Hi Folks,
My friend Mike Murphy and I spent two days in southern Kansas during early April on the farm of Robert and Margaret Massey. The Masseys have several blinds set up on a Greater Prairie-Chicken lek. These blinds have been used by several photographers over the past several years. We had one foggy and rainy day with almost no photography possible, but on our second day we finally got some sun around 8:30 A.M., so we had about an hour or so of good light before the chickens left the lek. Getting the standard shots of booming roosters is pretty easy, but the real challenge is getting decent shots of the fighting birds. The two birds will face off and stare each other down for a while, then suddenly one or both birds leaps up and comes down on top of or near the other. A brief struggle with biting, kicking, and scratching then takes place, then back to staring at one another for a while. (sort of like a bar scene I guess :-). The leaping into the air action happens very fast...way too quickly to acquire auto-focus (especially since you are dealing with two subjects in different areas of the frame and both moving), so you have to be manually focused to begin with and hope the birds remain more or less in the same focal plane during their leaping. If shooting horizontal you will get lots of shots with just the feet of the upper bird in the frame, and I got many with only partial birds at the top of the frame even shooting vertically. Anyway, Mike and I each shot over 1200 frames of fighting chickens in an hour, and we each kept only about 50 or so images. Fairly low percentage of keepers, but an amazing privilege to watch this spectacle of the natural world and a real challenge to photograph. The shot here, one of a series of 4 or 5 frames, shows the upper male coming down on the bird low in the frame. This is not a cropped image and you are seeing the full frame. The lower bird is very slightly soft as the birds are not always in the exact same focal plane, but the face of the upper bird is tack sharp. It is difficult to crank in a lot of aperture since you need to maintain shutter speed, but with practice you can get to where you anticipate the action and where the birds will be. We did lots of shooting at 800 or 1000 ISO, but when we got more light we dropped to 400. This is a 400 ISO shot which worked out pretty well. Anyway, lots of fun. There are more shots on my web site if anyone would like to see more of the antics of these wonderful birds. Thought some of you might enjoy the image. Any thoughts on other ways to more effectively capture this sort of thing would be welcome. Obviously, you are restricted to the blind and may not get out until the birds leave the lek (usually 9:30 AM or so), so you have no options about moving closer or farther away from any given bird(s) you are photographing, nor can you get lower than the 3 or 4 feet which is the normal height while sitting in a chair. There were up to 19 birds on the lek, some as close as 15 feet, others perhaps 100 yards away...so luck plays a great deal in what you are able to shoot.
Canon EOS 1D Mark III
EF 600mm F/4 L IS lens and 1.4X TC
400 ISO
1/2000 sec @ F/7.1
Thanks for the explanation Greg Very much appreciated !!!!
Love it as presented Impressive action and love the eye contact between the birds !!!
Suggestion wise can only say to remove the converter? This is tight in frame Less focal length will give you a slight more dof The Mk3 is a good performer would increase the ISO stop down more !!! ..... and count on luck !!!! Big Congrats on this one !!!!
Amazing action and I love the posture of both birds. The lower one is tight in the frame, but operating under the restrictions you describe you did great.
Thanks all for the comments. I agree...that shot would have been better if it were not quite as tight. I did take a number of images at this same distance with just the prime lens, but for some I decided to go vertical and try my luck a little tighter. Perhaps I should have posted one of the other images, but I do have quite a few with the 600 alone and more dof. Thanks for looking.
Ah yes, a favorite spring ritual of mine. It's not often that I hear of photographs heading to my home state of Kansas for photography...glad you managed to get up there! I love the action that you captured here, and can fully relate to how difficult it is to capture. I am also very glad when I hear that photographers and land owners like the Massey's can come together and help each other out. :) Great work!
Jumpin' Jack Flash
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