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ZEISS DTI thermal imaging cameras. For more discoveries at night, and during the day.

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  1. Mendobirder

    R7 for bird photography and birds in flight

    You were correct! There has been a noticeable improvement in speed of AF and resulting image quality. Keeper rate is higher now. Still learning the quirks of the R7 but now getting images that make me happy. Will get a big test in a couple of weeks when we have an offshore trip... see if I can...
  2. Mendobirder

    R7 for bird photography and birds in flight

    Agree. I have the R7 and my wife the R5, we often shoot the same birds simultaneously and her images are nearly always FAR better than mine. I still don't really understand why - the pixel density on the R7 is greater than that on the R5, yet the images are never as sharp. And the big drawback...
  3. Mendobirder

    Western Isles questions

    Yes indeed, we spent three weeks in the Highlands a few years ago, I got around pretty well on the single-tracks. Though I have to admit the drive out from Salen to Ardnamurchan was a bit much, as we failed to account for the traffic coming at us from the Kilchoan ferry... many of whom were...
  4. Mendobirder

    Western Isles questions

    That's really good information about Islay. It was in the plan as well, and I wasn't sure how much time to give it. Was thinking of 2-3 nights but maybe should allocate more? We've decided to put this trip off since it's clear we needed to do the booking much earlier. So now we are going to...
  5. Mendobirder

    Scope hire?

    I'm wondering if it might be possible to hire a spotting scope in Ireland for three weeks in May-June. I lugged my Kowa through airports to Iceland last year and am not exactly eager to do that again... plus the tripod has to be checked, and we're aiming to do this trip without checking baggage...
  6. Mendobirder

    Your Most Recent "Life" Bird

    Laughing Gull on the Mendocino coast. I have never birded the Atlantic or Gulf coasts where they are abundant. This one is the sixth record for this County.
  7. Mendobirder

    Hey! I’m Daveio from Northern California

    Hi Daveio, I too live in NorCal and have no difficulty with Chestnut-backed Chickadees using my nestboxes. PM me if you need details. They are picky about the nestbox dimensions, entrance-hole size, and location. For CBCH you want a minimum inside floor space of 4x4 inches (a little more is...
  8. Mendobirder

    Western Isles questions

    Wow, Mull is quite popular... we are not finding any places to stay in the time period of 15-25 May. Did we dither too long to make this work?
  9. Mendobirder

    Orkney and Shetland trip planning

    Logistics are making this look difficult, so I think this year we are going to the Western Isles instead. We will keep working to figure out how to make a trip to Orkney and Shetland work for us and try again next year I think. So many great things to see up there! The Noss boat tours sound...
  10. Mendobirder

    Western Isles questions

    I was wrong about the shift in plans... we're back to the Western Isles for this spring. Current plan is a week+ on Mull, then two weeks in the Outer Hebrides. I'm hoping we can fly to Glasgow and get to Oban by train or bus, then take the ferry to Mull before getting a car; but we could just...
  11. Mendobirder

    Morning trip to the Albatrosses

    Got out on a rare calm day for a four-hour cruise to the upper Noyo Canyon and found some friendly Black-footed Albatrosses, as well as Black-legged Kittiwakes and several other Gulls.
  12. Mendobirder

    Orkney and Shetland trip planning

    Okay, having changed our minds about where to go... we are looking at a trip to Orkney and Shetland starting mid-May and lasting two to three weeks. My main question right now is, how many days would you allocate for each area? It looks to me like one can easily use up a week or more in either...
  13. Mendobirder

    Western Isles questions

    Thanks everyone. It now appears that we are going to shift our plans to visit Shetland and Orkney instead. We will continue working on plans for the Isles trip and maybe do that next year, so this information is still useful.
  14. Mendobirder

    Western Isles questions

    Thanks for the replies, though I'm now I'm struggling to comprehend the idea of "calm, warm days in Scotland" ! Still working on details and hoping we are not getting too late for booking things like sea tours.
  15. Mendobirder

    A trip to Lewis & Harris - Feb 2024

    Interesting about the Black Guillemots in both winter and breeding plumage. We just noticed the same thing here offshore northern California with Pigeon Guillemots (Cepphus columba) and Common Murres (=Guillemots, Uria aalge).
  16. Mendobirder

    Western Isles questions

    We're sketching out a trip to several of the western Isles from mid-May through the first week of June. If I can work out the logistics, I hope to visit Arran, Islay, and Jura, then a few days on Mull, and then devote the remaining time to the Outer Hebrides. Our usual MO is to bird in the...
  17. Mendobirder

    Corncrakes in Harris and North Uist

    Any luck on that trip? We are looking at a trip out there in mid-late May to first week of June.
  18. Mendobirder

    R7 for bird photography and birds in flight

    "A bit"??
  19. Mendobirder

    R7 Viewfinder focus point keeps randomly sticking

    I have had the same problem, and it seems to happen if I turn the camera on and don't wait for the messages to clear before pressing the shutter button. Have not yet figured out how, or if, I can disable that "feature." It is super annoying. Resetting the focus point to the center can be done...
  20. Mendobirder

    R7 for bird photography and birds in flight

    And this from a couple days ago isn't bad. I'd like to see some 100% crops for comparison, just so I know if my results are normal or if there is something I am doing wrong.
  21. Mendobirder

    R7 for bird photography and birds in flight

    Finally got a decently sharp image with this rig. Harsh midwinter sunlight doesn't help but at least the bird is in focus and not all smeared out like in most of my images. This is about a 50% crop and resized to about 90%.
  22. Mendobirder

    R7 for bird photography and birds in flight

    Those appear far sharper than any image I have obtained yet. Are they cropped? Here's one of the best I've been able to manage, it is is nowhere near as sharp as yours. 1/1250, f5.6, 365mm, ISO 4000.
  23. Mendobirder

    R7 for bird photography and birds in flight

    I have the R7 and my wife has an R5 with the 100-500. Her images are consistently far superior to any I have produced. In low light there is simply no comparison, the R7 struggles to focus and the images are sometimes okay if you don't crop at all. Her R5 just reached into a bush and pulled out...
  24. Mendobirder

    R7 for bird photography and birds in flight

    My wife has the R5 with the RF100-500 and I just got the R7, on which I have mounted her old EF100-400 (mk1). So far the difference in IQ are huge. I have very few images that I am really pleased with. Just the other day we were shooting the same bird and the images are vastly different. The R7...
  25. Mendobirder

    USFWS Barred Owl Removal Plan

    See my long-winded answer above. tl,dr: Yes, replacement by Barred Owls is already "messing up" (changing) the ecology. The two species have VERY different ecosystem functions. It's not so much loss of the Spotted as the indiscriminate appetite of the Barred that is causing problems.
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