Canon EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6L IS USM

A dragon, a web-builder, a nosy mink (came right up to me), an almost invisible toad (at most 2 inches long).

cool - what is the aperture on that first mink shot and how much of a crop if any is it??

bobobird wrote in post #13014071
Thanks Will.

Usually just one but this time there were 5-6 of them.

I have only seen them flying/gliding or diving.. ever see them on land or floating like a gull would?

Same as you never seen on water or landed.

Mink - should be 5.6. Not much of a crop, he was like 3-4 feet away. First one is at 300mm and second one 100mm.

bobobird wrote in post #13012318
Cool bird there Will.

Some Caspian Terns looking for food.

They look like the ones around here - but mine have orange beaks not red...

google image search below - would be cool seeing some of these...

http://www.google.com …MQ_AUoAQ&biw=13​60&bih=662

We are lucky enough to get both the Common Tern (with the orange beak) and the Sandwich Tern, with the crest and yellow tipped black beak.

Here are a few images from last year

Just a heads up for you guys. Aftermarket tripod rings are available on the bay now
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk …097&_trksid=p51​97.c0.m619
I just couldn't bring myself to pay £160 for a bracket, so will give that one a go

it looks like the one I got from DHGate, if it is, be aware that its very badly engineered (it will work if you can get the screw in the thread but I won't trust mine anymore)

Great shots oldcanon. Have started looking around for some that flock on the ground hehe.

Tommy - actually it was thanks to members like oldcanon and William who were my advisors here and helped me a lot.

All these were taken at 1/1000, f5.6, ISO 400, evaluative metering, AI servo, center focus point only. May or may not have set Mode 2 on the lens, probably did but cannot recall now.

Thanks bobobird, the lens is great but knowing how to use it is even better.

biscuitthief wrote in post #13018279
Just a heads up for you guys. Aftermarket tripod rings are available on the bay now
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk …097&_trksid=p51​97.c0.m619
I just couldn't bring myself to pay £160 for a bracket, so will give that one a go

finally... but I hope they can ship to my country...

bobobird wrote in post #13018932
All these were taken at 1/1000, f5.6, ISO 400, evaluative metering, AI servo, center focus point only. May or may not have set Mode 2 on the lens, probably did but cannot recall now.

Ha ha - that's funny - I forgot all about mode 2 IS

nice to have the optimism that maybe we can squeeze another 1/2 ounce of quality out of our shots!

thing is - I would forget to set it back to mode 1 - so that could make 1/2 my other shots less than optimum... ... now that I think of it - its the BIF that are more important to me anyways so - mode 2 it is!

Tonight I'm trying my first crack at astro-photography, since it will be a star-studded clear night. (I'll try mirror-lock, 20 second exposure and auto ISO and fenagle from there... I'm told 30 seconds gets you star trails which I don't want)

I'll bring the 70-300L but not sure its the right lens for the job so I'll have the 15-85 on first...

should be fun!

Will - I found this page quite informative though have not yet done anything starry.

It shows a way to calc the length of the exposure for the focal length to be used etc.

http://theamusing.com …startrails.html​/?w=flickr

bobobird wrote in post #13022499
Will - I found this page quite informative though have not yet done anything starry.

It shows a way to calc the length of the exposure for the focal length to be used etc.

http://theamusing.com …startrails.html​/?w=flickr

Thanks man ~ that was a very good read!

my issue last night was I should have opened up my aperture instead of f/7.1 - f/10 range. That forced me to use a high ISO which was of course terribly noisy for 20-30 second exposures.

tonight, if clear, I'll try: 15mm, 20 sec, f/3.5, ISO 400 and take it from there.

for a 15mm focal length - you begin to see star trails between 20-25 seconds, which ain't what I am going for.

Using our 70-300L would mean very short exposure times (70mm = 4 seconds based on a formula) but it would likely be too much weight on my very mediocre tripod and I don't want to risk shake. Once I'm more experienced I'll try the 70-300L and 50mm f/1.8

again thanks!

Good luck Will, post your results - good or bad hehe.