For the past three days, I was hiding in a sorghum field at sunrise and trying to capture images of doves on the wing. Smack in the middle of McAllen, a five acre patch of grain was attracting white-winged doves, Eurasian collared-doves, mourning doves, rock doves and whistling ducks. It wasn’t like being in Mexico where thousands of doves would have been swarming, but the action was good and I had lots of fun.
Each shoot was done with the Canon 500 mm IS lens and the Canon 1D Mark III and Canon 7D cameras. Of course, I love the “multi-frames per second” capability of both cameras, but the Mark III, at 10 fps, is hard to beat. Its autofocus is faster than that of the 7D, but either was very capable of delivering what I needed with this type shooting. The tripod stayed in the car. I was photographing passing and landing birds, so everything had be done in the “hand-held” mode. Most of the time, I was seated on a low folding stool with the sun behind me. The lens came up only when birds were closing in. Within minutes after sunrise, the shutter speed was at 1/2500 second with ISO 640. Auto-focusing worked best with all focusing points activated for both cameras because I had clear sky for most backgrounds.
Shooting in the city meant the backgrounds weren’t always great… cars, signs, etc.. I did some cloning on a few photos, but most were clean from the start. Here are some of the shots I liked best:
Click in the upper right corner of a photo to get a sharper, clearer image. You can also advance or see the previous shot from there.
Larry
Very impressive! These are images of doves that you never see! And so close to home. Who knew you could find something like this in McAllen? Thanks.
Thanks, Allen. I’m glad you liked them. They are mighty tough to approach…lots of crawling.
I can’t believe you can handheld that big 500 mm lens, especially when you are low to the ground. My favorite is the white wing feeding on the grain with the beautiful orange background. Does the tail now have to be spread out along with the wings frozen to be the appropriate shot? LOL!
Its too hot to do any photography here in Houston even night photography. I need to get out of town.
Great shots.
I can tell you my forearm and wrist hurt after a morning of shooting. But, it’s fun.
Great stuff as usual Larry, sorry I’ve been so busy I haven’t commented on your blog. Love the birds in flight….excellent capture. It is getting pretty warm, but I’ve been doing a lot of indoor photography at the college. Keep up the awesome work and thank you for sharing!! ☺ s
I’m glad you are busy. Are you making any money? Thanks for your nice comments. Hope you are getting some shooting in, too.
Love the Dove Thumbs!! Very interesting observation! I grew up in New York which is full of pigeons, or rock doves as you so generously call them. I have a hard time even considering them wildlife, but these gorgeous shots prove they are! Thanks!
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