Bird Photographs at Branston Waterpark...(if you could not guess)

I went out today with the aim of taking some more photographs of Birds in flight as I had done in previous blogs as I wanted to get some shots that I maybe able to use for my final portfolio. The issue I have is the last lot of photographs I took were lost due to my laptop being stolen a few weeks ago. Although the images are still on my Picasa web album these are not really big enough files to print off. So my aim for the day was to try and take some of these shots again. Fortunately for me I was able to borrow my Dads 100-400 zoom lens which would allow me to get close up shots of the birds.

I have also brought some more equipment to replace what I had stolen to help me with this. I have also got the use of a loan camera from the college which is a 400d SLR. Although not the same as the 500d I had stolen I knew it was still able to take the photos I wanted and also as it is a Canon the controls are very similar to my 500d. When I got up this morning I already knew from the weather forecast that it would be a clear and cold morning so made sure I wrapped up warm and wore my walking boots. I took the following equipment with me to help try and capture the photographs I was after.

• Canon 400d and spare battery (on loan from college)
• Canon 75 - 300 lens (on loan from college)
• Canon 100 - 400 Lens (on loan from Dad)
• Metz 36 AF-4C flashgun
• Hama CA-1 Wireless shutter release
• Velbon Tripod
• Wild Bird Food

I then went to the waterpark and set up at the hide as I have done a few times before, made sure the food was in a small area and after comments from Steve on my last shoot made sure the camera was even closer to get the birds to fill the frame more. One issue I knew I would come across was the flashgun as the one I have got is not able to deal with shutter speeds above 1/200 of a second so this would limit the shots I could get in flight as the wings would be more blurred than I wanted.

After setting up the equipment as above the issue was after about 30 minutes of waiting no birds arrived which made me re-think my strategy. I decided to leave some more food down to hope I could attract birds to the area while I went off to take some photographs of larger water birds in flight and also try and get some shots of smaller birds sitting in trees as I could use some of these for my portfolio too. I left the hide area and made my way to the waterside to see what I could capture.

After an hour or so I returned to the hide to try again but again although a few robins turned up nothing else did I had realised that all the feeders around the hide were empty after another 30 minutes waiting around decided to go back to hand held shots of birds in trees. At around 11.30 I decided to head for home and as I did a lady turned up to fill up the feeders so I will aim to get back there soon to try again.

To see the images i did capture click here