Hamilton Area Casual Birders: Iroquoia Conservation Trails, Hamilton, Ontario

February 9, 2011
Yesterday, I braved the wintry elements & hiked over to the nearby Iroquoia Heights Conservation Area trails. My purpose, other than to get in my daily hour of exercise, was to try out my new Canon XSi & EF-S18-135mm IS zoom lens.

Downy

I was amazed how well the camera & lens performed in the extremely cold conditions! I was able to grab a number of decent shots and got to try out a few settings. Basically, I set the camera on "aperture priority" to make sure I kept the FOV as narrow as possible. Because it was a nice bright sunny day, I was able to shoot at ISO 200 and still had good shutter speed ie. 1/250th to 1/500th of a sec.

What I learned was, even though the 135mm gives an equivalent to a 210mm image, one really needs a much more powerful lens, ie. a 300-500mm telephoto. I had to really crop the images to make a decent picture, thank goodness for having a 12 mp sensor!

Here are a few of the better shots.

Cheers!
Lyle