Bird photography with Canon 1D Mk II

I borrow my friend’s Canon 1D Mk II for a while and trying out shooting bird with this camera. Gave Scarborough Bluffs a try to see if I can test the camera out. The auto focus is really good but being 1D has a 1.3 crop factor while my 10D has a 1.6 crop factor, I found I lose significant focal length, so much so that I started to use the 1.4x extender on my Sigma 100-300 all the time. But the problem with the 1.4x extender is that is slows down auto focus by a lot and it degrades picture quality. So in the end I think Canon 1D is not really for me. I would rather have a really good APS-C factored DSLR than a 1.3x crop factored camera.

Now here’s the result. First up a few common birds.

To the left Common Grackle and to the right American Robin.

A House Sparrow join the party.

Gulls are always plentiful. But this one on the left is carrying some of the nesting material so it seems. And the one on the right, dives hard to catch some bread people are throwing into the air.

Common Terns are an usual sighting.

Beautiful display of their wings when landing.

Being this is Canada, Canada Geese are everywhere. Their youngsters still haven’t gotten too big yet so the parent is very protected of them.

A close-up shot of a single goose-ling.

Another shot of these young goose-lings.

Water landing.

Mallards are always in the ponds around here year around. Male mallard on the left and female on the right.

On caught flying across water.

These are Hooded Merganser. Caught one swimming alone in the harbour and flapping wings.

A few swan shot. The first two are black billed Tundra Swan. And the third one with orange bill is the Mute Swan.

Saw a few Cormorant but didn’t really get any good photo of it.

Now on to the smaller birds. A nice shot of a female Red-winged Blackbird flying to a branch.

A few shots of Tree Swallows. Male on the left and female on the right.

The pair performing a little matting dance?

This pair of Barn Swallows was busy building their nest. Male barn swallow to the left and female Barn Swallow to the right.

A close-up of the female Barn Swallow.

Try to get a shot of the Barn Swallow in flight. But these birds are just simply too small and my Sigma 100-300 is just too short to do that. Here’s a poor attempt.