What you are looking at is a vertical/skyward view of a glass bottomed bird feeder. This is a short video, 75 seconds long, actually it is a series of still photos stiched together in iMovie. I was initially trying to get some hires photos of the undersides of wild birds. I still want to do that, but what I found interesting the way the birds over time scattered the neat pile of bird seed and decided that it would make a fun movie. Anyway to get these shots I constructed a glass bottomed birdfeeder using an old window set upon a wooden frame. The camera was placed about 24" below the glass, aimed straight up, and controlled remotely via a USB cable to my MacBook Pro. I only took a photo when I saw a significant change in the seed pattern. The elapsed time from the first photo to the last is 52 minutes.
This is, to me, a difficult shot to get. If I set the exposure for the seeds then the birds are too light, If I expose for the birds then the seeds are too dark. The birds most active in the early mornings and later afternoons which means I am dealing with side lighting. Of course if I took the photos mid day then I would have sunlight coming almost directly into the lens. Also I am getting some reflections from the birdfeeder frame and from the camera, at times you can see the word Canon reflected on the glass. I will mess with the settings some more and see what I can do. In the meantime enjoy the video and please let me know what you think of it.
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