Just a short time ago it was common, to see gobblers strutting and
gobbling while courting the hens, but now it is becoming rare. Today we
will look at a few of my best gobbler photos taken this spring. In most
cases I prefer to be very close to the birds, but the gobblers in the
photos below are 150 yards away as measured by my Bushnell rangefinder.
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| Quartet Of Gobblers: Canon 5D MKIII-Canon 600mm F 4.0 IS L- ISO 400-1/250 sec - f 8.0 |
I began my session with the birds by using
the 5D MK III camera body on the 600mm F 4.0 with 1.4X extender, but
soon changed to the 7D body to take advantage of the 1.6 crop sensor. I
have owned a 5D MK III since 2012 and I am still not certain if there is
an advantage to using the crop sensors for long range work or if one
is better off using the full frame and cropping more in post
production. With that being said the photos shown today are not the
best for comparison as they are cropped in post and do not show what
frame size and detail each camera captures at that distance. They are
also cropped to different aspect ratios with two of them being 3:2 and
two 4:5. In addition the sun was not out when I the 5D MK III and it
was in those that I used the 7D. Compared to the 7D, I can get sharp
focus more reliably with the 5D MK III and it performs much better at
higher ISO settings, but the bottom line is that the 7D is still
capable of excellent results even though it will soon have been out
there for five years.
There are actually four gobblers
in the photos below, but only three are plainly visible. If one looks
closer you can see a rear view of the top of the tail of the fourth one
in the first photo and a side view of the tail in the second.
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| Trio Of Gobblers: Canon 7D-Canon 600mm F 4.0 IS L- ISO 400-1/500 sec @ f 8.0 |
Attaching the 1.4x to the 600mm f 4.0 gives it a
maximum aperture of 5.6 and I have found through that sharpness is
improved by stopping down to at least f 8.0.
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| Trio Of Gobblers-Pose 2: Canon 7D-Canon 600mm F 4.0 IS L- ISO 400-1/500 sec @ f 8.0 |
These photos were taken in mid-April. I had an
encounter with what I presume is the same four gobblers just eight days
later--strutting and gobbling in the same spot and again I used the 7D.
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| Quartet Of Gobblers: Canon 5D MKIII-Canon 600mm F 4.0 IS L- ISO 400-1/400 sec - f 8.0 |
I have not seen the quartet for some time now, but
the encounters I had with them will provide memories to treasure for
years to come.
Originally published at
Pennsylvania Wildlife Photographer by Willard Hill.
