We've had a lot of snow here around Denver lately and I try to get out when it's snowing in the p.m. This was last Saturday and the light was relatively poor. I used +2EV to avoid mosaic smear that I get in these low light conditions with the 7D at higher ISO speeds. Also, the +EV was needed because of the white snow predominating. Still, I probably should have upped the ISO to 800 to avoid some shake due to hand hold, although I like the wingtip blur, so I'm torn. Up to this size it looks very good, but it would suffer in any size much larger. (You can see the Original size at the Flickr link).
I sat under this young bird for 20-minutes before it finally came down on a vole. It and its prey were out of view behind some cattails, so I prefocused where I thought it'd come up and then walked nearer and had good focus as it came up. Some of the other shots showed the prey's feet and tail, but I prefer the wing position here and the clearly visible snow on its brow.
I had the nine-point AF box on because the flat, non-contrasty snow background would allow that without losing focus, but I was so close here that the AF mode hardly mattered.
Hi David. It would be better if the bird were flying towards us, or looked back at us, but I still think this is a very nice image with a great Winter quality. Love the snow flakes and I love how the bird is picking up snow as it flies.
I don't think the blurred wingtips are due to camera shake -as other parts of the bird are sharp and in focus -; I think it's motion blur due to the low shutter speed. Plus those wingtips also seem OOF, which makes sense as you were shooting at f/4 and the bird was very close. The guru's will no doubt correct me if I'm wrong here...
hey Dave - love the snow in the background and especially the snow on his head. Wish he had been flying towards you but this way it feels like you are flying along behind him - lovely.
HI David - SS is the reason for the blurred wingtips - the closer you are to the object, the faster the shutter speed required to freeze the motion - so here probably 1/2000 or more to freeze that action -im considering here of course you said you were really close.
Same with DOF with a telephoto lens - the closer you are the less the DOF - so a combination of SS and DOF.
Really like the snow - with the bird flying away I think that more space to give a better sense of environment may have been better in this circumstance - JUST IMHO.
Perhaps I'm unclear. I understand the relationship between shutter speed and wing blur. I see the wing blur as a positive here, but was wondering what others think of that choice.
Red-tail hawk juvenile hunting in snow
