Crows Project: First Outing

Well, I got out for a few minutes to shoot crows the other night... as predicted, all I had to do was walk down to the river and there were hundreds of them.

I learned a few things:

• Charge the battery! I got only eight shots before my battery died.
• 300mm can't really be hand-held at slow shutter speeds. I'm going to work on using the monopod, and if that doesn't help, I'm going to have to lug the tripod. That means driving down to the river, 'cause I ain't going to carry that thing down the street.
• The Canon does well at high ISOs... use them. I could have used a higher shutter speed and got sharper images if I'd set my ISO to 800 instead of 200.
• Birds in flight are a pain to shoot with a long lens.
• Crows in huge flocks aren't as skittish as a lot of birds, but they still evacuate the area when someone walks through.

Now I'm just waiting for free time and acceptable weather to coincide so I can go shooting some more.