Bird photography with Canon 7D

I took my new Canon EOS 7D out for a field test on Sunday. Practiced a lot of shooting on these mallards and gulls trying to get a feel for how the auto focus system works and what settings are the best for tracking birds.

The detail captured by the 7D is amazing. Shooting these ducks on the water it captured incredible amount of detail compared to my old 10D or even to the 1D Mk2 that I have used for bird photography before.

Duck

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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.

Common grackle American Robin

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Bird photography at the park

Visited two parks today for some bird photography, one is Scarborough Bluffs and the other is Rouge Beach park.

Common Grackle.

Common Grackle Common Grackle

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Birds in the zoo

Here’s a bunch of birds that I photographed at the zoo. Some are common wild birds while some are zoo birds.

To the left is a Canada Goose taking care of her eggs. This goose is nesting in the middle of a pond in the zoo. To the right, a Canada Goose swimming on a creek.

Canada Goose Canada Goose

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Spencer Gorge Conservation Area landscape photography

Took a hike around Spencer Gorge Conservation Area. There are a number of waterfalls all located in a small area. The big Websters Falls and Tews Falls are just minutes of walk from each other. And the smaller Baby Websters Falls and Lower Tews Falls are all located in the close by vicinity. We visited Tews Falls first from the top. Then the plan was to go to Websters Falls and Baby Websters Falls which are located very close to each other. Then hike alone Spencer creek and then up Logie’s creek to reach lower Tews Falls and finally to the base of Tews falls. I did also bring my Sigma 100-300 on the hiking trip in case there’s some chance of wildlife photography on the way.

This is Websters falls, a main local attraction to the Spencer Gorge Conservation Area. It’s located in the park area and has a very easy stair case access to it. A lot of people visits this fall and have a fun picnic in the park area above.

Websters Falls

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