An American Robin Under The Porch

A pair of American Robin (Turdus migratorius) has built its nest under my neighbour’s porch. It wasn’t high and I can get a good leveled view if I climb up on a ladder. So that created the perfect opportunity for me to take some good photos of the nesting bird. American Robin is probably the earliest bird to lay eggs. Due to the weather, I didn’t have a chance to take photo when the bird just hatched. But now that the week worth of raining weather is over, I can take some photo of the now much bigger juveniles.

So here’s the nest, I can see four beaks there.

 

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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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