The Handoff

[Kerry Perkins]

My patience was rewarded when I got this shot of a male White-tailed Kite passing a vole to his mate in mid-air. The male is on the right. I sat in my hideout for over three hours to get this! :) Shot in late afternoon sun.

50D, EF400mm f/5.6L
Manual mode, f/5.6@1/2500 ISO 400 WB 5100K
AI Servo autofocus, hand-held no flash

[Michael Gerald-Yamasaki]

Kerry,

Wow. That is one spectacular shot! Thanks for posting it...

Cheers,

-Michael-

[Ken Lassman]

Awesome behavioral capture Kerry....well worth the wait.

[Michael Gerald-Yamasaki]

Kerry,

Greetings. I forgot to say what I liked about the shot ... I love the geometry and balance of the shot (I would go so far as crop just a tad off the right to center it, one to break the rules with ;) ), the strong story and even the head looking back at it's prey gives a three-dimensional quality to the composition. Very cool.

Cheers,

-Michael-

[Ricardo Rodriguez]

Very nice action shot, Kerry. Your patience indeed paid off!

As Michael mentions, the geometry is awesome, and I agree that cropping on the right (and maybe also a bit on the bottom) could strengthen the presence of the neat equilateral triangle formed by the tips of 3 of the wings.

Ricardo

[Gail Spitler]

Awesome image Kerry. Certainly the perfect lesson for me about being patient and setting up a shot. Big congrats for this one.
Cheers
Gail

[Bill Dix]

Amazing behavior shot. Love the crossed wings; good ha for one bird, and the female obviously concerned about taking the handoff. Congratulations for staying with it.

[Dave Mills]

Hi Kerry, Agree with the crop suggestion. In this case IMO the story is very strong and out weighs a few of the technicals.

[Lance Peters]

Hi Kerry - Agree with Dave - technically might not be perfect - but the story and compositional certainly goes some way to offsetting that.
IMHO - Like it a lot and agree with the crop suggestion.
:)

[Kerry Perkins]

Thanks everyone! Survey says - different crop. :)

[Oscar Zangroniz]

Great capture Kerry. Either one of the post is good enough. What you were able to capture outweighs the differences in crop IMO.
Regards,

[Ricardo Rodriguez]

Hi Kerry, I agree that the image is strong regardless, but your cropped repost makes it even more fantabulous, IMO.