Trogon Photo Tours

This months newsletter features bird in flight images taken on our South Africa tour last year at a lodge near the Breede River Mouth where they have a lot of feeders.  I will discuss the techniques and settings for taking the shots. 

Cape Sugarbirds photographed October 2018 at Infanta, South Africa.  Canon 1DX II, 100-400 zoom lens at 200mm, 1/2500 F11, iso 1250, Av mode, -0.3, evaluative metering, Gitzo tripod, Wimberley head.  At our lodge near the Breede River Mouth there are large numbers of Cape Sugarbird in October which are attracted to the nectar feeders there.  This species and sunbirds take the ecological niche that hummingbirds occupy in the New World.  For this shot I focused on the hanging feeder which was just to the left and took images as birds flew to and from the feeder.  While some might view this background as a bit distracting I wanted to show the river and a wider view of the area in the background of some of the images.  Because these are good sized birds, I was very close and I was focusing on the feeder not the birds, I needed a short focal length which helped me get a wide depth of field to try and get the birds sharp. 

Malachite Sunbird photographed October 2018 at Infanta, South Africa.  Canon 1DX II, 100-400 lens at 234mm, 1/2000 F11, iso 1250, Av mode, evaluative metering +0.3, Gitzo tripod, Wimberley head.  This sunbird was one of several species to visit the sugar water feeders.  For this shot I had hung the sugar water bottle beneath an open perch and positioned my camera low beneath the perch in order to get a blue sky background.  I had to use a short focal length also to get the blue sky I wanted in the background.  I back button focused on the perch and released the focus.  This little sunbird buzzed around the perch and landed on top for a bit, I liked this shot with his tail fanned out.  I added a bit of light to the evaluative metering to compensate for the light sky background. 

Cape Bulbul photographed October 2018 at Infanta, South Africa.  Canon 1DX II, 100-400 at 135mm 1/3200 F10, iso 1250, Av mode, evaluative metering +0.3, Gitzo tripod, Wimberley head.  At our lodge, they also placed fruit and seed feeders under some of the perches.  This attracted other species such as Bulbuls, Mousebirds and Sparrows.  As you can see from the settings the birds are habituated to people and you can get very close to them. 

Cape Sparrow photographed October 2018 at Infanta, South Africa.  Canon 1DX II, 100-400 at 227mm 1/2500 F10, iso 1250, Av mode, evaluative metering +0.3, Gitzo tripod, Wimberley head.  This bird landed on the perch which I had prefocused on and then took off, this is a couple of frames after takeoff and he's quite a ways from the perch, so it's not super sharp but still a good flight shot of a small species which is difficult to get in flight.  The stopped down aperture and short focal length allowed for that. 

Cape Weaver and Cape Sugarbird fighting photographed October 2018 at Infanta, South Africa.  Canon 1DX II, 100-400 at 241mm 1/2000 F10, iso 1250, Av mode, evaluative metering at 0, Gitzo tripod, Wimberley head.   The Cape Weaver although much smaller than the sugarbirds were the one species that would compete with the sugarbirds for dominance at the feeding perches.  You will notice that most of the species names start with Cape (as in the Cape area of South Africa) indicating that they are endemic to the Cape region.  In fact the Cape region of South Africa is one of the most endemic rich areas for both birds and plants in the world. 

Cape Sugarbirds photographed October 2018 at Infanta, South Africa.  Canon 1DX II, 500F4 1/1600 F7.1, iso 1250, Av mode, evaluative metering -0.3, Gitzo tripod, Wimberley head.  While using a wider lens and a lot of depth of field allowed me to take a lot of images of fighting birds and smaller birds flying around the perches what I really wanted to get was a good shot of 2 Cape Sugarbirds in the air fighting.  I decided to change to a 500mm lens and move farther back.  In this case I couldn't get a blue sky background as there were bushes in the background so I also used a lower F-stop to blur the background more.  Near the end of the shoot 2 birds jumped into the air above the perch and had a skirmish and I took this image which was my favorite.  The light was fading at this point so I couldn't get as much shutter speed with the same iso as I had before.  Nonetheless, it was my favorite image of our days there and what I was looking for, 2 Sugarbirds in the air showing off their tails in combat. 

Rock Martins photographed October 2018 at Infanta, South Africa.  Canon 5D4 100-400 at 371mm 1/2500 F9, iso 800, Av mode, evaluative metering at -0.3, handheld.  This was taken during a bit of walk around photography near the river below the lodge.  This pair of Martins was using this perch and eventually mated on top of it.  I simply focused on the bird on top of the perch in this case.   I like the combo of the 5D4 and 100-400 for walk around photography as the 30 megapixels of the 5D4 gives me a bigger file to crop.  While I am photographing birds in filght up close at feeders when I know the birds will be close I use the 1DX II to get the speed of 14 frames per second. 

Cape Sugarbird photographed October 2018 at Infanta, South Africa.  Canon 5D4, 500F4 1/2500 F7.1, iso 800, Av mode, evaluative metering at 0, handheld.  Of course there are also plenty of opportunities at this lodge to photograph the Sugarbirds and other species perched as well as flying.  The wind was blowing around this guy's tail which made for some neat poses.    Also for portraits I prefer the 5D4 to the 1DX II due to the extra megapixels which provides greater detail.