Cape Vulture

[Chris van Rooyen]

The Cape Vultures at the breeding colony near Johannesburg offer a rare opportunity to capture these giant scavengers (wingspan 2.5m) in flight. They circle close and then suddenly drop like stones onto the cliffs. I captured this individual just as it was starting to gather speed with landing gear out on the final descent. The light conditions were soft filtered light, therefore the need for 1000 ISO. I did some selective noise removal on the background. Comments welcomed as always.

Camera Model: Canon EOS-1D Mark III
Date/Time: 2008:03:24 158:37
Shutter speed: 1/800 sec
Aperture: 6.3
Exposure mode: Av
Flash: Off
Metering mode: Multi-segment
ISO: 1000
Focal length: 700mm

[Fabs Forns]

I am really enjoying your images!!! Great to see birds I have never seen :)
This is no exception, great pose and bg, soft light and good detail in the feathers.
I may want to see a bit more USM on the face, but theses glasses need a new prescription, I may be wrong...

[Robert Smith]

Neat capture of a vulture at an unusual angle. I like the implied motion and the composition. Keep 'em coming!

[Jose Suro]

Great image of an unusual (for us) bird. Love the action and the look of concentration.

Best,

Jose

[Axel Hildebrandt]

Great pose, light, details and BG. I like it as is.

[Uri First]

beautiful image, great bg

[Chris van Rooyen]

Thanks for the comments guys, appreciated:)

[Gus Cobos]

Chris,
Excellent image love the flight angle on your bird...very nicely done...:D

[Geurt Bloem]

Well done Chris. It seems to me that the Mark 3 handled this difficult AF scene very well.