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

Astroscope + DSLR = Gallery! (3 Viewers)

Yes, for sure.... I am beginning to dream Canon again... I'm hopeless! :-C
I found that I had a considerably higher keeper rate with flight shots with the Nikon, especially if I was shooting burst mode. Had a lot of Avocets flying around cursing at me in Germany. One afternoon I shot 600+ shots with the E-M1+ Canon 400/5.6 USM, naturally MF, and 18 (!!) were really sharp, and only two ended up being good shots. With the Nikon and the ancient Nikkor 400/5.6 I had 5 or 6 times as many keepers, but the lens is not as good as the Canon lens, less contrast and much more CA. The EVF flickers too much and blacks out during burst so it is very hard to follow, not to mention focus. Especially hard against the light as birds in flight so often are. As you said, wrong tool for the job. Autofocus?...more like outafocus!

Still looking for that big 500 f4 prime then Dan ;)
 
yup.....:smoke:

I also tried the mFT Zuiko 75-300 II once on the Avocet Air Patrol.... keeper rate? 0.0%!! Neither S-AF nor C-AF worked at all. After 15 minutes I gave up. Not a single shot anywhere near in focus. Usually it just searched and showed me blured sky. Absolutely useless for BiF, though otherwise a very good lens.
 
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Of the 1200 some odd shots I took of the Avocet Air Patrol, this is the only one that is really in focus.
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They were very well organized. There was quite a group of them out on the Watt (mud flats) with chicks of various ages, well away from the walkway along the dike, maybe 50 to 100 meters away. But they would take turns checking me out and calling me all sorts of names, and even trying to bomb me with you know what. They seem to be fiercely protective and very courageous. They would go after anything that came near their chicks with their fearsome, up-turned bills.
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Even these guys!
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The only guys that wouldn't put up with it were the Shelducks. The Avocets would try and sneak around and attack them from behind, but then the Shelducks would turn and give them a piece of their mind.
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Sometimes they would just try and stare each other down,
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(Unfortunately I accidentely had my Nikon set to jpg-normal rather than raw that day... button mix up... not like the E-M1 that is so beautifuly set up! Canikon could learn a thing or two there...)
Such fun to watch them dancing out on the Watt in the evening, like butterflies, so graceful.
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Hard to imagine how aggressive they can be.
 
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Here is another with the Canon 400/5.6 L USM on the E-M1. For all practical purposes it is a small, traveling scope, MF and fixed f-stop. Focuses nicely by hand, not like the Oly focus by wire crap.:C It has a touch of fringing against the light, but nothing near as bad as with my prehistoric Nikkor 400/5.6, and nothing that can't be easily dealt with in PP. The Oly IS works very well with it. This is at 1/250 and ISO 400, hand held.
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I really don't like using the E-M1 over ISO 400 unless I know I won't need to crop. Gets pretty noisy, but so does the D7100. That is the nature of these high MP sensors, though they have gotten much better.
Still, I would take sharp focus any day over megapixels! Should have kept my 5D II, but I sold it after I got my 75-300 II thinking it would AF better. Live and learn...:-C
 
Portable Bird Walk setup

If it is portable, you can get close enough for shots like this (see my post in Astro Setups). Magee Marsh, Ohio during last month's migratory season. Beautiful bird gave us a show for about an hour.
B :)
 

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The only guys that wouldn't put up with it were the Shelducks. The Avocets would try and sneak around and attack them from behind, but then the Shelducks would turn and give them a piece of their mind.
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Sometimes they would just try and stare each other down,
View attachment 502258
(Unfortunately I accidentely had my Nikon set to jpg-normal rather than raw that day... button mix up... not like the E-M1 that is so beautifuly set up! Canikon could learn a thing or two there...)
Such fun to watch them dancing out on the Watt in the evening, like butterflies, so graceful.
View attachment 502261
Hard to imagine how aggressive they can be.

Very interesting. Thanks for sharing. The last photo of the 2 Avocets is really nice !
 
Some from a few weeks ago.

TLAPO804, E-M5 full frames.
 

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Thanks, Jules,
Unfortunately they were too far away to hope for much detail, about 200 meters. Not much chance to get very close there.

BiF with the scope is hard, but now and again I get lucky. From Sweden:
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Over 100% crop, D7100 on my scope, with the TN to boot.

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This guy was a good bit closer, again with the D7100.

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Closer still, again with the Nik.
 
Sometimes they are too close!
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And a Reed Bunting flying through the reeds. I kind of like this one because it shows the bird more in its environment.
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This is with the E-M1 on the scope + TN.
 
And a couple of a hovering Skylark with the E-M1 + Zuiko mFT 75-300 II.
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Out of 20 shots, one is really in focus and two were not too far off, even though the Skylark was essentially stationary in the air. The rest were nowhere.
 
Me too...|:D|

I have never had a chance to get close enough to Avocets to be able to get any detail at all in the feathers, but in Skanör, Tord and I were able to get some shots of this one who had wandered off from the main colony and was working a pond only about 30 meters away.
Too bad it was a bit of a "bad hair day" though...;)
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Tord even got one showing what he was catching. Maybe we could see it??
 
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