1\/2000, f\/6.3, ISO 640, Canon 7D, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\nI had to get quite close to the falcon to even see it over the edge of the causeway road but it was calm and relaxed for the entire 15 minutes or so I spent with it. Part of the reason for that was because it was mostly in the shade when I first encountered it\u00a0(I believe birds often feel safer in the shade)\u00a0but by the time this shot was taken the sun had reached all of the bird except its tail and wingtips. Since most of the background and perch are still\u00a0shaded it created a spotlight effect on the falcon that I like a lot.<\/p>\n
Usually when light from the rising sun begins to reach\u00a0a subject the interface between light and shade is so diffuse that its demarcation wouldn’t be nearly this\u00a0dramatic. But in this case the sun was coming up\u00a0over the elevated\u00a0road only a few feet away so that dividing line between the warmly lit bird and the mostly shaded perch and background is abrupt and almost theatrical.<\/p>\n
In\u00a0studio photography this kind of\u00a0spotlight effect\u00a0usually requires a cooperative subject willing to take posing directions and\u00a0elaborate lighting setups or extreme manipulation during processing (or both). All I’ve done during processing is crop and sharpen without even doing any exposure adjustments so I feel privileged to have encountered these conditions in the field\u00a0with such a wild and\u00a0generally skittish and uncooperative subject.<\/p>\n
Ron<\/p>\n
PS – If subscribers to my blog notice what time you received my email\u00a0with the link to\u00a0this post (3:26 AM)\u00a0you may be curious as to why I’m up so damned early. Thanks to the side effects of the Prednisone I’m taking for\u00a0a bad back (it’s more complicated than that)\u00a0I’ve been wide awake since before\u00a01 AM and up since 1:40 so\u00a0I figured I might as well work on my post and get it published.<\/em><\/p>\nIt’s going to be a very long day…<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I was darned lucky to get this kind of lighting on a truly wild subject.<\/p>\n
Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":54252,"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":[3,6,334,371],"tags":[31,538,3702,254,3703,3701],"class_list":["post-54249","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-antelope-island","category-bird-photography-methods","category-birds","category-prairie-falcons","tag-antelope-island-2","tag-falco-mexicanus","tag-lighting-techniue","tag-prairie-falcon","tag-prednisone-side-effects","tag-spotlight-effect"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/prairie-falcon-9868b-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-e6Z","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54249","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=54249"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54249\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/54252"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54249"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54249"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54249"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/prairie-falcon-9868b-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"prairie-falcon-9568b-ron-dudley\\"")
<\/a><\/p>\n