Oak Hammock, 9/13/2014

Veery

My father and I drove out to Oak Hammock on Merritt Island today.  We'd heard some nice reports about some fun warblers there, so I thought I'd give it a try.  Unfortunately, I left my camera battery in my charger, but my dad let me borrow one his cameras, a Canon EOS 1D mark 4.  It was pretty fun to use--nice and fast, and noise levels were lower than my 7D.  I didn't see a lot of warblers there, but it was nice to find a couple Veery. It was also fun to see many Ovenbirds and a Northern Waterthrush.

Ovenbird

It was interesting, though.  Noise levels with the 1D mark 4 were better than my 7D, but there was a bit more noise than I anticipated. I took these shots at 2500 ISO, and noise was pretty visible, so I had to work on the backgrounds a little. The Ovenbird above is sharp, but a bit grainy; the waterthrush below is more tightly cropped, and the grain is also affecting the sharpness of the image. It just goes to show that there's no magic camera.

Northern Waterthrush