At the bird feeder

As my wife was out walking the dogs I thought I would have another go at photographing birds at the bird feeder in our garden. Fortunately I can do this from the kitchen as we have a door that opens at the top stable-style. However, the sound of the shutter still tends to disturb the birds so everything has to be done in short bursts then you wait for the birds to return to the feeder. The drive on the Canon 7D allows me to shoot at 7 frames per second which is great for freezing action at the right point but requires a load of editing afterwards. I ended up shooting 550 frames then editing these down to about 100 shots. I am still experimenting with apertures and shutter speeds so it was a mixed bag. In order to get reasonable shot of the birds in flight I needed to use at least 1/440 of second and there was always a compromise with depth of field between choosing something that gave a good depth of field but slower shutter speed or very wide aperture with a slower shutter speed. I must try try it a a brighter day when I will not be running up against such tight constraints and having to rack up my film speed thereby sacrificing quality.