300D for wing shots of shore birds.

[BobHowell]

I am looking at the 300D for birding shots, mostly wing shots at the beach. I have read that AF servo is only available in sports mode with ISO of 400. How much of a problem will this be and are there any work arounds? More flex is better. Where can I get more details? I was about to buy this til I read a post here today.

I am using a RebellG so I am used to limits.

Thanks
Bob

[roanjohn]

With a nice fast lens, its decent. You will probably get a 50% chance of getting a nice sharp pic.

Unfortunately, with the Rebel, full time ai servo only works under sports mode........with the ISO set at 400.

Hopefully...............with a new hack, it can be enabled on AV or P mode.

http://www.pbase.com/image/30392235.jpg

Here is an example using the 70-200 f4 L

Ro1

[cmM]

I don't know how much AI servo will help as you will be panning a lot for birding. Another downside of the rebel is the small buffer and 2.5fps.
I haven't done a lit of birding though, so you might get better advice from the more experienced birders around here.

BUT, you CAN shoot birds with a digital rebel. Just not as easy as with a MKII for example. Also, long lenses are quite a neccesity.

[ejwebb]

Nice shot Roanjohn!!

I use a 300D and old 70-210 lens. I just try to focus as they fly by - using the One Shot focus from the 300D hack. A surprising number of the shots come out well using this method. I have not yet posted much in my PBase account to link but here are a few - cropped a bit:

http://www.pbase.com/image/31518546/original.jpg
http://www.pbase.com/image/31604240.jpg

I recently shot even better ones that I have not yet processed - my favorite is not on PBase yet but can be found here (previous picture to the poor crop of giraffe behinds that comes up first!):

http://guidle.my-expressions.com/index.html

I am sure other lens/body combos might be better suited to this type of shooting but you can get decent results with a 300D and cheap zoom!