Captive Kestrel

Gallery: Man & FaunaPosted December 28, 2015164 views4 comments

This was taken at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum near Tucson. They happened to be having a reptor exhibition by a local rehab group when I was there. Unfortunately, I made the mistake of pushing my timing too closely and the mob around the exhibition area was too dense for me to be able to see or photograph at it, so my only image was from this "ambassador" at the entrance to the museum. I think I must have hit there during spring break at the local schools or something, because the place was incredibly busy for a Friday afternoon.

5D3, 300mm f4 ISL + 1.4 TC, hand held, f/5.6, 1/2500, iso 640. Processed in LR5 & CS6. Cropped from a horizontal original to 8.9 MPixels before resizing. Taken March 13, 2015.

Comments are most appreciated.

Thanks,

Comments

4 comments

Comment posted by Alberto Patiño on December 28, 2015 at 7:36 PM

Their version of the Walmart people greeter? If only they looked this sharp! My only comment would be that the light on his(?) head is a bit too strong and hard, but given the circumstances I don't know that there was much that you could do about it. A few weeks ago I was asked to give a talk at a local photo club, and this is one of the things I told them. If you are a profesional then you can afford to wait the whole day for those 15 minutes of perfect light. If, like me, you pay the bills some other way, then work with whatever light you have most of the time, and try to be at the right spot when the magical 15 minutes come around (it often doesn't work).
I always love how raptors check you out, and you caught that very well here.

Registered on December 2, 2014, 278 Posts, 1736 Comments

Comment posted by Cay-Uwe Kulzer on December 29, 2015 at 5:26 AM

Dennis,

I have been a few times to the Sonosran Dessert Museum in Tucson and I enjoyed it always very much. There are some nice photographic locations there and I will be posting also some of the images that I made.

I like the portrait of the kestrel quiet good and my only wish would be that you would have included a bit more at the bottom. I know, that these captive type of birds have some strips at their legs, which does not look very nice I must admit, and one wants to avoid them in the picture, but that is the way it is.

Registered on January 27, 2004, 494 Posts, 4021 Comments

Comment posted by Lon Sharp on December 29, 2015 at 3:47 PM

A fun opportunity.. I like the look and stare. I am wondering about having to use a 300 + a 1.4 tc to make an image from a captive?? If you had room to move about, I think the inclusion of leggings (or whatever called) and perch would have actually been enhancement, given the long history of falconry.

Registered on December 9, 2007, 258 Posts, 9892 Comments

Comment posted by R.Bill Moser on December 31, 2015 at 2:18 PM

Love all the details in the image. Well processed. Fine image

Registered on January 29, 2010, 285 Posts, 4281 Comments