Cape vulture takeoff

[Tobie Schalkwyk]

After seeing so many magnificent pics on this forum I'm a bit hesitant to place this one, but I have not seen this bird on the forum (yet) so here goes.

Photographed from a bird hide (using bean bag) in most difficult circumstances with the light reading coming down by the minute, before a day long rain started pouring down. I thus had to push the ISO's much higher than I would have liked to, with predicted results re. noise. Edited in LR: sharpening, NR, contrast, clarity. Cropped - about 15% of OP due to distance between bird and myself.

D600, f/7.1, 1/500s, ISO 1600, 500mm, spot metering.

[vishaljadhav]

Lovely one with the wings open, may take a bit more sharpening
The head is turned away from the camera
keep them coming

[Stu Bowie]

Hi Tobie, great show of the raised wings, and nicely separated from the BG. Your comp works well suiting the flight pose. Its always best to try and capture your subject either flying angled towards you, or at least parallel to you, before its flown past you as this capture. I would run some NR on the BG.

Was this captured from Vulpro?

[Randall Farhy]

Agree with above comments,- tfs, I really like the tones and coloration on these birds.

[Tobie Schalkwyk]

Hi Tobie, great show of the raised wings, and nicely separated from the BG. Your comp works well suiting the flight pose. Its always best to try and capture your subject either flying angled towards you, or at least parallel to you, before its flown past you as this capture. I would run some NR on the BG.

Was this captured from Vulpro?

Thanks for you reply Stuart! I also want them to fly to me but these **** birds just don't want to listen! :w3

More seriously: I was in a hide and the birds were about 50m away with a sudden drop of topography to the other side. It's obviously easier for them to take off using this drop off so I was lucky to get this one from the side - the others gave me their back side! :S3:

This was at the Rhino & Lion Nature Reserve close to me (Krugersdorp) - my favourite stop for pics. They have a 'Vulture Restaurant' and if you're lucky you might find these birds there about once per month. You need to go early in the morning while they're still at rest (like this bird which took off to test the winds) because once the heat of the day feeds the berg winds (aka foehn winds for non-SA's) , they're gone for the day.

[Tobie Schalkwyk]

Lovely one with the wings open, may take a bit more sharpening
The head is turned away from the camera
keep them coming

Thanks - the bird was quite far away and I was in a hide so it was not aware of me, thus no look in my direction. I have sharpened quite a bit already and stopped short of changing the natural look of the photo. I think the NR removed a little bit of that sharpness again.