An unusual setting for a harrier.
Yesterday morning as I was driving slowly on a dirt road that hugged the base of a desert mountain range an immature female Northern Harrier was hunting in the semi-marshlands immediately to my right. Suddenly she crossed the road directly in front of me to hunt between me and the nearly vertical cliffs of the mountains to my left that I was very close to.
1/1000, f/9, ISO 800, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in
She circled several times within the semicircular bowl between me and the very steep mountains right behind her which gave me cliffs in the background instead of the much more typical marshlands that are usually the backgrounds in my harrier photos.
The very low sun soon after dawn produced a patchwork of shadows and well lit areas on the cliffs behind her. Here I caught her with a mostly dark background, in sharp contrast to…
1/1000, f/9, ISO 800, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in
the very next shot in the burst that caught her with well lit rocks behind her. I think the contrasting light and dark backgrounds provide a decidedly different flavor to the two photos, even though the flight postures of the hawk are almost identical.
On mornings when the forecast is for sunshine it’s my habit to set my camera to my default settings before I even leave the house. My default aperture is f/6.3 and that’s where I had it set when I left home in the dark yesterday. But this harrier was the first bird I photographed that morning and somehow, inexplicably, my aperture had changed from f/6.3 to f/9 and I hadn’t noticed.
That little ‘accident’ cost me. If I’d been at my preferred f/6.3 instead of f/9 I’d have had less depth of field so the cliffs in the background would have been softer with a more pleasing bokeh.
I think that was more of an accident than a mistake. There’s a difference. My mistake was not checking my settings again as soon as I arrived on site.
Ron
I think they are lovely and that is about the best my lens will do. I have noticed I bump the buttons when I load the camera in my backpack so I have tried to look at the settings before I press the shutter button. I have lost so many nice shots because I did not check first.
Stunning photos – love them both!
She is one stunning bird — in any aperture! 🙂
Thanks, Marty.
Sensational series Ron! Thanks for sharing!
Charlotte Norton
Thanks, Charlotte.
Very dramatic, especially the first. Love your artistry, appreciate your educational comments always.
Thank you on both counts, Buff.
Laura is not here yet, so consider me sitting here saying superlatives with and for her.
If only my ‘mistakes’ turned out this well…
EC, in this case I’m still pretty happy with the results of my ‘mistake’.
These are both captivating photos, each with a distinct atmosphere, despite the kvetching about f-stops and bokeh. You seem to be capturing an array of atypical Harrier backdrops, with cliffs as background in these and blue sky in a previous post. I don’t recall any with water, although I wouldn’t be surprised if a search through the archives yielded one.
Lyle, I have a few harrier shots with water backgrounds. Here’s some examples:
https://www.featheredphotography.com/blog/2018/02/09/northern-harrier-hunting-and-in-flight-with-prey/
A gray ghost with vole and water. What a showoff.
Love both photos but the top one is really something! Looks 3-D. With the dark background slightly blurred I can almost feel her movement. Nice!
Thank you, Jamila.
I love the puzzle piece background of the first. The second makes the hawk really POP from the background. So both are fantastic to my eye for different reasons. 😀
Thank you, Arwen. Funny how differently the two photos present themselves when the flight pose in both is nearly identical.
Both photos are excellent. I may have preferred the f/6.3 for the first, but I think the f/9 worked amazing on the lighter background. The subject is still very nicely separated, yet plenty of environmental context. I especially like that one!
David, thanks for going into some detail about what what appeals to you.
Beautiful! The background does change how the Harrier looks……😀 Darker one looks “moodier” and the Harrier “fiercer” than in the 2nd one. Always amazing/frustrating how settings “change” on us…….😉
I swear, Judy – there’s a gremlin in my camera!
I love the contrast in the first one . It stands out against the dark shadows in the rocks
Marina, that first shot is also my favorite of the two.
Sitting here drinking my coffee in the early am and really took my time going back and forth from one to the other and the photos except for light and dark are almost identical. The only difference I could find was that the tail feathers in the second one are more vertical and thus more exposed. The face, the expression, the wing positions all appear to be identical.
Both excellent photos, but I like the more dramatic look of the darker.
The two flight postures are very close to identical aren’t they Everett.