Project Mobile Tree Feeder, MKII

Nice comfy chair MalVeaux!
I can see you have your priorities sorted, comfy equals a more relaxed photographer equals more time at the perch equals more opportunities equals better shots!

johnf3f wrote in post #18127081
Nice comfy chair MalVeaux!
I can see you have your priorities sorted, comfy equals a more relaxed photographer equals more time at the perch equals more opportunities equals better shots!

Unfortunately that chair isn't so comfortable any more, it sits so low to the ground that my knees are up on my chest and I have to learn forward out of the bucket seat to look through the view finder. I use it because it can take on UV, rain, anything it seems, and if another hurricane took it away on a journey, I wouldn't mourn the loss since they're cheap. Gonna look for a new chair for outside, something that sits a little higher and simply add a little stand near it for holding phone, drink, accessories, etc. Probably just get a metal folding chair and use a pad that I can take out and take in each time, so it doesn't turn into mushy nastiness if left out.

But yes, comfort matters when just chilling in a blind. I like to have a drink, pack a good 30~45 minute pipe, sit back and just watch them go at it. They tend to go to the same spot all the time once they get in a frenzy so I can just point at that spot and wait a moment and inevitably they go to it and I just take some bursts. They can definitely hear the 7D clacking away at 6 feet though!

Very best,

Heya,

So, an update. On a wild hair, I decided to add lighting to my setup.

Here's how I did it, and the results:

Setup:

Camera: Canon 7D
Lens: Canon 300mm F4L IS
Mount: Tripod + Gimbal
Speedlites: Yongnuo 560 III's (two of them)
Transceiver: Yongnuo TX-560 (remote control power adjustment)
Stand: Cheetah Boom Stand
Modifier: Neewer 47" Brolly Box
Light Meter: Sekonic L478

I set up my speedlites to bounce inside the brolly box. I used two speedlites to help with the spread within the large modifier, and to be able to fire them at lower power to increase recycle time and increase the number of potential shots I could get out of them in case I was out for a while. I was shooting at sync speed with the camera, so 1/200s and I stopped down to F5.6 to get some extra depth of field and sharpness. I used my meter to get an incident light reading which put me around ISO 320 for the exposure value I wanted initially. So I set up at 1/200s, F5.6 and ISO 320 for the shoot. For the lights, I started around 1/4th power and metered. I adjusted the power down until I was happy with something close to key light level (meter set to 1/200 and ISO 320, changed my output until I got F5.6 light from the meter), which ended up around 1/16 power or so (on each flash). I metered my light just a few inches in front of where I expected to have my subjects, so I knew the light output would drop a little bit more, putting me just below key and more like a strong fill.

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Spring is on. Back up and running. Using the same one as last season, netting over a pvc frame at my feeder stands, still going with the same branches a year later.

Black sunflower seeds seem to be the crablegs at the buffet as usual.

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Glad you've revived this thread, lots of inspiration for bird photographers and taken with kit that's relatively cheap by today's standards. Just a quick question, how do you calibrate your lens as your focus is spot on. I used to use the Canon software until I discovered 'dot tune' which changed the settings I had been using on my 7d ( can't remember from what to what ) and made a huge difference. Just a free tip to help others out, hope you don't mind.

Please post more pics if you get time ( i know you have a young daughter ), I really enjoy them.

h14nha wrote in post #18312061
Just a quick question, how do you calibrate your lens as your focus is spot on. I used to use the Canon software until I discovered 'dot tune' which changed the settings I had been using on my 7d ( can't remember from what to what ) and made a huge difference. Just a free tip to help others out, hope you don't mind.

I did mine manually at minimum and near-maximum focus distances to a target. You can use printed targets with high contrast of course, there are cheap ones for like $5~7 (LINK) for example. I just adjust it a little bit. If I had to choose front or back focus, if I can't get it perfect, I choose to be slightly front focused because depth of field will take care of that. Back focus is where it's really bad. When shooting at F4 at minimum focus distance (4.9 feet with my 300 F4L IS), I had to have the focus dialed in very well because it would be way off otherwise. Granted, I'm fortunate that my 7D & 300 F4L IS are already very well calibrated, so I didn't have to adjust it by much. But I have other lenses that definitely needed big adjustments. I was stopping down to F5 a bit just for sharpness and a wee bit more depth of field, even though its plenty sharp at F4 (but at minimum focus distance, the depth of field at F4 was so thin, at 5 feet, the eye would be in focus but the beak wouldn't, so that was in millimeters).

It of course helps to use IS and shoot from a stable mount. Staiblity adds a LOT to obtaining a sharp image. These were faster shutter speeds than I normally use at my feeder, but at ISO 800 I don't mind as it cleans up nicely. Blur from motion/vibration always robs some sharpness, even micro-blur. Shooting from a platform gives a much higher probability of getting a sharp capture.

The other thing about getting focus to land is what modality you're using. I use the spot focus feature of the 7D, a single focus point, I don't use zones nor the multi-point configurations. I use the adjustable single point that you can move around with the joystick. I use this for still shots and birds in flight. I can compose, point that towards an eyeball and grab it. You can see where it was able to get the lizard's eyeball with the body, only a half inch forward, out of focus due to depth of field beause I was so close. That single point is very accurate for this kind of stuff. I use it for BIF simply because with a short lens its easy to keep it on a target. I can appreciate a zone being easier for a long lens on something hard to keep in the zone to track.

Other than that, shooting RAW, ISO 800~1600 is totally fine on the 7D, cleans up nicely. Sharpness is a function of contrast, so if you clean it up (I use topaz denoiser, I find it does really, really well with the 7D raw files without killing detail, give it a kiss of contrast, and be very careful with sharpening (don't over-sharpen, I use high pass filter to do it, at a low pixel value and then chagne opacity even after that to 70~80% to blend it in). So if focus is close, you can get it the rest of the way by making sure you don't kill contrast with processing (especially in the clean up phase).

Oh, and my daughter is plastered all in the 5D & Kids 2017 threads. :P She's a ham these days!

Very best,