Bird Photography with LF

[Lachlan 717]

You can hammer in a nail with a brick, i guess...

In this day of 50meg+ digital sensors with 400mm f2.8 lenses on remotely controlled pan/tilt electronic slide mounts that can be triggered from 100m away and produce amazing images even at ISO3200, why on earth would you flagillate with a LF brick?

[r.e.]

You can hammer in a nail with a brick, i guess...

In this day of 50meg+ digital sensors with 400mm f2.8 lenses on remotely controlled pan/tilt electronic slide mounts that can be triggered from 100m away and produce amazing images even at ISO3200, why on earth would you flagillate with a LF brick?

I raised the same issue in post #15, second last sentence, but more neutrally. The way that you've put the question it pretty much raises the question of whether there's any point to large format altogether

@pdmoylan has me thinking about trying what's been discussed next summer. Why? See post #19. Curiosity, a bit of a challenge and enjoyment.

[Drew Wiley]

Why on earth would someone lug 75K worth of fussy MF digital or videography gear to the beach and leave it subject to salt spray for an entire week just for 10 seconds of documentary bird footage? But that's what they do. Seen it. I admire their patience, and often their completed work too. Somebody recently asked me about getting into that, and while it's certainly not my cup of tea like still images, I politely informed them that it probably takes a decade's worth of hard work to make a one-hour wildlife documentary. That might have been an understatement. I dunno. And remote triggering won't help a bit with lenses hazing up every five minutes under those salt spray conditions, or a Peregrine or Goshawk dive-bombing your protruding expensive lens with outstretched talons. Someone still has to be there routinely cleaning them. Seen all that too. And frankly, some of us prefer real film.

And frankly, a 4X5 long lens kit probably weighs less, and is even more portable, than the kind of even 35mm digital gear and expensive teles I see birders lugging around - a sack of solid bricks instead of a brick hollow in the middle, with a featherweight bellows in between. There is nothing lightwt or ergonomic about a 400/2.8 SLR tele. I'm not against big heavy teles - I was lugging two P67's with two teles uphill in my pack yesterday - one of those a bulky 300/4 lens, plus my 8x10 tripod as ideal support. And I'd rather bag one great wildlife shot with that setup than a thousand digitally. Call it a challenge or whatever. Want to make basketball easier? - either lower the hoop of make it bigger diameter. But then who would pay to see an NBA game? We each make our own rules. I'd be shooting color 8x10 if it weren't so difficult to get the printing paper I need at the present time. I did recently retrieve and old 8X10 chrome closeup of an active ladybug swarm. That was at least as difficult to compose and time right as any LF bird shot I can think of.

[r.e.]

One bird that I think could easily be photographed with a 4x5 is a Canada Jay, also known as a Gray Jay. They are fearless around people, especially once they get to know you. I've had wild Canada Jays eating out of my hand. When I get to my summer home and start offering the jays bread on my back deck, they soon return every morning at the same time. It's like an appointment

From Wikipedia: "Canada jays adapt to human activity in their territories and are known to approach humans for food, inspiring a list of colloquial names including "lumberjack", "camp robber", and "venison-hawk"."

Wikipedia photo credit, Cephas:

[Two23]

Puffins aren't very worried about people. If you're patient, it's possible to get, say, 6m (20') or so from one. .

Last time wife & I were in Scotland we visited the Hebrides. One of the islands had a large colony of puffins. I was using an 85mm on my Nikon to photo them when one landed on my leg and sat there.


I have a few photography books from early 1900s, and one of them had a three page article about a photographer using 8x10 to photo birds. He used a 12 inch lens on a camera set up remotely. He'd trip the shutter with a string.


Kent in SD

[abruzzi]

If I were to try (my mother's husband is a hardcore birder, so I may at some time) I'd probably pick a spot where the birds are likely to congregate, prefocus, preset exposure get a 40 foot air release bulb, chair, and a long book, and see how many chapters it takes before the birds venture back to that spot. Then when a bird ventures into the pre-framed pre-focused zone, snap. It seems like a long wait and a low probability of success, but as long as I have something good to read, I can wait for hours.

[Jody_S]

So I guess I'm the only one here who has actually tried?

In my first lf attempt, late 90s, nobody told me about bellows factor so my chromes were seriously underexposed, but I did get a normal-looking shot of one of the tiny owls that have no fear of man, using a crown graphic with a convertible 150 Symmar on Velvia, hand-held flash for fill.

There are a handful of birds that will ignore you and allow you to walk right up to them, in some cases actually touch them (I once touched a 3-toed woodpecker, he ignored me and climbed about an inch higher on his tree). Never mind the puffins, you can take shots of gannets with a wide angle if you're patient (and not inside a national park with watchful rangers). Small owls as I mentioned, I don't remember which ones, there are maybe a dozen bird species in North America that you could reasonably expect to get a shot of with a lf camera.

[j.e.simmons]

Porter’s setup

[Lachlan 717]

There is nothing lightwt or ergonomic about a 400/2.8 SLR tele.

Just over 3.5kg for camera and lens (Nikon z7 II and new 400mm f2.8 - 380mm long). Hand holdable with IBIS. Built in 1.4x TC. Extra battery?

Deardorff 8x10” (body only) 5.5kg. Without lens. Without tripod. Without dark slides. Without dark cloth. Without light meter.

I’ll take the former option every day for anything moving…

[Tin Can]

I find my Z fc with Z lenses work very well, got some off brand too that China sells very cheap, still playing with the 7.5 fisheye

my legacy Nikon 200-500 is best on gimbal becomes 750

However the birds are dying, the bugs already gone in this formally wet buggy area

frogs gone or hiding