unintended1

I think you'll probably find that your widest aperture is slower once you zoom to a long focal length. Aperture priority will be fine - set your aperture wide open and make sure you have got your ISO high enough to get a shutter speed around 1/500 for static birds or 1/1000 for birds swimming on the water. You may be able to get away with slower speeds, with image stabilisation on, but those are good starting points. For flight shots 1/2000 or faster is best as a starting point.

Well you definitely shouldn't be needing to crop often with the Nikon P900 - it has a 2000mm equivalent focal length! I've met a lot of birders using Nikon superzooms and I have seen a lot of great photos taken by them so I think you made a good choice. A crop sensor or very high megapixel full frame can be an advantage for birding when you need to crop your photos.

Congrats on the new camera/lens. What did you get? I shoot with a 600mm lens on full frame and usually still have to crop a lot. My original files are 6000 x 4000 pixels. Here are the cropped dimensions for the last 6 photos I uploaded to Flickr. 3947 x 2632 [ 4930 x 2773 2994 x 1996 - this is about the most I'll crop ~50% 3366 x 2244 3153 x 1774 3407 x 2271

I think he does have an A9 as well. I don't doubt the A7r IV can capture great BIF shots - the hit rate will just be lower. On the plus side when it does hit the image quality is as good as it gets, especially with that lens attached to it He takes a lot of fantastic photos. Mind you the birds in Florida are unbelievably tame compared to here and that helps... a lot! Not that I'm jealous or anything

I used to lust over than Canon 600mm f/4. Now it's this. Stunning lens. I didn't like the A7r IV camera when I tried it though. The ergonomics are improved but the focus was much slower than the A9 and the viewfinder blackout when shooting birds in flight was horrible. The blackout free viewfinder of the Sony A9 has spoiled me and I don't know if I could ever go back.

Very nice, I like the mono processing a lot. 600mm is my go to. 18mm would be a dream!

Cormorant by Keith M, on Flickr

Brilliant player but not as good as Messi 😁

monopoly

Very sorry to hear about your loss Richard.

Inquisitive by Keith M, on Flickr

Thanks Ben. I am very happy with the shots I'm getting with the Sony A9 & 200-600mm lens. The great autofocus enables me to capture more dynamic poses that were too fast for my Canon 1DX with Sigma 150-600mm Sport to keep up with.

Another Red Kite for the collection Focused Red Kite by Keith M, on Flickr

I don't know anything about them but it looks stunning. Enjoy!

Nice Jackdaw Ben 😉