Cardinals after the Storm

Shooting birds has been a long learning curve for me and lately trying to use my 150-500 seems to lengthen the curve even more. It at least helps greatly with the distance problem, but it seems to need a lot of light. After this last snow storm passed, the sun came out and now there is plenty of light, too much maybe, but the Cardinals are giving me a lot of practice. With another 10 inches of snow in the forecast for Feb 26 I'm expecting many hungry birds coming into our yard, so hope to shorten the curve soon.

IMAGE LINK: http://www.flickr.com/​photos/grizz270/850500​9553/

IMAGE LINK: http://www.flickr.com/​photos/grizz270/850500​5745/

IMAGE LINK: http://www.flickr.com/​photos/grizz270/850494​2865/

IMAGE LINK: http://www.flickr.com/​photos/grizz270/850601​4758/

IMAGE LINK: http://www.flickr.com/​photos/grizz270/850601​8840/

Gorgeous!!

This is a nice female cardinal here!
I have found that the 150-500 is better at f/9; no use to open more, it's still preferable to crank up the ISO (at least with my 5D MKII - I don't know how your60D is doing in that regard).

Beautiful shots!

GMHY wrote in post #15649363
This is a nice female cardinal here!
I have found that the 150-500 is better at f/9; no use to open more, it's still preferable to crank up the ISO (at least with my 5D MKII - I don't know how your60D is doing in that regard).

Thanks GMHY, I'm always afraid to crank up the ISO but I'm going to try it, so far seems to be OK on the 60D if I don't crop too much. About the time I think I have found the sweet spot for the 150-500 the light/weather changes drastically. We have so many cloudy days where I live and the Cardinals feed early and late having enough light is a big problem.
I've learned a lot from everyone here and appreciate it tremendously. I think my camera and lens have the potential if only I could learn to operate it correctly.:o

Nice set!

Good ones Steve. I think you are getting the hang of that Sigma very well. Keep them coming. Still looking for that turkey in the snow.

Very nice.

Very nice! Tought to shoot with lots of white bg and fg but you did very well

Nice ones, I have found that even though you lose shutter speed, keep your iso no more than 400 and a cloudy day gives you the best Cardinals, the sun is like a switch, those reds get real bright. Nice detail in the first one, nice crest!

Gorgeous shots!

Great shots! I have a terrible time with bird in snow shots...these are nice.

Nice shots Steve especially the ones on the ground, er I mean snow. I have the same light problem with the Sigma 120-400 in densely wooded areas. Sometimes flash helps as does higher ISO. I mostly try to avoid flash though.