Blue Jay Opening Sunflower Seeds

Great shots, Mitch. It's good to see what the Beamer can do as well. I've been thinking about getting one, and after seeing your pics, it's now on my "for sure" list.

The beamer seems to be working out well for you. These are very nicely exposed shots. Interesting series too.

Janika wrote in post #3239323
Too cool, love the colors and the light, not to mention the action!

John

Thanks John, This guy popped into the yard, started picking up sunflower seeds off the ground, up to the limb, back for mor, up to the limb, about 5 times and then flew away. It was all pretty quick, a minute or two and it was over.

EdV wrote in post #3240270
My problem is that I am not that artistic. If I try to fix in post-processing, I end up with a square eye!

I know what you mean about carrying all that stuff around. So far I have generally stayed to wider paths and trails but there would be no way to get the camera, flash and Beamer on a tripod through a brushy area without the risk of major damage.

Ed, in CS2 and other programs I'm sure, you can expand the image up to 1600x if you want. Pretty easy to see what your doing that way. As for the beamer, even when I use it from my truck window, I have had the beamer hit the top of the door frame just trying to get the whole business poked out the window in quick time. It's good to use from a tripod inside a hide or out in the open. anything else and I think it would take too much time to set up and get ready and the bird is gone.

stefeb wrote in post #3240299
Great shots, Mitch. It's good to see what the Beamer can do as well. I've been thinking about getting one, and after seeing your pics, it's now on my "for sure" list.

Thanks Steve. For all it's limitations, I am glad I got it. Nothing else makes some of these shots even possible.

Booswalia wrote in post #3240307
The beamer seems to be working out well for you. These are very nicely exposed shots. Interesting series too.

Thanks Shirley. It was interesting to me too. I don't recall ever seeing a Jay do this.

Nice shot. You guys have convinced me that I need a better beamer so B&H got my order this morning.

Thanks Rock. It does have it's limitations, but it's a good piece of equipment to have. It gives about twice the reach as without it, but it also has a "hot spot" when your shooting further away. It's also a sloppy fit on the flash head and in my case at least, the lens end sags down and the hot spot can end up at the birds feet. I fixed this by using some velcro I had and putting a piece on the top of the flash head and the bottom. Then when the strap goes around the head, I can place it so it counters the sag.

All in all, it's just another piece of gear and, like buying PhotoShop will not make you an artist, the Beamer takes practice to learn and will not make all low light shots come out good.

Those are great shots, the beamer (can`t say that without thinking of BMW`s ) seems to have bought the colour out really well.

Mark

Thanks Mark. I think the same thing. Wish I had one of those too.

Flash does seem to bring out the colors more, especially on an otherwise dark day.

Beautiful shots, Mitch.
Karen

Thanks Karen. I think he was a new one and none of them have returned today at all.

canonloader wrote in post #3237522
The beamer does seem to work good but I want to dial it in better. I think it's putting too much light on the subject making the whole picture too contrasy with all those shadows in there.

I'll have to agree here, the flash is too obvious in these shots(sorry for the impromptu critique!! )...but the behiaviour is caught perfectly . I don't know what flash settings you used for these, but when using the Better Beamer it is usually best to set your flash at 50mm even with the long lenses or else it is just too strong...

Thanks Dan. I have to admit it, until about 2 hours ago, I was doing the Fill Flash thing all wrong. I didn't even snap to the fact that I could use High Speed Sync in Av mode. I thought I had to use Manual. What it was, was a misunderstanding on my part about Cf.4, the one that sets Av Mode flash to Fixed [at 1/250], or to Auto. I didn't realize I need it set to Auto. As soon as I did that, everything came together and started working like it should.

Very good series. The second shot is my favorite.

Thanks Sindri, these guys are one of my favorite birds. I love taking their pictures.