{"id":72431,"date":"2019-06-06T05:30:17","date_gmt":"2019-06-06T11:30:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=72431"},"modified":"2019-06-06T07:23:46","modified_gmt":"2019-06-06T13:23:46","slug":"yellow-warbler-foraging-and-singing-enthusiastically","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2019\/06\/06\/yellow-warbler-foraging-and-singing-enthusiastically\/","title":{"rendered":"Yellow Warbler Foraging And Singing Enthusiastically"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is why I always<\/em> have my smaller zoom lens with me in my pickup.<\/p>\n

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1\/3200, f\/6.3, ISO 500, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 100-400mm f\/4.5-5.6L IS II USM @ 400mm, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

Two days ago while shooting mostly Yellow Warblers in the mountains and lamenting the fact that they almost never came in close or perched out in the open this one unexpectedly did both. He landed on a branch about 6′ out my pickup window and sang his little heart out. He was too close for me to fit all of him in frame and probably too close for me to even focus on so I reached over and grabbed my much smaller zoom lens and got quite a few nice shots of him singing. I liked this one best, despite the out of focus greenery in the foreground.<\/p>\n

Typically I use my “baby lens” at least once on most photographic excursions. Without it I’d often be up that proverbial creek without a paddle.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

1\/1250, f\/6.3, ISO 400, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 100-400mm f\/4.5-5.6L IS II USM @ 400mm, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

I also used it on this warbler the day before in the same location for a different but related reason. This bird was a little further away as he scurried around in the brush looking for food and then paused for a moment to pluck a tiny insect off of the shaded catkin next to his bill. In this situation I could probably have fit all of him in frame with my big lens when he wasn’t moving but that was almost never the case. When they’re moving so fast and so erratically you need some extra wiggle room in the frame to give you a better chance of not clipping any body parts.<\/p>\n

Normally I wouldn’t even keep an image this cluttered with branches and leaves but I like this one for the behavior and I enjoy the peekaboo effect with his face and eye so well-lit.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Ok, lets look at the difference between my two setups in numbers. I have both lenses mounted on Canon 7D Mark II’s which have cropped sensors. With my 500mm and attached 1.4 teleconverter I’m shooting at an effective focal length of 1120mm but with the zoom lens (100-400mm) I’m shooting at a maximum of 640mm and I have the flexibility to zoom all the way down to 160mm.<\/p>\n

1120mm fixed focal length versus 640mm to 160mm – that’s a lot of wiggle room with my smaller lens!<\/p>\n

I realize that it isn’t practical for many bird photographers to carry two bulky lenses but for me it is and I wouldn’t be without my “baby lens”.<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

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Note: Twice in this post I’ve referred to my 2014 Ford F-I50 as my”pickup” and not as my “truck”. Occasionally I’m asked why I prefer the former over the latter so I thought I’d finally explain. Growing up on the Montana farm we had both pickups and grain trucks so we had to distinguish between the two.<\/em><\/p>\n

Once as a fairly young kid while I was helping my dad during harvest he climbed down off the combine he was driving and asked me to go get the truck so he could load it with wheat (or barley, can’t remember). Both the truck and one of the pickups were over a half-mile away so I hiked that distance through the soft “summer fallow” that was very difficult to walk in. But at that point I didn’t yet comprehend the difference between “truck” and “pickup” so I brought him the wrong vehicle.<\/em><\/p>\n

In the meantime the combine had broken down and dad needed to return to the shop in order to get a part so he used the pickup I’d just retrieved and told me in disgust to “go get the real truck”. So I had to slog through that half mile of soft dirt again, grumbling all the way.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Believe me, I didn’t make that mistake again.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is why I always have my smaller zoom lens with me in my pickup.<\/p>\n

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