Photographing an Osprey in early morning light

I have been going to a reservoir south of Atlanta, Ga for a few weeks attempting to photograph an Osprey catching fish in the early morning. Unfortunately the osprey is either too far away or the low is still too low and I can not get the right shutter speed to stop the action. I have attempted to bump up the ISO to 2000 but still not getting the photo I desire

The osprey comes around the same time every morning and seems to feed just once.

I am using a Canon 7 D with a 100 - 400 mm Canon len plus a flash with a better beamer.

Any suggestions?

That rippled pattern is an artifact--it looks likes a kind of aliasing I've never seen before. Was it there before you processed the photo? If it came from the processing, you should try changing your processing. Is this a photo that was badly underexposed before the processing? If so, trying to boost the exposure in processing produces a lot of noise and other artifacts. Instead, try boosting your ISO even more when taking the photo and deal with that noise in the processing. The newest version of Photoshop--CS5--has a very good noise remover in the Adobe Camera Raw (ACR) process. In short, boost your ISO to whatever you need to get a good exposure to begin with, regardless of the noise. (Do not use a polarizer in low light.) Because you're shooting a non-centered dark bird against a lighter background, you will need to manually set your exposure for the bird (best) or boost your exposure compensation by about +0.7, or so. Shoot wide open (max aperture). Use good noise reducing software to process the image. Since you have repeated opportunities, experiment with variations on these settings--it's a great learning opportunity that will be handy in once-in-a-lifetime opportunities. Hope this helps --- John

You might consider losing the flash. At the distance you're shooting at it will have little or no effect IMO. Even with the beamer. And I would use continuous shooting mode if you're not already.
You say it's low light. About all you can hope for is a clear morning, with the sunlight from the right direction and actually hitting the bird..Only way you can get that SS up where ya need it..
Hope this helps some

John & Howard - thank you for you feed back - John if you are asking if the ripples where there when I took the photogrpah - The answer is yes

Based on your insight - I will set my camera to manual I will set the ISO high enough to get a SS of 500 or more - no flash or polarizer Set at f 5.6 over expose on the plus side by one (+1)

I am hoping to go this weekend - Thanks again for your help,

Paul

I empathize with your dilemma Paul. I have also been tracking an Osprey pair with a chick in the nest beside a lake about 2 hours north of where I live in Ontario. Up till now, I have been shooting them in late afternoon setting sun for the best light, but have never caught them fishing yet. Even in good light, in order to get the detail and sharpness I want, I need to shoot at 1/6400. I included a couple examples. Osprey-1 was shot with my 70-200+1.4 @ f3.2, 1/6400, ISO 200. Osprey-2 was shot with my 500 @ 1/3200, f4, ISO 250. The body of the bird is sharp in both images, but look at the difference at the feather tips. There is good detail at 1/6400 but 1/3200 the detail is gone even though the bird's body (and slower moving parts) is sharp. My point is that in low light it's near impossible to get the speed AND detail of a bird diving for fish. I am planning to drive up early in the dark and see if I can get this guy fishing in the morning. I don't know what the light will be like, but I do know I want the rising sun at my back to get enough early light on him. Hmmm! that puts me in the middle of the lake...

Garry Revesz
Toronto

Whoops! I was trying to send 2 images with my response above, but only 1 image - Osprey-2 - was sent. So the image above here is Osprey-1 shot the 70-200 I made reference to

Garry Revesz
Toronto