Hawk and Buzzard.

[V-Spec]

Just finished processing some shots I took with a local Falconer at the weekend.
We went out with a common buzzard and a harris hawk, both equally content on woofing down day old chicks like popcorn, believe it or not the buzzard is 25 years old and doesn't fly much anymore, the harris hawk is all over the place like a cheap suit though!
These birds are fully captive, I've photoshopped out the jesses and bells from them, a rather time consuming task, but I think they look quite natural, especially the buzzard.
Although the birds are captive, i'm trying to get as much practise in as possible as i'm going to Norway in November to photograph wild golden eagles, then Canada in February to photograph the snowy owls on their winter feeding grounds... don't want to mess up when those guys are around

Flight shots were with the 1dMkIII + 300 F2.8.
Portraits with the 5D + 70-200 F4.

Buzzard:

Harris Hawk:

 

[A.N.Other]

Beautiful birds and beautiful shots.

I went to Harcourt Arboretum as part of my uni course on Monday and there were some Red Kites that were stupidly close. I didn't have my camera and felt like smacking my head against one of the many trees. I haven't seen a red Kite that close for a LONG time !

 

[Tooks]

Awesome pics again V-Spec!

 

[Morba]

You take some amazing shots. nice work :]

 

[33L]

Not being picky here but the first shot especialy around the head neck seems a little blurry or maybe a tad OOF. Is it just me . The rest are fine and really love the set as a whole.
No3. i love the way the DOF drops off to the far wing really gets your focus on the head!

 

[V-Spec]

Thanks for the comments guys..

Its strange because the 1st shot is well in, but i've noticed that when I go from resizing stuff from full size, to like 800/1024 that critical sharpness does infact get lost.. i've tried different modes of resizing (bicubic/etc) but it either makes stuff look too sharp or not at all.. hmmmm

 

[33L]

if that what has happened then cant really find fault! good job as always

 

[V-Spec]

if that what has happened then cant really find fault! good job as always

i'll check when I get home from work lol, got me wondering now as the last few times i've been resizing stuff its been niggling me, "why doesn't it look as sharp as it does beforehand"..

 

[IceAx]

i'll check when I get home from work lol, got me wondering now as the last few times i've been resizing stuff its been niggling me, "why doesn't it look as sharp as it does beforehand"..

I had the exact same thing last night.... not had time to look at it properly
but original was sharp, re-size was naff :|

Lovely pics thou mate

Andy

 

[balls]

Brilliant shows, however I feel the 1st hawk shot is cemi ruined by the blur on the wing tips.

 

[seaviewuk]

Good work.

When you take the in-flight shots do you fire off a few frames to get the 'correct' moment?

 

[V-Spec]

Brilliant shows, however I feel the 1st hawk shot is cemi ruined by the blur on the wing tips.

Thanks,

impossible to get the wingtips sharp at that distance though, even at F16 they'd still not be enough DOF, and they'd be practically no shutter speed

Good work.

When you take the in-flight shots do you fire off a few frames to get the 'correct' moment?

It depends, dark birds like hawks can be very difficult for the AF system to lock on because they lack in contrast, each of the flight shots in the above series is one of 2 or 3 shots, the rest of the time is spent trying to track and let the camera get its AF system working, hawks are extremley difficult as they fly so fast, the hard part is waiting until they're almost too close before shooting, if you shoot too soon the offputting viewfinder flash means you risk losing them and backfocussing.
Owls are a lot easier as they fly a lot slower - this allows you to "let it rip" and get all different wing positions etc.