Since I had a lot of bird activity at the feeder again, I decided to zoom with my feet and set up shop just over 3 metres from the feeder. This meant that I was out in the open and the great tits seemed to mind it, but the smaller birds and nuthatches kept happily feeding and I kept happily snapping. I missed a few ops when the darn shutter wouldn’t fire, but overall, I’m thrilled with the results. Of course I still needed to crop the images to fix the composition, but now I was getting over 8MP files instead of half the size as I did earlier. Now why didn’t I think of this years ago?
The most exciting visitor today was the crested tit though – and this time I got a picture! It didn’t come to the bird feeder but stayed where I had left food for the squirrels, it’s a more protected location that the bird feeder so I think the crested tits prefer the cover. Or then they’re just shy like the great tits.
But the prize for the most exciting picture goes to the willow tit taking off! I still can’t believe I actually got it… of course, I was only trying to take a picture of a bird sitting pretty on the branch, but these things happen in a fraction of a second so by the time I pressed the shutter, it had spread its wings. So it’s definitely a lucky shot, but on the other hand, I doubt even the pros nail these without some element of luck involved. It’s too quick to react when it happens, so you have to anticipate the action and leave the rest to the motordrive. Or like in my case, just simply fire the shutter at the wrong time!
The idea I mentioned yesterday was about the crescent moon. I knew it was going to be very low in the horizon so I had to pick my place very carefully – had to make sure that my location had a higher altitude that the landscape in front of me. At first I thought that I was going to miss the whole opportunity because of clouds, but luckily there was an opening in the south so the moon was visible. The result wasn’t the kind of crescent moon picture I dream about, that would require the moon higher in the sky and a nice colour gradient like those afterglow pictures from yesterday. Full moon is much easier than a crescent… but I’ll keep trying. Oh and in case you’re wondering where the crescent is in this picture, it’s low in the sky in the middle of the empty space on the left. It’s not easy to see it, not even for me and I know where it is, LOL!