Now my new kit has arrived I've been out the past couple of days to start getting familair with it, and I'm genuinely loving it.

Saturday I photographed the Spring Tide and then on Sunday morning I headed out early with my mate, Ben Kapur, to photograph wildlife down at a local reservoir.

Once we got to the hide, Ben checked over my camera (Canon R5 II) and helped set it up for Bird Photography, dialing in a bunch of settings, assigning Fn buttons and dials to perform specific task quickly without looking away from the 'action'.

These he saved to a custom mode and then it was a case of me familiarising myself with where controls had been assigned.

In no time at all the Kingfisher arrived. WOW! The 2nd time in my life ever to see one, and this one was up close. At one point it flew right past the window we were sat at in the hide and landed on the roof above us.

It then flew down onto a branch at the waters edge whereupon I started taking photographs and listening to Ben as he read the Bird's Body language telling me when it was about to dive ... and sure enough it did. I managed to get shots off including using the pre capture function, but for these my ISO was too high, and an Egret decided to Photo Bomb 😃 ... so I won't be working on any of those. The light first thing was quite dull and uninteresting too.

As the morning went on though, I became more and more familiar with what to do and when, practicing on Herons and Egrets as they calmy paced around; Gulls too as they flew around.

Having NEVER done this before I was like an excited kid at Christmas seeing how incredible the technology is at recognising the subject and locking on with the focus and tracking. Pre Capture too ... Amazing.

Can't wait to get out again and again, putting in the practice at the reservoir, the back garden, down at Seaton Wetlands. This is so much fun and I LOVE that there is always something new to learn.

KIT
Canon R5 II
Canon EF 400mm f/2.8 IS III USM
EF to RF Converter
1.4x Extender