European Kestrel

[Dieter Schaefer]

Nikon D70, Nikkor 80-400 at 400mm, f8, 1/1250s, ISO200. spot metering

Shot at a free flight demo, Adler and Wolfspark Kasselburg, Germany. Original was about 1 stop underexposed and the kestrel's right wing was slightly clipped. Original sky was overcast and has been replaced in this composite with a cloudy sky from a different shot.

[Axel Hildebrandt]

Very cool pose and eye contact. The underexposure really hurt the image as it looks a bit noisy and the bird needs a few new feathers. :)

[Lana Hays]

Dieter
I agree with Axel on the underexposure. However, the pose is fantastic and the clouds in the sky certainly add to the depth.

[Alfred Forns]

Excellent capture Dieter !!!! Sure wish you would get away from spot metering No clue how it could help you come up with an exposure for this situations.

Doing other type of photography I did use a spot meter a lot. Even got a Zone V1 modified Pentax One Degree meter. I find the matrix or multi to be more useful Can even just take a reading the shoot manual

Any way love the pose and great detail One smoking image !!! Big Congrats !!!!

[Dieter Schaefer]

Thanks, everyone.

Alfred - initially I have been using the matrix metering - resulted in a lot of overexposed images though - and I had a hard time dialing in exposure corrections for consistent results. With spot metering I feel I have a good handle on the necessary exposure correction - if I have the time to dial them in (which wasn't the case for the shot above). Given the lighting, I'd probably had dialed in about +1 or +1 1/3 exposure correction, saving me the trouble with the noise in the current image.

However, I have started again to evaluate my position on spot vs matrix metering and am giving the later a shot again - looks like I just need to dial in some negative EV most of the time.

[Gus Cobos]

Excellent image Dieter,
Love that dive bomber flight angle...very nice indeed...:D The colors and details on your subject work for me...:) Keep them coming....:cool: