Osprey Magic
by Patrick O'Healy
7-26-12 Santee Lakes San Diego County, CA
While at the lake we came upon this Osprey on a dead snag. Fortunately the sun and the wind was largely behind us as we faced the the bird head on. We shot a number of posed images and sent mental waves to the bird to take off. Eventually he tuned into our frequency and took flight toward us. A testimony to my camera ability is that not all the shots had wings clipped and parts of the bird out of the frame. This is the shot I like the best. Unfortunately, we only had sky in the background.
Nikon D800 Nikkor 200-400 lens 1.4TC 550mm focal length f/8 1/1600 ISO 500 Manual RAW white balance auto slightly cropped and processed minimally in CS6
Comments welcome
Comments
2 commentsI love birds that tune into my mental frequency but it seems that most of the time they aren't speaking my language. :) I like the intense look on it's face and that the huge talons are visible rather than tucked up underneath. The exposure looks really good with no burnt whites. Two suggestions: you might want to play around with the white balance because the sky has a funky hue to it that can be fixed and I might raise the bird just a tad on the canvas and add just a touch of canvas on the bottom. Just thoughts. Really looking forward to shooting with you Friday.
I agree with David that the blue is a bit odd - easily corrected. I'm fine with the comp and position in the frame.
Well done!
Have fun Friday. I am envious.
Sandy