Northern Harrier

[arash_hazeghi]

Northern Harrier (female, adult) from SoCal with Dave


1DX II 600II + 14.X III ISO 640 1/4000sec f/5.6 hand held from truck and processed with DPP 4.7. Hope you like it

[gail bisson]

Aaah...you got this lady in beautiful light!
Excellent IQ and lovely head turn.
I would be tempted to dodge the black areas in the BG in front of the harrier,
Gail

[Krishna Prasad kotti]

Beautiful image. I like the nice light, out of focus back ground, tone and catch light on the bird.

Thanks for sharing.

[Bill Dix]

Sweet light, great flight pose, gorgeous bg and your usual outstanding techs. I could imagine a version along the lines suggested by Gail, but I'd take this in a heartbeat.

[annmpacheco]

Thats a beauty , love the rich colors!

[Ákos Lumnitzer]

Just checking the ISO being 640 or 6400? I am guessing the latter.
Great image man!

[John Mack]

Great frame, great light. I read your blog recently and you say you are in AI-servo sensitivity locked-on and using expansion AF pattern. Do you always use this or does the situation depend?

[arash_hazeghi]

Just checking the ISO being 640 or 6400? I am guessing the latter.
Great image man!

ISO 640

thanks

[arash_hazeghi]

Great frame, great light. I read your blog recently and you say you are in AI-servo sensitivity locked-on and using expansion AF pattern. Do you always use this or does the situation depend?

Hi John, it somewhat depends, I go through the details for this in my BIF guide. for something like this expansion 8pt is the best

[David Salem]

Wow, this one is fantastic Arash! Love the nice warm colors and the great pose as she is looking right at us. Details and IQ look great too. Very nice.

[Isaac Grant]

This one rocks Arash. Beautiful colors and a great pose with the harrier really checking you out. I'd love a shot like this. And Arash, I don't think I agree about center point and surrounding 8 being the best. The camera will track far better if in full center zone. If the bird is close enough and you can keep it centered then sure the expansion is better as it could prevent the camera focusing on the near wing, but when you have a bird like this in the frame, specifically when it is angled like this, the camera will almost always select the correct points and keep the right parts sharp. If in full center zone the points will conform to the shape of the bird where it will not when in surround.

[arash_hazeghi]

This one rocks Arash. Beautiful colors and a great pose with the harrier really checking you out. I'd love a shot like this. And Arash, I don't think I agree about center point and surrounding 8 being the best. The camera will track far better if in full center zone. If the bird is close enough and you can keep it centered then sure the expansion is better as it could prevent the camera focusing on the near wing, but when you have a bird like this in the frame, specifically when it is angled like this, the camera will almost always select the correct points and keep the right parts sharp. If in full center zone the points will conform to the shape of the bird where it will not when in surround.

Hi Issac, I don't think you have shot this kind of subject as much as I have, if you use zone it will lock on the BG. Canon is not very good when it comes to holding focus on a raptor against varied that's why we all switched to Nikon ;)

[Isaac Grant]

I don't find that using zone makes you lock onto the background at all. The camera tracks like a champ in full center zone. It locks onto birds against busy backgrounds. It follows birds that were locked onto against blue skies and then when they go against trees and even near grass. It also locks on and stays locked on birds against busy backgrounds. Perhaps different settings lead to more or less success? Actually that raises a really good point. Could you specify what settings you were using in full center zone that caused the camera to jump focus onto the background? What case? What were your settings for tracking sensitivity, accel/deccel and af point auto switching? Did you try all scenarios and still have the camera jump focus?

When I use Case to set to -2, 0, 0. When I use my AF-ON button set to pull up those settings and full center zone I am always blown away at how well it tracks and stays locked onto flying birds, even ones that are really small in the frame.

[arash_hazeghi]

I don't find that using zone makes you lock onto the background at all. The camera tracks like a champ in full center zone. It locks onto birds against busy backgrounds. It follows birds that were locked onto against blue skies and then when they go against trees and even near grass. It also locks on and stays locked on birds against busy backgrounds. Perhaps different settings lead to more or less success? Actually that raises a really good point. Could you specify what settings you were using in full center zone that caused the camera to jump focus onto the background? What case? What were your settings for tracking sensitivity, accel/deccel and af point auto switching? Did you try all scenarios and still have the camera jump focus?

When I use Case to set to -2, 0, 0. When I use my AF-ON button set to pull up those settings and full center zone I am always blown away at how well it tracks and stays locked onto flying birds, even ones that are really small in the frame.

Hey Issac come down here and shoot with Dave and I, only then you will realize what I am talking about.

cheers

[Eric Dienesch]

The light is marvellous, wonderfull pic !!!