outdoor photography

Cooper's Hawk I finally had a little bit of time to give my new Canon EOS 50D camera a little bit of a workout at Mead Gardens.  For the most part, I'm pleased with the results.  Especially at lower ISOs, the 50D gives me more detail than my 40D without any more noise.  At higher ISOs, though, it's a different story.  I'm not sure that the 15 megapixel sensor is any benefit over the 40D's 10 megapixel sensor at ISO 800 and above.  Part of the problem, though, may well be that I also decided to try out Canon's new "highlight tone priority" (HTP) feature.  I'll explain more about this in a future post, but for now, suffice it to say that I do not think it's beneficial for wildlife photography--in fact, I think it makes my photos noisier (and more importantly, uglier noise) in the shadows.  The next time I go out, I will turn HTP off an compare my results. Wood Ducks and a Green Heron Wood Ducks Other than that, I had a pretty good h...

Blue Grosbeak We had some rain last night--I don't know how much, but I was hoping it might be enough bring in some migrants to Mead Gardens, so this morning I got there early just to see what birds may have dropped by.  I didn't stay long, since it seems I have to earn a living too.  But I took a tour of the area, and it was a pretty slow morning.  I did have one big highlight though.  I found one Blue Grosbeak on the boardwalk.  I think this is a female. The bird was pretty far away so I did the best I could. House Finch It was also nice to see some House Finches, a few of which came close enough for photographs.  I only saw one warbler--a Worm-eating Warbler flashed its head at me and then was gone.  House Finch There also were some rather ordinary species that nevertheless seemed rather photogeneic, so I shot a few photos of them as well. Carolina Wren Northern Mockingbird