Osprey with dinner

Gallery: AvianPosted September 1, 2010279 views13 comments

Taken at Nickerson Beach back in the middle of August. This was my first "real" outing with the 500 (had only used it in the backyard before) and I was waiting for them to stop charging for entrance at the beach ($25.00 a day iirc and I thought RI was expensive!)so I drove across the street to the little "nature preserve" and the marina there, was just putting my camera back in the car to drive over when I saw this. Nearly wrenched my shoulder and learned that I probably will not be handholding this lens very much.
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25% crop (75% remaining, did I get that right?) slight curves and brightness adjustment.

Canon 5DMII
Canon 500mm f/4 with 1.4X tele handheld

Aperture Priority f/6.3
1/2500 sec
no exposure bias

Comments

13 comments

Comment posted by Brian Gatlin on September 1, 2010 at 9:06 PM

awesome shot, Hali! love the open bill with the tongue visible as well as the cool prey.

There is a lack of clarity about posting crop %s. For some people, a 50% crop means cropping each side of the image to 50% of the original length. However, such a crop yields only 25% (.5 x .5) of the original pixels, and would better be considered 25% of original, not 50%. When you crop in ACR, it tells you how many megapixels you've cropped to, which makes it a quick and easy calculation to find the percent of original.

Registered on March 21, 2009, 202 Posts, 4187 Comments

Comment posted by Ron Bielefeld on September 1, 2010 at 9:12 PM

Hali, this is really nice for one of your first efforts with the 500 and with the 1.4x to boot. And handheld on top of that. Sharpness looks really good. My only small nit is some noise visible in the feathers on the underside of the near wing. Was this area shaded and the brightness brought up a bit? Doing this will bring out noise. Anyway, I hope you don't mind me suggesting things with no actual knowledge. Work on getting strong enough to hand hold that 500. Doing so will really pay dividends in the form of being able to react quicker to shot opportunities. No substitute for being able to hand hold for flight shots if you can do it. Cheers.

Registered on December 6, 2008, 360 Posts, 7132 Comments

Comment posted by Luke Ormand on September 1, 2010 at 9:13 PM

The only way to make this a better photo would have been to have the bird flying toward you. Great shot and I love that the fish is so visible. I do see the noise under the wing though which is probably from lightening the exposure

Registered on February 4, 2009, 1093 Posts, 7035 Comments

Comment posted by denise ippolito on September 1, 2010 at 9:41 PM

Hali, I think you did a great job HH the 500 especially w/ the 1.4 ex. Details and open mouth look good. I do wish the bird were flying towards you but still a great catch!

Registered on December 17, 2009, 202 Posts, 1529 Comments

Comment posted by Dennis Plank on September 1, 2010 at 10:57 PM

Looks like your hand holding worked very well here, Hali! Wonderfully crisp flight image.

Registered on January 28, 2008, 1767 Posts, 23192 Comments

Comment posted by Ákos Lumnitzer on September 2, 2010 at 3:46 AM

I quite like this image despite the bird slightly angled away. Well done hand holding too. Good work and keep it up!

Registered on April 24, 2004, 25 Posts, 510 Comments

Comment posted by Rob Drummond on September 2, 2010 at 7:23 AM

Great to have both the bird and fish so visible and clean

cheers
Rob

Registered on November 8, 2003, 617 Posts, 8267 Comments

Comment posted by Ron Dudley on September 2, 2010 at 8:10 AM

I think you've done quite well here Hali. I particularly like the fish and the Osprey's open beak. Personally, I almost never hand hold that lens any more. I found that I lost more than I gained in doing so. But others have certainly mastered the technique.

Registered on March 30, 2007, 437 Posts, 10915 Comments

Comment posted by Jagdeep Rajput on September 2, 2010 at 12:13 PM

It's a great attempt with your new toy ! Nice flight shot. Just wish the head was turned more towards you.
Jagdeep Rajput

Registered on April 29, 2008, 686 Posts, 2857 Comments

Comment posted by Nate Chappell on September 2, 2010 at 6:24 PM

Really nice job reacting fast Hali, the open beak and bloody fish make this special, the only nit is that it's flying slightly away from you but obviously you had no control over that. Well done.

Registered on February 1, 2006, 1158 Posts, 19528 Comments

Comment posted by Charles Gangas on September 3, 2010 at 5:02 AM

Great shot Hali- the blood streaked fish and the tongue in the open beak of the bird render a super image.

Registered on August 12, 2009, 544 Posts, 2414 Comments

Comment posted by Mia McPherson on September 3, 2010 at 7:46 AM

Hali

I think the fish on the talons is marvelous as is the open bill and the view of the tongue. To my eyes it looks like the exposure was brought up in post processing, I can see a bit of noise in the under part of the wing. You have a nice profile of the bird's head so I wouldn't worry about which direction the bird is flying.

Registered on June 25, 2007, 491 Posts, 12566 Comments

Comment posted by Howard Cheek on June 9, 2012 at 9:07 AM

Love the open beak and view of the birds tongue, Very cool Hali

I also like the view of the bloody fish and the way the osprey's gripping it here..
Kudos for getting this handheld with the 500, great job on this

Registered on July 24, 2008, 1201 Posts, 10758 Comments