![\"swainson's](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/swainsons-hawk-6658-ron-dudley.jpg\")
1\/250, f\/7.1, ISO 1600, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM +1.4 tc, top of metal post removed,\u00a0not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\nI photographed this Swainson’s Hawk just over two weeks ago in Beaverhead County, Montana. It was taken in the evening of the day I arrived and the\u00a0stormy weather didn’t bode well for the rest of my camping trip but thankfully it cleared up the next day. This bird was soaked as\u00a0it sat out the storm\u00a0perched near its nest that had apparently failed. I like the mood\u00a0of the image with the obvious rain in the background and the wet bird with water dripping off its plumage, beak and talon.<\/p>\n
It’s often very difficult or impossible to see the falling rain in an image like this unless the background is dark and far away from the subject. In many of my shots of this\u00a0hawk the background is the lighter green at the bottom of the frame where the raindrops are much less conspicuous. But I was shooting from my pickup and I deliberately moved a foot or two in order to\u00a0place the darker shaded trees behind the bird in the frame\u00a0and\u00a0hoped that the rain would become more obvious.<\/p>\n
It worked and I like the result even though we can’t see most of the tail and there’s some background noise at this high ISO. That\u00a0noise was exacerbated slightly because I chose to sharpen the entire image (instead of selective sharpening applied only to the bird and post). I made that choice in order to make the raindrops even more apparent.<\/p>\n
Tradeoffs. Photography is very often a matter of tradeoffs.<\/p>\n
Ron<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I like images taken in the rain, if you can see it. Often you cannot.<\/p>\n