Dave Benham

Nikon D700, 70-200 VR with 1.7 Teleconverter at 290mm, 3200th @ f/5.6, ISO 500

Thanks to everyone for their kind comments about the Red Kite shots from a couple of weeks ago, as promised I thought I’d better post a bit more on the technique and equipment behind the scenes.

You might think that we used shutter priority to select a fast shutter speed, but I was worried that with contrasting low light in the background the camera would select too large an aperture, and the bulk of the bird may be thrown out of focus. So I used aperture priority, adjusting the aperture between f/5.6 and f/8, and using the ISO speed to get a quick enough shutter speed to make the Red Kites sharp. For much of the day I was able to use ISO 320 to get a shutter speed over 100oth of a second, but at times I went as high as ISO 800. Fortunately the D700 makes such choices academic.

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Nikon D700, AF-S 24-70 @70mm, 1/125 @ f/5.6

It’s been a busy week in the Forest after the relaxing Bank Holiday weekend. The long weekend turned into lots of preparation at work and expectant kids at home. Poor old Harry does get a camera pointed at him more than most kids, and I loved his expression above. Has he turned into a teenager over 10 years early?

Nikon D700, AF-S 70-200 VR with 1.7 teleconvertor @340mm, 1/160 @ f/6.3

Our garden is attacting all sorts of visitors at the moment (and I’m not just talking about the in-laws). I was really impressed with this shot, not only because of the detail, the pleasing bokeh in the background and colours – and also as it was shot handheld at 340mm using a slow shutter speed. Yes I was supporting the lens properly, but I have Nikon’s amazing VR technology to thank for this one.

I’m writing a more detailed account of the Red Kite shoot from last week, and I’ll include some of my landscape and waterfall shots from the weekend as well. The Kites were featured on Springwatch on Monday, if you missed it check out the episode on BBC’s Iplayer.