Photos taken on 4th December using wireless remote cable system.

This photo session was on December 4th. The wind had dropped, but it was not sunny - quite the opposite - low dark cloud , very dull.

For that reason my camera settings were quite different to yesterday. ISO 200 gave shutter speeds of 1/30 or 1/20 second - far too slow for photos of birds even with the aperture wide open. I didn't want to use ISO 800 or 1600. Possibly these photos will need cropping which will exacerbate the graininess of images taken at high ISO numbers (see blogs of 13th October - image of wasp in pond). So I decided  to use ISO 400 which gave me a shutter speed of 1/80 second - probably the slowest that is possible for birds.

As yesterday I used the tripod to mount the camera and hold it steady and in position about 5 feet from the feeder, live view to facilitate focusing and composition, manual focus to keep the focus sharp and constant, and the wireless remote cable to fire the shutter whilst I am out of sight indoors.

I became very animated when for the first time this autumn a nuthatch appeared, and managed to take 2 reasonable photos . In total I took 25 photos in a short period of which 5 are shown below. Unfortunately the rain that threatened appeared shortly afterwards. Since my camera is not waterproof I stopped the session at that point.

All the photos below were taken at the following settings:

f/5.5; ISO 400; 1/80 sec; focal length 142 mm

These 5 photos exceeded my expectations. Hopefully with a brighter day I can use a faster shutter speed. I need to focus closer to make the bird a larger image still.

In addition I can focus on branches upon which the birds sit waiting for the feeders to become free.

I also intend to use this system to obtain images of the squirrels, pheasants, partridges that visit the compost - I can tempt them with feed on the ground. In addition magpies, pigeons and blackbirds can be seen.