International Centre for Birds of Prey, Gloucester?

gnirtS

gnirtS

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Richard
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Browsing other peoples photos on flickr and 500px i saw quite a few good shots from the ICBP in Gloucester which i'd never heard of before.

It's only about 45 mins away from me in the car so im considering going myself but got a few questions from anyone thats been there.

Firstly, ive never taken a photo of a bird in my life other than a seagull. I do mainly underwater,rugby and landscape stuff so i have no idea what is/isn't needed in terms of kit.

Camera wise ive got a 550D with a 10-22mm, 17-70mm and a 55-250mm along with the usual speedlite flash, tripod etc.

Is it worth going with that setup - am i going to find 250mm too short for any decent photos ?

Im guessing the tripod is worthless and most likely the flash not to startle birds indoors?

Has anyone from here been to the place and if so is it worth going from a photography point of view ? I was half thinking of going sunday and walking around. Other than the flying sessions are there ground based more static things as well to take photos of (and is there any hope of any sort of decent photos of the flying shows with only 250mm reach?)

I notice they do photography days but i was thinking of just going as a normal visitor and having a look around if its productive and theres a chance of OK photos from doing that.
 
Its a cracking place for photos, been there a few times & going back for more, theres normally ,three flying displays in a day ,seating is well organised....plenty of portrait opps
birds all on perches outside ,with no objects in the way, there is also allot of birds in flights,
I took about 400 photos , so you will need a few cards, or a big one..
for birds in flight, if sitting down front of seating area, you will probably get away with what you got...I used a 300mm and found that was ok... if you like birds then you will love this place.....mark
 
Not as good as the Barn Owl Centre in Gloucester, but well worth a visit. You can get very close to the perched birds so a long lens isn't necessary apart from the flying display. I have had some cracking shots from there.
 
Worth a visit as suggested, 250 is a tad short but doable. Have a. Annual pass as thought I would go more than I have but I am a fair distance away...
 
The Barn Owl Centre isn't open to the public, but it runs day long photography workshops for £60. Worth every penny!
 
I went there and a decent day out - worth £11 entry certainly.

Quite a few birds on grass for natural background statics, several in pens. Quite a few had very fine mesh which was great and didnt mess up photographing through it at all although some had old style large square black painted which caused more issues.

Flying displays were good and the birds for the most were flown within 5-10m of the crowd or overhead.

The 250mm was a tad short at times but not that bad. The one thing it lacked for me though was a fast auto focus. I got nearly no flying keepers purely due to the AF being too slow to track it. That's a limitation of my cheap gear though and certainly not the centres fault!

Im tempted to go back for their photo day or the barn owl centre one but if i do i'll likely rent a 70-200 L or a 100-400L to do it justice.

Other things i've learnt having never tried birds in flight before
(i) Exposure is a nightmare. Dark birds against a light sky or dark birds against dark woodland with light seepig through. Plus they like to hunt with the sun behind them.
Tried centre point, centre average, partial, EV, dialling in compensation, manual and none really worked for me too well unfortunately. Most likely my lack of experience.

(ii) Always wide open wasn't great at times - some birds so close and so big the lack of DOF meant bits of them weren't in focus or the fast movers it focussed on another part leading to soft eyes.

(iii) Maybe next time i need to try pre-focus on a spot and hammer off a burst instead to make up for the slow lens

All in all, good fun and i have a hell of a lot to learn! FWIW my shortest focal length all day was 105mm even for statics so i could have left the 10-22 and 17-70 at home!
 
MadWoman said:
The Barn Owl Centre isn't open to the public,
Click to expand...

Slightly incorrect, just need to pre-book one of the different 'experiences' offered, which anyone can do.
 
Sorry, was replying to the comment that it isn't open in a daily basis, and was being a bit lazy (due to typing on my iPod). Sorry if my comment was misleading.
 
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