Short-billed Dowitcher

Solitary dowitcher in search of prey.

Fabulous

Stunning shot William, beautiful reflection, detail, and light.

Thank you for the comments, Peter and Mary. I was practicing handholding my large Sigma 75-500mm zoom lens (no image stabilization) to see if it would be possible to get good shots without a tripod. I was pleasntly surprised with the results. Even though this pic is slightly "soft", many others came out sharp. So I think I will send Santa a letter about the Canon 400 DO lens.

William, I do absolutely no better with a tripod than without, and considering the IS has a little delay to kick in I'm baffled. Shot off a bunch with the tripod yesterday and no higher percentage of success than handheld.

Beautiful shot with great reflection and nice light.

Thank you for your kind comments!

Mary, you should be using a remote shutter release. Mine is a cable that triggers the shutter electronically (there's a plug on the side of your camera for it). This will eliminate the camera shake when you manually push the shutter button. The resulting shake usually is beyond the IS to correct. I think you will like the Canon shutter release cable. How high a shutter speed are you shooting at? At 1/2000 and faster, I do not detect camera shake, even with my heavy 75-500mm lens which has no IS.

Oh Santaaa, I'm not finished with that list....Glad you mentioned that, as I wondered if I still had "shake" using it. I usually get nothing good at less than 100, but to be honest I live in the auto function most of the time and do not change settings. (Beginner, beginner...) I do experiment to learn, but haven't got it down well enough to rely on. You'll know I'm in trouble in the snow if I revert back to my film camera, which I've threatened to do whenever I encounter sunlight on white. Thanks for the info. (P.S. You had a very productive outing, some super shots up. I'm not sure you need an IS with what you've captured) ;o)

That Program Mode (or A-Dep Mode) is addictive, I know. But you just can't catch a bird in flight in that mode. Now that I'm weaned away from it, I have discovered the phenomenon called noise. If you get the shutter too fast with the ISO too stopped down, man, does the screen fill with pixelated noise. Looks ugly. You will like the release cable. I bought two, because I can never find it when I need it. Finally used a twist tie and roped it to the tripod.

Hand held a heavy & large lens to get such a sharp shot is not easy. Bravo. Love the simple composition of the bird & its reflection against the blue bg.

Above 1/2000 second I seem to be able to get away with handholding this heavy lens + Mark II. I hope to buy a Canon 400mm DO f/4.0 lens with image stablization which should help to lower the shutter speed a little bit when I handhold it. Your portfolio is so magnificent!

Lovely portrait.