{"id":3126,"date":"2010-11-10T21:37:30","date_gmt":"2010-11-11T01:37:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.birdsasart-blog.com\/?p=3126"},"modified":"2011-02-24T11:44:15","modified_gmt":"2011-02-24T15:44:15","slug":"bald-eagle-gear-and-a-whole-new-world-revealed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.birdsasart-blog.com\/baa\/2010\/11\/10\/bald-eagle-gear-and-a-whole-new-world-revealed\/","title":{"rendered":"Bald Eagle Gear (and a Whole New World) Revealed"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n
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As you might guess, the E stands for eagle, but the E looks a lot bigger than the eagle did as it sat atop the telephone pole…. <\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n

Bald Eagle Gear (and a Whole New World) Revealed<\/h2>\n

Right after I got my 800, I tried to make a few images with the 2X teleconverter. Even with the Mark IV I had to focus manually as the pro bodies focus down to f\/8 but not to f\/11. I made quite a few images and the results were horrific; not a single image was anywhere near sharp. I did not realize at the time that the problem was a result of inaccurate (manual) focusing by yours truly. Recently I have been getting out each morning to photograph near my home for an hour or so. On Monday morning past, things were a bit slow so I decided to try something new, something based on a tip from early 7D User’s Guide purchaser Dave Hardcastle.<\/p>\n

A pair of Bald Eagles sat on top of the telephone pole that you see in the image above. I set up the Canon 800mm f\/5.6L IS lens with stacked teleconverters; the 2X goes on the lens and the nose of the 1.4X fits into the back of the 2X. I mounted one of my EOS-1D Mark VI bodies to the 1.4X. Next came David’s killer tip: while working in Live View I set the AF Mode to Live mode. The system focused very slowly but very accurately. When I saw how sharp the images were I was amazed. You can learn more about this technique and about using Live View for nature photography in both the MIV User’s Guide<\/a> and the 7D User’s Guide<\/a>. The MIV User’s Guide was just updated and the 7D User’s Guide update should be finished by the time I get to San Diego at about noon tomorrow; I will be speaking at Photo Expo West in Del Mar this coming weekend. Click here<\/a> and scroll down for more info. <\/p>\n

Using this technique will indeed open up a whole new world of long distance photography of static birds and animals. That reminds me, 800 X 2 X 1.4 X 1.3 = 2912mm effective (or equivalent) focal length, a tidy 58.24 magnification. While this was a one-time success I am optimistic that the results can be duplicated on a consistent basis. I’d estimate that I was about 70 yards from the bird…. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
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Gear as noted above. ISO 800: Evaluative metering +1\/3 stop: 1\/500 sec. at f\/11. <\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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As you might guess, the E stands for eagle, but the E looks a lot bigger than the eagle did as it sat atop the telephone pole…. <\/p>\n

Bald Eagle Gear (and a Whole New World) Revealed <\/p>\n

Right after I got my 800, I tried to make a few images with the 2X […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[89,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3126","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-89","category-photography-tips","odd"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.birdsasart-blog.com\/baa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3126","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.birdsasart-blog.com\/baa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.birdsasart-blog.com\/baa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.birdsasart-blog.com\/baa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.birdsasart-blog.com\/baa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3126"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.birdsasart-blog.com\/baa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3126\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.birdsasart-blog.com\/baa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3126"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.birdsasart-blog.com\/baa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3126"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.birdsasart-blog.com\/baa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3126"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}