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![\"red-tailed](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/red-tailed-hawk-4739-ron-dudley.jpg\")
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1\/800, f\/6.3, ISO 1600, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM +1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n Early one morning last week\u00a0along the access road to Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge we spotted this juvenile\u00a0Red-tailed Hawk as it was about to land on a brush pile but there was one big problem for photography. It was still 5 – 10 minutes before the sun would rise over the nearby mountains behind me so I didn’t have any light!\u00a0When the bird is a raptor I\u00a0sometimes attempt photos\u00a0in this situation\u00a0anyway, just to see if there’s anything interesting or unusual about the bird or for ID purposes. I expected a blurry mess but once again the 7D Mark II pleasantly surprised me. Yes, there’s some noise in the background and the bird isn’t tack sharp with a lot of detail\u00a0but look at my settings – 1\/800 sec for a bird in flight, my ISO was 1600 and I had very little light for my focusing points to lock onto the hawk. But lock on they did. Given the conditions I was\u00a0impressed with the image.<\/p>\n When we use a camera long enough we get used to, even take for granted, its performance. But on this morning I was about to be rudely reminded of the improvements Canon has made to the Mark II over my older 7D’s. Just a few minutes after photographing this hawk I tried to photograph another bird and immediately noticed that I wasn’t able to adjust my exposure (EV or exposure value). My exposure as set on the camera was fine for the hawk\u00a0but it wasn’t for the new bird (can’t remember what species it was because I\u00a0was so damned frustrated!). For the next half hour I tried to figure out what was wrong but I wasn’t smart enough to see the obvious that was literally in front of my face so I swapped cameras and put one of my older 7D’s on the 500 mm lens and spent the next 2 1\/2 hours shooting with that combo.<\/p>\n Wow, what a disappointment! I always loved my 7D’s when\u00a0they were\u00a0all I had and knew\u00a0but it was now painfully obvious how much slower and less accurate their focusing system was than that of the Mark II. Time and again I missed flight shots I knew I could get with the newer camera. I also\u00a0sorely missed the significantly\u00a0faster burst rate and better high ISO performance of the Mark II. To say that it was a frustrating morning is an understatement.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Finally, not long before I was ready to go home, I figured out what the problem was with the Mark II. The day before I had cleaned the electrical contacts on my Mark II, teleconverter and 500mm and in the process I had inadvertently moved the “Lock” switch (red arrow)\u00a0to lock, which prevented me from changing my exposure (EV). As soon as I moved it back, voila! – everything worked splendidly.<\/p>\n I’ve always been an advocate of photographers investing\u00a0the bulk\u00a0of their available financial resources in quality lenses rather than the newest and best cameras to come on the market – after all, good glass can last a lifetime and modern DSLR’s become obsolete relatively quickly. But on this morning I was reminded that the camera\u00a0can make\u00a0a significant difference too.<\/p>\n The 7D has this same\u00a0switch in the same place so if any of you with either camera ever lose the ability to adjust exposure I’d suggest that you look at this switch first.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Whew!, that was a lot of jabbering from me with no\u00a0pretty pictures to make the pill go down easier but I’ve always thought of Feathered Photography as a photography resource as well as source of quality\u00a0bird images and avian information.<\/p>\n Back to our regular programming tomorrow.<\/p>\n Ron<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This is only a mediocre image at best and I’ll never use it for anything other than this post but I was impressed that I was able to get it at all.<\/p>\n![\"canon](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/canon-7D-Mark-II-5609-ron-dudley.jpg\")
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