CANON EOS80D FOR BIRDING - PART 3

In the last Part 2 i tested the EOS80D body together with a combo of Canon 400mm f5.6 and Kenko Pro 300 DGX 1.4x tele-converter for some birding in Tanjung Tuan Forest Reserve, Port Dickson in the hot sun which did not produce good result. The combo froze either due to the hot temperature or the use of Kenko tele-converter with Canon body.

Last week (30 March to 2 April) i went to a cooler Frasers Hill to do further testing to verify that it was not the weather that caused the freeze. I suspect it was the tele-converter issue that caused the freeze. 

I started the journey at around 10.00a.m driving leisurely to Kuala Kubu Baru and eventually up to Frasers Hill. Along the way i stopped for a short while near a small waterfall and i managed to shoot a female flycatcher just a few meters from where i parked using Canon 400mm f5.6 without the 1.4x tele-converter.

The photo quality was very noisy at ISO2000 which requires some noise reduction in DPP4 and Lightroom. The EOS80D high ISO performance even during a broad daylight is a lot less than i expected. I was hoping with the new sensor it would be a lot better than my EOS60D, but it is not so. The main advantage it has over EOS60D was the 45 points focusing system, but even with that i have problems focusing and lock-on the birds. It is faster than 60D but not as fast as my 5D3. I am stuck between using the nine square and single center point. It just did not nail the focus spot on even though i already customized the focus mode to be more locked on than responsive in the menu. I am missing the center point with 4 assist points like in my 5D3 badly. So, not surprisingly my keeper rate for focus shots is quite low. Worse, a lot of the focus shots were too noisy to use. For the Canon 400mm f5.6 i used -2 AF micro-adjustment which gives the best image quality on static subject 20 - 30 meters away.

I continued my drive all the way to the Gap and passed the Gate up to the hill. Along the way i came across a team of birders along the road searching for Yellow Barbets. I stopped about 100 meters from the gate house at the top to try my luck at a new spot in the photo below.

A new spot about 100meters from the Gate house at the top. Good vintage point over the valley.

This time i wanted to try with the Kenko 1.4x converter on. After about ten minutes of waiting i heard tiny chirpping from the bushes from the slope across the road. They turned up to be a few Silver-eared Mesia looking for insects. I raised my camera to snap a few shots and it froze. Like before i had to take off the lens, pull out the battery, took out the Kenko converter, put back the lens and turned the camera on again for it to work! It was frustrating fiddling with my camera while the birds were all around me, and i missed all the shots including an eagle flying above. So i decided not to use the Kenko 1.4x for the rest of the day as it was not worth it.

My trip this time happened to fall on the International Bird Race which is an annual thing. There were so many birders in groups going around trying to record as many species possible for two days to win the race. However, i did not join the race as i feel that birding should be done in a relax and stress free setting, to appreciate the beauty and behavior of the birds without the time limits and deadlines. Due to the number of crowds and participants i stopped birding and decided to relax in the hotel and take a break. There is always the next day.

DAY 2

After a heavy breakfast at the hotel i went for a drive to the Telekom Loop. Before i started my drive this Yellow-vented Bulbul came to say good morning to me at the carpark area near the hotel.

Along the way again i passed groups of birders doing their thing to finish the second day of the competition. At the first stop near a garage of a private residence No.23 on the Girdle Road where i like to visit, i came across a White-browed shrike babbler, a few Fire-tufted Barbets, a Brown Warbler and a few Spiderhunters. The lighting was really bad with intermittent mist to take any good photos.

A Brown Warbler in the bush. The lighting was bad and EOS80D did not do a good job here.

I continued my drive up to the JPM holiday bungalow and stopped by the roadside overlooking a deep ravine. I saw a few Stripe-throated Bulbuls but i could not get clear shots as the EOS80D had problem locking focus on the head when using single focus point on skittish birds. I only managed to shoot what could be a Purple-rumped Sunbird below.

EOS80D gives better quality in bright sunlight

Continuing the drive along the loop i stopped at the Bank Negara Bungalow where i had a lot of luck with Olive-backed Woodpeckers last time. This time however, they did not show up but there were a lot of Oriental Magpie-Robins singing their favorite tunes.

Oriental Magpie-Robin

My next spot at PKR Bungalow and near Tanglin House only produced Stripe-throated Bulbuls and Long-tailed Sibias. After lunch at the foodcourt i tried my luck at a spot on the way to the new Strawberry Farm. There i spotted a few Chestnut-caped Laughingtrush, Mountain Bulbuls and Lesser Yellow-naped Woodpeckers. For this spot i decided to pair the EOS80D with my Sigma 150-500mm zoom lens on a Manfrotto tripod with a gimbal head to see whether my image quality would improve. The result was not any better as they appear soft and noisy. Below are the only shots i can post with decent quality out of twenty over shots i took.

