robertjerl Loc: Corona, California

About 3 PM I went to put out food and check the water. The birds were feeding in large numbers for the first time all day. As I opened the door to go out all the birds except the crows blasted off and the immature Cooper's Hawk landed on the swing set, then took off surrounded by the crows. All going south to get away from me.
As I was putting food in the various feeders and rehanging a hummingbird feeder I saw movement from the corner of my eye. I expected it to be a hummer waiting for me to hang the feeder. But no, it was two lesser goldfinches on the sock feeder about 4 feet away. These two were tiny, barely longer than a big hummer. While I worked they kept peeking around the sock to keep track of me. As soon as I got a few feet away all the little birds came back and a feeding frenzy took place. I guess they were hungry because the hawk had kept them scared away and they were stocking up before the rain started (well sprinkles, but they have kept up almost 6 hours and now turned to a real rain). I got one of my cameras and went to see how close I could get, They were so busy eating they let me get to less than 20 feet where I sat down in a lawn chair on the pool deck. (I was doing a slow stalk, step and freeze, step and freeze.) For the next little while they would startle when I moved the camera and the flash went off and then come right back to feed some more. I was using flash because of the gloom. I tried various settings on high speed sync and got some overexposed and others under exposed. My first cull I got down to 37 frames and have since dropped a few more due to camera shake or depth of field problems.
both shots posted here:
80D, 100-400L mk II + 1.4x III @ 560, 1/500 @ f/8.0, ISO 640 with flash, hand held at about 20' for #1 and 15' for #2

I went for a dark background. Yes the beak and tail are almost out of the focus field.

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The head is slightly out of focus and the tail completely out. Shallow depth of field. But my main thing here is the details in the feathers, esp the back and folded wings. I cropped off the feet because the near edge of the feeder blocked them off.

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Dixiegirl Loc: Alabama gulf coast

I love the little Lesser Goldfinch especially, Jerry. I wish their range extended out our way...

DOOK Loc: Maclean, Australia

Nice ones, Jerry.

robertjerl Loc: Corona, California

Thanks, I have some "group" shots to post.
You have a lot of birds back there I remember and wish I could photograph.

robertjerl Loc: Corona, California

Thanks a lot.

CLF Loc: Raleigh, NC

Jerry, both photos are great and as I have said before, I need to use one of my flashes more often.

Greg

robertjerl Loc: Corona, California

Thanks
Depending on the flash when going after birds you may need a better beamer. With extender f/8 is the widest the 100-400 will do so you need reach if you want to keep shutter speed up. With f/8, 1/500 and ISO 640 the built in calculator said I could go out to 18 meters. But since it was gloomy daylight the flash works as fill a bit beyond that when I am shooting off my tripod through the door of the family room. These shoots I was only about 15-25' or so from most of the birds so I actually deleted some for over exposure beyond what PP could salvage. Both of these were over exposed and I brought them down in PP. The sparrow was very over exposed and I just wanted to see what I could do with it in PP. The results are not bad considering the overexposure and my lack of skills in PP work. The bird is on the far rim of the feeding saucer, the rim showing is the near edge, I was in a lawn chair on the pool deck about 2.5 feet below the level of the yard and the feeder is a bit under 2' tall.

OOC image, background is a tan block wall and large white plastic flower pot 12 feet or so beyond the bird.

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CLF Loc: Raleigh, NC

Jerry, I have a better beamer and have not used it much over the last couple of years. Like you said, it should help fill in the dark areas. I will dust it off and see what I get with it. Thanks, Greg

robertjerl Loc: Corona, California

You are welcome.

At first I had the flash on manual and 100% output (forgot to change it from the settings used from family room door over 60' away) - way overexposed when I got that close, so I changed it to ETTL and exposure got better even though reflections of objects around the birds did cause some problems like this one where the swing set upright 4' closer to the camera caused ETTL to shut down the flash a bit short of perfect exposure.

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CLF Loc: Raleigh, NC

Jerry, thanks again for the info.

Greg

J-SPEIGHT Loc: Akron, Ohio

Nice set Jerry.

robertjerl Loc: Corona, California

You are welcome.

robertjerl Loc: Corona, California

Thanks

Chuckwal Loc: Boynton Beach Florida

Neat set
chuck

robertjerl Loc: Corona, California

thank you