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Thread: American Kestrel

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    Default American Kestrel

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    We did a controlled burn today on 40-acres of restored prairie near my house. Several raptors immediately appeared to check out the newly exposed rodents.
    This American Kestrel drove me nuts. It would only let me get within 500-feet and it would fly off. The bird was always in view but never let me get close.

    I did manage to get a few shots but I am disappointed. They don't appear to be tack sharp and I can't understand why. I was using AI-Servo and was using the center point with 4-surrounds. I don't believe there could be camera or subject movement since my shutter speed with 1/3,200th of a second. The aperture (f/10) should have allowed some depth of focus given the distance I was shooting from.

    The image here is a rather severe crop. I'm sure that is contributing to the apparent lack of sharpness.

    Any thoughts on why this image is not tack sharp?
    Ideas on how to get this Kestrel to let me get closer?

    Canon 1DX
    600 II+2X TC
    f/10
    1/3,200 sec
    ISO 2,500
    Manual Exposure
    Hand Held
    Processed with Lightroom 5 & Photoshop CC

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    Hi Henry,

    Like you said I think the drop of IQ is due to been a large crop.

    The Kestrels here are migrants birds who stay from Oct to Mar and are very skittish too. As you said I also sees them often but never close enough with success. They are even shy of cars! I only once managed to get close to one that was busy eating a grasshopper on a phone cable. Other than that I just sees them from far

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    Super Moderator arash_hazeghi's Avatar
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    the kestrel is soft because he is out of focus. There could be many reasons why it is out of focus. can you post a screen shot from DPP that shows the active AF sensors. was this the first frame in the sequence?
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    Henry, you are right about the image not being sharp. How much cropping? Also handholding 1200mm is tough for a fast bird like a kestrel. The fact that you had it in reasonable focus in itself is already a tough act. Distance is another factor that works against you ehre assuming that it is far.

    Use a hide (like a car) would help. Study the bird and learn of his favorite perch and position the hide near the perch. That would be your best bet. These raptors know where you are at all time and it is impossible to sneak up on them.


    Good luck

    Loi

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    BPN Member Glenn Conlan's Avatar
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    Henry, Dave Salem and I have spent alot of time trying to shoot Kestrels and out of 30 birds maybe one or two are somewhat approachable from the car as a hide. Is is those few birds that you can get descent flight shots as they come and go from a predictable perch or when they are waiting on overhead looking for prey. Good luck

    Glenn

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    Quote Originally Posted by arash_hazeghi View Post
    the kestrel is soft because he is out of focus. There could be many reasons why it is out of focus. can you post a screen shot from DPP that shows the active AF sensors. was this the first frame in the sequence?
    Thanks for suggesting that I post the screen shot from DPP. The ability to show the AF sensors shows that it was probably out of focus because I did not have the sensor on the bird! This was the second of the sequence of shots but the other picture had the same AF placement.
    Name:  DPP-Screenshot-Kestrel.jpg
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    it's now clear, the bird is not even close to the AF array and thus OOF.

    You need to keep the bird centered when tracking, it is not easy with Kestrel and 1200mm but it can be done. I'll post an example later.
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    Lifetime Member David Salem's Avatar
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    Yes, you have to be on the AF array better than that to even have a chance of it being in good focus. Even if you are right on the money, at this distance you still will not be razor sharp when cropped due to the size of the crop. In my experience most cameras take a frame or two while tracking a moving subject like this to really lock on and produce sharp focused frames. Sometimes you get lucky and the first frame is sharp. The 1DX is the best that I have tried at this, so you have that going for you. Its not easy as Arash mentioned and it will take lots of practice and frustration until you can track a small bird like this with any consistency.
    I have been doing this for years and concentrate on BIF and high speed falconry shots and still miss way more than I get.

    Also I am not sure why you are shooting at f10 and ISO2500 in what looks like bright daylight and the subject is so far away. f10 isnt going to help the DOF at that range and ISO2500 is going to add noise when cropped like you have here. In sunny conditions I try to stay at ISO 800 or under unless I am shooting a small fast bird up close and I want to crank up the SS or I want some better DOF because I am really close to a bird. As Glenn mentioned, most Kestrels are really skittish but sometimes you can get lucky and get close with a car as a blind and get a frame or two off before it blows off. Hope this helps.

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    Quote Originally Posted by David Salem View Post
    I have been doing this for years and concentrate on BIF and high speed falconry shots and still miss way more than I get.
    That helps me to feel (slightly) less discouraged. Thanks for your thoughts.

    Quote Originally Posted by David Salem View Post
    I am not sure why you are shooting at f10 and ISO2500 in what looks like bright daylight and the subject is so far away. f10 isnt going to help the DOF at that range and ISO2500 is going to add noise when cropped like you have here.
    I don't think noise had anything to do with this failed image; do you?

    In my tests with the 1Dx and 5D3 I've been astonished at the lack of noise problems at ISO 2,500 or even 3,200. I make sure to never underexpose and I do have to apply a touch of noise reduction in Lightroom. I've sold prints 6-feet wide with shots taken at ISO 2,500 that have look astonishingly good with excellent fine feather detail.

    Regarding the aperture why not go to f/10 (or even f/13) for a shot like this? Diffraction is not an issue at that aperture and as long as you have the shutter speed what's the harm? The greater depth of focus could come in handy and may be one of the reasons this shot did not look worse. Furthermore, with a 2X TC I can't go lower than f/8 anyhow.

    By-the-way, I started a tread called "Optimal Aperture for Birds in Flight - Time to reconsider Shooting wide open?" that explored this question.

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    Nice raptor.
    A very difficult subject and with that amount of magnification I dont wonder why it was difficult to follow it. I believe Arash advise is a good one and I hope to see more of your images.

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    In addition to the factors mentioned above, you also begin to see limits of optical quality at some magnification, and it is worse with a teleconverter. Optical design is a set of compromises and not perfect. And a factor often overlooked is degradation due to the amount of air between you and a distant subject, due to particulates and convection waves. These are commonly thought of as heat waves but they can occur at a range of temperatures. They are due to small-scale turbulence among different densities of air, which have different refractive indices.

    You definitely get a reduction in IQ at higher ISOs, both resolution and dynamic range. It's just a question of how much and how important it is for a given image. For a crop as big a the one here, even if focus were as good as possible, there would be some loss in IQ due to the high ISO. You can get an idea by looking at the camera (sensor) measurements on DxOMark. http://www.dxomark.com/Cameras/Ratings

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