Osprey in flight

[Gary Irwin]

Hi All! First avian post here. Been browsing for some time so I guess it's time to jump in and "get my feet wet"! This is an amazing forum and I'm looking forward to learning and participating.

Anyway, I took this one yesterday. Osprey was bringing back dinner to its mate on the nest. He saw me at the last second and banked hard which opened him up to the setting sun. It's not a full-wing spread shot and you can't see much of the left wing, but I think it has character -- I like the lighting. I don't know why I had the aperture set to f5 -- f4 would have sufficed and helped to freeze the right wing too. Oh well.



500mm w/heavy crop iso200 1/800s f/5.0 hand held

[Desmond Chan]

I like the side-lighting of this one; it brings out the texture of the feathers and the shadows give the osprey the 3-D look. However, some of the shadow areas may be a bit too dark. As for the pose, I think it would be even better with both wings spread. Understandably, that's not under your control anyhow.

[Tony Whitehead]

Welcome, Gary. Nice light and eye detail - prey adds to the image. Blurred primaries don't worry me as the body, head and eye look sharp. Not sure what camera body you are using but I would be inclined to use ISO 40 as a base setting to gain more SS and aperture options. Look forward to more of your images.

[Stu Bowie]

Gary, welcome to the avian section, and have fun. Great banking angle, and love the light on the eye. Well exposed on the underwing, and his catch a bonus. I think Tony meant to say ISO 400.

[Judy Lynn Malloch]

Big welcome Gary. I too like the flight pose and your timing was excellent to catch him banking with great eye contact too. Look forward to seeing more posts in the future and thanks for sharing.

[Doug Brown]

Welcome Gary! Agree with the suggestion to use a minimum of ISO 400 for flight. Some + EC is usually idea when photographing birds with areas of dark plumage against a sky BG. The image held up nicely with a heavy crop. Look forward to seeing more of your images!

[Tony Whitehead]

I think Tony meant to say ISO 400.

Thanks, Stuart. 400 is what I meant. Typo on my part.

[Gary Irwin]

Hi Desmond; This one was shot with +0.7EC but I boosted the EC another +0.7 in PP. I agree with your idea of lightening the shadow areas a tad...will do (selectively).

Hi Tony; I use a D300 w/500VR. My preferred shooting style is hand held in natural light. Because of the need for heavy crops I typically leave the iso at 200, but for BIF I will experiment with iso400. Thanks for the suggestion!

Thank you All for the comments...I really appreciate them!
Cheers!
Gary

[Tony Whitehead]

Hi Tony; I use a D300 w/500VR. My preferred shooting style is hand held in natural light. Because of the need for heavy crops I typically leave the iso at 200, but for BIF I will experiment with iso400. Thanks for the suggestion!
Gary

Hi Gary. I use a similar set-up (D300+200-400 handheld) and haven't found the noise difference between 200 and 400 significant (if often use 800 as my starting point depending on lighting) - I feel the extra stop of speed or DOF reduces the chance of unsharpness which is unrecoverable - a bit of noise is relatively easily recoverable in post and can be minimised by exposing to the right.

[Gary Irwin]

Hi Gary. I use a similar set-up (D300+200-400 handheld) and haven't found the noise difference between 200 and 400 significant (if often use 800 as my starting point depending on lighting) - I feel the extra stop of speed or DOF reduces the chance of unsharpness which is unrecoverable - a bit of noise is relatively easily recoverable in post and can be minimised by exposing to the right.

Thanks Tony. I usually try to "expose for the highlights" because of the introduction of noise when boosting EC in PP. Your advice is very timely as I'm attending a raptor flight workshop this weekend by Ray Barlow -- with luck I might have a result or two two post!