Young Wood Pigeon & Blackbrid...

Young Wood Pigeon

A bit restricted at the moment as to what I can photograph so I'm having to make do with whatever flies into the garden.

Blackbird of Feeder

Best laid plans...

Well I was supposed to get out and make some landscape photographs.   It was supposed to be thunderous this afternoon, hopefully with some magnificent clouds to increase the dramatic nature of the photographs.  Well, needless to say the weather didn't materialise leaving me with flat light and a grey sky.  No use for what I wanted to achieve.  So back to capturing the birds in the garden - not a bad way to spend an afternoon.  Just hope the weather picks up and produces some beautiful light and powerful skies.  However, this is england so expect another day of flat and unteresting light.  La de da.

So much for the plan....

House Sparrow in the Rain

Starling on a feeder

Dunnock

Female Blackbird

So I was going to go out and takes some landscape images.   It was going to be a nice change of pace, something different, something fresh.   Well it didn't happen.   instead I decided to test the 1D with the 2 x converter to see what sort of images it may produce.  Well I was blown away.  Period.   I used to think that the 40D worked well with the 2x converter.  Not anymore, the 1D is simply a brilliant camera.

All these photographs were captured in my garden around about lunch time this morning.  As you can see it was raining and the light was patchy.  I had to shoot at 640 ISO, something I don't like doing with the 40D as the results can get very soft but with the 1D there was not a trace of softness.  The images were sharp and well saturated and are able to deal with cropping very well.  In short they are outstanding.

This does make the question of the 40D a whole more complicated.   With the 40D you do get an extra amount of magnification (I know this is not strictly true but it will suffice for this post) which might be useful at places such as Bempton.  However, the final image is nothing like the quality of the 1D, not surprising since one is about 3 times the price as the other and the fast FPS can be really useful when taking nature shots.  In short do I go the whole hog and get another 1D?   I think I know the answer and I suspect reading you may too.

Goldfinch

Starlings

It just gets better

Sparring Mute Swans

I have spent the day catching up with my processing of photographs.   I have to say the more I work with the 1D the more I like it.  Now I know I am a big chap and so size is not an issue for me but I find the camera just so well balanced, even when using a long lens.   I have just been out and took some more dandelion seed head shots.  I used the 1D and it suddenly became a much better experience.  Not only is the image processing first rate but I found using my macros lens so much better as well.   Another tick in the positive box.

Anyone for a bath?