Workshop with Brutus Östling Day 1

Posted by Sven Thunéll on December 10, 2012 in Blog | 0 comments

After a four day workshop with Canon Ambassadeur Brutus Östling in Lauvsnes Norway, we are back in Umeå with quite a few ideas and a lot of inspiration. The whole workshop was a fantastic experience with eagle-photography as main goal. That meant early mornings and days spent in hiding.

Lauvsnes, Canon 1D Mark III, 24-105 f/4L, ISO 100, f/10, 1/30 s, slightly cropped.

Shooting from a hide is a must if you want to get really close to eagles although it also work’s really well for smaller birds. You have to be fairly quiet in hiding and try to avoid sudden movements with the lens. This is something I got first hand experience in the first day in the Goose Hawk hiding.  The Goose Hawk landed, I moved my lens, the Goose Hawk flew, all in less than a second.  It’s very important to enter the hide when it’s still dark. That way the birds won’t connect the hiding to something human.

View from Goose Hawk hiding. Canon 5d Mark II, 70-200 f/2.8 IS II.

At least we got a few pictures of tits, shrikes, chickadees and squirrels that day.

Talltita, Canon 1D Mark III, 300 f/2.8 is, ISO 800, f/2.8, 1/250 s.

Tofsmes, Canon 1D Mark III, 300 f/2.8 is, ISO 1600, f/2.8, 1/125 s.

Ekorre, Canon 1D Mark III, 300 f/2.8 is, ISO 1600, f/2.8, 1/400 s.

We had no luck with the weather, which led to high ISO-numbers to get decent shutter speeds. At high ISO you really have to watch your exposure in order to minimize noise. This is something we will cover in our tutorials. I must admit though that my newly bought 300 f/2.8 IS was perfect for this kind of mission.

I must say that I learned much this first day.