Bathtime at Martin Mere

Well, it was for this tree sparrow that I disturbed at his ablutions, during the recent POTN meet:

1.

They are all just perfect images. But I keep going back to #7.

Amazing stuff!

I love the colors in #8, as well was the rest of the batch. What gear did you use?

That Carolina Wood Duck is amazing. Such colors!

mknabster wrote in post #2258318
I love the colors in #8, as well was the rest of the batch. What gear did you use?

Many thanks for the kind comment (thanks also to Canonloader & Superdiver)

As for the gear, they were all shot with the 100-400L IS mounted to either a 20D (the tree sparrow) or a 5D (all the others).

Awesome sharpness and color. All hand held with that lens?

TROPICALPESTS wrote in post #2258417
Awesome sharpness and color. All hand held with that lens?

Yes, all hand held. I am a real fan of the IS system it allows me to keep freedom of movement and still not suffer from camera shake. All but one of these shots were taken at 400mm (the bathing duck was at 330mm) with shutter speeds between 1/125 and 1/200. I have handheld this lens at 1/50 at 400mm on occasions and got good results, not every shot of course but enough sharp ones to get the job done. The problem with that is, of course, that if the subject moves then you will get motion blur. You only have to look at the sparrows wings (all shot at 1/200) to see what 1/50 would be like if the bird turned it's head, for example.

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Again, very nice, I just ordered that lens. Waiting for the doorbell to ring! I been using the 70-200 L 4.0. Not enough reach. I have to do alot of cropping.

TROPICALPESTS wrote in post #2258533
Again, very nice, I just ordered that lens. Waiting for the doorbell to ring! I been using the 70-200 L 4.0. Not enough reach. I have to do alot of cropping.

It's a great lens, you'll love it

Nice sharp focus on the head of the sparrow as he enjoys his bath including the duck. But for me the 7th shot is the best followed by the wood duck shot.
Excellent composition and perfectly composed shot of the mallard with good colour and outstanding good detail, also it's the way the duck appears to me laughing makes it a cracking good shot.
As for the carolina wood duck, you have brought out not just good detail of the duck but also the colours, the angle of the bird brings out his best feather colours, well done.

Great series of shots, with fantastic colours.

At my age going below 1/250 is bad.

Great shots Graham, the duck on the edge just cracks me up every time I look at it. Nice work.

What Graham doesn't tell you is that when he was taking the sparrow shots I blundered about and frightened the little fellas off!

Nice captures mate - none ofmy sparrow shots turned out.