More House Martin

Couple more from yesterday - parents not coming in as frequently with a number of visits with no food, so looks like they're trying to entice the youngsters out. Won't be long so will be checking them hourly until they go

A few photo notes for those interested :-

1) Nests under the eaves are always positioned out of direct sun so unless using a flash (preferably not!) or a reflector you'll need to push the ISO - these images IS0 1600

2) Do not be tempted to stay to a low ISO, under-exposing and recovering in post-proc - noise lives in the darker/under-exposed areas and once you lighten those you'll see the golf ball grain.  Better to use a higher ISO and over-expose, dropping the highlights in post proc will kill any noise visible so you end up with a much cleaner image

3) Camera on tripod and in this case I used a radio remote to trigger the shutter - sitting at a distance out of view of the nest, watching the birds fly in, drinking a cup of tea!

4) I pre-focussed on the point I wanted then switched the lens to manual focus - that way when you trigger the shutter the focus point isn't going to move. In this instance I used a small group of focus points to give me central coverage

5) Be prepared to bin a lot of shots - the keeper rate is low, but when you get that shot in focus it makes it all worthwhile