I just came across a wonderful guide by Doug Brown on how to setup your EOS 7D with a special focus on photographing birds, especially birds in flight.

I think Doug has collected many great tips and a lot of information in this guide. I highly recommend reading this guide if you own a Canon EOS 7D and use it for bird photography (or any other photography).

Here is the link:
Setting Up Your New Canon 7D

Birds are among the most popular subjects among nature photographers. But taking good pictures is not easy, one reason among many is that birds are often hard to approach.
Because of this, some people think that creativity is only for landscape or flow close-up photography but for birds it’s enough to get a sharp, correctly exposed and frame filling picture of a species.
But good pictures of birds can be as creative as landscape or close-up photographs. They can be art as well.
Bill Coster, a famous bird photographer from the UK, has recently published a great new book called “Create Bird Photography”. This is not another book that explains in detail what lens you need, how f-stops work or that a DSLR is better than a compact camera. True, there is a small chapter on technical requirements like cameras, telephoto lenses or tripod heads but all the rest of the book is devoted on how to make amazing bird pictures that are more than just sharp and correctly exposed.
The book covers the various aspects of bird photography and the daily life of birds and how to create good pictures in those situations. Topics covered are birds in flight, the life cycle of birds, action, behaviour, food and drink or taking shots during dusk and dawn.
In each chapter, the author shows many stunning pictures from birds around the world and explains the story behind the shot: Where is was taken, what equipment was used, which decisions the photographer made while taking the picture, why he used a certain technique, shutter speed, composition, etc.
For some pictures the author also explains what could be better. This is a great help, especially for beginning photographers.

For me, the pictures alone are a great inspiration but with the text next to the pictures the book becomes even more valuable and you can get many ideas for you own shots, whether you are on safari in Africa or photographing song birds in your backyard.

For me, this was one of the best books on bird photography I’ve read.

Highly recommended for bird photographers of all levels!

Buy the book from amazon:

Moose Peterson, one the the world’s leading wildlife photographers has recently published a fantastic blog post called What’s the Best Investment?
Moose writes that the best investment you can make as a photographer is to invest in yourself. I completely agree and without further comments, I just recommend reading the great blog post by Moose Peterson:
What’s the Best Investment?

Rob Galbraith has published an analysis of the autofocus performance of the Canon EOS 1D Mark IV.
The report is very detailed is should be of interest to anybody interested in getting Canon’s latest professional DSLR.

EOS 7D, EF 2.8/100 Macro

I just published a new article:
Choosing a lens for macro and close-up photography. This replaces an older article published earlier on this page.

Macro and close-up photography is a fascinating way to spend time with your camera. Subjects and be found everywhere, especially outdoors, but many also like shooting close-ups with arranged subjects in the studio.
For close-up photography, you don’t need a 6.000 $ lens nor do you have to travel to exotic places to find something to photograph. A meadow, a small piece of forest or even your garden will probably have enough subjects to photograph to fill a whole day.
Beginning macro photographers often are not sure what lens to buy. This new articles explain in detail what lenses are available for shooting close-up and macro images and will help you make your own choice.

Nikon has announced the new 16-35mm f/4 G ED VR wide angle zoom lens. It is the first ultra wide angle zoom lens with image stabilisation.
This new lens is great news for landscape and travel photographers. The f4 aperture make the lens a lot lighter than a possible lens with f2.8. Some might prefer 2.8 to shoot under low light situations but with the incredible high ISO performance of cameras like the Nikon D700 or D3s, f4 will be more than enough. Of course, an f4 lens is also cheaper than a f2.8 lens.
If this new lens is as good as the amazing Nikon 14-24mm f/2.8G ED AF-S and Nikon 24-70mm f/2.8G ED AF-S then Nikon has another winner here.

Beside this wide angle zoom lens, Nikon also announced a new AF-S Nikkor 24mm F/1.4G ED, which has an extremely wide aperture for a 24mm lens.

More information (Press information by Nikon UK):
Press information about the AF-S NIKKOR 16-35MM F/4G ED VR
Presse information about the AF-S NIKKOR 24MM F/1.4G ED

Naturescapes, one of the leading websites and photography communities about nature photography has published the Images of the Year 2009 .

The selected images are absolutely stunning. Make sure to have a close look.

Think Tank Photo, well known for the photography backpacks, has announced the new Hydrophobia 70-200 Rain Covers. So far, Hydrophobia lens covers were available for big lenses like a 2.8/300 or 4/500. The new version allows the protection of 70-200 or smaller lenses.
Those covers are very helpful in rainy conditions and even allow the changing of memory cards without getting the cards or the camera wet.
For nature photographers, rain is not an excuse to stay at home! Often, during rain, you can get unusual and special images.

More information about the new Hydrophobia rain covers on the Think Tank Website:
New Hydrophobia® 70-200 Rain Covers Released!

Hasselblad has announced the new medium format DSLR H4D-40. It contains a 33 x 44mm CCD sensor with 40 megapixels. The new camera contains the same AF system as found in the H4D-50 and H4D-60.
The new camera will be officially launched in 50 cities around the world starting on February 10 in 2010.

The new camera may be of interest for studio and landscape photographers who need such a large resolution and make extremely large high quality prints. For most other photographers, the high price alone may put the H4D-50 out of reach.

More information:
http://www.hasselbladusa.com/promotions/h4d-40.aspx

The Tokina AT-X DX 2.8/11-16 is a popular lens for Canon and Nikon DSLRs. Now, Tokina has announced that the lens will also be available for Sony Alpha DSLR cameras with a crop sensor – the lens does not work with full frame cameras like the A900 and A850.
On a cropped Sony DSLR, the lens gives an equivalent focal zoom range from 16.5 up to 24mm.
With f2.8, the lens can be used in low light situations.

So far, the announcement from Tokina is only available in Japanese:
Press release in Japanese
Google Translation of Japanese press release