![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/northern-harrier-9756-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"northern-harrier-9756-ron-dudley\\"")
<\/p>\nCatch lights in the eyes of our subjects are important far beyond their diminutive size but they’re both fickle and elusive.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
1\/4000, f\/6.3, 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 photographed this Northern Harrier eleven days ago as she was hunting the edge of a pond at Bear River MBR. She wasn’t quite as close as I prefer but I managed to get several shots of her that were sharp enough that I was able to crop a little more tightly than I usually do and still have her look pretty good. As problematic as phragmites is for wetland managers I love it as a background in my photos, especially this time of year with the dark flower plumes (panicles) sprinkled randomly throughout the lighter colored backdrop.<\/p>\n The catch light in her eye is tiny but important beyond its size. At this small resolution it’s only a single pixel out of 578,700 (900 x 643) but without it the image would suffer. Catch lights give our subjects life by providing a spark or twinkle in their eyes and they’re particularly important in subjects with dark eyes.<\/p>\n The position of the catch light on the eyeball is an indicator of the position of the light source, the sun in this case. Here the catch light is at roughly 10 o’clock on the eye indicating that the sun is behind me to our left and fairly low in the sky (the photo was taken at 9:19 AM). If the sun had been much higher in the sky or if the bird’s head had been turned any more to our left or downward the overhanging brow ridge of the hawk would have prevented any light in the eye.<\/p>\n And that’s exactly what happened in the next shot in the burst.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n 1\/4000, f\/6.3, 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 One tenth of a second later the harrier had turned her head ever so slightly to her left and that was just enough to lose the catch light and in my opinion to diminish the appeal of the image significantly.<\/p>\n Some photographers would add an artificial (as in “fake”) catch light during processing but in my view that would be dishonest, deliberately deceptive and unethical in nature photography (unless you disclose what you’ve done and even then it’s marginal). Occasionally I’ll enhance (brighten) a dim catch light that’s already there but I won’t completely invent one.<\/p>\n In bird photography it’s much easier to get light in the eye when the sun is low in the sky which is one of the reasons I prefer to photograph birds early in the morning. And since many raptors have a brow ridge over their eyes it’s even more important with them (owls being mostly nocturnal lack the brow ridge whose function is to reduce glare).<\/p>\n I can’t tell you how many otherwise excellent bird photos I have that are missing light in the eye and will never see the light of day.\u00a0To say that catch lights are capricious and elusive is an understatement.<\/p>\n Ron<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Notes: <\/em><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/northern-harrier-9757-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"northern-harrier-9757-ron-dudley\\"")
<\/p>\n