Canada Geese in flight.

Canada Geese are coming back to Canada and they are flying everywhere this week, i even saw Snow Geese. So i went to the shore of the St-Lawrence river near my home where i knew i would find Geese, each autumn and spring there is a lot of them there. I positioned myself on a hill and the Geese were taking off and flying at different distances, some too close to fit in my viewfinder with my 400mm lens.

I was able to test and feel the 7D and 400mm/5.6L combo and see how the AF would perform handheld for BIF.

ISO 500, 1/1250 sec. at f/5.6, handheld.

For all the photos i did use the AF point expansion (manual selection) and AI servo, i uses the AV mode for exposure. For a first try it was good, will need more practice as i need to be smoother while panning to follow the birds. The AF worked well but at the beginning the light level was lower and my shutter speed was not fast enough, it was below 1/800 sec. When the sun came out my shutter speed was higher and my keepers were better. I really like the Joystick to select the AF points, it`s fast and easy to find with your thumb while keeping your eye glued to the viewfinder.

The biggest challenge was to expose the Geese correctly, they have black, white and brown feathers and the sky was partly cloudy so the backgroung was always different , ranging from darker blue to white. The bird were also flying at different distances and occupied more or less space in my viewfinder which affected the exposure, so i had to costantly correct the exposure compensation.

All photos were taken in RAW and cropped for composition purposes.

ISO 500, 1/1600 sec. at f/5.6, handheld.

I waited until some Geese were flying in front of the moon, i would have liked the moon to be more evident.

ISO 500, 1/2000 sec. at f/5.6, handheld.

Not their best profie !

ISO 640, 1/1600 sec. at f/5.6, handheld.

Taking off over the ice.

ISO 640, 1/1000 sec. at f/5.6, handheld.