Woodchat Shrike - Bowling Green, The Headland

[IanF]

I don't know who found it this morning but a very good find regardless. The first I've seen in the TBC area. Very active around the sides of the Bowling Green and also on the grass itself where it fed on several worms.

[ken tait]

great pics Ian which lens did you use.

[IanF]

great pics Ian which lens did you use.

Thanks Ken,

They were all taken with the Canon 400mm f5,6 plus three teleconverters (1.5x, 1.4x & 2x).

I called back this afternoon but conditions weren't much better - still very windy but a little brighter sky.

The first one below was taken with a 1.5x converter and the other with 1.5x + 1.4x converter.

[IanF]

A short video clip - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pV7bqnlEESw

It was pretty windy so it bounces around a bit.

[Sylvia and Mick]

Some additional images taken today.

[Chris Bell]

Some shots taken in the hand this morning.  Unfortunately not quite sharp as there wasn't much light at around 7:30!

Cheers

CHRIS BELL

[IanF]

Much better views of it today as it moved between the Croft, Putting Green and Town Hall trees.

[Renton Charman]

Some of my shots this afternoon at The Croft.

[IanF]

Still present this afternoon. Much better light today.

[IanF]

Still in the Croft/Putting Green today.

Video clip 1 - http://www.birdforum.tv/members/action/viewvideo/2305/

[Ken Croft]

I have the same lens and the 1.5x converter, and auto focussing on my 40D is very hit and miss. Sometimes none at all. Have you any tips to improve this?
I enjoy your pics even though I now reside permanently in SW France.
cheers
Ken Croft

[IanF]

I have the same lens and the 1.5x converter, and auto focussing on my 40D is very hit and miss. Sometimes none at all. Have you any tips to improve this?
I enjoy your pics even though I now reside permanently in SW France.
cheers
Ken Croft

Hi Ken,

Whilst I'm using the 7D now I have had a 40D for around 2 years now and it worked well with the 1.5x converter.

The main tips to maintain autofocus with the 1.5x converter is to use a single autofocus point, one of the outer ones and use the lens wide open at f5,6. I find the bottom left focus point works best for me but any of them at 10, 2, 4 or 8 o'clock work just as well. You do need a bright day, not necessarily sunny, just brightly overcast will do as the focus points work by detecting contrast. On dull overcast days there's lower contrast in the subject so they don't work so well. The reason for using the lens wide open is that firstly it's a very sharp lens and secondly increasing aperture seems to slow down the autofocus making it hunt more. If the autofocus doesn't pick up the subject straight away as in for birds in flight then just nudge the manual focus ring slightly and quite often the autofocus will snap onto the bird.

The other settings I use are - AI Servo, AV mode making use of EV compensation, centre weighted metering (as near as the 40D gets to spot metering), usually ISO 200 if it's bright enough but and with the 40D I find ISO 400 is pretty good as well. I find when using the 1.5x converter I almost always need to dial in an extra -0.6 or -1.0 EV compensation for accurate exposure.

If you use the camera on a tripod then it's worth making use of the live view function as whilst the autofocus is slower it's works very well especially if you magnify the LCD to either 5x or 10x - obviously this helps if you use manual focus as well, but of course you need a static subject for autofocus.

[IanF]

It was still present this afternoon.

[Ken Croft]

Thanks Ian, I always use the centre point, but I will give the outer ones a try, everything else is as per your recommendations. I wonder if you find that in use the 7D focussing is as good as folk say it is under test conditions.
Thanks again
Ken in SW France

[IanF]

The focus on the 7D is superior to the 40D in so far as the centre point acts as a true spot focus covering a smaller area than the centre point of the 40D. There are several other focus options such as zone focus and expansion of the focus area and the ability to alter the speed of autofocus tracking but having tried them all out I've settled on using just the centre focus point as it's more suited to what I need.