Back to the Lagoon

After the fun trip to the Vancouver Aquarium the rains had stopped and the clouds parted. It was time to get outside with the camera and head back to Lost Lagoon. This time I wanted to practice BiF shots, or Bird in Flight shots. Any sort of bird even those pesky seagulls. The sun was out so I thought I might be able to get aperture and shutter up high enough.

To help aid in my photography of the various smaller birds around Lost Lagoon, I have purchased some Deluxe Seed from Wild Birds Unlimited in North Vancouver. Mainly made up of Black-oil sunflower seed it is perfect for the chickadees and hand feeding them. Chickadees are huskers so they will typically only ever take the sunflower seeds. There is also some other millet in the mix that other birds seem to fancy.

Not tack sharp, but I thought the two on my hand was pretty cool. It’s weird, their beaks were open but no sounds (that I could hear) came out. The black-capped flew away and the chestnut-backed stayed to take a seed.

The resident Mute Swans are always fun to take photos of. If they get closer they start to honk at you as a warning. If they get even closer, the larger males will nibble on your shoes!

As I was talking to another fellow photog, I heard the call of an eagle. I’m pretty good at spotting them in the trees and this guy flew over our heads.

Not bad for being under him and not having a flash on my camera to fill his underbelly. I seem to notice more Bald Eagles in the Lost Lagoon vicinity these days.

So back to the Bird in Flight photos. I’ve been advised to keep the shutter speed at about 1/1000th of a second with an aperture of f8.0. This can be tricky based on the lighting conditions and even at ISO1600 I couldn’t get a decent mix of the two. The above eagle photos were at 1/1000th or so for shutter speed but the aperture wasn’t near f8.0. I’ll just keep practicing with whatever light I can get.

I eventually made it around the Lagoon (by the way a lot of the northern side of the lagoon is flooded) and came across people looking up into the trees. I looked and noticed a pair of bald eagles perched. I walked around and found a better vantage point. Wish I had myself a 400mm lens though, even the Canon EF 100-400 f4.5-5.6L IS would be nice.

The above photos are cropped but the quality is pretty good. I tried for smaller apertures with higher shutter speeds and even at ISO1600 the photos didn’t turn out half-bad.

One of the other photogs I was talking to had a Sigma 120-400 lens and he said he liked it and gave him decent results. The Sigma lens is about $1300 and the Canon equivalent is about $1800.  Either way, I think if I purchase another lens, it will be one where I can get further reach like the 100-400 range. Add a 1.4x teleconverter and my 1.6 crop factor, a 400mm lens is like that of a 896mm (35mm equiv)!

When the two eagles flew away and started to head back home. This is where I saw one of the Vancouver Trolley Buses driving by. It seems that they are sponsored by Samsung for the 2010 Winter Olympics.

I think they looked better before their paint job. Perhaps I’m a bit meh about the Olympics being here in Vancouver. Yes, we do have tickets to an event too.