A family of doves reside at our cabin in the Sawtooth National Forest. When on our property they spend most of their time observing the bird feeders from the limb of a Lodgepole Pine tree about 75 feet away.
There appear to be six doves that hang around the house. They do not frequent the feeders with the same regularity as the other birds. The doves seem to focus on feeding on the ground near the feeders.
*** Jeff’s Worthless Trivia and Other Thoughts ***
One type of camera and gear that I utilize to photograph wildlife is the Nikon Z9 and Z series of lens. I used the Nikon kit to capture the for this Post images.
The Z9 can capture FULL FRAME 35MM Digital images with 14Bit Color and 45 Megapixels at 20 Frames per second.
So what do those specifications mean from a practical perspective? It means high resolution images of the mourning doves with terrific color, and depth of field can be captured in a blink of their eyes.
Specifically for this shoot I used the Nikon Z9 camera and the Nikon Z 400MM f/2.8, Nikon Z 560 MM f/4, and Nikon Z 800MM f/6.3 Prime lens’.
I photographed the birds in the early morning with the sun behind me to my left.
The camera is located about 150 feet from the birds.
I photographed with a Gitzo carbon-fiber Tripod.
I photographed with an Arca Swiss C1 Cube Head. I used an Arca Swiss foot to replace the non Arca Swiss foot provided by Nikon. The foot was placed on the Lens not on the camera body
I photographed at the camera and at times hidden from the birds view utlizing a remote trigger (PocketWizard PLUS IIIe with additional 10 PIN cable required for use with Nikon’s).
I photographed configuring the camera manually for its settings. I sometimes use the extremely powerful setting combinations offered with the Z9. However, more often than not, I like full control of the specific aspects and not ranges.
Depending on the light, the lens, and how much I thought the birds would move is used the following settings during the shoot:
Aperture: F/4.5 to f/11
Speed: 1/1250th of a second to 1/4000 of a second
ISO: 400 to 800
Focus: Single Point and 3 dimensional tracking for Wildlife.
What did I use the most? F/8, 1/3200 ISO 640 and Single Point.
