Low light I

American Kestrel Male
Falco sparverius

Taken yesterday in Davis County, Utah. Ron Dudley and I hoped to find some good light after days of dreary, cloudy weather. We knew there would be some breaks in the clouds but upon arriving at our shooting location we found blue skies to the west, heavy snow clouds to the east in the mountains and it was snowing outside the truck and our light was quite low.

Driving along the road we came across this male kestrel and despite the adverse conditions we photographed him. Later we did get some sunshine and birds in good light, but I found of all the images I took yesterday, the images of this kestrel delighted me the most.

What I love a great deal about photography is working WITH the light, not fighting it in the camera or in post processing, so I am presenting this image as what it is, an image taken in low light.

I purposely did not take any steps in post processing that would artificially alter the mood or light in this image.

One of the wonderful things about photography today is that the size of your portfolio is only limited by the amount of hard drive space you have available and because of that I often experiment with different lighting conditions to challenge myself and through my experimentation, I learn valuable lessons.

D200, lens resting on pickup window, f6.3, 1/500, ISO 400, EV +1.3, 200-400mm VR with 1,4x TC at 400mm, cropped to vertical from a horizontal presentation, natural light, not baited. Because of the blue skies to the west I was able to get light in the kestrel's eyes, the background is the Wasatch Mountain range to the east with heavy snow falling. No noise reduction applied.

As always, I sincerely appreciate your comments & critiques, thank you for looking.