Montagu's Harrier

[Mital Patel]

Montagu's Harrier (Circus pygargus)
Gujarat, INDIA


1D MARK IV, 500 F/4, 1.4x TC
1/1250, f/9, ISO1000 @ 700mm 47pm

Made this image last sunday at blackbuck national park. this is around 50% crop of original. First time i got such a beautiful pose amongst the burst when the harrier was busy in hunting. Wish could have got better HA..

[girisholeti]

Bhai, I love that fan tail :-)

[arash_hazeghi]

pose is dynamic and light is great but the IQ lacks a bit, the shutter speed was not fast enough for this kind of action. TFS

[Mital Patel]

pose is dynamic and light is great but the IQ lacks a bit, the shutter speed was not fast enough for this kind of action. TFS

was expecting your expert tips on this as i never do flights with that monster.. forgot to mention this is hand held.

Seems like it was nice try though to start with .. Please guide for better flight shot on settings.

[Kaustubh Deshpande]

Mital, the tail spread is what this image work. terrific timing. Liked the subject placement.

I think you stopped down a bit too much here. With that much shooting distance, you could have traded f-stop for SS.

Some additional selective sharpening will help. I took a quick shot at that...here's my repost.

[arash_hazeghi]

I am afraid sharpening doesn't helps in this case as the motion blur in the head is quite evident.

For handheld flight photography you should keep the shutter speed above 1/1600sec or even 1/2000sec where possible, once you get more experience in hand holding your rig and improve your reflexes you can relax the shutter speed to 1/1250sec or so if the light low. Here I would have def gone with f/5.6 and 1/2500sec.

Looking forward to more

[Arthur Morris]

Killer pose and bummer with the head problems. I have lots of very sharp flight images created at 1/500 sec.... Here you were just unlucky on two counts, the head position and the movement of the head during the exposure. That said I do the majority of my flight photography wide open. And I have seen lots of blurred wingtips even at 1/2000 sec.

[arash_hazeghi]

I have lots of very sharp flight images created at 1/500 sec.... .

were you hand holding a 500 rig ?

[gail bisson]

Mital,
The light and the fanned tail are super. The IQ is lacking. Time to go out and do it all again but at a higher SS and lower aperture!!
Gail

[Arthur Morris]

were you hand holding a 500 rig ?

Nope. On a tripod.

[Angad Achappa]

Lovely image, but yeah the image could take some sharpening. Kaustubh's re post looks a little better.