months ago

      Thank you 😊

      It was about this time I bought my Nikon D850 which, for many reasons, has much superior noise control than the Nikon D7200 I took this with. However, image processing technology has moved on so much that I find myself less concerned with noise now than ever before. I think, if I was taking this shot today, I would probably shoot at ISO 2000 on the D850 to give me the extra shutter speed. What I really need is f/4 500mm 😁

      • IMALlama@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        8 months ago

        It’s certainly true that newer sensors allow you to push ISO much more than in the pas and that FF can go further than a crop sensor. This makes it a lot easier to keep shutter speed up. I just wish that people didn’t claim high shutter speeds are the cost of entry for these types of photos.

        You hit the other nail in the head - fast glass makes a world of difference.