{"id":98029,"date":"2021-05-08T05:39:11","date_gmt":"2021-05-08T11:39:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=98029"},"modified":"2021-05-08T06:54:35","modified_gmt":"2021-05-08T12:54:35","slug":"white-faced-ibis-flight-and-pre-landing-series","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2021\/05\/08\/white-faced-ibis-flight-and-pre-landing-series\/","title":{"rendered":"White-faced Ibis Flight And Pre-landing Series"},"content":{"rendered":"

Getting focus lock on a bird flying at a less than ideal angle can pay dividends when it suddenly performs an interesting flight maneuver.<\/p>\n

I posted a single photo of this ibis a couple of days ago and told readers of my intention to post more photos in the series at a later time. This is that time.<\/em><\/p>\n

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1\/4000, f\/6.3, ISO 400, 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

Three days ago I spent some time with large numbers of American White Pelicans and White-faced Ibis as they were feeding in a shallow impoundment at Bear River MBR. I chose to mostly ignore the pelicans and concentrate on the ibises in flight as they came in to join others of their kind as they were feeding directly in front of me.<\/p>\n

Getting head-on flight shots like this one was relatively easy but this flight angle doesn’t appeal to me much, especially with such a dark bird. My goal was to catch them banking and flaring just before landing in the water which allows us to see more of the bird’s surface area and often causes their iridescence to pop when the light hits them at just the right angle.<\/p>\n

But banking and flaring also makes them change flight direction quickly so they’re very difficult to keep in the frame and keep focus locked on them. I tried many times and failed, with only a single success.<\/p>\n

This bird was that success. While firing a burst I got several sharp shots of ‘him’ flying at this angle while hoping he’d cooperate with a more interesting flight maneuver.<\/p>\n

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1\/4000, f\/6.3, ISO 400, 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

Four frames later it’s finally beginning, just beginning, to happen.<\/p>\n

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1\/4000, f\/6.3, ISO 400, 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

And five frames after that his banking and flaring flight angle allowed a much better view of more of the bird. At this point of course he’s making a quick turn to our right so this is where I usually either lose focus on the bird or start clipping body parts. Or both.<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/p>\n

1\/4000, f\/6.3, ISO 400, 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 this time I managed to keep him both in frame and in focus so in this next shot we see him in all his glory as the light angle lit up his iridescence. This is the photo I posted two versions of a couple of days ago.<\/p>\n

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1\/4000, f\/6.3, ISO 400, 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 next shot in the burst is the one that caught him most broadside to me but by then he was beginning to lose some of his iridescence. He was so close to the right edge of the frame I felt I had to add canvas there for a better composition. After this shot I began to cut off body parts and after that I lost him in the frame completely. He was really scootin’.<\/p>\n

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I tried to get these kinds of shots from about a dozen different ibises as they flew in to land in the water in front of me and only succeeded this one time. It’s amazing how much better I feel about a single success out of many attempts than I would if I’d failed completely.<\/p>\n

Degree of difficulty makes a big difference in my attitude toward my flight shot batting average. .<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Getting focus lock on a bird flying at a less than ideal angle can pay dividends when it suddenly performs an interesting flight maneuver.<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":98032,"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":[338,334,972],"tags":[5736,49,146,186,973,715],"class_list":["post-98029","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bear-river-migratory-bird-refuge-favorite-locations","category-birds","category-white-faced-ibis-wading-birds","tag-banking-and-flaring-in-flight","tag-bear-river-migratory-bird-refuge","tag-flight","tag-iridescence","tag-plegadis-chihi","tag-white-faced-ibis"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/white-faced-ibis-1625-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-pv7","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98029","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=98029"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98029\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/98032"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=98029"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=98029"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=98029"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}