For some years now I’ve been actively trying to encourage more wildlife into my garden. I recently bought a new bird feeder as the old one was rather too narrow for the feed mix I wanted to use. The feed would get stuck in the tube and not fall down to the feeding positions.
Having hung up the new feeder and seen birds start to get used to it being there I thought I’d try to nab some photos.
I set up my EOS 6D with my 70-300mm lens on a tripod in the garden and aimed it at the bird feeder. I’ve had a radio remote shutter release for some years now. It needed a little repair and fresh batteries before I could start using it again. The radio antenna needed a spot of soldering.
With the repaired radio remote shutter release I could have the camera out in the garden and sit myself in the kitchen, watching for feathery action through the window. This gave a double advantage. Firstly I wouldn’t be sat out near the camera scaring the birds away and secondly, I would be sat right by the radiator in the nice warm kitchen with a big mug of tea and a vape. An important consideration during February in the UK.
About 10 minutes after I’d been outside to set the camera up, birds started to visit the feeder again. I sat watching and firing the shutter whilst I drank my tea. Once the tea was all gone I went to retrieve the camera to see what I had.
The two shots I’m sharing here were the best from the session. The light wasn’t great so I had to crank the ISO up to 640 to get a reasonable shutter speed, enough to stop most of the blur from a moving small bird (they’re alarmingly fast critters).
I did feel that the sound of the shutter activating in “rapid fire” mode was scaring the birds away. I do have mirrorless cameras which I could set to use an electronic shutter so I’ll give that a go soon. In electronic shutter mode there would be no shutter noise. I did have to buy a wireless remote for my Fuji camera’s as the Fuji remote app for my phone, whilst pretty good, doesn’t support continuous shooting. Single shot only. The new Fuji compatible wireless remote has arrived so hopefully I can give that a try soon.
I’ll see what I can do with my X-Pro2 when I get a chance. It’s good to have a little project like this I can be working on in the back garden. In these days of “Lockdown 3” it’s one place I can go outdoors to as often as I like.
