Osprey Fishing

Like a few others I have just returned from Scotland where the aim was to shoot images of British Ospreys fishing. I have seen some stunning shots of them head on but, as these predominatly work in landscape format and I wanted portrait format, I was looking to capture them side on as well.

The image was captured at a Fish Farm in the early morning about 5.45am.

600mm/Tpod
400ASA/800'/F4
Manually adjusted metering for the obvious reason.
Normal PS and the image has had about 20% cropped off, ie 16M from 21M.

( PS On viewing the posted image I should point out that the whites mid body are not blown (Jpeg compression issue) hence do need a wee toning down if I was to post it again)

Nice to see a side view. I reckon a bit more space on the right if anything.
Good picture.
JohnR

A cracking shot Tom. I think the portrait formats works particularly well here.

Hi Tom
An absolutely top-draw image for me. Love the added dynamism given to the shot by the bird's beak being open.
Cheers, Chris

Top drawer capture Tom

I'd perhaps feel more at ease with the crop if I knew where the missing 5% had been stripped from - go on, be a devil and post the full frame.

Unless it was from behind and below the bird in which case I understand perfick...lolol

Stunning Tom, do like the open beak

Terrific good shot. Here we cannot get that close to them (there are very few as far as I now).

Hi Tom,
Glad you got that shot, and with your full frame and the 600mm lens, you had to do a lot less cropping than I had and ended up with some real quality that make me realise what I have to aim for in future. Next year I'll have the courage to use my 500mm lens rather than the 300mm I used!
The other Tom in the hide.

Tom, Hi and welcome - good to see you here.

I have gone back and looked at the image file since Andy asked and it isn't 16M its 14M out of 21M so I have disgarded about a 1/3 of the image, not 20%.

T

Great shot captured.....

WOW.... simply stunning...


Probably one of the finest I seen of your images.....

Speak soon

Great shot, I love it, you can tell that the trout is a farm trout though.

Bill

Not being a course/game fisherman, you have intrigued me as to how?

T

That would be the damaged fins,but since rainbow trout don't breed in the UK fisheries they are all introduced in various sizes and a lot of them arrive with some sort of damage due to the close proximity to other fish in the stew ponds or when transported from the fish farms(not all I hasten to add!!!).
Great pic by the way!!!!!!!!
Most of my Finnish osprey shots had fish with damaged fins.


Craig
www.craigchurchill.co.uk

Stunning

Hi Tom,

I can't nitpick this as I’d love this one on my file! WOW! But it would be nice if there was a wee bit more canvas to the right of the frame (just a wee bit mind! ).

Hi Tom

Really nice and I don't think it matters a jot about the fish. I'm 80% sure that this is actually the male from the nest that I photograph and as I write this, I can hear his mate calling. The absence of any leg gear (unless you've cloned it?) and more specifically the very distinct eye stripe/clean breast (which is difficult to see in your image) coupled with the fact I know he uses the farm alot, suggests it very well could be.
You may be interested to know that if it is, this fish has contributed to two successfully fledged young this year.

Pete

Great looking action image Tom

I wonder if you have the moment of impact image aswell ?.Love to see that.

As said cracking

An absolute stunner!!


Simon

What more can I say!
Superb image
Hope I can make something like this too, when I would get the chance

grtz,
Sam

One of the finest Osprey images i've seen in a long time, excellent work Tom

Andy...

Stunning image Tom, as you said the image does look a bit hot, but i've seen this occure in jpg too.

Quality shot, but oddly i think i'd like it landscape? with some space to enter?

Cracking image Tom!

David

Hello Tom.

Its a superb capture and one I think we would all like to have in our files.