![\"common](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/common-raven-8837-ron-dudley.jpg\")
<\/p>\nRavens are common in my area but I rarely get interesting quality images of them for a variety of reasons. For starters their deep black plumage makes them very\u00a0difficult to photograph well. And around here they also tend to be shy and devilishly\u00a0uncooperative.\u00a0In some areas (certain National Parks for example) they’re so tame that you almost have to shoo them out of your way to avoid stepping on them\u00a0but I find them to usually be difficult to approach and uncanny in their ability\u00a0to ruin a potentially interesting image by insisting\u00a0on a poor light angle or flying off just before I click my shutter. I swear these intelligent birds get some joy out of doing just that.<\/p>\n
And as in some other corvids, having a big lens aimed at them often\u00a0makes them nervous.<\/p>\n
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\u00a01\/2500, f\/8, ISO 800, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon 100-400 @ 400mm, 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n I photographed this Common Raven just after it took off\u00a0yesterday morning as\u00a0I\u00a0was heading\u00a0for home along the Antelope Island causeway. For me it’s unusual to get this much detail in those light-sucking blacks, especially in flight. The bird is slightly past me but I like the flight posture, fanned tail, tucked feet and even the slight hint of iridescence\u00a0in the left wing.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n During the past two weeks while I’ve been forced to shoot exclusively with my smaller zoom lens while my 500mm is in the shop I’ve learned an important lesson about my photography technique – in the past I’ve relied much too heavily on the big prime lens.\u00a0The flexibility of the zoom and its significantly greater depth of field has allowed me to capture many\u00a0images (particularly flight shots)\u00a0that I know I’d have missed with the 500 – either because I’d have clipped body parts or because my depth of field was too limited. This image is\u00a0just one example.\u00a0The downside to using that lens is that its image quality isn’t quite up to par to that of the 500.<\/p>\n So yesterday I finally broke down and purchased the\u00a0new version of the zoom – the\u00a0Canon EF 100-400mm f\/4.5-5.6L IS II USM Lens. The newer edition is improved in many ways so image quality should<\/em> approach that of the 500 and I’ll still have the flexibility of the zoom. If all goes according to plan this raven image is the last bird photograph I’ll take with the older glass.<\/p>\n We’ll see how it goes.\u00a0 Now I need to get busy and sell a used lens.<\/p>\n Ron<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Ravens are common in my area but I rarely get interesting quality images of them for a variety of reasons. For starters their deep black plumage makes them very difficult to photograph well. And around here they also tend to be shy and devilishly uncooperative.<\/p>\n