While trying to continue to improve my Red Dot sighting technique, I went back to the local pond near the Foster City levee on SF Bay. But very few flying birds were seen this day. Luckily, the hummingbird seen yesterday was seen on its favorite perch. Only 1 pic below was taken using the Red Dot sight, the gull.

Equipment: Canon 1D Mark IV with Sigma 150-600mm F5-6.3 lens at 562mm. The non-maximum focal length was chosen after reading that this lens is sharpest just shy of the 600mm mark. This lens does pretty well in good light, arguably I should have stopped down a bit as its DOF wide-open (F6.3 at the long-end) is relatively thin (see the out-of-focus tail feathers in pic #4). All pics were processed from the RAW file in Photoshop CS5.

All hummingbird shots taken at 1/500sec, F6.3, ISO 400 or 500. Its amazing how its color changes depending on the angle and lighting. All pics taken with with Exposure Compensation set to +1 to +1.3 on the camera body. Hummer pics are 50% crops (i was only ~10 feet away).

ISO 500

1 of 4 sequential shots taken via the Red Dot sight, only 2 were in focus

1/1250sec, F6.3, ISO 640, 562mm

Since there were few flying birds, i was hoping this goose was going to take off (it didn't). 1/1250sec, F6.3, ISO 640, 562mm