I have been photographing birds/wildlife since 2006. My wife suggested I take up a hobby (she has regretted
it ever since) and I had been interested in wildlife photography when I was younger but could never afford the equipment.
I therefore brought a Fuji Finepix s5500 and a 1.5 screw converter and off I went. I started with birds in the back
garden and spent time at my local reserves where I met some great wildlife photographers who were very happy to give advice.
This fuelled my interest and I upgraded my equipement (unfortunately for those that get the bug this becomes a bit
of an (expensive) obsession). I now use Canon equipment.
Finding time to get into the field
can be hard and I have not done much in the last 2 years but I try to get out when I can.
I enjoy both portrait
and action photography. For portrait work I tend to use the Canon 50D. The 1.6x crop give that extra bit of magnification
and I find the 9 autofocus points really easy to use and very accurate (using the Canon 500mm f4 lens with the 1.4x converter
and 1.6x camera crop give me 1120mm focual length at f5.6). I have set the camera autofocus points to be changed with
the thumb stick as this is really quick when you need to change focus point in a hurry. I did/do use this camera for
flight work and you can get good results but I always keep the camera on centre point as I do not find all 9 active works
very well.
For flight work the 1D mark 3 is the one to use. The focus is lightning fast and accurate and and my
hit rate went up quickly when I purchased this camera. The image quality is super and the noise at higher ISO is very
low.
I recently purchased a Fuji compact and an underwater housing and tried some underwater photography
on holiday this year. Mixed results but I have posted my first attempts on the site.
I hope you enjoy this
site, please leave a comment in my guestbook. Also check out the links to some great photo sites.
Neil
