Taking advantage of nature's gifts

We had a little bit of snow this week here in Kentucky. Annually we typically do not receive a ton of snow where I live. So when a snow event occurs you like to take advantage of it. When snow covers the ground you'll notice an uptick in activity at the local bird feeder. The feeder provides easier access to food for birds when the ground is covered. Knowing this I planned for a day of making sure the feeders were full and my camera battery was charged.

One of my goals for the day was to try to capture some shots of blue Jays grabbing peanuts from one of my backyard feeders. To prepare for this scenario I did a few things.

1. Filled up the feeder with nuts
2. Researched settings for birds in flight using my Nikon D500
3. Attached the gimbal head to my tripod

The first item was pretty simple. Recently, I bought a large bag of shelled nuts from my local Wild Birds Unlimited store. I love shopping there. I can buy nuts from a lot of places, but I do enjoy going to the local Evansville, IN store, talking with the staff there, and seeing what new items they have to offer. They also had an end of year sale recently so WIN WIN.

The next thing I wanted to do was make sure I was confident with my AF (Auto-focus) settings before I was bundled up in winter gear and standing outside in the cold. Like I've said in past blog entries, there is an abundance of resources online. I found this video that was easy to follow by a guy named Mark Smith. He has a video titled “Nikon D500 Bird In Flight Autofocus System Setup”. In the video he talks about the differences between single-point AF focus vs group-area AF. He also talks about ways to customize your camera by assigning custom functionality to different buttons. This allows the shooter to quickly switch between focus modes.

The last thing I did was switch out my tripod setup from a ball head to a gimbal head. Last year I had purchased a gimbal head for my tripod, but I've failed to really use it much. I thought this would be an excellent opportunity to bring it out of the closet and get it outside. I have a Neewer brand gimbal head that costs under a hundred bucks. You'll find some really expensive setups out there, but I wasn't sure how much I'd use this thing so I went cheap. After getting it outside with temperatures under 20 degrees fahrenheit I realized what folks were talking about with the horrible lubricant used for the joints. The lubricant was already thick and caused the action to be sluggish. With low temperatures the lubricant's viscosity made it seem more like cement. I'll need to take the thing apart to remove this gunk and reapply a thinner lube. You can check out Richard Houghton's video titled “Neewer Gimbal Preparation for Use” to see what I mean.

With all of these elements in place I was ready to get outside. Boy was it cold. I have a pair of gloves that allow my trigger finger to be exposed, but it was tough keeping my extremities warm. I kept at it though. I really like being outside and watching the birds so that kept me going. I found a lot of activity outside by different types of birds. I was able to see northern cardinals, blue jays, carolina chickadees, tufted titmice, sparrows, dark eyed juncos, a downy woodpecker, and starlings. I had to fight with the gimbal head to swing into place due to the cold lubricant, but I managed. I was happy I was able to capture a few shots of the jays coming in to grab a nut where you can see their wings spread out. I also got a chance to try the quick switch from single-point AF to group-area AF. So awesome! That tip from Mark Smith about assigning a quick button for the switch was a-mazing. The best time to use it is when you're set up to capture a bird on the move with group-area AF, but then you see a cute little specimen sitting on a branch. You hit your quick button so you can focus on the bird rather than the branch and you're in business.

Overall, I was a happy camper at the end of the day. Really that is all that matters to me. I just like getting out there and seeing if I can find something interesting.

Resources mentioned in this blog entry:

Wild Birds Unlimited

Nikon D500 Bird In Flight Autofocus System Setup by Mark Smith

Neewer Gimbal Preparation for Use by Richard Houghton