{"id":36780,"date":"2016-01-20T06:37:58","date_gmt":"2016-01-20T13:37:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=36780"},"modified":"2016-01-20T07:49:26","modified_gmt":"2016-01-20T14:49:26","slug":"a-surprise-coopers-hawk-on-prey-and-a-photographic-mistake-i-continue-to-make","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2016\/01\/20\/a-surprise-coopers-hawk-on-prey-and-a-photographic-mistake-i-continue-to-make\/","title":{"rendered":"A Surprise Cooper’s Hawk On Prey (and a photographic mistake I continue to make)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yesterday’s photo excursion started out with a bang.<\/p>\n

As per usual I left the house while it was still mostly dark so I could be on site soon after sunrise. Depending on my destination it takes me 40 minutes to an hour to get there so that means an early departure and a fairly long drive fortified by coffee, good conversation and my extended waking up process. But yesterday morning I was greeted by a serendipitous event right at the get-go.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"cooper's<\/p>\n

1\/80, f\/6.3, ISO 1600, Canon 7D Mark II,\u00a0Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

I had barely left my driveway when we found this Cooper’s Hawk (possibly a Sharp-shinned, if so please correct me) on a neighbor’s lawn. It was eating a Mourning Dove so it had no intention of flying off even as other vehicles passed by within just a few feet of it. I suspect the near-darkness gave it some bravado. I simply pulled over to the curb and began to photograph it from my pickup at\u00a0a distance that wouldn’t make it nervous.<\/p>\n

The shooting conditions were atrocious in the near darkness. The hawk was actively feeding which made it virtually impossible to get sharp\u00a0images at this shutter speed so about\u00a0all I could do was “spray and pray” by firing off a bunch of shots and hope that some were relatively sharp.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"cooper's<\/p>\n

1\/320, f\/4.5, ISO 2000, Canon 7D Mark II,\u00a0Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The posture of the bird in this shot might suggest that it was nervous and about to take off but that’s just not the case. It had simply turned on its prey to get a better feeding angle and looked over its shoulder in my direction very briefly. It continued to feed with gusto.<\/p>\n

These images were all moderately underexposed in camera\u00a0because of a bad habit of mine (I have a few…). The way I evaluate exposure is by quickly reviewing an image or two on my camera screen for brightness. In most conditions that method works well for me because I’ve had a lot of practice at it. But when light is very low I tend to underexpose because in the darkness my screen looks brighter than it really is and that’s exactly what happened here.<\/p>\n

I simply have to learn to accurately use the histogram to evaluate exposure but being a creature of habit I\u00a0find it difficult to change my ways.\u00a0Hopefully my\u00a0session with this hawk will give me the motivation I need because underexposing the images that already had a higher noise level due to my ISO setting meant that noise was increased even further when I\u00a0bumped up exposure\u00a0during processing.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"cooper's<\/p>\n

1\/320, f\/5, ISO 2000, Canon 7D Mark II,\u00a0Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Here the hawk is struggling to get a sticky feather off of its wet beak so I was pleasantly surprised that the shot was sharp at this shutter speed. Many similar images were not.<\/p>\n

After spending a few minutes with this bird we left it to go to Antelope Island but\u00a0I’d forgotten to check something in my house so I quickly went home first\u00a0(two houses away) and then drove by the hawk again as I left. It was still there feeding on the dove in the darkness\u00a0as I drove past.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n