A couple of fliers at 700 mm

Here's sharing a couple of BIFs taken at Candaba wetlands (Philippines) a few days ago, both with the hand held 20D + 500 f4 + Canon 1.4x in manual exposure...

1. Great Egret

Very impressive to handhold and get such great results! NICE

beautiful shots!!

Wow, how many pics did you take to get some this good?

Wonderful flight shots Romy. Merry Christmas to you and your family too.

Wonderful. The whites in #1 and at that distance are impressive.

Wow...great shots. Merry Christmas.

Super shots Romy, no.1 must have required great technique!

Thanks, everybody....

Paul A wrote in post #2435261
Wow, how many pics did you take to get some this good?

Paul, I took about 10 shots of this particular egret, and about half are in good focus, and with good wing position. All have good exposure because I had the luxury of metering (manual exposure) at a similar bird on the ground shortly before this flier materialized.

Romy

Really nice Romy... I have seen that you are posting many great shots with the 500... you still use the sig-monster?...

Great in-flight captures. Merry Christmas Romy.

I'm stunned. I've never seen such clear in flight bird shots before.

Super shots Romy.....When manually exposing the Whites on the Egret...are you Spot Metering the brightest white (s) then using exposure compensation?

Gary Fairhead wrote in post #2435946
Super shots Romy.....When manually exposing the Whites on the Egret...are you Spot Metering the brightest white (s) then using exposure compensation?

Thanks, Gary. I used evaluative metering, dialed in my first estimated exposure values (based on experience) in M mode, and took shots at similar birds on the ground. I then reviewed my histogram and fine tuned the exposure.

M mode allowed me to nail the exposure regardless of the BG of the flying birds, as long as it's similarly lit as my test bird...

Romy

Thanks, Eric, Reyno and Merlin...

reewik wrote in post #2435607
Really nice Romy... I have seen that you are posting many great shots with the 500... you still use the sig-monster?...

Yes, I still bring and use the Sigmonter, particularly for shots longer than 700 mm.

Here's a lifebird for me in this sortie (Tufted Duck), taken from over 80 meters away - 350D + Sigmonster + Canon 2x, 1600 mm, cropped greatly (this is near 100% view). The birds were in the middle of a large pond and I couldn't get any closer. The 500 f4, as good as it is, can't get that kind of detail from such a distance.