Little Garden Birds
 

Well at last some sunlight - though I didn't get to be out for long - and it was blooming cold!</p>
<p>Anyway I tried out my 70-200mm with a 2*TC for the small birds to get a 400mm lens out of it. Results from my last experiments were not fantastic, though natural lighting was better and the subjects a bit larger - this time around I stopped my lens way down to f8 - not ideal for wildilfe at all, but I think it helped to preserve details where they might very well have been lost on such small subjects. It means losing out on the bokeh of a wider aperture, but I don't acutally mind that. </p>
<p>Using such a small aperture with an already darker setup I decided to use manual mode and my flash to make up for the loss of lighting and to help ensure that my shutter speed was at least acceptable for birds. I used the flash on fill with -2/3 exposure though I might try again without this - though it helps protect the whites from blowing out it does mean less power in the flash - which is already coupled with a softbox.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>Anyways here are the results:</p>
<p>All taken with Canon 400D, Canon 70-200mm f2.8 IS + 2*Teleconverter and speedlite 580M2+softbox</p>
<p>full exif is attached</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>note that 100% crops are of the edited version with selective noise removal and sharpening applied</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/245/3264852222_47850c8435.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></p>
<p>f8, ISO 400, 1/100sec</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/254/3264026937_3fe2ca8057_o.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>Link to larger: <a href="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/245/3264852222_8c1c02215f_o.jpg" target="_blank">http://farm1.static.flickr.com/245/3264852222_8c1c02215f_o.jpg</a></p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3402/3264850484_d0d3d467fe.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></p>
<p>f8, ISO 400, 1/100sec</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/251/3264026459_052f5f03da_o.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>link to larger: <a href="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3402/3264850484_1c6237778a_o.jpg" target="_blank">http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3402/3264850484_1c6237778a_o.jpg</a></p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>Any comments/advice/crits welcome thank you</p>
<p>&n