I've been wanting to ask you - on your garden shots, are you able to set up a tripod on these wonderfully focused birds you're posting - each is just amazing! Fav
@milaniet Thank you Milanie, it depends. Sometimes I will see something through the window, and I will try and creep out hand holding the camera. However the camera and long lens combo are relatively heavy and I very often now use a monopod to help take the weight off me while i wait for them to perform. But chasing them up and down through the branches, its not unusual to be holding camera, lens and monopod up in the air as I take a shot.
Sometimes I will take a tripod, out into the garden, but I would normally try and hide just inside one of the doorways, if I was using it. I also have a small tent like hide which I occasionally use in the garden, in which I would always use the tripod.
If I am using the tripod, you don't quite have the same flexibility, so I tend to have a particular perch or branch in mind while using it. During the breeding season, when the parents are feeding young, a tripod can be really useful because the parents are so busy, they tend to use the same flightpath and perch to the feeders time after time, the same on approach back to the nest, so making it much easier to set up the tripod and just wait for them to appear in the middle of your shot.
Sometimes I will take a tripod, out into the garden, but I would normally try and hide just inside one of the doorways, if I was using it. I also have a small tent like hide which I occasionally use in the garden, in which I would always use the tripod.
If I am using the tripod, you don't quite have the same flexibility, so I tend to have a particular perch or branch in mind while using it. During the breeding season, when the parents are feeding young, a tripod can be really useful because the parents are so busy, they tend to use the same flightpath and perch to the feeders time after time, the same on approach back to the nest, so making it much easier to set up the tripod and just wait for them to appear in the middle of your shot.