Mr. Cooper

Gallery: AvianPosted February 19, 2012131 views3 comments

I walked up on this guy today unexpectedly just like I did my last hawk photo. I believe it's an immature coopers hawk. He wasn't much bigger than a crow. I wish it was sharper but this was shot hand-held at 420mm in poor light. It was actually drizzling at the time. It was either shoot or forget it. All things considered I don't think it's too bad. Data is Nikon D300 with 300mm f4.0 with 1.4 teleconverter(420mm at f5.6), 1/160 sec, ISO 400. Just a tad of cropping. Click "Purchase Print" to see larger image.

Comments

3 comments

Comment posted by Harry Harris on February 19, 2012 at 2:12 PM

I am glad you did not forget it, Dennis. I lie the pose and the environment. Typical Cooper's habitat. For the conditions the exposure looks fine and I like the detail on the back and tail.

Registered on August 2, 2010, 169 Posts, 741 Comments

Comment posted by Richard Ditch on February 19, 2012 at 2:38 PM

I agree on the ID as an immature Cooper's Hawk. Setting is fine and typical; getting close isn't as easy and you did well here.

For this type of work I'd set the D300 to ISO 800 - I use mine at that setting without worry and have no issue with noise. And when there's no other alternative I'll even go to ISO 1600 with good results.

Registered on November 1, 2003, 1031 Posts, 12705 Comments

Comment posted by Jim Hackley on February 20, 2012 at 5:02 PM

Like Rich mentioned in his post, I do the same. I shoot with almost the same setup (D300s, 300 f4, 1.4 TC) and do not hesitate to bump the ISO up to 1000 when I need more shutter speed depending on the light. From the small image the detail looks good, nice job in approaching the hawk.

Registered on September 17, 2009, 302 Posts, 5535 Comments