![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/red-tailed-hawk-8652-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"red-tailed-hawk-8652-ron-dudley\\"")
<\/p>\nThis series was taken under difficult conditions and it shows but that’s part of my point in posting it.<\/p>\n
As every serious photographer knows light can be a fickle\u00a0taskmaster. Four days ago I had good light for most of my three hours at my birding destination but during the most potentially productive\u00a045 minutes or so\u00a0with raptors (several of them) a “cloud from hell” followed me everywhere I went. When I have opportunities with raptors in such conditions I take the shots anyway but chances of getting high quality images are significantly reduced, especially for flight shots.<\/p>\n
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1\/2500, f\/5.6, ISO 800, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n This Red-tailed Hawk perched on sagebrush (notice that\u00a0our sagebrush is finally\u00a0beginning\u00a0to green up a little)\u00a0was my second decent raptor opportunity of the morning but that damned cloud did its very best to put the kibosh on me (at this point the cloud wasn’t thick so the light was filtered instead of the bird being in deep shade so I did have a chance at decent shots). Its presence meant that I had to use camera settings that were a little\u00a0less than ideal to ensure I had enough shutter speed for flight shots and since I wasn’t particularly close to the bird I’d probably have to crop at least some of the photos enough that doing so might make digital noise even more noticeable.<\/p>\n That cloud presented a second problem.\u00a0The side of a\u00a0mountain was\u00a0directly behind and very close to the hawk so if the bird took off the background would be very close to my subject. In poor light\u00a0(or even\u00a0mediocre\u00a0light like this)\u00a0contrast is usually low so\u00a0camera sensors struggle to acquire and maintain sharp focus on the subject, especially when it’s moving and flying erratically. In that situation active focus points want to lock on\u00a0to the background instead of the bird.<\/p>\n So without further ado let’s see how I did in these conditions\u00a0when the\u00a0bird eventually took off.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n 1\/3200, f\/5.6, ISO 800, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n The hawk had a lot of vertical\u00a0sagebrush stems directly in front of it so its first task was to gain a foot or so of elevation in order to clear them. That slowed down its launch enough that…<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n 1\/4000, f\/5.6, ISO 800, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n I was able to get several photos before it completely left the sagebrush.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n 1\/4000, f\/5.6, ISO 800, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n At this point the light was changing very quickly, enough to throw some moderate shadows on much of the bird.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n 1\/4000, f\/5.6, ISO 800, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n But with the background so close to the hawk I struggled to keep sharp focus on the bird. Several of my photos were “sharp enough” but if you notice the file numbers of the images (by passing your cursor over the photos)\u00a0I’ve left out a number of\u00a0shots in the series\u00a0because they were just too soft.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n 1\/2500, f\/5.6, ISO 800, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n The sharpest\u00a0photos were those where the hawk’s wings were fully extended which gave my focus points more “bird” to lock onto with the background so close. In all of the images where the wings were curled around the bird during takeoff (which provided a smaller target)\u00a0the photos were invariably softer. This one is borderline even though the wings are fully\u00a0extended.<\/p>\n With birds and clouds we have no choice but to\u00a0take what they give us and our results can\u00a0be anywhere\u00a0on a continuum between dreadful and surprisingly good. This time I think mine are acceptable but I sure won’t be entering any of these images in any photo contests (something I never<\/em> do anyway…).<\/p>\n For me the biggest positive coming out of this series is that I added to my bird photography knowledge base and experience\u00a0and that’s always a good thing.<\/p>\n Ron<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This series was taken under difficult conditions and it shows but that’s part of my point in posting it.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/red-tailed-hawk-8655-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"red-tailed-hawk-8655-ron-dudley\\"")
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