Mountain Bulbul shot using EOS80D and Sigma 150-500mm lens 

EOS80D produced soft and noisy image for this Lesser Yellow-naped Woodpecker

DAY 3

For my last day of this trip i was hoping my birding would improve, and i would get better shots with my EOS80D. After i checked out of the hotel around 9.30 a.m i tried my luck at the Sri Berkat resthouse along Pedang Road. The first species to appear was a Javan Cuckoo-shrike landed on the overhead electric cable. The image was quite decent shot at 1/1000 sec f8 and ISO6400.

Javan Cuckoo-shrike

The i spotted a dark silhouette on a tree about 30 meters away. It was hard to see what it was as it was black like a crow but i suspected it was a Crimson-breasted Oriole as it has crimson color on both wings as it flew away. The image is soft and lack of details but the crimson color on the wing is visible. To be fair the weather was gloomy in the morning and the light was not ideal.

A Crimson-breasted Oriole i think

A photo of a Striated Spiderhunter below turned out quite sharp as the distance was very close to where i was standing.

Striated Spiderhunter

A stop near KEN House just seen Oriental-Magpie Robin and Long-tailed Sibia. However, moving to in front of the Singapore House near their garage compound was more productive. I spotted a few Fire-tufted Barbets on a few trees on opposite sides of Mager Road. Some of the tall trees there have big holes in their trunks which could be their nests. Eventhough there were many Barbets around it was difficult to photograph them in the canopy as the lighting was bad, but i managed to get a few good shots below.

Fire-tufted Barbet at its nest

After the action quite down i went back to the first spot i stopped at when i first arrived on the hill just to try my luck. It was already 12.30 p.m and the sun was high up above and the temperature was getting warmer. The birds would probably be in the shades by now. I saw a White-throated Fantail but too slow to take a shot before it disappeared into the trees. Then i saw a Drongo below which was more cooperative as it perched there on a branch.

A Racket-tailed Drongo

Under certain lighting condition Drongo's color can appear shiny bluish

After lunch i went to a spot along Sri Pahang Road which looked promising but did not find any birds there. The next spot was at the abandoned Jelai Resort where i spotted Black-throated Sunbirds and Orange-bellied Leafbirds. No photos were taken as it was drizzling. 

My last spot before going home to KL was a spot right after the Temerloh bungalow along Ledegham Road. Above the road i could see the Silverpark Apartment blocks. The trees were tall on both sides of the road forming nice canopy, a great spot for birds foraging for food, but at the same time it also mean that the lighting beneath the canopy was not so good making spotting the birds and trying to lock focus difficult. The first group to appear was Sultan Tits. They were all over the place, across the road, above me and at the back. I was really having a hard time trying to lock focus with them moving around but i managed a few shots.

Then came a few Long-tailed Sibia followed by Chestnut-caped Laughingthrush. With all the commotion i did not realize that a bird which i had been trying to photograph for so long had been perching quietly on the electric cable above me - a Red Trogon! Oh my god i could not believe my luck. I stepped back and slowly raised my camera as not to spook it and snap...snap..snap at 7 frame per second as many as i could before it flew across the road into the trees. Yes! Yes! Yes! I finally got a Red Trogon after all these years. Thank you, God. It was the icing for this trip.

A really cute Red Trogon

Just before i wrap up this trip i got a bonus when this bird showed up across the road, a Mountain Green Magpie, what more could i asked for for a finalle.

CONCLUSION

Can the EOS80D body be used for bird photography? My answer is yes, but it is not the best out there like Canon 7D2 or 1DX. The autofocus capability still not as good as my 5D3 and the image quality lots of times were soft and noisy, a lot less than i expected with a new 24.2 megapixel sensor. Will it perform better if paired with better prime lenses like Canon 500mm f4 IS or 600mm f4.0 IS? Maybe, but i cannot confirm that because i do not own those expensive lenses. To some it might be good enough as their main body for birding if they are not fussy about the image quality which are not tack sharp like what you get with 1DX. If shot in bright sunlight or using flash EOS80D will produce a quite good image quality with acceptable noise level. But for me, i think i will go back to my 5D3 as the main body and keep the EOS80D as a back up. I will lose the crop factor but with the keeper rate is so low with the EOS80D there is no point pushing it. I even have a hard time with EOS80D's RAW format which my Lightroom cannot read for post-processing. I either need to upgrade my Lightroom to a new version or convert the RAW images in DPP4 to JPEG first before processing them again in my current Lightroom for the final cut. I think Canon designed the EOS80D to excel in videography first, and still photography second. It was not really meant for sports and wildlife photography like the 7D2, but it can be used for casual sports and wildlife photography. If you want anything more capable  well you need to invest more and buy the 7D2 or 1DX bodies and expensive prime telephoto lenses. 

I think i just wait until what Canon offers in next 7D3 body when it comes out. Till then give EOS80D a try if you are curious and enjoy your birding.

Thanks for reading. Till next time.