Flying high

[Juan Carlos Vindas]

Hello all.

I've been trying some flight photography with my old lens and I guess is getting harder everyday. Well, I suppose I just have to keep trying. Any advise on how to get better images with the same lens?

Canon 30D
Canon 35-350@350mm
Handheld
AV
f/5.6
ISO 400
1/2000sec.
Exp. Comp. +0.3
Fairly large crop.

(Gray Hawk)

[Ilija Dukovski]

Actually not too bad considering the difficulty of the task.
I think parts of the head are burned. In this situation
with so much light perhaps you could go with lower ISO
to reduce the noise as much as possible, especially
knowing that you will have to crop a lot.

I tried to get some of these guys in flight on my recent trip to
paradise (I mean CR) but did not get anything worth keeping.
Not an easy thing to do...

Cheers,

[Desmond Chan]

I don't think this looks too bad either. I would do some selection sharpening though to see if it would improve. Composition-wise I like that you leave room in front of the bird.

[Stu Bowie]

Great exposure on the underwing, together with the great wingspread. I love the cloud in the BG sky. I agree a bit of selective sharpening will help this.

[Dave Barnes]

Juan Carlos I think that you have picked up a bit of noise below the wings from recovering detail in the dark areas. When shooting up into the sky you need to set the Exp comp up higher, in this case at least +1.0 to +1.3.
it is easier to recover detail in the sky than the shadows. This would have reduced your SS so you may have needed a higher ISO. I have got reasonable results with the 30D up to ISO 800 with the correct exposure.

[Ákos Lumnitzer]

It looks like you had tough light and subject. Not sure what the more experienced folks would recommend, but judging by the intensity of the light into which you were shooting (I assume you used evaluative metering?) I would choose manual and overexpose probably two or more stops as the meter would be picking up the sky and darkening it most likely ignoring the bird (judging by what you had said that this was a big crop).

You have some potentially awesome details underneath there indeed. What you ought to do is try and get the subject to fill probably half to three quarters of the frame where possible.

Keep them coming amigo! :)

[Juan Carlos Vindas]

(I assume you used evaluative metering?)

You are right about it Akos!

Thank you for your help.