So today I went to a local raptor centre thinking it would be a great place to shoot a sequence. Wrong!
Couldn’t get close, couldn’t move around, the subject was disjointed… I could go on. On reflection I could have ignored the birds but I took the wrong lens for that.
I took a long lens, which is useless for the exercise I now realise but it was actually (and obviously) good for the birds. On the positive side, I did get a few nice shots like the one above. In a small(ish) space like the Falconry Centre the birds move too quickly and too close to pan properly, I confess I didn’t try pre-focusing today.
As I took them, I may as well post a couple more… The picture to the left isn’t particularly sharp but it’s a great action shot; the falconer’s hair disturbed by the Harris Hawk’s wings as he flapped away.
The birds did some funky things, and it was really nice to see them fly.
On top of the the general fun of shooting the birds I got try stretch the legs of my new 70-200 f2.8 lens. I recently swapped a 70-300 F4.5-5.6 for it, so I’ve traded some reach for a much wider (and constant) maximum aperture and I have to say I’m smitten. Is there another aperture other than f2.8? Only joking! Though I must say, it is stunning and fun to use wide open. RAW straight from the camera is amazingly sharp and contrasty – these shots have no sharpening applied!
Most of the shots taken were at f4 as I thought this would provide some compromise between movement/DoF and pleasing background blur.
I like the shot above and had I not been quite so focused on the bird I’d have got the girls in the frame a little better – I think they are quite surprised to see the chicken foot hanging from the Hawk’s mouth!
As you can see, I did move around a bit but it really didn’t meet the brief. At least I’ll know better next time.