Autonomous high speed shots

The snow over the last few days has finally encouraged smaller birds back into the garden. Today saw starlings, blue & great tits, dunnocks, robins, black birds and even a goldfinch making visits so a perfect opportunity to try some high speed shots. Of course, wood pigeons were also making regular appearances.

The laser setup is gradually becoming simpler through trial and error. The heavy duty tripods have been replaced with metal poles which are simply hammered into the grass. This speeds up setup time but also means less kit to replicate the setup.

The aim for today was slightly different to previous tests. The laser wasn't aligned along the perch, it was instead set back about 10cm so that it would be broken by the bird on approach to the perch rather than after it landed. This would mean less shots, but hopefully the action shots that drove this project in the first place. This seemed to work and the results are quite encouraging. More experimentation is required to really tweak the lighting but this is definitely a good first attempt at high speed shots.

Blue tits were the most frequent visitors:

A great tit:

A dunnock. There were several about but they constantly fed from the ground below the feeders. This shot was a pleasant surprise:

Starlings. One disappointingly just out of frame:

The obligatory pigeon shot:

Comments

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CameraTrigger

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