A tale of the Reddish Egrets

Hello all

This is a follow-up post to my first Reddish Egret post titled "A tail of two Egrets", which I posted a few days ago.

In that post I mentioned the "antics", of the Reddish Egret, so yesterday I managed to get near enough to a few, and attempted to record some of these antics.

All images were taken with a Canon EOS 30D and Canon EF 500mm f4L IS with Canon EF 1.4x II; fortunately the sun kept going in and out, as it was partly cloudy.

These Egrets move around so quickly, that I actually used A.I. Servo mode during all of these ground shots, with the camera set in the continuous mode at 5 frames per sec, I decided to use f8 as a standard aperture setting during this session in order to gain enough depth of field, as it was impossible to focus directly on the animals head (constantly moving); yet keep enough shutter speed so as not to get too much blur.

Hope you'all enjoy

f8 1/350 sec

1. When hunting Reddish Egrets often run

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No CC But WOW Awesome shots !!!

Sweet, I've never seen this bird. Great Pictures.

Well, I don't know how you got these excellent images with the 30D and 1.4TC on AF. Mine does nothing but hunt and peck with the 400L and 1.4, even with the contacts taped. Whats your secret? I'd sure like to be able to use a brand new TC thats paid for.

Great shots all framed out perfect. Looks like they have someplace to go.

Awesome job on this series Kid, composition, detail everything works for me.

Thanks you'all, I really appreciate it.

To Canonloader, you wrote: "Well, I don't know how you got these excellent images with the 30D and 1.4TC on AF. Mine does nothing but hunt and peck with the 400L and 1.4, even with the contacts taped. Whats your secret?"

There is no secret Canonloader, remember it has to do with the maximum aperture of the lens that you are using on the 30D, your Canon EF 400mm's max aperture is f5.6, when you attach a 1.4x TC, you lose the ability to AF, as you well know; I have come to understand that the tape trick, while it gives you AF, it is not accurate at all times.
On the other hand, the Canon EF 500mm's max aperture is f4, and the center AF point of the 30D, is very effective with a 1.4x TC attached, one only loses AF with an f4 or higher max aperture lens when they attach a 2x to the 30D.

What you need with your 400 f5.6L is an EOS 1 body. By the way I should point out that from what I've seen you are very accurate without AF, and produces some excellent images, all with manual focusing.

Hmmm. What is your max aperture with the 1.4 on? f/5.6? I think I read that that's where the 30D's lose AF. Of course, the 400L and 1.4 is f/8, and autofocus has gone south by then. But, I just took some pics with the 1.4 on and used manual focus, and just as I didn't use a tripod for 30 years and now I do, manual focus is OK most of the time, you just have to get use to it.

Great shots of my favorite bird. They really are a joy to watch, and their Canopy feeding is amazing.

f5.6 is the AF limit that Canon put on using teleconverters with thier camera bodies, if attaching a TC to your lens and camera body causes the max aperature to go to f8 you lose AF, unless you have one of the EOS 1 camera bodies. Thanks for your comment Billy, I really appreciate it

I remember watching a Reddish Egret down in Florida a while ago and it always stands out in my mind as being one of the most entertaining birds I've seen. This series pretty much sums it up.

Fantastic shots! This is one beautiful bird, and you have captured him very well, love the 'do!

Nice shots of far and away my favorite wader.

Wow these are great. Love all the action and captions behind the shots. Thanks Kidd!!

Great shots and story..I didn't even know of this egret...but you gotta love that 'do and the control, and amount of expression he uses.