Planning to get some shots.

I am planning to go to Rutland bird sanctuary to try and get a shot of a hawk finch.  I am going there next weekend to have a look where the bird has been seen.  By going onto the Internet and doing some research I now know that the bird has been seen.  So I intend to go and see for myself, and I shell take the gear with me so I can hopefully capture the bird.  But if I don't then I will arrange another weekend to try and get the shot that I require.


This is going to take sometime to capture as first of all I am going to have to see the bird and fined out its habits first.  Then I shell come up with a plan of how to get the photo's that I want.  These are very shy birds and I will have to careful how I go about this task as not to disturb anything or any body.


I went Rutland at the weekend 3rd April in search of the Hawfinch but, did not see it.  I also asked at the centre if anybody had seen the bird but they have not seen them yet.  Brought a new card for the camera but, put it in when I got there and it didn't work.  Wasted journey really  but, had a good walk round to see if anything was worth looking at.


The Macro side of things are taking shape now, i managed to get a bee shot but, looking to get a better one looking to get a wasps head and eyes.  Good fortune there just happened to be a wasp in the office and have captured the shot I was looking for, so happy with how things are going with the the macro side.   Like the theme of the eyes I am doing I do have two shots of close-up flowers if I get the opportunity  I will try and get some more eye shots depending on the time scale.


I plan to go to Cakle Abbey on a regular basis, as I do not live far from there and I can look out for things to photo on the macro side.  I go most Sunday mornings, just looking and taking in the atmosphere checking things out to photograph.  Just basically observing things that are going on and that I could eventually photo.


I have also set my hide up in my garden, so that I can be ready to take a shot of something if I need too.


The technical side of the camera comes when you change the aperture, so you can control the depth of field. which means you can blur the back ground out and keep the subject Sharp.  This comes in very handy  when shooting wildlife.


By setting yourself an aperture of say F2.8 on a nice and sunny day this would give you a fast shutter speed allowing you to capture your subject in flight, and be nice and Sharpe.  Using the controls of the camera is whats its all about, you should be controlling the camera.  By doing this you control the depth of field, or blurring the back ground out, but, if you use an aperture of say F22 it is just the opposite.  This should make the the picture Sharpe front to back providing you use the camera correctly.  By doing this with an aperture of F22 you would need a tripod as this could give you a slow shutter speed, depending on the light and what effect you are after.  To make a very slow shutter speed you could use filters, warm ups, graduate, and Polarizer filters which gives you some fantastic  affects if used properly.


For this type of photography that I intend to do I shell what my 500-mm lens along with a good tripod for this to rest on, along with my D200 which will fire at 5 shots per second.  I shell set the camera at 4.5 aperture as the large lens does not go any further than that.