1\/2700, f\/6.3, ISO 800, Canon R5, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\nIn this one the hawk is pretty tight in the frame but I didn’t have much choice because I had no more room on the left.<\/p>\n
But neither of these shots is true to the original photo. I had to dink around with both of them during processing because…<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/swainsons-hawk-4538-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"swainsons-hawk-4538-ron-dudley\\"")
<\/p>\n
of a double catch light in the bird’s eye.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/swainsons-hawk-4541-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"swainsons-hawk-4541-ron-dudley\\"")
<\/p>\n
Both photos had the double catch light and so did several others.<\/p>\n
Even though double catch lights may (or may not) be natural, I often find them to be highly distracting so I typically remove the smaller one and I have no problem with doing it. But if I can’t figure out the source of the second catch light it drives me a little nuts.<\/p>\n
Double catch lights usually occur when the bird is in or on water. The primary catch light is a direct reflection of the sun and the secondary one is a reflection of the sun off the surface of the water between the bird and the photographer. But in this case there was no water (or anything else reflective) between me and the hawk.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/lima-reservoir-in-fog-2082-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"lima-reservoir-in-fog-2082-ron-dudley\\"")
<\/p>\n
But last night I remembered what was directly behind me when I was photographing the hawk.<\/p>\n
You’ve seen this photo of fog-enshrouded Lima Reservoir before. It was taken right at sunrise and about 12 minutes before I photographed the hawk. The lake and fog were so big and so bright, much brighter than the actual sun coming up over the horizon out of frame to the right, they must have been the source of the primary catch light in my hawk photos. And the source of the secondary catch light was the sun itself.<\/p>\n
At least that’s my theory and I’m sticking to it until convinced otherwise. And yes, I feel better.<\/p>\n
Ron<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Note: For perspective, I estimate that the reservoir in the photo above was 4- 5 miles away from me.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The mystery of the double catch light is solved. I think.<\/p>\n
Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":138948,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[5,6,334,1493,645],"tags":[647,6994,555,146,148,2592,220,646],"class_list":["post-138945","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bird-oddities","category-bird-photography-methods","category-birds","category-montana-favorite-locations","category-swainsons-hawks","tag-buteo-swainsoni","tag-cause-of-double-catch-lights","tag-centennial-valley","tag-flight","tag-fog","tag-lima-reservoir","tag-montana-2","tag-swainsons-hawk"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/swainsons-hawk-4541-2nd-catch-light-removed-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-A93","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138945","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=138945"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138945\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":138989,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138945\/revisions\/138989"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/138948"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=138945"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=138945"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=138945"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/swainsons-hawk-4538-2nd-catch-light-removed-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"swainsons-hawk-4538-2nd-catch-light-removed-ron-dudley\\"")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/swainsons-hawk-4541-2nd-catch-light-removed-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"swainsons-hawk-4541-2nd-catch-light-removed-ron-dudley\\"")
<\/p>\n