Thank you. Love this bird! Both the male (pictured) and female returned to this perch.

Thank you. Was a fun morning-100's of shots for both my wife and myself.

Thank you Linda. Was lucky in that sky remained a beautiful blue early in the morning. Within an hour, it turned to an ugly white-blue. Not so good.

Whenever we travel to other countries to take pictures, I compile a list of birds we would like to photograph. Sometimes we get to cross every bird on the list off and sometimes we don't. This is one of the birds that was high on our list when we traveled to Portugal and Spain earlier this year. This is a European Roller, certainly not a rare bird, but often one that is difficult to get close enough to to photograph. This was taken at an abandoned farm building in the middle of a field that was laying fallow. Amazing how many abandoned buildings there are in the agricultural areas of these two countries. Their agricultural practices are quite different than ours. They allow their fields to lay fallow for 2 years and then plant grain for one year. Therefore 2/3 of their fields are covered with wildflowers and grasses each year. Perfect environment for many birds.

Shot with a Canon R5, 100-500 mm lens (at 128 mm), at a distance of approximately 50'. SS 1/3200, ISO 1250, f/11, EC of 0. Cropped significantly from L and bottom.

(Download)

Try other camera shops. I have ordered and received 2 R7s since July 1. Hunt's Camera, Campus Camera, Bedford's Camera would be worth a try; get on their lists. The smaller shops get smaller shipments, it is true, but they also have smaller demand.

Two factors. There is a difference in the exposure of the flowers; it is not as obvious as the birds. The primary reason for that is that the faulty LED light was aimed at the likely location of the birds not the flower. The filtered sunlight was coming from above and to the left. The LED light, located below and to the right, was intended to soften the shadow on the underside of the bird. Because the light was pulsating sometimes it worked well and others overexposed the bird.

No I was using mechanical shutter. Oddly, the previous day I was using the electronic shutter at 15 fps; the exposures were perfect (the LED light was working well), but I had lots of rolling shutter effects on the hummingbird wings. So I then switched to mechanical; no rolling shutter, but the exposures were wacky.

It turns out a faulty LED lamp was the cause.

Thank you for your thoughts. It turns out a faulty LED lamp was the cause.

Thank you for your thoughts. It turns out a faulty LED lamp was the cause.

Thank you for that. I was considering buying a dedicated LED light, but that info may influence me.

Thank you for your thoughts. You are correct. The LED light on the right of the picture has a short in the switch. I shined both of the lights on a wall in a darkened room with the intention of trying the anti-flicker setting on the camera. What I found was after about 10' (I assume as the light got hot) one of the LEDs started to "strobe", an irregular pulsing of the light. When I let the light cool down and switched it back on, it worked fine for about 10' and then started again. I am assuming that when I was using it during daylight, it was not so apparent, but certainly the camera saw it.

I will try that. These are relatively simple headlamps but they have 9 elements so may require an increase in voltage.

I know LEDs flicker when powered by AC current. I thought that battery powered LEDs (DC) did not flicker. However that is the most likely cause of the exposure differences.

The exposure on the flowers changes also.

Was on full Manual-no auto ISO. ISO was set at 6400. The EXIF shows consistent ISO of 6400.
AF was set on center box with Tracking disabled. The AF box was not moved but the focal points did move within the box as the bird moved. On these shots, I suspect the same AF point was active as the position of the bird did not move. I have not looked at the shots in DPP to see where the AF points were.