Great Egrets in Slow Flight

Just a few simple clips of these graceful BIFs.

The whites are on the hot side - I was at the lowest ISO possible, the smallest Av without killing the AF system and I stuck to a 180-degree shutter. How I wish I had a built in ND filter!

Great Egret (Egretta alba)

Habitat - Uncommon in a variety of wetlands from coastal marshes to ricefields.

Shooting Info - filmed in habitat at Sto. Tomas, La Union, Philippines on January 9, 2018, Sony RX10 Mark IV, manual exposure in available light, hand held, 220 mm (600 mm equivalent), shot in 1080/119.88p and 1080/59.94p, processed to 720/23.976p.

A Great Egret comin' at me

One of the toughest AF jobs for any DSLR-lens combination is a fast moving subject coming straight at the shooter. 

I had an opportunity to shoot one such incoming bird in flight yesterday at the fish ponds of Sto. Tomas, La Union. With the 1.4x III teleconverter attached, the AF of the combo was a bit slower than when the lens is bare.  Additionally, the terrain background made it more difficult for the all-points AF to initially lock onto the subject. 

Luckily, the approaching wader has a bright plumage, and that mitigated AF acquisition and tracking. I managed to shoot a 'double-tap', with the focus placed precisely on the head area.

(Please view the larger versions linked to see more details.)

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Great Egret (Egretta alba, migrant)

Habitat - Uncommon in a variety of wetlands from coastal marshes to ricefields. 

Shooting Info - Sto. Tomas, La Union, Philippines, November 5, 2016, EOS 7D MII + EF 400 DO IS II + EF 1.4x TC III,
560 mm, f/7.1, 1/2500 sec, ISO 320, manual exposure in available light, hand held, near full frame.

 High res 1500 x 1125 version

Shooting Info - Sto. Tomas, La Union, Philippines, November 5, 2016, EOS 7D MII + EF 400 DO IS II + EF 1.4x TC III,
560 mm, f/7.1, 1/2500 sec, ISO 320, manual exposure in available light, hand held, near full frame.

High res 1500 x 1200 version

0.3 second worth of fishing action

Time is relative, indeed.

Sometimes, a wader can stand motionless for hours without anything happening.

At other times, everything just happens at once.

It's interesting to see how much action can be packed into a mere fraction of a second, specially if this is recorded for posterity by a fast focusing, high frame rate birding gear.

Here's a three-frame, 10 fps burst taken of a successful fishing strike by this graceful wader at the fishponds of  Sto. Tomas (La Union) recently.

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Great Egret (Egretta alba, migrant)

Habitat - Uncommon in a variety of wetlands from coastal marshes to ricefields.

Shooting Info - Sto. Tomas, La Union, Philippines, January 13, 2016, EOS 7D MII + EF 400 DO IS II + 1.4x TC III,
560 mm, f/7.1, 1/2500 sec, ISO 320, manual exposure in available light, hand held, major crop resized to 800 x 533.

 High res 1500 x 1000 version

Shooting Info - Sto. Tomas, La Union, Philippines, January 13, 2016, EOS 7D MII + EF 400 DO IS II + 1.4x TC III,
560 mm, f/7.1, 1/2500 sec, ISO 320, manual exposure in available light, hand held, major crop resized to 800 x 533.

 High res 1500 x 1000 version

Shooting Info - Sto. Tomas, La Union, Philippines, January 13, 2016, EOS 7D MII + EF 400 DO IS II + 1.4x TC III,
560 mm, f/7.1, 1/2500 sec, ISO 320, manual exposure in available light, hand held, major crop resized to 800 x 533.

  High res 1500 x 1000 version

Great Egret in flight (with the 7D MII + 400 DO II + 1.4x TC III)

I just laid my hands on an EF 400 DO f/4 IS II, and coupled with an EOS 7D MII and an EF 1.4x TC III, it is a very impressive combo for capturing birds in flight (BIFs) - light hence hand holdable, very sharp with a 1.4x TC III even wide open, long enough (896 mm angle of view), extremely fast focusing and with a fast frame rate (10 fps).

To get to around 900 mm AOV before, I had to use tripod-based combos (1D MIV + 500 f4 + 1.4x TC, or a 7D + 400 2.8 IS + 1.4x TC). This severely limited my mobility and reduced my birding opportunities. With my new light combo, I can take long hikes and shoot hand held, increasing my bird shooting possibilities significantly.

Here are some in-flight images of this large migratory water bird, among the first bird shots I've taken with my new rig.

 

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Great Egret (Egretta alba, migrant)

Habitat - Uncommon in a variety of wetlands from coastal marshes to ricefields. 

 

 

Shooting Info - Sto. Tomas, La Union, Philippines, November 7, 2015, EOS 7D MII + EF 400 DO IS II + EF 1.4x TC III,
560 mm, f/7.1, 1/2000 sec, ISO 320, manual exposure in available light, hand held, near full frame resized to 800x450.

High res 1920 x 1080 version

Shooting Info - Sto. Tomas, La Union, Philippines, November 7, 2015, EOS 7D MII + EF 400 DO IS II + EF 1.4x TC III,
560 mm, f/6.3, 1/3200 sec, ISO 320, manual exposure in available light, hand held, uncropped full frame resized to 800x533. 

High res 1500 x 1000 version

Great Egret in golden light

The slightly overcast skies provided very soft lighting in this quickie sortie to the vast fishponds of Sto. Tomas (La Union), my first birding in 2015.

With the gape unmistakeably extending way past behind the eye, it seems to me the migratory bird in this photo is easy to tell apart from its white cousins. This waterbird has a wing span of 1.48 meters, and a length of 0.91 m.

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Great Egret (Egretta alba, migrant)

Habitat - Uncommon in a variety of wetlands from coastal marshes to ricefields.

 

Shooting info - Sto. Tomas, La Union, January 9, 2015, Canon 1D MIV + EF 500 f4 L IS, 500 mm, f/4, ISO 1250, 1/2000 sec, 475B/3421 support.

 

 

1500 x 1000 version