Bird photography

Hi all. New to forum, not new to kayaking. Just upgraded my paddle SOT a to the Compass and wondering if anyone else is doing bird photography off the ‘yak. I’ve been frustrated by the inability to control the boat with the paddle while shooting, which, in part led to the upgrade. Putting down the paddle generates noise and spooks the birds.

For those of you doing this, any mods? I have seen videos of guys using tripods on kayaks with gimbal heads. I have an old tripod and just purchased inexpensive gimbal head and trying to figure out a way to load it all up. Also upgraded camera and purchased drop and spill insurance. Obviously if the gear goes in the drink and is unrecoverable it’s a total loss, but at least water damage is covered.

Any other thoughts? Appreciate the help.

I also bought my Compass Duo with the thought of doing bird photography, so I’m interested in what others have to say. It’s new (late delivery), so I haven’t tried it out this season for photography.

I have a Pelican-style waterproof case for my gear, so the camera will stay in it until I’m on smooth water. I’m confident the case will float even with my 500mm f4 lens. It displaces a lot of water – probably 3 gallons, so that is 30 pounds.

I got the AMA sidekick kit for stability. I’m not sure how useful it will be, given that it won’t work with dock launching, and the whole thing is so tight that it won’t easily be installed while on the water.

As for your original question regarding gimbal mounts, I have a Jobu gimbal mount, which is similar to a Wimberly in that the lens will stay put in place without screwing the head, unlike an ARCA ball mount, which must be tightened to hold in place. I use it on my monopod, and occasionally on my tripod. It works very well on the monopod to support the lens weight while giving me freedom to aim up, down and sideways. Having said that, I’ve been changing my technique to hand hold my lens with the left elbow on my chest and just holding the forearm out slightly, even though I have a 500 mm lens with a 2x converter. I’ve been using this arrangement all year for thousands of bird photos, and am finding no problem with motion blur even though my camera typically picks shutter speeds around 1/800 second. The Canon image stabilization is fantastic, even though I’ve got the old 500 F4L Mark I. The Mark II has an even better stabilizer, but is more than I need to spend.

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Gordon Sick, Calgary Canada
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