Empty-handed

I came up empty-handed this morning (and misery loves company) so here's another one from Madison County Lake a few days ago. 

Nikon D7200 — Nikon 18-300mm F6.3 ED VR

500mm

F5.6@1/1,000

ISO 2,800

Cropped

I'm still in the learning stage with birds so in case you'd like to know, I have the camera preset (on a Nikon D7200 it is the U2 button) for shutter speed.  I actually did it for rodeo but it works okay for birds: F5.6 (widest aperture for my big lens) with a shutter speed of 1/800th and the ISO set on Auto.  You can reset the shutter speed just by turning the thumb wheel and you can see I cranked it up 1/1,000 here.  The one thing that works for rodeo but not for birds in the auto-focus present.  I have it set on AFContinuous but I had the focus point set on a limited range (9 points?).  It's pretty easy to get the focus point on a horse at 100 feet.  Not so much with a bird at 100 yards. I'm currently trying the 3D setting where the computer finds the bird but I'm not settled on it yet. It works great with the sky as a background.  Not so much with a forest. 

(RD1_0099)

©Don Brown 2021