Wee Jimmy and I had a first visit of the season to our club water yesterday. We were hoping for some early buzzer action - there is an early season species that hatches over deep water in March, but you need the weather to get the overwintered fish up and onto them. While there was a scattering of buzzers hatching throughout the day, there were never enough to get the fish on the go, and the bright breezy conditions didn't help either. So we just had to resign ourselves to having a tug. A weighted black tad on fast glass was all that was required.

While the new stockie rainbows were on the go from the beginning, there was little sign of last year's fish, and we wondered if they had not fared well during what was a rather harsher winter than of recent years. However, it just turned out they were having a long lie, and they came on the go in the afternoon. We had a fair few of them - photos below. Apart from the occasional thinnish one, they were in fine nick and were much more tousy than the stockies!

Cheers,

Col.

Fantastic photographs and absolutely beautiful fish.

Thanks - they are the first I've posted with this new resizing software thingy. They show at default at about 90% zoom, which is perfect for giving you the old jaggy diagonals, so you really need to click on the image to go full size and smooth out the jaggy edges! Too much thechnology!

Capn F....well bent in.



A Nice Shiny One..



Close-Up..

Nice work Col & Jim, great shots.

__________________
Too much Saturn, not enough Moon.

Buzzers 2012


Fly Clips & Stands

That second picture of the Rainbow is superb, that can be my entry for Scratches April competition.
I know you won't mind captain F

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"A glint of sun has warmed the air,The flies will soon hatch out, To lure and tempt from their deep lair, The bonnie speckled trout." SKB tackle supporter. I love Furled Leaders.

Those are cracking photos Cap'n. What was the make and model of the camera that you used?

Great pics, love the second one. What camera were they taken with?

I as just about to ask the same thing. That second shot is a cracker.

Settings please!

Hi/

Camera is a Canon 40D with 24-105 mm lens. All shot in RAW file format and 'developed' in Adobe Camera RAW 4.3.1. No PP at all except to crop or straighten (or in the case of the first one, miss seeing the need to straighten ).

I spent a fair bit of time last year experimenting with trying to get action shots of fish in play. It is very hit - miss and so much depends on whether the fish does a bit or just comes in like a wet sack. We try not to keep the fish deliberately thrashing just to make a photo, so if it doesn't do anything on the way in, it is just a case of waiting to see if the next one does. As it happened, in the set above, there isn't really any action - just fish coming to the net, however it's the same camera settings...

After trying different settings, I'm getting a bit closer to something that gives decent results... when the fish and light do their bit!

Around 100 mm focal length is about right. It gives you a bit leeway to crop in on the fish while at the same time ensuring a good result gives you a decent sized image. So, shot 2 was taken at the full 105 mm end, but I cropped away a fair bit of dead space on the left side - hence the square format!

The 40D allows 3 personal sets of settings, and I keep one set-up for action shots, so I can just click straight to it and know what I'm shooting with, which is as follows...

1 Shutter priority, set at 1/500 sec. Although IS takes care of hand-shake, motion blur will ruin loads of potential good shots if shutter speed is below 1/100s.
2 All focal points active. I experimented with trying to use the centre point to target the fish, but after much trial and error decided you need all the help you can get!
3 Auto ISO. This is required to compensate for being stuck on 1/500 s with a less that lightning fast lens. The shot in question came out at ISO 400, f4.5.
4 Servo autofocus. This keeps the lens hunting for focus while you keep the shutter button half-pressed, waiting for action. Essential.
5 Continuous drive on low speed. That gives 3.9 shots per second, which is a decent compromise -- the hi-speed fills the buffer too quickly.
6 Centre-weighted metering. It's probably the best compromise - spot metering will miss the fish too often, while evaluative often gives too much weight to the watery background.
7 Shoot RAW - it's the single biggest aid to good results!

Hope that helps!

Cheers,

Col