Proj 365 Jan 18th Photographing Wild Birds

While I was down in south Georgia, I tried my hand at photographing some birds in pop's backyard. See earlier post for a hint at my comments on photographing birds. (I imagine that any wildlife will be pretty much the same.)

Cute bird. I am shooting with a Nikon D300 DSLR that has a multiplication factor of 1.5. What that means is my 200 mm lens acts like a 300 mm lens. (Great for long shots, lousy for wide angle as a 16mm acts like a 24!)

So I go out to shoot the birds. Wish I had had a gun, might have had better luck. What looks close to the eye isn't through the lens (Try it you will see. That large moon looks great but the photo makes it look tiny).

As with the lovebird at home, THEY KEEP MOVING!! About the time I thought I was getting close enough, they flew away about thirty feet! The cardinals I photographed looked tiny until I cropped them and then they looked grainy due to the enlargement crop. This fellow allowed me to get close enough for a decent photo.

Lesson learned - when photographing wildlife, you have to sit and let them come near you, you can't walk up close to them unless they are really tame.